15 Lies Men Believe About Sex

Lie  No. 2: Good Sex/Bad Sex? It’s up to him.

This is one of the most oppressive lies in western male culture. This lie is told in movies, porn, popular culture, music, books and even unwittingly reinforced by many in the sexuality education world. It tends to go hand in hand with the first lie about rules for good sex. The lie goes like this: if it’s great, he can take the credit; if it’s bad, he’s to blame. He’s responsible for everyone’s happiness.

Deconstructing this lie is almost overwhelming. The pressure on men to live up to this lie is almost always what causes Sexual Dysfunction in younger men. Sex stops becoming play and becomes a performance; judged just like the Olympics. I’ve had men insist that they just know the woman they are having sex with his is judging him and comparing him to every man she’s ever known. If he doesn’t stay hard for hours, if he doesn’t become a human jackhammer, if he doesn’t deliver innumerable earth-shattering orgasms, he is a failure.

The truth is, everyone is responsible for his/her own good time; you ask for what you need and your partner delights in giving it to you. One of the biggest sexual battles fought during the 20^th Century was the right for a woman to own her sexuality. Right alongside the freedom to have sex without fear of pregnancy, women were finally allowed to own their own orgasms. Betty Dodson, probably the greatest sex pioneer of our era has been fighting for this her whole life. Women are responsible for their own orgasms! Women need to ask for what they need to get their own orgasm, it’s not the guy’s job to guess.

Sex is not something a guy does to a woman. Sex is not where a guy shows off. Sex is not success or failure. Sex is not  a performance art. Sex is not trial by jury.

Sex is play. Sex is a team activity. Sex is a journey of discovery. Sex is laughter. Sex is simple. Sex is mysterious. Sex is animalistic/spiritual/silly/fun. You get the idea. Sex is all of these things.

This concept should be very freeing to every man who has sex with women! He is no longer responsible! It’s not his fault! He doesn’t have to guess, figure out, pretend, or make it up anymore. Sex now becomes a wonderful playtime of give and take and sharing. Giving everyone a share in the creation of the experience is far more fulfilling.

When a guy can trust his partner to communicate openly and ask for what he/she wants, he is no longer performing. He is giving and sharing; that’s a whole lot less stress. One of the greatest gifts one human can give another is the space to express who he/she is sexually! Sex is no longer his job. It is their play!

15 Lies Men Believe About Sex

Lie #1:    There are rules for good sex

Men love rules. It’s understandable, they grew up with them: Rules of the playground, rules in sports, rules of the Guy Code, rules for clubs. As men get older, they follow rules for roommates, friendships, dating, business, and yes, even sex. How many times did James Bond say “I make it a rule to …..”?  Wow! Rules are cool! Rules help us look decisive, confident, assured and totally put together.

We rely on rules. In fact, life is a lot easier if you follow rules; you rarely have to make a decision on your feet. Guess work is eliminated. Life’s major pitfalls can be avoided if you have a rulebook. If a guy follows rules, he can feel he’s doing it right – whatever ‘it’ is.

So, when it comes to sex, it makes sense that there should be rules. After all, sex is complicated, awkward, rife with pitfalls, and if a guy wants to be successful in sex, he needs every bit of help he can get. Rules seem like a great solution. If he follows the rules of good sex, it is guaranteed to be good and he can feel like a stud!

The problem with rules is that, while they can make sex seem safer and more predictable, they eventually lead to frustration, stress and boredom. Sex rules lock you in to a set pattern of behavior, response, arousal, activity and climax. All partners involved follow the game plan and, unless the rules are radically changed, the game dos not change much.

I talked to one couple who had been together only three years and they were embarrassed to admit that sex had become boring. The man was very frustrated.  “I tried to do all the things I’d heard about to keep her happy and satisfied,” he said. “I know I was doing it all right. What more does she want?”

What they had missed was that sex is just play. And when play is governed by too many rules, it gets really tiring. I use the analogy of the sandbox. Sex is a lot like playing in a sandbox. When you were put in the sandbox, no one told you how to play. You just played. No one told you that you had to make roads, or castles, or holes,  in a specific sequence or place; you just did whatever your imagination told you to try. However, as I think about it, I suppose there were a few rules:  Don’t throw sand and don’t hurt each other. I think those are good rules for sex too.

Sex is two people playing with each other’s body and making it up as they go. They need lots of communication, lots of laughter, and lots and lots of imagination. They can do anything they want: Either partner can initiate sex, they can have sex wherever and whenever they want, they can be naked or clothed, they can change roles, they can climax or not, they can have intercourse or not, they can use toys, they can role-play, sex can be short or long, the list is endless. There simply are no rules except what they make up for that moment.

