He Comes Next (12 page)

Role-playing
Says Sue, thirty, “I once pretended I needed something in the hardware store. I wore a very tiny, tight black dress with nothing underneath and went in and asked for a hand-held shower massager. Of course, all the guys in the shop offered to help me find it, asking lots of questions about what types of pulsating massage I was looking for. Then this guy I was seeing walked in and offered to help me find it. I pretended like I didn’t know him. He just came over and said he could assist me. After paying, I walked out of the store before he did. He told the guys at the store he was going to go back to my place to install it, and they high-fived him, which he said made it even hotter. Then he came over, and we hooked it up, and I showed him exactly how I liked to use it, still pretending we had just met. We even acted sort of different with each other, like total strangers. And I felt slutty for going home with someone I’d just met, which really turned me on.”

Says Ian: A nice twist on the classic “stranger-in-a-bar” scenario, where you pretend to be a single stranger and let your boyfriend pick you up, much to the chagrin of all the other guys trying to do the same. Every errand has an erotic twist, and a trip to Home Depot will never be the same.

Around the world in eighty beds
Says Adena, thirty-two, “Dan and I haven’t actually been around the world in eighty beds, but that’s our goal before we have kids. I guess we feel like we have a lifetime ahead of us to sleep in our own bed, so why not do it in as many beds as possible—with each other—while we have the chance?”

Says Ian: Now there’s a show I haven’t seen on the Travel Channel yet. The truth is that the easiest way to shake up your sex life and add some sizzle is to have sex somewhere new (as opposed to
with
someone new). And who says it even has to be in a bed? There are beaches, parks, mountains, not to mention kitchen tables and other horizons to be conquered.

For his eyes only, not necessarily
Says Sue, again, “I had one boyfriend who liked to watch me masturbate in public, like on a train or in the park. He would sit across from me, in a public place, a library, a coffee shop, basically anywhere. And I would pretend he wasn’t there and surreptitiously rub myself to orgasm, knowing he—and possibly others—could see. Then right when I was about to come, I would look directly into his eyes and smile.”

Says Ian: This is a biggie for guys: watching women masturbate. And to watch her do it in public to boot is tantamount to winning the lottery. One woman I know likes to use those tiny silent remote-controlled vibrators at movies and give her guy the remote. For her, the whole challenge is having an orgasm while appearing to nonchalantly watch the movie. For him, the challenge is following the story.

Fellatio at an afternoon movie
Says Gina, twenty-eight, “My boyfriend and I love to go to movies that have been playing for a while during a work day, knowing the audience will be pretty sparse. I begin touching him, stroking him slowly. And I always make sure he brings a jacket or something to throw across his lap. Then I lean over and take him into my mouth. We both have to be really quiet and slow. I make him wait until a really loud scene comes on before I let him come.”

Says Ian: Ah yes, exhibitionism, always a good one. Love in the afternoon is always more fun when you get to do it in secret with dozens of people around.

Planning a threesome, not necessarily having one
Says Heidi, “I know my boyfriend, Jon, wants to have a threesome with me and another woman, but I’m not really into doing it. But it’s fun to talk about. Sometimes when we’re out at a bar or at the beach, we look around and set our sights on a particularly sexy woman that we pretend we’re going to try and have a threesome with. Jon loves to hear me talk about why I’d be into her, maybe it’s her breasts or the way she moves or something about the look in her eyes. Then we talk about what we’d do with/to her. I have to admit it really turns me on. And, who knows, maybe one day we’ll really do it. Until then, it’s fun to think about.”

Says Ian: This is a great way to explore the idea of a threesome; making it a fun and exciting game, instead of a threat or source of conflict, teaches you that the best way to deal with divergent desires is to make them converge!

N
OW THAT HIS HEART IS
pumping and his mind is racing, it’s time to transition into the bedroom, or wherever you’re going to have sex, and talk about building and sustaining arousal. As you may have observed, many of the aforementioned foreplay scenarios involve physical stimulation. But it is essential to note that in every case I’ve discussed, the physical component is secondary to the mental component. And where you’ve begun your sexy adventure is not necessarily where you’re going to finish it.

