Manslations (9 page)

And we'll start with one that no amount of trashy airport reading can help you with. This is the single most common Google search that brings people to my website—and by a
wide
margin:

Look, no one's going to stop you from doing that weird ice-cube-in-the-mouth trick they always want to teach you in magazines. Knock yourself out. But you really don't need to be sweating this issue. Just follow these simple steps, and I guarantee you will drive him wild in bed:

Be Alive:
Now, don't skip this one just because it's easy. In fact, if you only follow one rule, this one should be it.


Go to Bed with Him:
Also crucial.


Make Sure You're Having Fun:
This helps in two ways. First, you'll be having fun, which is, you know, fun. And second, when you have a good time in bed, it helps us feel like a badass, fulfilling the Jack Bauer Principle. Plus, again, you'll be having fun. Nobody wants to be in bed with someone who is acting like they're on a trip to the dentist. Not unless your dentist is a lot more fun than mine.

That's it. That's the whole list. The danger of those magazine checklists is that they're checklists. As in, they're impersonal. Some weird checklist of advanced humping techniques might just make him wonder what other guys have been receiving this royal treatment. Most men like to think they're the only man in the world that you'd do this with. (I know, I know. I already said how we're picturing ourselves with a zillion other women. But that's us. We don't want
you
thinking like that.)

This brings us to another one of the most common questions that I get from women:

What if he fantasizes about other women when we're doin' it?

Well, here's another area in which this is probably a lot worse than you think. But it's also better, I promise.

Okay, here goes. This is not a “what if.” All men do this. All of us. And just please don't ask whom we're fantasizing about, okay? You already know the answer: everybody. I know. It's awful. But before you start sharpening various knives, forks, and tongs with which to stab, poke, and… tong… your dude, I think it's time for a definition:

A woman recently wrote to me with a question about whether it was normal for a man to fantasize about other women—celebrities, ex-girlfriends, etc.—during sex, and if so, how is that not infidelity?

Here's how. For a man, fidelity and fantasy are very, very different. For us, sexual fantasies are involuntary. Cheating is a choice.

To put it another way, what fidelity does
not
mean is that he'll never think about anyone else ever again. He couldn't do that if he tried. (And he's not gonna try.) Fidelity means that even though he absolutely does fantasize about all other women on the planet Earth (and that restriction is only there because that's the only planet that has any women on it), he chooses to be with you and only you.

Now, this doesn't mean you have to stand for
hearing
about it. When this woman told me her man was fantasizing about “ex-girlfriends” during sex, my initial thought was, “Is there actually a man that moronic out there? Why in the world did he actually
tell
her that?” And the answer is that he messed up a little. These little “moron movies” are his business, and as long as they don't mean anything, they should remain his business.

And you are well within your rights as a woman to say, “Hey, listen, whatever happens inside your warped, little mind is your business, okay? I'm not crazy about the idea, but I can't fight biology. But if I ever, ever actually hear about it again—oh, boy, is there going to be big friggin' trouble. In your brain, sure, anything goes. Out here, it's all about
me,
please. Okay?”

I know that I've made the male fantasy sound like pretty much the most horrific thing you've ever imagined. And if it were on your TV right now, wow, it sure would be. You thought Janet Jackson's nipple got angry letters. If one of these things ever aired, somebody would be going to jail. But just know these fantasies can't hurt you. They don't tell you anything about his commitment or anything else.

And now, yet another very, very common web search that brings womenfolk my way:

So what if he's not, uh, driving you wild in bed? How do you approach it so everybody can get exactly what they're after? It sort of depends on what kind of wrong he is:

New Cop on the Force:
You might be with someone who's inexperienced. His confidence is probably not there yet, and he's probably very, very aware that he's doing it all wrong. And he's probably terrified that you think that and doesn't want to bring it up. The key with this guy is encouragement. You want to guide him in the right direction and let him know that you're loving it when he does something well. The last thing you want to do is to make him feel like you think he's a rookie who is no good at this.


Thinks He's Great:
There are lots of dudes who really think they are total black belts in the sack. And let's face it, if this is like everything else in the freaking world, I'm guessing that there are probably a lot more guys who think they're great than actually are great. With this guy, it's still going to be about encouragement—but a different kind. And you might even have to… “lie.” Just a little. As in, you might want to tell him, “Oh, I love it when you do XYZ!” even if he has never even approached doing that before. He might feel a little confused if he can't remember ever having done that before. But he'll still figure out a way to somehow give himself credit for having done it. And now that he knows how “great he was at it,” he'll do it more.


Captain Checklist:
There are guys who think that they are great “technicians” in bed—i.e., they have various “moves” they do that they are sure “work.” And they can't all be right. Don't encourage stuff that isn't working, or you'll get it all night long. With this guy, you want to make him feel like he's on the right track, but he just needs to calibrate his instruments to your specifications. And when he finally gets it right, make sure he knows about it.


Rebel without a Clue:
This is a guy who thinks that just by showing up, you're satisfied. (Why wouldn't you be? He sure is!) If he's going all “Speedy Gonzalez” on you, you might have to really reeducate him. This is a guy who doesn't realize that women are built differently than men. He's going to need to learn that he needs to do extra stuff to get you there—extra, as in beyond what needs to happen to get him there. Make suggestions of stuff you'd like to “try.” And when it happens, let him see you love it. Rave about it. Communicate that whatever it was really worked.


