By Scott Rock
I’ve married the one woman in my life I thought I’d ever fall irrevocably in love with. I’ve had the same woman leave me two decades later. I’ve been through marriage counseling and personal therapy that I liked and found very helpful. I’ve crammed my head with more books and articles than I care to recall on how to improve relationships both before and after they go swirling down the toilet. Best of all, I’ve been involved with a woman with seemingly endless sexual boundaries.
That’s how I knew we were all in trouble when I reached the point in an article on the Fox News website last Friday where sexpert Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright wrote, “Checking in with your lover is the best way to guarantee that he’s meeting expectations.”
It’s not because I’m a man and we tend to roll our eyes at such things. It’s because we’ve learned repeatedly and consistently from TV shows like Cheaters and the late comedian Sam Kinison that you’re going to be the very last person anyone’s going to be checking in with, and usually not until one of you gets caught naked in a back seat somewhere. Not that we men are the most ideal characters to be checking in with in the first place, but most of us have the ability to do more than just grunt and scratch our ass when challenged.
Of course, you can read Dr. Fulbright’s article here and form your own fair and balanced opinions. Granted, I’ll probably never write a book called Touch Me There! A Hands-On Guide to Your Orgasmic Hot Spots, but I’ve managed to learn plenty of things from 40-plus years of being single, married, divorced, and single again to start exploring sexual and personal relations for some commentary on Fulbright’s 7 Things Men Fear About Sex.
Actually, men fear only one thing about sex: that we’ll do everything right straight out of the gate and end up possessed by some kudzu vine of a woman sucking the life right out of us. But Dr. Fulbright has other ideas:
1. He’s panicking about his size.
First, sexperts seem to agree that the length of the “average” piece of manhood is roughly six inches. If you need more than that to make you feel better about yourself, measure yours in metric. Yet most average women swear that length isn’t everything. That’s because they’ve never reached a group decision on what constitutes the ideal package. If given the choice between a long, thick one that could battle totem poles and dinosaurs for world dominance and a short, average one able to do whatever anyone asks of it despite its more diminutive yet serviceable size, we’d be scraping bodies off that battlefield for years.
But men have more important things to be panicked over than how tall Mr. Johnson is, because unless you make it through a woman’s mental checklist alive, what you’re packing between your legs isn’t going to matter. Line-items like whether you actually show up on time to wherever you’re supposed to be. Or your personal hygiene. Or whether you’re courteous and kind and have more manners than a four-year-old. Or whether you look like you get dressed in the dark. Or whether you’re just some depressing asshole whose own wife wouldn’t fuck him on a good day.
See what I mean?
In practice, what’s in your head often doesn’t stand up to the real world. For example, there’s a couples club my girlfriend and I go to where the public rooms are always populated by men whose equipment wouldn’t qualify to be a ring-toss spindle in a traveling carnival. Yet the whole night consists of an ever-changing assortment of guys exactly like that standing around with their pants around their ankles being attended to by women who aren’t their wives or girlfriends, while the rest are actually getting laid by women who aren’t their wives or girlfriends. And there’s not a single one in the bunch whining about someone not being big enough.
In fact, a common complaint I hear is about men who are too big. So trust the equipment nature gave you and make the best of it because that’s all you’re ever going to have to work with. If she keeps seeing you beyond your first night naked together, you’ll always be the man with the golden gun.
2. He’s worried that he’ll be a lousy lover.
Sure, if you keep making the bad assumption that your would-be partner actually has more sexual experience than you to know the difference between a bad lay and a good one. Hell, I’ve known my own sister for more than 40 years and haven’t a clue whether she even knows the difference – so what, I’m supposed to make all sorts of assumptions that will get me panicked over some stranger I met five minutes ago?
Look, there’s a lot more involved in being a good or even great lover than the size of your tool and knowing the basic mechanics of in-and-out. The argument that Dr. Fulbright didn’t make – that the tongue can be the dividing line between a lousy lover and a really good one – aside, being an awesome lover really starts with your head. Because if you ain’t in their head, you’re dead in the shed, Fred. The brains of women everywhere are riddled with the corpses of lousy lovers who were dead in the water halfway through dinner. How can a woman call you a lousy lover if you never even made it past dinner? Simple: because you never got past dinner, that’s how.
You’d be surprised how far charm, personality, wit, intelligence, and common decency can go toward making you better in bed without even trying.
