The penis rules. Or should, anyway. “If men don't feel respected
or loved, if they don't feel like a man, if they have to walk
around on eggshells when it comes to their sex drive, if their
horniness is treated like an inconsiderate act of selfishness –
like typical male behaviour – then they will reassert themselves
with another woman,” says a man I will call Mr. Multiply
Divorced.
People who make coitus their career understand this.
Ask Lou Paget, sex therapist and best-selling author of books
about orgasms and helpful tips on giving blow jobs, among other
bedroom matters. “There's no other time in a man's life when he
is more connected to his masculine self than when he is making
love or having sex with the woman or partner of his choice,” she
explains.
“And men know this. … It's a huge part of the male psyche
that he be acknowledged for what his efforts are, and he will go
elsewhere to get it if his partner doesn't give it to him. He
will get it through sports. He will get it through work by the
accumulation of money. I can't tell you how many men I know who
are massively successful but who have crappy marriages. Or they
will get it from another woman.”
It's children that change the sexual energy of a marriage. I
remember an acquaintance of mine complaining about her husband's
expectation of sex. She had two young sons at the time, and she
was a wonderful hands-on and attentive mother. There were
lunches to be made, laundry to finish, dinner to make, homework
to help with, errands to run, and just before she passed out
from exhaustion, a husband to do. And she did, because if
nothing else, she is highly responsible. (And still married, by
the way.) The whole yummy-mummy trend is really a statement of
denial, if you ask me. Most young mothers will tell you that
after having their bodies taken over by pregnancy, and then the
demands of breastfeeding and constant monitoring of a baby, what
they would really like at night is to be left alone for a bit,
untouched. They've overdosed on closeness for the time being.
But husbands still want their wives to view them as the
primary relationship. Another man I know – okay, we can call him
Mr. Former Boyfriend – told me that in his marriage of 20 years
and three children, his ex-wife, who gave up work to devote
herself to the care of their offspring, denied him sex so often
he had to beg for it. And when she relented, he felt it was out
of pity or obligation.
Such a dynamic is common and emasculating, notes Esther Perel,
a New York-based couples therapist and the best-selling author
of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic & the Domestic,
published last year.
“It's not healthy for men to feel pathetic about their urges
and shame about their desire. It's not just their masculinity
they are expressing through sex but also their lesser masculine
qualities, their tenderness, their vulnerability, their desire
to give pleasure and receive it,” she explains.
“This expression through the body is often the primary
language that men use to say these things. It's easy for the
women to just brush it off, and say, ‘All he wants is sex.' What
they should be asking is, ‘Why am I never interested? What
happened to my own desires?' “ Ms. Perel's prescription for good
marital sex is what she calls “more air.” Too much intimacy,
having to know everything your partner did and share every
activity he or she enjoys, kills lust, she believes. “The
paradox is that the pursuit of passion involves excitement,
mystery, unpredictability. But the pursuit of intimacy involves
wanting to be known completely and expecting predictability. And
yet we want both.”
The trick, she says, is allowing “a modicum of freedom in a
relationship. Don't ask the other person to give up freedom so
you can feel more secure.”
Many men, not being the greatest communicators, resort to
anger when they're not getting the intimacy they crave. They
will say lack of sex makes them feel “they were sold a bill of
goods,” as one guy explains, since “women are much more sexually
aggressive and suggestive during the courting stage, and
inexperienced men can be fooled by that.
“I've come to believe firmly that people need to be honest
with themselves [and their partners] about their libidos,” he
continues. “If they have big ones, they should seek out partners
with a matching appetite.” (Yes, that's Mr. Multiply Divorced
talking.) He has a point, but married life can be stressful,
what with mortgages, kids and work-life juggling; and stress,
for women, is a sex-killer. For men, on the other hand, a romp
in bed is stress therapy. “For us, it can be like golf or
watching television,” admits a source from the world of men.
Of course, for women, talking is like golf. (Confused yet?)
“Women want to emotionally share and talk about their day,” the
man continues.
Still married to his wife of 21 years, with whom he has two
children, he should be called Mr. Highly Evolved. But he didn't
get there on his own. All that wisdom about how women and men
think differently comes from years of couples therapy.
“For men, it's like Chinese water torture to be talking about
something endlessly,” he says. “Guys think, ‘Just fix it.' So
when the wife says she wants to be asked how she is, the man
goes, ‘What? We've got to have an hour and a half discussion
about emotional connection before you feel like having sex? What
happened to sex on the kitchen floor?' “ Mr. Highly Evolved was
preparing for divorce, he confesses. “Part of the equation for
me to stay in my marriage was that I care about my boys, and
ultimately, I realized that if I want to live in a relationship,
whether it's with my wife or someone else, I have to do this
work. And as long as my wife is interested in doing it, too,
which she was, then it's worth it.”
On a final note, let's return to Ms. Paget, who, 51 and once
married and divorced, now enjoys a live-out boyfriend and a
live-in 20-pound cat called Mr. Freddie. I could hear him
meowing for her attention in the background of her Los Angeles
home.
“Men marry for two reasons,” she states. “They're proud to be
with that woman socially. Look,” she adds in best-girlfriend
whisper, “we both know women who have sex with men who aren't
seen with them publicly. The second reason men marry is sexual
compatibility.”
Which brings me to a final bit of good advice. Be a lady in
public and a whore in the bedroom. And help him understand that
before talking dirty, the whore sometimes needs to have a cuddly
chat about her day.