W
HENEVER I LECTURE
on desire differences between the sexes, I stir up the crowd by making the provocative statement that men are
ultimately
more interested in “making love” than women.

My logic goes something like this: While men are more likely to get initially aroused through a combination of visual and genital stimulation than women (for whom emotional and intellectual components play far more pivotal roles), for men the sex act is the primary conduit for expressing their feelings. In other words, while women generally deem closeness a prerequisite for engaging in sex, for a man, having sex is probably the best, sometimes only, path to achieving a true sense of intimacy with a romantic partner.

But just because male sexuality may appear simpler in some ways than female sexuality doesn’t mean you should approach it
simplistically
. Male sexuality is, in reality, a complex picture that relies just as heavily on nonphysical dimensions for sustaining long-term desire. If you want to combat the sexual boredom that occurs when the natural sex chemicals that fuel excitement in a new relationship wane, not only do you have to get inside his head, but you also need to get inside his heart.

By this I mean that, in general, men are not nearly as emotionally evolved as women. We simply don’t have the same breadth of outlets for emotional expression; we aren’t as comfortable crying, nor are we as open to outward gestures of physical affection. And we’re certainly not as comfortable talking about our feelings. Ask any couple’s therapist, and they will tell you that it is typically the woman who initiates counseling and forces sexual issues to the forefront. Women may not be as inclined to have sex with the lights on, but when it comes to
talking
about intimacy, you’re light-years ahead of us. But it’s the highly charged emotional currency of sexual intimacy that makes it so difficult for us to talk about.

The question remains, however: Is the gendered sex-love divide culturally acquired, or are we wired this way? Probably, it’s a bit of both. Brain scans of men and women during sexual response reveal greater activity in men in an area of the brain known as the insula, which registers emotion, and also rates the significance of physical sensations. So from a neurological perspective, it appears that men are more likely to correlate the process of sexual response with an emotional response.

This sex-love connection is why guys intuitively understand the difference between making love and “fucking.” Men don’t need to be in love to have sex, nor do they necessarily feel love during sex, but when they are in a committed relationship with someone they love, sex is likely to be the most genuine conduit for expressing love. In recent years, I have thus observed

• More and more single men, particularly guys in their mid-thirties or older, are inclined to postpone intercourse when they meet a women they think could be “the one.” In an age of casual sex and hookups, it’s their way of respecting the power of sex to express love, and they want to treat sex more seriously than they have in the past. Their emotional maturation is often matched with a concomitant sexual maturation.
  
• Sometimes the sex-love connection, however, can prevent a man from enjoying the full potential of a creative sex life. The desire to engage in more intimate lovemaking rather than lust-driven casual sex in a mature relationship will lead some men to shy away from sharing fantasies, engaging in dirty talk, or exploring certain sex acts they may consider kinky. A significant number of women have come to me after catching their partners in digital dalliances complaining about just this. Why are their boyfriends or husbands so prudish and proper with them when they are so unbridled with complete strangers? Said one woman, “Online he’s King Schlong, but with me he’s Limp Larry.” When one of my patients confronted her husband about his Internet affair and the fact that she wanted him to share those sexual thoughts with her, he was very clear: “You’re my wife. I respect you and make love to you; I don’t talk to you like that or do those things to you.”
  

If a guy becomes sexually disconnected from his partner, he’s also likely to become emotionally disengaged as well. And this, in turn, could leave him more vulnerable to infidelity or lead him to choose online fantasy over making love with the woman in his bed.

Men also turn to sex as a means to ameliorate an emotional conflict, much to their partners’ stunned horror. I cannot count the number of times I’ve had a woman complain to me about a boyfriend or husband who initiates sex after a terrible argument. Such was the case with one woman who complained, “He screams and shouts all evening, and then we get in bed, and he starts touching my boobs and kissing my back. He’s made me feel so unsexy and bad and ugly, and then he wants to do it. What’s wrong with him?” It was no surprise that when I spoke with the husband, he told me that he was hoping that by making love, they could make up and reconnect.

