I read a
statement in a book the other night that was both obvious but also a
revelation. This book stated that women are far more likely to experience
orgasms during sex in established long-term relationships than in casual
flings. The reasons for this are simple but basically revolve around the
clitoris; men in committed, long term relationships are far more likely to care
enough about their lover to bother to a) find out where the clitoris is, and b)
take the trouble to stimulate said clitoris to the required state of orgasmic
bliss. The clitoris by the way, just in case you are interested, has twice as
many nerve endings in it than the head of a penis – it’s kind of predisposed,
having absolutely no other function, to having fun.
Of course,
there are exceptions to this book’s statement. Having been in a twenty-two year
relationship with a porn junkie, I know that sex in long term relationships can
also be crappy, and soul destroying if one partner’s idea of great sex is
gauged by frequency, shaved vulvas that resemble a child’s, pneumatic mammaries
that resemble udders and a script which invariably includes phrases along the
lines of ‘ooh fuck me hard, you stallion’ etc., etc.
I’ve got
talking to a chap through the dating site. He’d been married for about twenty
years when he lost his wife in a car accident. Compared to other men who have
contacted me, this man is like a breath of fresh air. Because he has no failed
marriage behind him he doesn’t have the baggage that I’ve come across with
other blokes off the site. It is clear, from the way he talks about his wife,
that there was a huge amount of love, friendship and affection between them. I
have not heard this man utter one word of bitterness, no snide remark, about
anyone or about his situation. He’s a schoolteacher, passionate about his job,
the students he teaches, his children and his friends. About the time I was
reading the book that I mentioned earlier, I talked about sex with this chap.
What he said backed up the book’s assertion. He and his wife had a great sex
life and, for him, it was a matter of pride that he made sure his wife was
satisfied before he was. Sex, for them, was as much about laughter and intimacy
as it was about passion and excitement. This intelligent, caring, funny,
sexually astute man should have women lining up outside his front door.
Of course, what
the book hasn’t taken into account is character. My ex-husband’s emotional
make-up is not equipped to consider, nor care about, a woman’s needs during
sex. His obsession with porn is ongoing, even in
his new sparkly relationship with Jabba (as my son found out on Saturday when
he used the Internet on his father’s iPhone) and his inability to feel empathy
or passion can’t help but be obvious during any sexual activity. Contrastingly,
it seems pretty apparent to me that a man who is loving, positive,
affectionate, passionate and fully engaged with life is going to view any
sexual activity through the filter of these qualities.
Another thing
this book talks about is the main difference between how men and women view
sex. There’s the age old evolutionary argument that men have the overwhelming
urge to mate with everything that ovulates in order to spread their seed and
have lots of ‘mini-me’s running around, whilst women have the overwhelming urge
to chain their sperm donor to the floor so that he has no choice but to share
the drudgery of child rearing that sex has a habit of creating. Monogamous men,
some would argue, face a continual battle between their enlightened intellect
and their un-evolved sex drive. By the way, another snippet of useless
information – only 3%, yes 3% of the Earth’s species of mammals are monogamous
but monogamy can be found in non-mammalian species; blackbirds and swans, for
instance, are monogamous for life as are lobsters who have actually been
observed shuffling along the sea bed holding claws with their other half. Just
remember that the next time you’re enjoying your lobster thermidor.
I think the
evolutionary argument above is a disservice to men, but I do think some men
like to use it as an excuse to justify their shitty behaviour and attitude
towards women. Another argument that the
book raised, that I am more inclined to agree with, is centred on the hormones
that are released during sex. My friends and I have talked about this before,
how, straight after sex, women like to be held and kissed, maybe even to fall
asleep wrapped up inside their partner’s arms, whereas their men are more
inclined to want to get up and do other things such as, if the (male) author of
my book is right, look at porn on the Internet. Unfortunately, for women, the
hormones produced during sex have the function of making her feel warm and
fuzzy inside and in love. It is because of this hormone release that a woman
finds it difficult to have sex like a man. Women can’t help but become
emotionally attached to whomever they are sleeping with, however much they
would like it to be otherwise. Women know this and men know this but it doesn’t
stop men and women sleeping around with the subsequent moans by men that they
have this bore of a woman who doesn’t understand that he just wants to have fun but no relationship, and it doesn’t stop
the woman from bawling into her sodden handkerchief as she sobs (snot and tears
spraying everywhere) that she just can’t understand how she and this man had
shared something so special only for him to dump her for the next shag. It is only later, when hormones have
dissipated and she calms down enough to think rationally that she realizes that
the ‘something so special’ was actually a really rather lame lay with a bloke
with hygiene issues who she wouldn’t want to introduce to even her most vague
of acquaintances.
