as written and posted by Sue
McGarvie, M.A., on sexwithsue.com
Everyone wants to feel wanted. In fact, I would even
say it’s a basic need of sex to be desired by your partner. For women, it’s
especially important. Many women who can feel arousal (but not desire) meaning
their bodies can be turned on but they aren’t emotional feeling into sex is
common phenomenon. They need to be convinced or get their sexual energy from
someone else. As Psychology Today reports recently, “Most women, for instance,
have a strong wish to feel sexually desired. Men also like to be desired, of
course. But among the women I see in my office, it’s often much more of a
“thing.”
Many women say they don’t feel any spontaneous desire
for sex unless it’s stimulated by someone desiring them. As sex therapists, we would
say their desire is purely “responsive.” Many women report that feeling desired
is what turns them on the most.
Heterosexual human mating tends to be like traditional
couples’ dancing. She needs him to ask her to dance. The dancing itself might
be nice, but even more important is that he showed initiative and wanted to
dance with her. 70% of men are different. They may enjoy it if their partner
passionately wants to have sex with them, but they don’t particularly need to
feel desired in order to get turned on. Their desire is more “spontaneous.”
But what about the 30% of men that do need their
partners to express great desire in order to be turned on? I see men in my
office every week who need explicit desire by their partners to get aroused.
A man like this is almost always brought to my office
by his unhappy wife, who complains that he rarely, if ever, initiates sex—thus
depriving her of the chance to feel turned on by his passion for her. And she’s
bone tired of initiating.
He will tell me privately, that he wants her to start
sex or he can’t get his mojo going.
“A heterosexual guy whose principal turn-on is to be
desired finds himself in more difficult territory. Very few women are
interested in consistently being the initiator.
A man like this usually learns to keep his responsive
desire a secret. If he tries to explain it to a female partner, often the
concept will be so foreign to her that she’ll have no idea what he’s talking
about.”
It’s a challenge. 50 Shades of Grey sold millions of
copies because it appealed to the very common female fantasy of being “taken”.
The desire to be dominated safely is by far the most popular sexual model with
women. And men who are responsive (are often the more thinking guys) feel
frustrated and voiceless.
So, what do you do to solve this? It starts with
communication, acceptance and negotiation. And an understanding that sex isn’t
“supposed to be a certain way”. Women have been chased around the school yard
by boys wanting to pull their pigtails and we expect “handsy” men. It’s
certainly not what we always want (nor is it appropriate outside of consenting
adults), but it’s what we expect from men. Understanding that sex is play –
adult play- and not always about pounding intercourse helps get this message
through. As do signals (pull an earlobe or drop a secret word) to indicate
interest so that neither one is being pushed away helps with the shutdown of
rejection of a partner who can’t figure out what you need to be turned on. And
learning that your expectations of sex might be getting in the way.
I teach a monthly “School of Sex” series done with
humour, inclusion and fantastic speakers. It allows people to sit in the back
row and listen to how other people in their community think about sex – without
social conventions and limiting beliefs. Really hear what turns on the men and
women that live in your neighbourhood can be powerfully healing to someone who
feels sexually inhibited. It’s liberating for many people not to feel alone in
how they feel sexually.
And as the author of the study succinctly summarizes: If
you’re a woman in a relationship with a man who doesn’t initiate sex as much as
you’d like, you may want to keep in mind the possibility that he might need the
same thing you do.
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