Similarly, men are often startled to find that after hot make-up sex, their partners are still angry and don’t have the same sense of resolution. Over and over, I’ve heard, “I don’t get it. We made love, and she’s still angry and holding a grudge. How can she have sex with me and still be mad at me?” For guys, they’ve literally put the issue to bed; for women, the issue is still festering under the covers, keeping them awake.

No, you’re not paranoid; you’re intuitive. As a culture, we have this fantasy that having a baby is the most intense form of bonding that a couple can experience. But, in truth, most marital dissatisfactions begin after the birth of their first child. And it’s not just lack of sleep or new routines that leads to marital woes: It’s the sense of emotional alienation many guys experience.

Think about it: Post-birth, oxytocin levels in women are higher than ever, which facilitates an intense sense of bonding between mother and infant. Most women say they experience a feeling of falling in love with their baby, and this infatuation period often lasts as long the mother breast feeds, but very often longer. Yet increased oxytocin levels have a side effect of inhibiting a woman’s testosterone level. That’s right; women produce testosterone, too—not as much as men, but the hormone still plays a strong role in a woman’s libido. So even after a woman has physically recovered from the experience of childbirth, she may be less interested in sex.

Many new fathers have told me how guilty they sometimes feel after their first baby’s arrival. On the one hand, they’re happier than they’ve ever been and would sooner lose their lives than see any harm come to their child or partner. On the other hand, they often feel like third wheels in their own homes. This sense of emotional disconnection is seriously amplified by the lack of sexual connection, which is why it’s really important to find ways to make your marriage a priority and remain intimate. It’s not about the sex; it’s about the emotional connection that comes with sex, especially for men. You need to remain emotionally and, thus, erotically connected to your partner for the sake of the baby and the well-being of your whole family.

Granted, you may be tired, uncomfortable, or just plain exhausted. I know it isnt easy. Your breasts are swollen and leaking, and you feel fat! I know.
I know!
But take it from a new dad, finding ways to maintain the sexual connection with your husband or boyfriend, whether it’s through intercourse, or kissing, or just plain fooling around, can mean the difference between staying happily married or becoming a statistic.

W
HENEVER I TALK TO MEN
who are bored sexually or feel they’re trapped in a routine, they usually say that sex has become mechanical and predictable. And when I ask them to drill down and elaborate on what they mean by routine or predictable, it invariably comes down to, “We know how to get each other off, but there’s no emotional connection.”

The trick to maintaining the emotional-sexual connection is not just changing the sex script and introducing new positions or techniques, but becoming more emotionally engaged before and after each intimate encounter: It’s finding ways to let the feelings of connectedness you experienced during lovemaking flow into the rest of your daily lives.

More than any technique or position, emotional presence is the currency of great sex. And, as we’ve been discussing in regard to foreplay and sparking desire, this sense of emotional engagement starts outside the bedroom. So while you’re getting into his head and stimulating his mind, here are some simple techniques for touching his heart.

Embrace Until You’re Connected

Whenever I’m working in my office with couples, not only do I pay careful attention to their body language—how they’re sitting next to each other, whether or not they’re holding hands or touching each other—but also at some point in my initial sessions, I invariably ask them to get up and hug. An embrace is very telling and can provide a real snapshot of the overall relationship. It’s always interesting to see how long a couple maintains contact during an embrace and who breaks first. Most of us don’t know how to hug or don’t really hug in a way that fosters a sense of connection.

It sounds simple, but hugging—really hugging—is hard work, so embracing until you’re connected is an assignment I often give couples. Make a point of really hugging each other
at least
three times a day: once before leaving for work, a second time when arriving home, and a third time before going to sleep. If you do nothing else, hug three times—but truly hug. For more on this technique and how it’s used to stimulate great success in sex and marital therapy, I encourage you to read the groundbreaking work
A Passionate Marriage
by Dr. David Schnarch.

