Why are demands about male sexual performance quite so acceptable?

WOMAN: "Omigod his dick was tiny and he couldn't keep it up at all."
RESPONSE: "Oh what a loser, you need a real man!"

MAN: "Oh god, her pussy smelled really bad and she kept dragging her teeth on me."
REPONSE: "Dude, show some respect!"

I guess women feel it's OK to do with it with men who talk the talk or men who have hurt them as a way of cutting them down. Men are sensitive about that stuff so it's an achilles heel.

Yeah, I don't like the way that so much pressure is put on male sexual performance, though. Quite apart from jibes, it's the burden of expectation that is placed nowadays kind of detracts from the pleasure of sex. The knowledge that women discuss these things with each other, rate lovers, in a way that as Nabisco says, men don't. I guess women experience the 'was I any good?' thing too, but my feeling is not as much. It's partly just the mechanics of the situation.

Impotence: the great undiscussed topic on ILE?

Most of my male friends have been too sexually frustrated -- and even worse, tried to hide that fact really badly -- to hear about such "problems" at the time, but with others, I've had respectful but honest discussions with guys too.

Overall, I've heard more "ew, that's nasty" or "yeah, she needs to." from the female friends. So there, nabisco.. this might support your point a little more.. I think.

(Of course, in the past, I've been far too shy and embarrassed to talk about any sexual experience with close friends, etc. but that's a different story...)

I think DB is pretty much right here, though I'm just wondering what it, well, "means" for us to tend to think of sex as a male performance maybe out of proportion to how much it's that way biologically. I think saying "it's the mechanics" is a bit of an exaggeration! To wit: male and female mouths are pretty similar, and yet rhetorically speaking kissing gets cast as a male performance ("he was/wasn't a good kisser") more so than a female one (I think men think that same thing but they both place the responsibility for it on themselves and don't talk about it with others).

Kissing! That's a different thing. I know males and females who are bad at this, and I've probably said so to other people.

Okay, maybe I just hang out with too many girls? I probably do hang out with too many girls.

I'll never tell.

Really, I *hate* guys that can't keep their traps shut about this sort of thing. It makes me think of stupid sex-obsessed West Hollywood/Chelsea circuit queens. It usually ends up making the person complaining looking like an desperate, insecure ass. I always imagine they feel there was something wrong with their own performance, and they figure they ought to spill the beans before the other side gets around to it. It's very unattractive.

I have had friends talk about how they haven't had sex in months and that the spark has gone out of the relationship, blah blah blah. But they never offer details about specific failings.

(This is where much analysis of pornography breaks down, by the way -- it's so easy, but deadly simplistic, to think in terms of penetrator = active = power. There's more than one essay floating around by women who used strap-ons for the first time and found themselves completely terrified [or otherwise surprised] and with an entirely new perspective on what the [traditional] male role in [heterosexual] sex is like.)

Is this in reference to the Penthouse letters bit or the hanging out with girls bit? Because the former was intentional (and maybe part of why I asked this question) but the latter wasn't! (I thought "hangs out with too many girls" had more of a Rupert Everett gay-best-friend vibe than a "fear me" one.)

Really though, if someone isn't getting what they want, they need to speak up or its (partially) their own damn fault.

I was actually thinking on the way home about watching tonight's sitcoms and tallying jokes about male sexual inadequacy versus women's, but then I decided that (a) the even split would be "jokes about men's sexual inadequacy" versus "jokes about women's visual inadequacy" plus (b) I'd rather go see Herbert.

What does that mean? Do you mean a woman can finish without the man gettin a chance to do the same? Why do I get the feeling it's usually the other way around?

Obviously people should be able to criticize performance for either sex if necessary. Geez.

Men do seem more "polite" though. My husband even asked if it was ok to talk about my sexual prowess to his guy friends. Gee, I AM glad he wasn't asking if it was ok to be negative/critical of me to his buddies because then he would REALLY have something to complain about.

And yup, there is something to be said for QUANTITY too.

Yeah for the quantity!

yes.

Isn't this what the whole thread is ABOUT?

See, in part I think framing sex as a male performance is bad for everyone -- because (a) what Nick said, and (b) it means young men have to go in and, like, learn to perform properly, and from what I've heard of young women's early sexual experiences these first few outings are fucking disastrous for the poor girls and half the time the guy is so pleased with himself just for getting there that he doesn't even notice.

Question: would sex be better for everyone if it were normal for late-teenaged boys to hook up with older women who gently introduced them to the things they could be doing? Cause the weird thing about the male-performance paradigm is that it can sort of leave women room for low-pressure "training" (yeah, I'm sorry about that term) but leaves men to the sort of trial and error that can scar their partners for life.

This happens in the other gender direction, too! Except less about attention and more about presumption. Like women who think getting with them is the awesomest thing ever, but in reality they're kinda hurting you.

Granted, the descrip of Uptown Girls shrilling into their cell phones about deficient partners sounds like a different kind of...over-entitlement, but I suspect the phenomenon as a whole has several root causes.

When a midwife told us this, I completely freaked out. Worrying even more about the baby in my belly. *sigh*

Er, not to be confused with taking an *active role* since as discussed this is about expecting MEN to perform...just that if you're worried about being taken advantage of in some sense, it's easy to wind up being over-demanding/critical. Because equality/math/life is hard.

i suffer from a bit of performance anxiety. simply cos i havent um performed in almost a year lol. someone give me a tip to combat these nerves.