Life and sex can be much scarier without rules, but an awful lot more fun. Sex is a journey; a unique experience created by two people in the moment. There are no rules to what sex looks like. Ignore every sex rule you’ve ever heard – even the well intentioned rules from sexperts! But on second thought, you might want to keep the two rules from the sandbox: Don’t throw sand; don’t hurt each other.

How many guys have memorized the stats of the favorite teams or athletes? How many guys memorize the chords and lyrics to favorite songs? How many guys study to learn every cheat in a computer game? Then why don’t we study sex?  Most people insist that sex is really important to them – yet they never spend any time actually studying and learning about it beyond the tips they can pick up in a 500 word blog!

Sex education simply does not exist in this country. What most of us got in school was really Reproduction Education, or STD Education, or Puberty Education. Certainly no one ever taught us about preparing for sex or how to have sex! No one taught us how to touch ourselves. No one mentioned how to touch each other. No one gave us skills to talk about sex.

Most parents still don’t talk to their kids about sex. Many of my patients report that the only parental advice they ever got was “Don’t get anyone pregnant” and “Don’t get a disease”. No wonder we find sex difficult to talk about – we’ve never had anyone talk about it!

Most guys want to always have better sex. Most guys want to please their partners. But where does someone go for help?  The magazine rack is full of advice. The Internet is full of experts. Like everything else in life, some are good, many are awful. Be especially wary of people who want to sell you something. It’s difficult.

Believe it or not there is very little authentic, accurate information for men about how to have sex. Women have had a much better history of sex education. Pioneers like Betty Dodson have been teaching women how to have sex for decades. I think the reason there is no male equivalent is because we assume that just because a guy can ejaculate in a vagina, things are good to go! Nothing could be further from the truth!

I tell guys that in order to learn about sex, you must first throw out everything you already know about sex. So, I’m going to start by asking you to throw out a whole pile of untruths, lies, misinformation, bad thinking, and poor scholarship that you may believe about sex!

I made a series of fifteen of the most egregious lies I could think of which we, as a male population, tend to believe about sex. In order to make room for the new information, we need to toss out some old beliefs. Think of this as a sexual file dump!

After this, we’ll put start to rebuild a totally new way to think about sex which most men find liberating, rewarding, fun, and much easier. Once we learn how to think about sex, then we can get down to details such as specific ideas of touch, play, and erotic interaction.

Silence is how many men handle problems. It’s that classic guy thing to do – retreat to the cave and let it pass. When it comes to sexual issues, or sexuality in general, the temptation is even stronger to simply ignore it and it will go away. The problem is, there is usually someone else involved when it comes to sexual issues, and that person generally isn’t as inclined to ignore it.

You can’t blame guys for being hesitant about talking about sex problems. It seems the whole world snickers at the TV ads for ED drugs. What guy is then going to turn to his friends and admit he has ‘that’ problem?

I was talking to a man in my office the other day. He said he would never talk to his friends about issues with sex. I asked him what he would do if one of his friends came to him with a sexual problem. The guy looked at me and said, “I would die laughing!” He added, “Well, I might feel sorry for him, but heck, that’s what guys do.” I really felt sorry for this guy’s friends. So, I suppose we need to choose carefully whom we trust.

Taking that first step of reaching out for help can be terrifying. For many men, their lives and relationships are almost in ruins before they are willing to make that first step. Self-blame, guilt, embarrassment and this blow to their manhood can be paralyzing factors. Facing the fact that they need to get help often comes when they can’t avoid the issue any longer.

Many men will turn to the anonymity of the internet to seek help. This is a perfect setup for the scams and con-artists that are waiting for desperate men to stumble onto their promise of complete restoration of sexual virility. Men are often willing to pay anything, try anything and do anything to get their sex life back. This vulnerability is exactly what the hustlers are looking for.

Because of the code of silence, men tend to feel they are the only ones suffering with any sexual issue. They listen to their friends and it seems they are all doing really well sexually. The fact is, according to most sources, there are as many as one in three men with some type of sexual function issue. It can be premature ejaculation (the most common), ED, low libido, or just about anything at all.

Most men are amazed to discover that most of my patients are not elderly men. I have patients as young as 14, but the most common age is late 30s early 40s. These are guys in the prime of life and having sexual function issues is often devastating.

There are experts in sexual medicine who deal with these issues every day. The family practice physician is often the front line, but has the least training. Believe it or not, urologists don’t get much training in sexual medicine at all. So, it can take some real searching to find a sympathetic, knowledgeable doctor.

But don’t make the mistake of trying to ignore sexual problems – either medical or emotional. They don’t go away. They usually progressively get worse. You deserve to take care of yourself!

Ask for referrals if you aren’t getting the results you want. It might take some work, but you’re worth it!

Reaching out is the hardest step. Call your doctor. Guaranteed – no one is going to laugh.