My day job consists of me writing for an instructional porn company for men.
Yeah, I know.
Of the numerous emails we get from men asking how to be the man that all women want and all men envy, we get a few from the women who have discovered their men buying instructional sex videos.
Most of them read as follows:
“OH MY GOD! Thank you SO MUCH for fixing my sex life! I was secretly praying to GOD that my husband would do something already. We hadn’t had sex in forever and every time we did it was so boring. I was pretty much ready to cheat. THANK YOU FOR TEACHING HIM HOW TO BLOW MY MIND!”
What strikes me most about these emails is the fact that almost 100% of the time, these now-getting-lucky ladies are always thanking us because they were “secretly hoping” their men would just “fix it,” as though communication couldn’t do the trick.
Why can’t you ladies just tell your husbands what you want in bed?
The thought had already been plaguing me as of late, when a recent conversation with a girlfriend of mine echoed the same air of “I shouldn’t have to tell him, he should just know!”
She had been sleeping with this guy for a couple weeks now and had no idea how to tell him that the sex was bad and he wasn’t making her cum. Instead, she just started faking it. At first she thought simple pouting and “I didn’t go yet…”s would suffice…however these somehow did not do the trick.
Hmm, go figure.
This apparently seems to be the go-to move for most women: hoping that he’ll just take a hint.
BUT WHY, LADIES?!
The funny thing about the emails we get from men is the fact that they all “get a sense” that their women are unsatisfied, but they just can’t seem to get it out of her. They all write to us in a state of emergency, convinced that their wives are cheating and DESPERATE to find out what it takes to make them the ONE AND ONLY MAN who can please her in ways she’s never had and never will. And yet, I don’t hear any of my girlfriends desperate to know what it takes to be the ultimate fuck for their fellas…just desperate for the boys to do something to fix it all.
I can personally attest to the fact that speaking up for myself in regards to my sexual wants and needs has never been easy…in a relationship at least. In my single life though, however, I’d had no reserves or hesitations in discussing exactly how I want things in bed. The way I see it, I have no trouble telling a man that I know damn well I’m never gonna sleep with again that he can definitely afford to last longer.
But I’d never had the audacity to say that to a boyfriend.
What is it about exposing our sexual needs and wants that makes it so unbearably difficult to do (so much so that most women I know are either faking it, cheating, or completely leaving the guy all together in order to get the latter met in their lives)?
In researching this phenomenon, I came across a Forbes Magazine article entitled, “Nice Girls Still Don’t Ask For What They Want! Why Women Fall Short At The Negotiating Table.” In this article, they discussed how women are less inclined to negotiate for higher salaries and are more likely to settle with a lesser pay than what they knowingly deserve. According to several studies regarding the latter, women fall short of men in the negotiating realm for two reasons: 1) Women are socialized to place the needs of others first and 2) women believe that they will eventually be recognized and rewarded for their hard work.
Apparently men are primped and primed to compete with one another while women are socialized to sit back, relax, and let the men take care of all that “being the best” type of bullshit.
Hence, no such requests from women in bed to “fuck me like this, please.”
My therapist once said to me, “You think men sit back and think that they shouldn’t speak up for themselves at the work place? That they shouldn’t do everything they can to get to the top of the corporate ladder?”
I then almost instantly pictured a group of men sitting around drinking margaritas and complaining about how their girl just didn’t make them cum the other night and how they had to fake it.
It’s an almost impossible scene to imagine.
So then what is it, Ladies?
What do we really have to lose in telling him that we want him to pound us harder, to spend more time circling our love buttons with his tongue, or that we didn’t cum yet (or at all)?
Power to you men out there who are determined and dedicated to fixing your sex lives, dammit!
The way I see it, the solution is quite simple for a problem that seems to be more catastrophized than it needs to be: Figure out what you want…AND TELL HIM.
No, don’t wear a shit ton of sexy lingerie and prance around praying, hoping, and wishing he’d get hard enough to attack you in it. And don’t just settle for rubbing him suggestively under the sheets and hoping he’ll get the point and take over from there.
Tell him flat out.
As far as I’m concerned, the only thing you really have to lose is stress over hoping things will get better.