The Present of Presence

One of the biggest obstacles to embracing until you’re connected is the baggage of life itself. So often we’re angry, hurt, or stressed out about something the other person did. Or we’re carrying around conflicts from work, the strain of a long commute, or the fall out from an argument with a colleague, a friend, or family member. Intimacy with our partner starts to feel like a chore or obligation, something we simply can’t get ourselves to focus on without feeling anxious or distracted. Life will never stop happening around us, and we have to protect our bond—from the rest of the world, each other, and ourselves. This means setting apart some time when we make an effort to let go of everything else except our connections to each other.

I’m always saddened by the degree to which we let the outside world intrude on our intimate lives. So many of us have televisions in our bedrooms or else rituals—like reading or going to bed at different times—that may help us unwind, decompress, or wrap up our days, but not to reconnect. Even worse is when couples bring their arguments to bed. I’m not saying that there won’t be nights when you go to bed angry, but you don’t need to continue your arguments in bed. I’m a big believer that the place where you regularly have sex (which for most of us is the bedroom) is also a place that as much as possible should be argument free and present focused.

But that sense of presence begins with you, not your bedroom, and starts with that feeling you get when you embrace until you’re connected. Not only does being present enable you to let go of the past, but it also allows you to focus on the experience of being together and the subtle to sublime sensations of sex.

Eyes-Open Lovemaking

Sex and marriage therapist Dr. David Schnarch writes about making love with open eyes as a way of fostering trust, presence, and intimacy. In fact, the main reason the missionary position is cross-culturally the most popular and prevalent around the world is because of the degree to which it enables us to maintain eye contact. It can be the most powerful sexual position, especially if the emphasis is on pressing (pelvis to clitoris). But it can also be the most routine and least satisfying if the couple isn’t really present. Most of us are making love with our eyes closed, both literally and figuratively. Whenever I’ve talked to men about their most powerful orgasms, invariably those orgasms involve looking: At a partner’s body and facial expressions, but more importantly, into her eyes, up to and sometimes through the moment of orgasm.

Kissing

This eyes-open approach to lovemaking begins with kissing, and while David Schnarch actually advises couples to kiss with their eyes open and endure the awkward, initially uncomfortable pupil-dilation that comes from such close eye contact, I think, like the embracing exercise, it’s important essentially to use kissing to get connected and present. So many books or articles focus on the art of kissing, and so many times I’ve heard men complain about kissing techniques. The same goes for fellatio techniques. Not that you shouldn’t have a knowledge of technique based on an understanding of sexual response and physiology, but whether you’re kissing, hugging, orally or manually stimulating, or having sex, you have to let intimacy, presence, and emotional substance drive technique. The more you actually focus on technique and what you’re doing or how you’re doing it, the more you close yourself off to intuiting and responding to the experience you are ideally striving to create in tandem.

Five to One Statements

Eminent marriage therapist John Gottman has spent a lifetime working with thousands of couples, researching what makes some marriages succeed and others fail. Gottman concluded, “It is the balance between positive and negative emotional interactions in a marriage that determines its well-being—whether the good moments of mutual pleasure, passion, humor, support, kindness, and generosity outweigh the bad moments of complaining, criticism, anger, disgust, contempt, defensiveness, and coldness.” Those couples that succeed in their marriages enjoy an overriding proportion of positive over negative sentiment. But, how do you ensure that? “All couples, happy and unhappy, have conflict, but the ratio of positive to negative interactions during arguments is a critical factor,” and Gottman proposed that this ratio should ideally be five to one. While it’s impossible to go through life tallying positive versus negative interactions, I’ve found that it’s possible to intuit whether positive sentiment overrides. But just to make sure, finish off any argument or discussion by embracing until connected, emotionally present kissing, opening your eyes, and saying something positive to each other.

It may sound simple, but being wholly vested in both giving and receiving as described above is far more often absent than present in our relationships.

As we move forward into building and sustaining sexual arousal through orgasm(s), remember that foreplay is not just about getting inside his head and heart, but ultimately keeping the two of them and the two of you connected.