I don’t think
women want commitment off a guy (any guy) any more than men need to shag
everything with a pulse. I can only speak as a woman but all that I request,
when being involved with someone, is that their focus is as much on me as they
expect my focus to be on them. In the last couple of months I have realized
that Internet dating is not conducive to this. It seems to me for a start that
value for money, on dating sites, is viewed differently between the sexes. For
men value is quantitative, for women, qualitative; women would be well chuffed
if they met one great chap within the first week of joining the dating site.
For some men, though, who might have paid for three (or even six) months membership
up front, this would be a disaster. For a start, straight away they’ve wasted
two (or five) months money if they focus on the first woman whom they meet, no
matter how great/beautiful/funny/sexy/pervy she might be. She may be the bird
in the hand but this guy knows there are a hell of a lot more than just two
waiting in the bush. In fact, he knows there are several women not only waiting
but impatiently sending him their details and advertising their eagerness to compete
with the other birds who’ve also paid their subscriptions to meet a ‘quality’
man. But Internet dating sites, like other forms of dating companies, have
turned relationships into another form of consumerism and I find this
depressing – especially after having a date with a self-declared Communist who
insists that his obsessive involvement with the dating site is justifiable as
he needs to get value for money from
his subscription. Viva la revolucion!
A few weeks ago
I was in the process of arranging date number three with a bloke whom I knew,
from date number one, was not the quality man I was looking for. My fault I
know for I had already realized that, his selfishness, lack of height and
self-grandiosity aside, he was more interested in quantity over quality or, if
we’re opting for talking in code, fun instead of a relationship. This pursuit
of his, for fun, ensured his being virtually intravenously joined to the dating
site. If I called him and he didn’t answer, guess what? He was on the dating
site. If we were texting and the texts suddenly dried up, guess what? Yep, you
got it, he was on the dating site! But, you need to understand, he was only on
the dating site as he needed, as an act of politeness, to read and answer
messages that he had received from the hordes of adoring female fans that he
had acquired from the height and breadth of the country, who had fallen for him
on the basis of one grainy photograph (head only, not full height) and a
paragraph of info that said he liked some music, some books and some coastal
paths.
It was during
one of our texting conversations, when I was in my full domestic goddess groove,
that I suggested I would bake him my
Nigella Lawson lemon drizzle cake for his next visit over because he had earlier stated lemon drizzle cake was his
favourite. I waited half an hour for his answer whilst he checked on the dating
site, presumably to see if there were any better, more tempting, orally centred offers on there before
he committed his taste buds to me. It was at this point that I realized,
completely and utterly, that my cake was best baked for others who appreciated
quality over quantity – those whose tastes were more Nigella Lawson and less
Kerry Katona.
Yesterday I
baked said cake and took it into uni for my very grateful and greedy discerning friends.
My Internet teacher friend came up to visit me last week and was lovely, and
he’d even bought me a book that he thought would come in useful for my
dissertation. And of course there’s still Bus Guy, who I glimpse on a Wednesday when he
pops into the canteen for his coffee and whom I nearly approached armed with my
phone number on a piece of paper until my friend declared this act to be a bit
psychotic. Maybe I should try smiling and saying hello first, but I’ll get
there in the end.
Internet dating
does have its pitfalls; I have found that there are a fair few stalkers,
vultures and emotionally stunted men on there but there are good, interesting,
lovely people on there too. My only advice if I was to give any to a woman
would-be Internet dater is this: you are as spoiled for choice as the men are
on the dating sites, so don’t settle for mediocre. If your gut is telling you
that the man messaging you, or who is sat in front of you, is a loser then
listen to it – gut reactions are seldom wrong. And also, don’t focus on the
supposedly ‘good looking’ blokes on there, especially the ones with few or
no other qualities. Whilst you could be having a great time and, hopefully at
some point, great sex with someone who
isn’t endlessly bragging that they look like George Clooney, the Clooney lookalike will still
no doubt be having plenty of fun with his palm and his reflection. Oh, and his
Calvin Klein Obsession aftershave.
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