Boy, does this piece have backstory. In the unlikely event that you're finding this page first, check the sidebar for the highlights, then continue. If I dare. I should know better.
First, comments on Lilith's thoughtful reply to "Mistakes Women Make." (She called me "delightful"! *Swoon*)
Miscommunication:
Miscommunication goes both ways...
Undoubtedly. But...
...and in my experience, is far more likely to be a male fubar than a female one. Women (in general) seem to have a lot more experience and comfort level with verbal communication and social interaction than men (in general) do.
That's the reputation women cultivate, that women are so much more open and communicative than men. I never met a woman who didn't buy into this. Isn't it a bit arrogant and, if I may use the word, sexist to say that when men and women fail to communicate, it's usually the man's fault?
Men and women approach each other from different perspectives, often wildly divergent perspectives that are a consequence of our different, inherent (to the degree we each conform to stereotypes) emotional needs. It strikes me that most of our lapses in communication arise from this. It further strikes me that we each make compromises with our world view in order to accept the viewpoint of the other. So far so good.
I contend that when women claim exclusive ownership of openness and sensitivity, suggesting that we'd get along fine if only men would learn to communicate, that this is a show of insensitivity to the myriad ways in which men are open, are sensitive to your needs, do compromise for the sake of domesticity. (What is that laughter I hear?) But because we don't do these things in the same way that women do, our reputation is that we don't do them at all.
This is getting more serious than the inspiration deserves, really. Miscommunication goes both ways. Granted. Any list of "mistakes men / women make" is bound to be rife with simplifications, generalities, and stereotypes.
Speaking of "feminine openness", what are we to make of the often-encountered female inability to say, directly and unmistakably, "I want to fuck"? If you're so great at communication, but you won't say that, then the only conclusion we can draw is that you don't want to say it. This leads directly to the suspicion that you don't want to do it.
This is the female version of what women describe as "men's fear of commitment."
...Some guys just can't hack it when they're not doing the initiating.
My own Partner in Crime has told me, in so many words, that she will never initiate sex. She's the organized one in our household, and she knows it. As she puts it, "If I'm in charge of everything else, I'm not going to be in charge of sex."
Yet of course, in her way, she is anyway: Women have the ultimate veto. Women are the gatekeepers. There's a word for men who don't recognize this: We call them "rapists". (If they aren't so in truth, they feel so in essence.)
I tell you, I am so... hungry for it not to be my idea that I worry about being vulnerable to the attentions of an Other Woman. (Neither of us being polyamorous, such an incident would End Life As We Know It.) This is, of course, an extremely hypothetical problem.
(This may be why some men like to watch women masturbate: It's visible evidence that some women want sex independently of their men pestering them for it.)
"If you want to": I accept responsibility for not making it clear--although Bacchus and Dalemar both seem to have got it: The complaint was made in the context of the man having chosen his moment as best he can, asked his partner in his chosen way if now is a good time, and getting the answer, "If you want to."
And sometimes we don't want to, but we don't feel like you give us the option to say, "Well, take yourself in hand, buddy, and if you like, I'll cuddle you whilst you whack off."
Why in the name of Pee Wee Herman would we do that? If I wanted to whack off, I'd be in the bathroom doing that. I will always give herself the option to say no: I don't want to fuck anybody who doesn't want to fuck me.
So we put out--because we really do love you and want to make you happy--and try not to let you know that we're composing a shopping list or deciding which shade of beige to paint the ceiling.
This is the kind of admission that would make me sorry I asked for sex. When Harry Met Sally to the contrary, if a man actually cares whether the woman is faking, he can usually tell. (Sometimes we want it enough that we don't care.) I do not expect my partner to be in the throes of rapture constantly, but if I'm not the center of her attention (as she is the center of mine), I'd almost rather watch TV. As Bacchus put it:
There's nothing more horrifying (to a decent guy, anyway) than realizing during sex that his lady's heart isn't in it. Which means "if you want to" must be processed as a "no" by any prudent man, with all the negative results Lilith mentions.
Chores:
Don't take advantage of "together time" to tell me about all the household chores that need doing.
Then don't avoid discussing the chores at other times...
You. Have. Missed. The. Point. And, in so doing, provided a textbook demonstration of mine.
Sex is not a household chore. It does not exist on the same plane as laundry, lawn mowers, dishes and dusting. There is no point of tangency. It does not belong in the same conversation.
To suggest that you'll make a deal not to discuss chores in bed if we'll do them, your way, the rest of the time... is to hold sex hostage to clean dishes and vaccuumed carpets.
And women complain that men lack romance. Never ask a man in the process of getting naked if he has taken the trash out.