Practice! Find a nice girl who'll have a bit a bit of patience with and explain the situation to her. Worked for me recently, and I was in a similar position. I know, easier said than done etc. Also if down there isn't behaving quite as it should, make sure you use every other means at your disposal to give her satisfaction - this'll help you get your confidence back.

ta. got a facebook buddy who has intimated that she would be up for it but im a bit worried she has quite high expectations cos of the nature of our phone/msn conversations. i dont think im bad in bed or anything, its just that after so long you become less sure.

Dear Mr x do you read? never mind, I suggest gay awful no good, horrible,very bad house music for all the confidence in the world. trust me it works! best wishes!

the nature of our phone/msn conversations

http://www.df.lth.se/~ola/Starwars/Empire/thumbs/thumb0.jpg

Just go for it, I say. If she's a halfway decent person it won't really matter if you don't live up to her expectations, which you may have blown out of proportion anyway.

"I suggest gay awful no good, horrible,very bad house music"

er.... thanks?

jordan s, im more of a return of the jedi guy myself.

Chap OTM. I think most people would understand that you're not necessarily up for you're best performance when you're doing it for the first time with a new person. With most couples it takes a while to get used to each other's needs and likes. It'd be different if she was just looking for a good one-night lay, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

ok, thing is, im just a bit worried if i tell her ive not been in action for a while, she might not be as enthusiastic. i have met her once, and part of the thing there was i was a bit nervous about the idea of us going back to mine for the reasons ive mentioned above. im not sure if she wants a relationship or just a shagging buddy, and TBH ive only slept with the girls ive been in relationships with, by and large, or at least dated a bit (not a huge number as ive been in relationships most of the time), so this isnt home turf for me.

I thought "mr x" was max and was like "oh no max"

I still say go for it. A 'good one night lay' is a relatively rare thing, I think, the (very few) one-night stands I've had have been crap, and there hasn't ever been any noticeable hard feelings. Also, you may well surprise yourself. Also, it bears repeating, there's more than one method of pleasing a woman.

i kinda feel like i need to tell her about taking an er, respite from the shagging frontlines, anyway, so prob will. hopefully things will proceed as they have been after that.

wait this isn't the same as the hpv genital warts girl, is it???

who?!

oh nm i guess that was another troll

Performances are for actors or trained animals. If you can't be open, honest and 'vulnerable' with your sexual partner, you've jumped the tracks already.

P.S. This opinion will almost certainly earn me flack. Lalalalalala! I'm not listening!

I seem to remember an interesting dialogue about this from 'Chasing Amy'.
-- Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, February 14, 2003 12:31 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

I don't mean this in one of those "such a double standard" sort of ways, because even as a double standard it's not one I'd have a terrible problem with. But Lara on the hat thread jokes about getting angry with anyone she dated who underperformed, a sort of sentiment that's actually really common. Conversely I doubt many men could get away with saying "I certainly wouldn't put up with any woman who couldn't" ... well, I dunno, you fill in, because apart from visible physical characteristics it's considered unfunny and impolite and just bad to criticize women's sexual performance. In my experience guys don't even do this in one another's company! I've heard maybe the barest hint of it, and that very rarely.
I'm not sure what my question is but I find this interesting.

-- nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, February 13, 2003 7:29 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

BRAGGIN [nabisco]!

Yeah wow I can't believe I started this thread, even by back-in-the-day standards.

I can't remember why, either (did I get with someone who was really bad, and then realized I felt guilty thinking so?), but for the purposes of all ILX, past present and future, let's pretend I am a eunuch, or the brain of a eunuch which has been preserved in a jar and connected to the internet, like the thing from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

That's sort of how I've always thought of you, actually. And his name KRANG.

I dont want girls to think I suck dick at fuckin' pussy

NO SEX IN DIMENSION X

Ian ZierZING

its just something we say when we're mad

a dude i dated not too long ago said that all girls are the same in bed. i wonder if thats true?

no

he needs to sleep with more women

doppelbangers

I thought "mr x" was max and was like "oh no max"

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Monday, April 7, 2008 7:02 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Link

nooooooo

krang otm

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/mhemsteg/tmntnet2.mov

krang otm

Isn't the female equivalent to be called "frigid"? I don't think it's got quite the currency it used to have, but ... yeah.

I think "frigid" means "don't much care for sex" rather than "wants sex, but nervous about it".

Mandee, that guy you dated was crazy. In my opinion, everyone is different in bed. That's exactly why it's unlikely to have a perfect "performance" the first time you have sex with someone. It takes a while to learn what short of invidual your partner is in bed.

doing this new thing where i howl right before cave diving

thread revive of the century

Hope your cert. agency was NSS-CDS or GUE.

finished std-hiv negative magnum cum louder

omg! was this the thread where nabisco was not otm? my reality is shattered

holy shit yessssssssssss

^ that's what she said

uhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

why are demands about nabisco's otmness quite so acceptable

trust nabisco to turn this into a v.sly boast
― mark s (mark s)

i was wondering what we called them before harris wittels popularized "humblebrag"!