This week I’m participating in the 1/2 Marathon being orchestrated by the Christian Marriage Bloggers Association. I have a bunch of questions left from the A Males Perspective teleconference I spoke at last week. As such, I’ll be using this marathon to answer some of the questions I received. Please note, these are my perspective. I cannot vouch for all males and when I’m giving my perspective on women, I certainly cannot vouch for all women. So, on to the questions.
Why do you think women need more foreplay than men? To reach our sexual climax? And why do you think that some men have a hard time giving women what they want (In that area).
I should start by saying, I don’t fit the male stereotype. I love foreplay. I like kissing, I like hugging, I like feeling my wife. I also recognize that I need foreplay in order to perform sexually better. On the other side, my wife also does not fit the female stereotype. She gets annoyed with foreplay, she wants to “get on with it”, though she does recognize that she also needs foreplay in order to perform sexually better. We do fit the male/female stereotypical sex drives though, so, here’s my opinion on the matter:
First, generally speaking (but not always and less often than you think) men have sex drives that are spontaneous whereas women have sex drives that are responsive. What do I mean by this? It’s the stereotype that “men always think about sex”. I can’t deny it, and I know the majority of men will agree, we think about sex a lot. All the time? There were probably a few minutes today where I was distracted by work, but on the majority, yes. If my wife out of the blue said “Are you up for sex?”, my answer would be “Of course!” On top of this, if we don’t have sex for a while, there is a biological drive that starts making us really want sex more, regardless of our partner’s fertility or mood or vicinity (though it may be enhanced by any of these).
On the women’s side (again, generally speaking, same as above), the sex drive is responsive. Spontaneously coming up with the idea to have sex is rarer. It is more likely to be a reaction to a previous attempt by the husband. If the husband asks “Are you up for sex?” the answer comes after a lot of thinking or feeling “Am I too tired? Am I in the right mood? Is our relationship good enough today? Is this something I want?”
So, what does this have to do with foreplay? Well, they say foreplay starts in the kitchen, that is, that you have to start wooing your wife well before you get to the bedroom or right before bedtime. You need to start earlier in the day to give that responsive sex drive a chance to react because it’s often not an instantaneous reaction. They also say men are like microwaves and women are like slow-cookers. Not only is it not instantaneous, but it needs time to build, and it may never get as hot as your microwave can get on power 10.
So, that’s why I think women need more foreplay because generally, their sex drive is responsive. Does this contribute to their reaching sexual climax? Of course, if they are warmed up enough, it makes it much easier to climax. I think that’s pretty universal, regardless of gender.
Now, what do men have a hard time giving women what they want (in that area)? All I can do is guess as I could spend a day doing foreplay if given the chance. My guess is that men tend to be more impatient to get to straight sex. Now, why? There are a few hypothetical reasons in my head:
- The foreplay round is all about their wives, or mostly about their wives, so being selfish, they want to get to the part that is more about them (sex).
- The foreplay round means someone else is in control of giving them pleasure, and being a control-freak and knowing how to make things feel better for themselves, they want to get to the part that puts them in control and thus increases their please (sex).
- They’re no good at the foreplay round, and being insecure, instead of asking for help, guidance, or saying they want to learn, they’d rather skip by to something they think they are good at, because it feels good to them (sex). Note: they might not actually be good at this either.
- The husband is ignorant that the wife needs more warm-up time and the wife has never told him (or she doesn’t even quite know it since she has never really reached full arousal). (Added from the reader comments below)
So, the answers to the first three are, selflessness, service and humility, respectively. Brings new meaning to 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 if you ask me:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Have you ever heard a sermon on how 1 Corinthians 13 is applicable to foreplay? Probably not.
So, those are my thoughts. Tomorrow I’ll be tackling Why do you think men think about sex more than women? And why is that so important to a man in his marriage?
Let me know what you think, does my perspective match yours? I am open to comments, rebukes and corrections!