Fuck off you cunt'.
...Nothing personal. This must be among the most common phrases used in English. Like most boys, I grew up with this and similar language day after day at secondary school. I have always been fascinated why sex organs and sex verbs are used as terms of abuse, particularly by men. When I have sex with a woman, am I fucking her? Or making love to her? Does she fuck me? Can she fuck me, or is that something that only men can do to women, or to other men? If sex is fucking, and fucking is what you say to someone you're fucking angry with, then sex must be something you hate, n'est-ce pas? Swearing expresses an obvious link between sex and violence in men. I believe that fear is an integral, but not so obvious, part of men's feelings about sex: that men's need for outward power, and their aggressive display stems, at least in part, from an inner fear of themselves, of sex, and of women and the feminine.
I grew up with the idea that men were harmful to women in many arenas of life: in work, in the home (or rather, not in the home), in family life, in sex, on the streets. 'All men are potential rapists' summed up for me this view of men. I grew up afraid of sex, and of women, I buried my feelings (without knowing that was what I was doing). I was single most of the time, fearful of intimacy. When I did have sex, I often suffered from premature ejaculation: sex was, in large part, a battle to not cum too soon. I knew that women took longer to reach orgasm, so I felt I had to hang on in there. This paranoia usually had the reverse effect. I never talked about sex with my partner. I didn't talk about much that was really intimate with my partners. I was not 'awake' to that kind of thing inside myself until a minor breakdown and starting in therapy three and a half years ago.
| Then I met a woman who wore suspenders, and said once 'Fuck me, fuck me hard' |
Then I met a woman who told me that sometimes it was nice to have a 'quick one'. Then I met a woman who wore suspenders, and said once 'Fuck me, fuck me hard.' as I started to timidly thrust into her from behind, fearful of coming too soon, and fearful of actually hurting her (although I don't think I was aware of the latter at the time). Fuck me hard. I couldn't believe my ears. Women don't like that sort of thing. Women like gentle men. Women don't like being fucked.
In recent years, and especially with my last girlfriend, I have discovered the joy of fucking, and of soft smooth sliding, the joy of being fucked, the joy of a total mutual fuck experience, and of playing without needing to cum. Perhaps above all, the joy of making love after an argument and making up. Or in the heat of a feeling of love for my partner, when love seemed to fill my whole body, definitely including my beloved Schlong Mark II, and I could feel it in her too, and the physical act was not separate from the loving feeling. See how I say 'fucking', and then I say 'making love'. Seems like they're two different things. And maybe they are, different points on a continuous spectrum of different sorts of sexual experience.
The joy of fucking. That seems a contradiction in terms, though, because I don't think I can ever get it out of my head that fucking is a bad thing.
With my last girlfriend, I was conscious that I had a very real fear that I would hurt her physically if I thrust hard. The sounds she made were very similar to the sounds of someone in pain. But she assured me she was not in pain, she loved it. And when I did it that way, thrusting hard, I found I could do it different ways, moving my whole body, or just my pelvis and hips. The latter really feels sexy. Sometimes I really relaxed, and took it easy, let it come as it comes. Sometimes I tensed muscles all over my body, and really worked up a sweat, and the release when I came was terrific.
I discovered that sometimes I actually like to fuck aggressively. There is a part of me which feels feelings which I imagine are not all that different from what a rapist feels. I would grit my teeth, and fuck in the meaning of the word I don't like. I think that means I had some sort of negative image of my partner, I had projected something onto her, and acted it out while fucking her. I don't like to admit that I did that sometimes. But let's be clear: if she had told me to stop I would have stopped. That makes it different from rape. But I think the feelings may not be so different.
I have discovered how much I like having my bum fondled. It's a terrific feeling. I used to be embarrassed by pimples, and itchy bollocks. Have you ever had a woman really explore your body? I realised at some point that I was a victim of sex stereotyping. In my experience, the most common thing is for both women and men to have an image that the man is more active in sex, the woman more passive. This extends to who asks who out, who chats who up, who undresses who, the whole caboodle. I have definitely experienced the opposite. But for me it has been the exception. So I became aware that, as a man, I wasn't being 'done too' as much as 'doing'. I wanted to be groped all over: I find that women tend to concentrate on my penis when they get in the driving seat, and forget I have legs, a tummy, buttocks, a back, to mention but a few.