Just Not Hitting It:
He's trying; he's listening; he's paying attention; and he's still just not clueing in. Same advice as the rookie. He's trying, but he needs some signposts along the way. Help him out. You'll get what you want, and he'll learn how to give it to you.

As you might have noticed, these all involve encouragement. Now, I've heard some women say, “Oh, why do I have to be protecting a man's precious ego in bed?” Well, you don't “have to” do anything. But… don't you like him? Don't you want him to feel good about himself and what he's doing? If not, hey, do whatever you want. But I'll tell you this much—if you're not getting what you want in the sack, well, you're definitely not going to get it by making him feel lousy about what he's doing. (That goes for in and out of bed, for that matter.)

So there you are. In bed. Or on the floor. Hey, maybe you did it under your porch, for all I know. Wherever you did it, the point is that it's done. What's going on with him now?

I'm glad you asked me and not him.

FACT: Maybe, maybe not.

For the answer to this one, it's time to go back to fake biology. It might help to think of the male brain as two entirely different characters.

Sex Brain:
This is the guy who is in charge of securing the booty. You can think of him as a Viking named Karl. Or maybe Bjorn.


Everything Else Brain:
This is the guy who picks up the dry cleaning, gets to work on time, watches Big-foot shows on the Discovery Channel, etc.

When a man is trying to get a woman into bed, Sex Brain is very, very focused. That becomes
the
goal. However, the moment that the sex is finished, Sex Brain runs away laughing. Or he falls asleep. The point is, he's gone. Now, the Everything Else Brain can finally take a look around and see what's going on.

And yes, it's true that if the guy in question is not the right guy, it will likely be in this moment that he beats a hasty retreat. It's like in an old werewolf movie where the guy wakes up; his clothes are all torn up; he's covered in dirt and branches and twigs; and he wonders what in the holy hell happened.

But even some of the right guys aren't into snuggling and cooing sweet nothings in your ear. Why? I think it's the whole problem-solving thing that our brains are always working on. Once sex is over, well, that's one thing we can check off the list. Our brains are onto the next thing.

This is why it's not a great idea to ask an unsuspecting man, post sex, what he's thinking about. It's entirely possible that even a very loving man, right after sex, just thought of an awesome way to reorganize the garage.

Now that you've done it, what happens the next time he's with his idiot friends?

FACT: Men talk about
women
all the time, but that isn't the same thing.

What men talk about is who they want to have sex with, who they
did
have sex with, who they were trying to have sex with, who wants to have sex with them, what happened the other night when they were trying to have sex with that girl and their so-called friend totally cockblocked them—but that girl totally wanted to have sex with them.

This, they talk about all the time. But that's not talking about sex. That's talking about getting sex. Men don't talk about the sex itself all that often. Not with me, anyway. (And if they're talking about it with each other when I'm not around, well, I appreciate their discretion in keeping me out of that loop.)

There are several reasons we don't talk about the actual sex that often. The main one for me is, I mean, where's the upside in telling my idiot friends in detail about some sexual experience I had? What—if I tell the story really, really well, I'll be in a room full of guys with boners, all imagining me having sex? It's just not optimal.

There is a slight exception. We will talk about sex if and only if the specifics demonstrate some superior level of conquest that we couldn't convey just by saying that we had sex. If it in some way flatters us that we got her to make that otter noise, we might bring it up. But it's all about me and what I was able to accomplish. We're not comparing notes.

Also, I definitely don't want my friend picturing the sex I'm having with a woman I actually care about. This part definitely goes back to caveman brain. Here's how it works. Back in the time of cave people, if you were turned on by my woman, I had to kill you with a stick.

So let's say that I am in a new-ish relationship with a woman, and I'm sitting around with my idiot friends (and I say that with much love, by the way, knowing full well that I, too, am an idiot friend to
my
friends). If any of them asks how it's going with the girl, my response will depend upon how I feel about her at that moment. The possible answers are

“Ugh. She's out of her freaking mind.” Manslation: We will be going out for a little while, but you don't have to like her. This relationship is mostly about the fact that I'm allowed to have sex with her.


“Um… it's going really well. She's really cool.” Manslation: Okay, I like this girl. So while I'm around, you now have to pretend you don't want to have sex with her, or I'll kill you.

Now, you might have noticed that I said that they would have to “pretend” they don't want to have sex with her. As we've established, every man wants to have sex with virtually every woman. So a man, of course, knows that his idiot friends want to do his girlfriend. He wants to, so why wouldn't they? However, if a guy is truly my friend, not only will he agree not to actually try to have sex with her but to pretend that he doesn't even think about it. This way, we can stay friends, and nobody needs to get smashed over the head with a folding chair.

That's it. That's everything you always wanted to know and many things that no one ever wanted to know. The bad news is that all of this is true. The good news is that the things that make us so incredibly different are exactly why sex is so fun. And armed with this information, there's no reason you can't both be happy.