3. He’s fretting that his timing will be off.
Says Dr. Fulbright:
“Is he going to release too soon? Or is he going to take too long? In either situation, he’s alarmed that he won’t be able to close the curtain for the applause he wants. For men who don’t last as long as they’d like, they’re best off dedicating themselves to a pelvic floor muscle exercise routine. Those experiencing delayed ejaculation should work on examining the physical, emotional, and mental components potentially at play.”
Shows what she knows. Just getting to third base – or even getting caught in a rundown between first and second – is applause enough for most men. Still, this is why everyone in America still wants to punch George Costanza in the head and drown Woody Allen. No woman deserves to be cursed with the heaps of neurotic anxiety those two are.
“Examining the components of things potentially at play” is how you’ll end up spending $150 an hour forever on therapy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if you have the patience and means to burn through $150 a week without feeling like you’re any closer to an answer. Otherwise, it’s pretty simple: If you’re consistently too fast or too slow on the trigger and it worries you, see a doctor. Maybe you do have a problem with your plumbing that needs medical attention. Or maybe it’s all in your head. Or maybe it’s you, or it’s her. Or hell, maybe you should just cut back on the coke. But if your doctor gives you a clean bill of health and you’re still not right, there is one elementary thing you can do in the meantime until you get everything sorted out: Learn the art of the tongue. The tongue is your friend, but it’s her friend even more – especially if you go beyond making it just seem like you’re painting a fence down there.
You could also get over the idea that her vibrator is some sort of insult to your manhood, for chrissakes. Play together, stay together.
4. He’s alarmed that he’ll lose his erection.
Other than mis-timing a dose of Viagra, want to know a guaranteed way to lose an erection? Sit there all night worrying about your timing, Costanza.
If there’s one shining moment where you’re better off letting the little head do the thinking for the big head, this would be that moment. If your soldier’s standing at attention before going into battle, chances are pretty good he’ll be putting up the good fight the whole time.
But if you’re one of those men who feel the need to always be alarmed over something, start wondering whether she’s faking it or not.
5. He won’t find his lover attractive once sober.
Yeah, like that’s going to stop anyone. Pouring a gallon of tequila into yourself is a guaranteed way to not worry about how unattractive some stranger might be when you come to 20 hours from now. If anyone’s going to be worrying about anything, it’s how they’re going to get out of making small talk and leave as quickly as possible so everyone can keep whatever’s left of their dignity.
But if you’re a sober man who is still worried about this, remember that men have been waking up next to women considerably worse-looking than yours without their eyeballs melting. In fact, there are married men who continue doing it voluntarily for years even though they know what kind of horror show awaits them each morning. So really, it’s probably not going be as bad as you think. But if you’ve been slamming shots of Goldschlager all night and she’s still unattractive, then yeah, things aren’t going to be any better tomorrow, sport.
To be fair, realize that you’re not going to be any picnic to deal with yourself, because your hung-over ass is going to look and smell far worse than her. And being the insensitive swine that we men can be, you’re probably going to go using her toothbrush while you’re in the bathroom too.
6. He might get her pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease.
These are indeed reasons to get weirded out. Especially if she’s someone else’s wife or a hooker. In most cases though, this is why stores like Walgreens and 7-Eleven commit considerable financial resources to staying open 24 hours a day so they can sell condoms and other staples some find completely necessary at 2 a.m., like Doritos and Kit-Kat bars.
Remember, there are guys winging it on more-questionable prayers than yours being dispensed by 50-cent condom machines at truck stops and dive bars. Because Lord only knows what kind of quality controls there are in the foreign sweatshops those rubbers must surely come from.
Still, it’s always good practice even with reliable name brands to regularly check to make sure the thing hasn’t had a blowout or is starting to wander off, especially if you’re not hung like a zoo elephant. Nothing puts a screeching halt to things – and give you something to really worry about for a few weeks – like a woman knuckles-deep into a fishing expedition between her legs for a raincoat that’s turned up missing in action.
7. He’ll come away disappointed.
Not a chance, because the only disappointment in getting laid is not getting laid at all. If you’re a man who ends up disappointed, it was probably your own damn fault anyway. Poor workmen always go blaming their tools.
So here’s a novel approach: ask her what she wants. From what I’ve been led to believe, most women like this sort of behavior. Some spend their entire lives never being asked, so if you want a good way to go from zero to hero in a heartbeat, that would be one good way to do it.
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So really, gentlemen – stop all the worrying. Just kick the tires, light the fires, and take her to bed or lose her forever. Anything good enough to worry about today is good enough to worry about tomorrow instead, when you’ll probably figure out there was nothing to worry about in the first place.
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Scott Rock is the Beachwood’s pseudononymous sexpert. He welcomes questions and comments.
Posted on September 28, 2009