So sex has been a voyage of discovery for me, and of recognising and grappling with fears of one sort or another. But my fears about sex don't only arise with sexual partners. About two years ago I started going to a woman for massage. She is a healer. I had a dramatic emotional experience the first time I went to her, with a great outburst of pain and grief As the sessions went on, one particular thing kept coming up: my dick. When she massaged my back, my feet, my arms, the bottom of my legs, everything was hunky-dory. I enjoyed the sensation, relaxing, letting go, the sensuous luxury of it all. But when she came to massage my chest, or my head, especially my ears, and most of all my stomach, I got a hard-on, and with it a massive, fearful, panic.
The first time this happened, she picked up what was happening with me, and said that I didn't need to be afraid, it was just energy, like any other energy you feel in your body. I thought, 'Fine, it's OK, just relax...'. But did I? Did I hell. There was something very frightening for me about getting a hard-on in this situation. I was supposed to be coming for healing, for relaxation, for a spiritual experience, and here I was, behaving (as I saw it) as a horny devil. I can't tell you how uncontrollable my fear was, how strong my conviction that getting aroused was unacceptable. What's more, the combination of my hard-on and my fear prevented me from getting a massage where I needed it most: on my lower stomach, where my anxiety gnaws away at my gut.
The association in my mind was 'hard-on = dirty/porn/women-are-sex-objects'. If I got a hard-on, didn't that mean that I was using the massage as a sexual outlet? Did that not mean that effectively I was treating this very nice woman as a prostitute? I can really relate to men who pay women for 'relief'. In case you didn't know, 'relief' is a euphemism for being wanked off. It was a huge 'relief' to me to be told by a woman that it was OK to have a hard-on while receiving a massage from her. The fear didn't go away though; its still there. I think that, at least on one level, men who pay for 'relief' are paying a woman to tell them that their fears about their sexual feelings, and the sexual feelings themselves, are OK.
| I have discovered how much I like having my bum fondled |
Getting a hard-on bugs me in other situations. The strongest is in relationships, when a really intimate moment is happening, and suddenly, wey, hey and up she rises. Again, I have this strong feeling that it is wrong: I shouldn't be feeling horny, I should be feeling loving, emotional. I shouldn't be relating to my partner sexually, I should be relating to her emotionally. If we are hugging, and my prick starts rising, I think 'Shit, she'll think that all this does is turn me on, that I'm not into it for the emotional, loving connection between us.' I hate this shit. But the fact is, I've come to realise that I cannot divorce love and sex. When I feel really loving towards my partner, I really want to make love with her, to fuck her deeply, passionately, to express as much as I can in fucking how I feel about her. But does the word 'fuck' sound right to you in that context? It still jars with me...
In conclusion, I think the best way for men to help themselves and women is to explore their feelings without judgement. That means creating a space where any and all feelings are acceptable, and can be shared, acknowledged and gone into. In such a space, transformation becomes a real personal choice, not an act of guilt, fear or anger. This is where men's groups and workshops are so wonderfully helpful. I believe that inner exploration is the key to transforming ourselves and our relationships with others. I also think we men need to talk to each other more about sex, and how we feel about it, and to be able to talk with boys about it so that they don't grow up with the same wall of silence that a lot of men associate with sex. Fear, anger, any extreme emotion becomes easier to handle if you can share it with someone especially if they have had similar experiences.
Fear and anger come from inside, from an internalised judge and jury. We need to understand them, why they're there, why we think they have a case against us, and to see if we can allow all aspects of our inner selves. Then, I think, sex can be really enjoyed as wild and animal, intimate and loving... whatever you want it to be.
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
If you've enjoyed reading this article on-line please consider subscribing to the magazine.
