Q: I have a new boyfriend and already feel I’m working too hard at sex. Can you help?
A: You’ll rest easier if you ditch these four signs of sexual overachieving.
1. Trying too hard to give him an orgasm.
Your thinking: “If I please him totally right away, he’ll be in the right mood to please me back afterward.”
Nope: The “I’ll take my orgasm after yours” is a generous impulse, but sometimes a sated, happy guy just rolls over and takes a little nap….and that orgasm–yours– never quite rolls your way. Better to time it a little differently, using a little more tit-for-tat (as it were). If you’re engaged in a give-and-take dance of loving, pleasing him a little, then backing off and letting him please you a little, you establish a rhythm together, one that allows for spontaneity and excitement-building. This kind of reciprocity is more likely to put the two of you in sync with each other, thereby promising that both of you will go to sleep happy that night.
2. Trying too hard to have an orgasm yourself.
Your sexual desire builds more slowly than a man’s, particularly if you’re tense. If you try to hold on tight and concentrate intently, as if your teensy hold on pleasure is sure to dissipate before orgasm, desire goes out the door, as does connection with your lover (the very connection that builds desire). Better to hug and kiss and touch and stay as involved as possible. Although in the last instant or two of lovemaking you’ll be on your own, you get to that orgasmic moment by keeping all communication channels open.
3. Reading too much about others’ orgasms.
You read every sex survey to find out how many times a week other couples do it. You canvass your friends to find out how many multiple orgasms they have. You’re horrified that they actually have multiple orgasms. You berate yourself for your measly single orgasm.
You find out that two thirds of all men like giving oral sex; three quarters can wait three hours before coming; four-fifths know how to guarantee simultaneous orgasm. You’re suicidal. Everyone’s getting more, better, kinkier, funkier, longer-lived sex than you are. So you start to hate your lover and yourself for your paltry once-every-other-week so-called sex life. Right?
The fact-collector inevitably comes away from her charts, graphs and polls feeling cheated and deprived. Yearning for sexual normalcy by checking what others are up to is one thing, obsessively collecting statistics is doomed to make you feel bad. And there’s a self-fulfilling prophecy involved: Your partner, knowing you’re comparing him to a statistical norm, won’t feel inclined to counter your anxiety with mere good sex. He’ll just sense he’s trying to fill a need that’s just too great to fill.
4. Having sex when you don’t feel like it.
We’ve all heard about the sex-drive differential between men and women, and you may compensate for your different drive by following your partner’s desire pattern instead of yours. Over time, you’ll feel mildly bullied, as if your rhythm is defective and your desire irrelevant; later, you may even lose touch with what both are. A charity-work feel seeps into your sex life. “Gotta do it his way.” Make love when you both feel like it. “Let’s wait till tomorrow when we both have more energy” will less likely to be seen by the more motivated partner as an excuse to avoid sex than as a promise of better sex.