Helping us out of our clothes is not just another form of foreplay, and that's a really silly idea.
For us, getting you naked is foreplay. Call it silly if you want, but see "female insensitivity" above.
Speaking of taking off your clothes: You worry too much about looking silly.
Do women really worry about this after the first few sexual encounters?!
There are women who will not even let their partners see them naked. Thank God my companion is not one of them. This discussion started with a list in which four of the original "40 Mistakes Men Make" involved removing garments clumsily or in the wrong order. This is a reference to that.
Long fingernails: Sure, call it a personal preference. Nolo contendre. Boorish and oblivious as we sometimes are, though, we will perceive (consciously or not, accurately or not) that a woman who trims her nails closely is ready for anything--whereas a woman who wears her nails long is announcing by their presence that there are places she won't go and activities she isn't going to do.
"Alone at last":
If we're alone together for an uninterrupted hour and we're not having sex, I consider it time wasted.
I would probably leave a man flat-out if he told me [that].
I allowed more of my personal situation to surface here than perhaps I realized. I'll put myself at risk by making the context clearer, and hope that I am forgiven.
We have been married for A While, and we know each other pretty well. We spend most evenings together...but not alone. We have children... teenaged children. They typically stay up later than we do, and might pop into the bedroom with a homework or computer question (I'm the household computer guru) at any hour, with little or no warning. Privacy is a rare and precious thing here. On those occasions where we succeed in getting both kids out of the house at the same time, well, one must strike while the iron is hot.
I am astounded that it always comes as a surprise when I suggest this.
Stopping for a break: We seem to agree here. Men can (but will stay aroused if you do), women can't (so if she's getting closer, don't stop, and don't try to slow her down). Got it. I'm ashamed to admit how long it took me to learn this.
"Getting comfortable": I admit I was padding the list with something with which I personally have never had a problem.
"Did you come?" Again, remember, one of the items on the list that inspired this exchange was a flat statement that Women Hate Being Asked, You Should Know Without Asking. (Interesting presumption, that, that men can't tell when you're faking, but should nonetheless know when you're not.)
That said, I don't understand the difference between "Did you come?" and the thousand variations / near synonyms. I'm at my least subtle and articulate during sex, I'm afraid: I thought that was true of all men. I'm inclined to think that if you actually have the presence of mind to resent the way the question is phrased, then you must not have.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't. If we expect her to come, we're being demanding, or we have potentially unrealistic expectations. If we don't, we're slackers. For what it's worth, I've never given herself reason to doubt that she's going to get hers. Have I mentioned how much I love giving oral sex? There have been occasions where it didn't happen, but unless she's a better actress than I think she is, we're averaging well over 95%. (I caught her faking once, the first summer we dated, and I made her promise not to try that again.)
Well, all right, mine is pretty darned obvious, despite the fact that I make almost no noise. (Our bedroom shares a wall with our daughter's room.) In fact, the question she often asks is not "Did you come?" but "Are you all right?" At the risk of offering Too Much Information, I get flushed, overheated, and incoherent; spoken language fails me; and it takes me several minutes of cuddling to "come back" from wherever the hell it is that I go. I take it that for many men sex is not the "out of body experience" that it is for me.
Aldous Huxley said, "An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex."
I must not be an intellectual, then.
Lilith answered again: Read Lilith's Note of the Day: Still talking about communicating, then come back here.
Isn't it a bit arrogant and, if I may use the word, sexist to say that when men and women fail to communicate, it's usually the man's fault?
Oooh, ouch! However, I didn't say that "when men and women fail to communicate, it's usually the man's fault."
That was the meaning I inferred: I didn't mean to put words in your mouth.
What are we to make of the often-encountered female inability to say, directly and unmistakably, "I want to fuck"?
Probably because if we say, "I want to fuck," we're pretty sure the man we're saying it to is going to misinterpret that as meaning, "Yay, I can skip the foreplay because she only wants to fuck!!!"
Context, context. This was meant in the context of what followed it.
The way I heard the joke was, "Women always know how the evening is going to end: Men can never be sure." The point isn't the sex (for a change), it's the knowing.
The point, which appears to be true, is that for all the talk of openness, communication and sharing, this is a piece of information few women will trust a man with. Whether it's because you don't think we'll satisfy you sexually or because you think we won't take out the trash without that incentive, it doesn't reflect well on either of us.
...if a man actually cares whether the woman is faking, he can usually tell. (Sometimes we want it enough that we don't care.) I do not expect my partner to be in the throes of rapture constantly, but if I'm not the center of her attention (as she is the center of mine), I'd almost rather watch TV.
That's pretty nifty. I'm noticing the "almost" there, however.
