Learning How To Be Sexy

In my teenage years - mostly throughout the 60s - there was an idea that took hold - perhaps for a decade or so - which suggested that one of the major differences between men and women was that men did not need to 'learn sex' as much as women did.

By this, it was meant that men did not really need to experience as much sex before they were deeply engaged in it and, also, fully excited by it, as did women.

In other words, once men experienced sex, so it was claimed, they quickly wanted to have much more involvement with it, and they quickly reached their orgasmic peaks not long thereafter.

Women, however, were said to be much slower to achieve these two things.

It was also claimed that the potential orgasmic peaks for women were much higher than were those for men.

And, of course, much nobler!

it was one of their duties to teach their women how to enjoy sex.

Furthermore, various 'handbooks' for men (both lofty and lowly) on the psychology of relationships often told men that it was one of their duties to teach their women how to enjoy sex.

Without such tuition, their women would likely remain cold.

Of course, it was also in men's own best interests to give this tuition if they wanted their relationships to go well and if they wanted better sex lives.

Men lead and women follow, was also part of the message, I guess.

One of the main reasons for this sexual disparity, apparently, was the fact that men's sexual organs stuck out, whereas those of women did not - the notion being that men were more likely to notice their nether regions, and at an earlier age.

Their interest in sex - and, hence, their learning of it - would therefore start at an earlier age.

Indeed, if I recall correctly, it was said - and largely accepted - that men reached their sexual peaks by about the age of 18, whereas women did not reach their own peaks until they were over thirty.

Well, for what it is worth - and it might not be worth very much, given that times have changed so much since then - my own experiences did rather suggest that women, in those days, really did need to be taught by their men how to enjoy sex.

Furthermore, this was true both in the mechanical sense and in the experiential sense.

The notion that women were often unknowledgeable when it came to the mechanical aspects of sex might be totally incredible for many westerners today, but I can assure you that this was very often the case.

You could even come across educated women aged 20 who had no real idea about how their own clitorises were relevant to their own sexual experiences.

It seems so very strange now.

younger women were given the opportunities to learn about themselves as sexual beings.

And it was really only during the late 60s and thereafter that younger women were given the opportunities to learn about themselves as sexual beings.

Prior to this time, sex - as a pleasurable experience, rather than as a reproductive function - was just not something that was spoken about.

Nothing on the TV. No mainstream books about it. Not a topic covered in women's magazines. And certainly not discussed in schools.

So where would the knowledge about such matters have come from?

The parents?

Not a hope.

The last thing that parents wanted to do was to encourage sexual activity in their offspring.

Besides which, it was not considered appropriate to talk about such things.

Even now, I doubt that many mothers say much to their daughters about the mechanical techniques that might be useful for their own pleasuring.

And so, in many ways, youngsters growing up through the 50s and 60s were mostly fairly clueless when it came to sex.

For the most part, they learned whatever they learned from whispered conversations with their friends and from fumbled experiences of their own.

And so the notion that men advanced more quickly than women in the sexual sense because their sexual organs stuck out was not such a stupid idea.

Sticking out meant they could not so easily be ignored while growing up.

Not sticking out meant that they could.

And so with no sex anywhere to be seen, it is not difficult to see how females could grow up being relatively non-sexual.

Furthermore, the notion that men could actually teach women about the mechanical aspects of sex that were important for their own pleasures was also not such a stupid idea, because the men would eventually learn about the sexuality of women from their own experiences with other women.

In short, the only people who were really teaching our young women how to enjoy themselves sexually were men.

Of course, this was not a particularly happy situation for either men or women.

satisfactory sex often involved a fairly long educational process

For experienced men, satisfactory sex often involved a fairly long educational process as they endeavoured to teach their new partners how to achieve satisfaction, but then, of course, such women were also fairly clueless when it came to satisfying them.

They didn't quite know what to do and how to do it!

And so such men would also have to teach them what to do to them.

