When Leslie was in high school and weighing the pros and cons of premarital sex, she envied married couples.
”I wondered how married people ever got out of bed,” she remembers with a laugh.
Something`s changed: She has two children, and her husband recently had a vasectomy. She has no fear of pregnancy as she did in her adolescence; no societal pressures to abstain like she did as a teen; no fear that her sex partner-a loving husband-won`t respect her in the morning.
These days, though, sex twice a month is plenty for her, although her husband`s appetites haven`t waned.
”But I`ve been married for 18 years, I have two children-I have a life,” says the 38-year-old homemaker and part-time office worker. What`s more important these days is to see her husband be the aggressor not in the bedroom, but in decisions outside it.
”I think I need more emotional and mental support,” says Leslie, who, like the others who agreed to talk about their sex lives, asked that her real name not be used. ”The type of woman I am is protective, trying to take care of everyone. But I want someone to take care of me.”
The couple fit the stereotype: Men don`t get enough sex and women don`t get enough love-whatever name they choose to call it.
No. 1 source of conflict
Granted, some couples defy the stereotype-some women crave sex more frequently than their men-but ”intimacy, both physical and emotional, probably comes up as the No. 1 source of conflict” between the sexes, says psychologist David Welsh of Ft. Worth, Texas.
The complaint is not a new one. In recent decades, under the scrutiny of the sexual revolution, couples have experimented with solutions. Still the question lingers in the `90s.
”The sense you get as a therapist is that both sexes want intimacy, but they approach and define it in different ways,” Welsh says. ”Men look at sex as the way to achieve intimacy. They believe emotional intimacy follows. But it`s the flip side of that for women. It`s as a result of emotional intimacy that they`re interested in physical intimacy-and sexual desire rears its head.”
Changing attitudes
Historically, the sexes have made progress.
”There was the good girl, the macho male, all that kind of thing,” says Margaret Summy, a licensed professional counselor in Ft. Worth. ”It wasn`t
`nice` for women to think about sex. That really changed during the `60s. And that`s probably when you started seeing problems in the therapists` office of men worrying about their sexual behavior. Then you had a lot of performance anxiety. That was when all these little books on techniques came out.”
One of the most popular was ”How to Satisfy a Woman Every Time . . . and Have Her Beg for More!,” written by actress and singer Naura Hayden.
In her book, Hayden maintains that while most erotic literature emphasizes the slam-bang male perspective, this merely feeds the male misunderstanding of what pleases a woman. Because women don`t enjoy the act, she says, the men in their lives aren`t able to interest them in sex as often as those men would like.
Methods for `the main event`
She advocates not only foreplay, but a definite gentle sexual technique for ”husbies” (Haydenese for husbands) to try during ”the main event”-
Hayden`s term for intercourse. The book continues to sell well, eight years after its publication date, say clerks at local bookstores.
”She has good advice,” says Martha, 33, whose spouse uses the technique described in the book. ”The method is stimulating and satisfying.”
That`s not to imply that rushing out and buying the book for advice will cure all sexual ills.
”Men want a diagram and technique and flow chart of how to hit the G-spot and make the earth move for her-and not only that, they want to make the earth move more than any other guy has done for her,” Welsh says.
”They`re interested in the plumbing and hydraulics.”
More than just physical
”One thing that happens-and this is generalizing-is that men forget where the most important sex organ is located,” says Welsh. ”They think it`s between the legs, but it`s in between the ears.”
An important step to real intimacy for both sexes is realizing the biological and cultural differences. It`s commonly known, for example, that men require less time to be aroused than women, Summy says.
Then there`s the matter of romance: ”Look at the sales of Harlequin romance novels to women, the candlelight and romance,” Summy suggests.
”Women think more of love-`How do I know he really cares for me? I want to be special before I share that.` And some men feel the same way.”