Good, it was put there intentionally. There's the other old joke about the man who thought he was a chicken. Why not take him to a psychiatrist? "We need the eggs."
Sex is not a household chore. It does not exist on the same plane as laundry, lawn mowers, dishes and dusting. There is no point of tangency. It does not belong in the same conversation.
Okie dokie, I'd like to make two separate but inter-related points here. First, women (in general) don't tend to compartmentalize things the way men do (in general).
Don't I know it. :)
You call it "compartmentalizing", we call it "staying on the subject". We're goal-oriented: You're process-oriented. However willing we may be to do the dishes (I do most of the dishes that get done around here, myself), we are not going to define "doing the dishes" as a task that moves us closer to getting laid.
So, you may be able to keep sex and chores as separate entities that don't belong in the same realm of existence, but they're intertwined in our existence on at least some small level--that is, some of us can't relax and enjoy a rollicking good time in bed if the dishes haven't been done and the trash hasn't been taken out!
Conversely, we aren't inclined to look for other things to do around the house until our Primary Need is met. We don't see this as "making you pay for chores with sex" any more than you see what you do as "making us pay for sex with chores". Conflict is inevitable.
There's a scene early on in sex lies and videotape with Andie McDowell and her therapist in which she admits that she doesn't enjoy sex because she's "thinking about all that garbage" (by which she means literal garbage, barges full of it in the river with nowhere to go). Men understand that women do this, but we don't get it.
Second, in discussions about a relationship's issues (regardless of the appropriateness of the timing or venue), how exactly does one determine when one topic has ended and another begun? Most people don't exactly follow parliamentary procedure, after all, or otherwise spell it out explicitly.
I'm not prepared to define "sex" (which is what I thought we were talking about) as "a discussion about a relationship's issues."
Come to think of it, though, it occurs to me that people do follow an unspoken form of parliamentary procedure when they have sex. Motions are made, discussions (well, exchange of information / sensation) follow. When all agree the motion is carried: If not, motion fails and a new motion is proposed. And, of course, a motion to adjourn is always in order. (Darn it.)
I may never look at committee meetings the same way again. "Why do you keep a copy of Robert's Rules of Order on the bedside table?"
There might be a short story in this...
And women complain that men lack romance. Never ask a man in the process of getting naked if he has taken the trash out.
Then why do men think it's okay to start fondling us when we're washing the dishes?! Sheesh! One standard will do nicely, thank you.
Well, as one of your respondents points out, being fondled by one's loved one is presumed to be a pleasant distraction. Just last week you were saying that casual loving touch is important even when it doesn't lead directly to sex.
Are you saying that you don't have sex unless your kids are asleep or out of the house?
As a general rule, yes, that is what I'm saying.
If so, you are absolutely (forgive me, for I've come to respect you & like you lots, but I can't help it) nuts.
That is entirely possible. (And thank you. The feeling is mutual.)
I may have unrealistic expectations of privacy. I do not care to advertise to my children (or to their godfather, who also lives with us) that Mom and Dad are fucking. They do respect our privacy and they would never dream of violating a locked door.
For reasons of temperature control, most doors in our house are kept closed but not locked. This doesn't imply that anything is going on behind them. Our household habit, adopted from my Partner in Crime, has become to tap on the door (to warn anyone standing close to it), then open it without waiting for a response.
If the door were locked, an approaching child would slam bodily into an unexpectedly locked door--unless I told 'em in advance not to bother us.
So I should tell 'em. Right. Intellectually I know that. However, I would feel obligated to tell them why. I have a problem with that. (Before you think too badly of me, I'll point out that mothers can talk to daughters about sex in a way that fathers can't.)
Maybe I just need a "do not disturb" sign.
We have never been in the habit of playing music during sex, either for mood or to create "sound cover." I've come to have an expectation of quiet that is inconsistent with either us or my daughter playing masking music. Perhaps it is time to invest in a white-noise machine. Normal city noises (I live in the center of our city on a major thoroughfare) provide all the white noise one could normally want, but it might ease my mind to have another source between us and the rest of the house.
For what it's worth, my Partner in Crime agrees with you. I'm overanxious and silly. And I won't deny that the only person here who seems to be having a problem with this is me.
At the risk of offering Too Much Information, I get flushed, overheated, and incoherent; spoken language fails me; and it takes me several minutes of cuddling to "come back" from wherever the hell it is that I go. I take it that for many men sex is not the "out of body experience" that it is for me.
I love Too Much Information, oh yes I do! And, wow. Oh. My. And, no, for many men, it's (sadly) not. At least, not very darned often.
Oh. Gosh. How sad.
| 