Shere Hite - Oedipus Revisited: Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male Today

Dear Reader,

Do you like me receive countless junk emails asking you to buy one product or another to enlarge your penis and make her happy?

We can laugh and make a joke and forget it (usually), but here I want to consider how this relates to our current dilemmas, both in international politics and in couples or may relate. And indicate how we can go forward.

The appearance of Viagra and similar drugs plus the fear of HIV in recent years has increased rather than decreased the focus on erection and having a big one.

Are these just signs of the times, or does erection symbolize the whole system? If it does, the crossroads for us represented by all this is deciding whether democracy/our system can really go on being symbolized by a big one, or whether the era in which making her happy with a big one is about to end. Certainly we see a reaction against the big one philosophy: Is the current global war being won by those who act hard, or by softies who negotiate? In the case of Ireland and the UK government, this is one of the burning questions of our times.

Should a real man or government stand firm (equivalent to having a big one), or should a real man search for understanding in international negotiations as well as private negotiations inside ones family or with a loved one?

Today, personally, many men are in a sexual quandry, finding they cant win no matter what they do: first, they find that putting on a condom can be a problem (while putting on a condom, one can lose ones erection or sexual desire); secondly, they can find that female orgasm does not happen no matter what they do, even with a condom and a big one; thirdly, many men find they are expected now to provide clitoral stimulation to female orgasm by hand (though a real man shouldnt have to!), and so feel extremely confused and blocked -- not to mention feeling a deeper frustration at not being able to think about their own sexual desires and whether this sexual scenario allows them to truly think clearly about their own bodies desires. Meanwhile some men lose their erections, which they liked having and have been told is the key to success in sex. Some men cut short foreplay because they are afraid they may lose erection while waiting. (The solution is not to think of it as waiting, of course.)

The question is must a real man be hard and erect do we believe this? This a rigid, mechanical way to define men, surely. Men are not robots, after all. Saying they must be hard and strong makes them more likely to be non-verbal , emotionally uncommunicative.

In terms of sex, men could reach higher peaks of feeling and arousal if they did not feel anxious about how they should behave sexually, according to my research with over 7,000 men. During sex as we know it, most men do not allow themselves to explore the full range of feelings they have, especially not with a female partner, since the prescriptions for how a real man should perform during sex are so rigid therefore most try to follow as perfectly as possible the reproductive scenario as depicted, for example in pornography. Our sexual acts (both female and male) have been channeled into too limited a form of expression; sex could be more interesting if it was not always focused on one scenario, i.e., foreplay followed by penetration, the high point being fucking, coitus or the act. Gay men have a different type of sexuality, but often it is also focused on a big one or penetration and a wider range of expression is blocked by the real man ideology, according to my data.

If this be a real man be hard! sexual prescription also represents the political view that some governments take (those who vote for such political leaders may themselves be victims of the same email ideas ), then the question is, can we repair the political system by redesigning our personal view of sexuality? Or must change come from the top down, i.e., must politicians change, must ideology change, then we will stop getting those pesky junk emails advertising get a big one? In my view, change could work from either direction: we can change the personal (our private lives) and this will change the larger picture (including how men treat women they are dating) or politicians could pass laws prohibiting the taunting of boys, letting kids choose which last name to pick (at age 18 or so), and other measures.

Here lets talk more about the personal sexual side of things for men, though this book includes essays on different sides of men today.

Today many men seem to be withdrawing from sex and performance pressures, even from relating to women. Their stated reasons take many forms, including 1) medical (claiming erectile dysfunction, etc.), 2) looking for religious purity (thus avoiding sex), and 3) deferring commitment (I need to be free, I need my space) -- or even 4) preferring non-standard kinky sex and 5) there are other ways. These may be reactions to the cliche pressures (in the emails, for example) that push societys view of men onto men, some men reacting vigorously to resist categorization. If men are informed that they are cheap (via the big one idea seen in pornography, for example), their bodies supposedly mechanically obedient to lurid stimuli (akin to the responses of Pavlovs dogs to a dinner bell), then of course many sensitive men will react by withdrawing.

It would be better to change our outdated stereotypes of sex, give men and women more space to express themselves, than to hang onto traditional ideas of the big one and how to get it. The new male sexuality now developing is part of a larger change many men are quietly searching for, though they have not used these words. (Think of discussions of whether men are spending enough quality time at home, whether men are good fathers )

One of the biggest problems is that a man who has done everything to get a big one and not reach orgasm too soon (premature ejaculation) can still feel he has not performed well because the woman doesnt reach clearly identifiable orgasm but in fact, most women dont reach orgasm via intercourse (thrusting in the vagina), despite hype or lip service to this what she wants idea, as seen on TV sit-coms and comedy programmes. While many women enjoy intercourse and identify with and enjoy the mans orgasm, more women regularly reach orgasm via separate exterior stimulation, but this has not yet been integrated into normal sex by most. What a pity that more people do not trust their own experience, rather than culturally-provided information.

How do men feel about the violence to women shown in much pornography? Is it exciting? Do women see erection as a symbol offering them pleasure, or demanding something? Some feel that the erect penis offers not orgasm/pleasure but demands on them, while others see it as a symbol of violence (since in their experience men have combined sex with violence). Many men feel aroused by violent pornography, as do some women but both are perplexed, asking themselves why does it excite me?, and questioning whether I am psychologically messed up am I? Pornography frequently denigrates women, showing them beaten, black and blue, supposedly liking it (for the money/camera?); at the same time it also denigrates men, cheapening and brutalizing mens sensibilities, blocking their possibility of personal sexual discovery (both of themselves and of others), while re-implanting clichs such as a real man is the one with the biggest, hardest erection, and so on. Its what she wants. The traditional sexual scenario portraying male ejaculation into the vagina (reproductive act) as the high point implies that men come out as the victors in this combat, since they have orgasm and finish, return to normal, while women still have feelings and want more This is a contorted and unrealistic view of what is really going on, and the potential that can go on.