In childhood, in sports and other areas, males learn to be achievement-oriented; in later life, in their jobs, they also focus on results: ”It`s Point A to B, product-oriented, looking for the finish line,” Welsh says. Women, on the other hand, ”tend to be more process-oriented. They`re interested in the trip along the way. That also applies to sex.”
It makes sense
When it comes to the senses, baby boys tend to respond more to visual stimulation than girls, but little girls respond more to tactile and auditory stimulation-”they want to be touched and talked to,” says Ginie Polo Sayles, who emphasizes the point in a course she teaches in Dallas called ”How to Flirt.”
”I think that carries over to adulthood,” Sayles says. ”That`s what you hear women complain about-lack of communication and lack of touch, of hugging and cuddling,” Sayles says.
”Women know that men respond to visual stimulation-we use makeup and jewelry and adornment-but men still haven`t gotten around to realizing they have to approach us in touch and sound. I believe if men would approach women with what they respond to, they`d have all the sex they wanted.”
Now for the flip side of that.
The chicken or the egg?
”Yes, men don`t get enough sex because women don`t get enough love,”
says Don, 39, a manufacturing manager. ”But women don`t get enough love because men don`t get enough sex.”
Keith, 35, a divorced Ft. Worth lawyer who saw the sex versus love problem in his own marriage, says part of the problem was ”the bloom had gone off the rose.”
”It`s kind of like the chicken and the egg,” he says. ”She`d say, `You don`t send me flowers.` And I`d say, `We don`t do it on the rug or in the back yard anymore.` She`d say, `That`s because you don`t send me flowers.` And I`d say, `That`s because we don`t do it on the rug or in the back yard anymore.`
”Men want it after sports on TV, when they`re all fired up in a macho way-or when they come home passing out drunk on the lawn. They`re hard-pressed to realize that doesn`t present the most attractive picture.”
His tongue-in-cheek solution is that ”Phil Donahue is going to have to impress sensitivity on males everywhere. And women everywhere are going to have to start watching more sports.”
Welsh offers a more serious alternative.
Words of advice
”In defense of the male-let me stand up for my brothers in testosterone- I think men for the most part really want to please and satisfy their partners, not only physically, but emotionally and intellectually,” he says. ”But they`re not sure how. Women have a responsibility to educate and inform their partners, and they have a tendency not to do that.
”Women have a hard time asking for what they need and being assertive-`
Stop doing that and do more of this`-in both personal and professional settings. They`ll be indirect, drop hints, put little clues out there that he`s supposed to pick up-and he doesn`t. Then the man sits there scratching his head.
”Women need to be straightforward and assertive, but there`s this taboo of `I`ll hurt his feelings` or `The male ego is so fragile.` I think men tend to operate more from the side of logic and reason, and women more from feeling and emotion. I`m not saying they`re irrational-but both sexes need to dip into both sides of the brain in a relationship.”
That can be done sometimes as simply as having a conversation.
”Something they really need to do is talk about the physical aspect of the relationship just as much as they talk about the checkbook or the kids or where they`re going for their vacation,” Welsh says. ”But talk about it outside the bedroom-because when you talk about it inside the bedroom, that`s when you start hurting the ego.”
Communication, compromise
Communication and compromise have helped the marriage of Mandy and Jerry, a couple in their early 30s. In their case, they`re dealing with the reverse of the stereotype-she desires sex more often than her husband does.
”It frustrates me sometimes when I roll over and he`s not there for me,” says Mandy, 33, a homemaker. ”Yet when he wants sex, I`m always there. I get tired of being the … one to ask for it. Sometimes, I feel like, `Dang, don`t you ever want to turn over and attack me?`
”He says the touching and holding hands is as much lovemaking as the act. He gets far more stimulation out of that than he does having sex three times a day. I think that`s wonderful, too, because the affection feeds a very big part of me. …”
”He`s more of a giver,” she says. ”Even if I want sex more often than I get it, I`ve gotten a lot more out of this relationship than the ones where I got all the sex I wanted.
”I can live with a little frustration, but I can`t live without love.”