Putting it bluntly: Satisfactory sex was not something that was easy to achieve.

And, of course, when it came to couples who were both sexually inexperienced, sex for them would likely remain a fairly arduous enterprise for some time to come.

And one main reason for this would be the fact that neither of these inexperienced parties would actually know what satisfactory sex was!

You put it in, bounce up and down, and then you take it out when done, was probably what both inexperienced parties thought would be enough to lead to satisfaction.

How would they have known otherwise?

And when it didn't lead to much in the way of satisfaction - certainly from a woman's point of view - the disappointment and, perhaps, the resentment would certainly have dampened any enthusiasm for more sex.

And the fact that couples rarely talked to each other about sex and satisfaction in those days, never read about it, and also didn't know what to do to each other or what to expect, made sexual satisfaction for inexperienced couples very hard to achieve indeed.

And so my guess is that where such couples eventually married, both their sexual satisfaction and their expectations of sex remained fairly low.

But, maybe, this was not such a bad thing.

After all, sex between individuals who have been married to each other for a long time is rarely very satisfying. And if inexperienced individuals believe that sex is always like this then, perhaps, there are no sexual reasons for them to seek out extra-marital affairs.

there might always be the temptation to seek out new territory in order to get back the highs.

On the other hand, if sex is fantastic for the first few years with a particular partner then, when its appeal finally reduces, there might always be the temptation to seek out new territory in order to get back the highs.

Nowadays, of course, young men and women can learn a great deal about their own bodies and about the bodies of those belonging to the opposite gender by educating themselves via the internet.

They do not need to rely solely on direct experience in order to get a good sense of what sex entails, and to know about some of its pitfalls and its possibilities.

And so, for example, youngsters are nowadays forewarned that sexual satisfaction with one particular partner is likely to decrease over time.

In my view, all this sexual knowledge that was unavailable to my generation is a great boon for youngsters growing up today.

But this boon is being completely soured by powerful groups that have a vested interest in demonising sex.

And while it is men who are mostly the targets of this demonisation, my own view is that, in general, it is women who are losing out the most from it; sexually speaking.

It is women, far more so than men, who are being denied the opportunities to experience sexual satisfaction because, among other things, ...

1. Men are far less likely to behave in a manner that helps women to reach this state.

2. Men have been continually portrayed as unattractive in some way, and unworthy of women's attention.

3. Sex, itself, has been pathologised.

Indeed, I am sure that I read a report recently wherein it was stated that some 40% of western women are, nowadays, non-orgasmic.

I am not at all surprised by this.

However, I am not remotely suggesting that sex for women was any better when I was growing up; because I don't think that it was.

sexual satisfaction for western women increased throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s

My own view is that sexual satisfaction for western women increased throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, but then, thanks to the activities of the feminists and the abuse industry, it started to decrease again.

But this degradation has, clearly, got nothing to do with any decrease in knowledge about sex and sexuality; because our knowledge about such matters has, without doubt, increased vastly over the years - most certainly when it comes to the mechanical aspects of sex.

So, what went wrong?

Well, to me, the answer is so obvious that I am not quite sure how anybody could think otherwise.

It is the psychology of men and women that has changed since those times.

And it has been changed by powerful groups that profit themselves hugely by forever fomenting disharmony between the two sexes.

Previously, and in my own time, it was various religious beliefs and prevailing moral codes that mostly kept the sexes apart, sexually and psychologically. Nowadays, it seems mostly to do with the persistent claims that sex and intimacy are just so packed full of 'abuse' that they are both best avoided.

The good news, however, is that many men - and, in particular, many MRAs - are now increasingly tackling this issue head on.

Indeed, only about an hour ago, and about three-quarters of my way through writing this most excellent piece, a link to Brendan O'Neill's latest article for Spiked popped into my email box. ...

Ours is an era in which intimacy is deemed dangerous and commitment is pathologised. From popular culture to the political realm, there's a powerful trend for depicting closeness and intense love as things that could damage you.