Men & Sex | Fear in Our Sexual Relationships with Women

0:00 Hello and welcome to real men. Feel, this is your host author coach and healer and e-grant. Please visit the Andy Grant.com to learn more about mwah, real men. Feel exist to have conversations that most men aren't having, but that all men can benefit from we remind men that they are human and have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. My returning guest today is October twice dr. Weiss is a psychotherapist and award-winning author speaker and teacher his decade-long work on understanding. Ending, the internal lives of men culminated with his recently published bestseller. Hidden in plain sight, how many spheres of women shape, their Intimate Relationships, dr. Weiss is a regular contributor to the psychology today. Website and offers workshops nationally about Psychotherapy with men and helping men and women. Understand each other.

0:47 He practices Psychotherapy online from an island in Mid Coast of Maine, where he lives with his wife and dog, welcome to the show again, avram. Thank you. It's good to be back. I have to comment on your introduction. They'll think of the We live in where you have to make a declarative statement that men are human beings and entitled to whatever they feel. It's extraordinary that we have to say that. Well, what do I want to say? It's it. I don't think I have to say. I feel like his invitation to just remind people because men have been taught that they aren't. I know that? So yeah. Say it that way. But that, that, we, that that's not taken for granted. Yeah, right. That needs to be said, is sort of stunning. Yeah.

1:31 Yeah, it's sad. It's a because it is said, but without it. What would I say? I'm not either. I understand why you're saying it. As I heard it. I was like, Wow. And they say no violence allowed here. Like really we need to say that like okay. Yeah. So you were first on a couple of months ago. Yeah. And and you were very eager to return to real men feel and About sex. Yes. So what's the urgency? What's up with men and sex these days? Well I think there's some really interesting stuff going on. So just on a surface level I'm seeing a lot of men with low sexual desire. And that is part of what actually sort of got me on the path of writing about men's fears of women because as I started looking into it, it's not it's it's completely contextual, it's completely relationship dependent. So it's not that men are not feeling sexual, it's that they're feeling inhibited or suppressed in their sexuality with their Partners, their feeling afraid, and so go ahead. So it's not just I have a low desire for sex and it's not just I below desirable for sex with my current partner. Yeah.

2:56 It's because there's a reason behind it. Absolutely. So they're you know they're online looking at other women and they're walking down the street turned on. It's not that something's broken. It's that something is disconnected in the couple and Esther perel who's a well-known sex therapist has started to write about men and sexuality and one of the things she's writing about from a woman's perspective is how women are. Didn't feel that. Men are not expressing Desire with them but rather asking for permission or validation and so I'm getting increasingly interested in how much sex for men is often a form of reassurance and validation and can be almost to varying degrees, but sometimes completely divorced from their own pleasure. That makes me think of like one of the oldest sitcom tropes is you know the men begging for sex and the women that just say no and I have a headache and all these just just battle Joe's going back to like Lucille Ball and stuff. Yep.

4:02 Yep. So it's one of the things leading, it's not, it's not about desires, not about passionate about pleasure, it's a chore that scene is one of the things that that we could, you know, the paths into this is to ask ourselves the question. Why are men so preoccupied with women's orgasms? So women report to us, That men are almost desperately preoccupied with knowing whether or not their partner climax. Now, it could be that, we're just really nice and considerate, but I don't think that explains the whole thing because the women report that it has a sense of urgency so much, so that they report that it's sometimes, intrusive and that they will fake an orgasm to shut us up. In other words, essentially, you know, that's like, alright, alright.

4:49 Alright already. Yes, it was. He's fine. Yeah, that's what it's always struck me. Has it's a sense of competition that did I win sex? Get everybody did everybody come oh good I win. Yeah I think competition and validation that if that if my I think we teach men that their job as a man is to please their partner and so sex becomes sort of like the final exam you know, sex becomes the check up. Whether about your masculinity I remember reading a book. So I'm been married 25 years and I came here for this was a book as a gift, but early. So, 20 or 25 years ago, I read something and it talked about sexual desire and in relationships, and it was always that the person with the lowest sexual desire would drive the sexual relationship.

5:41 Although it may seem the other way around, I think you're right. Yeah. And most people are again, based on popular culture, it would seem. It's always kind of assuming the woman has the lowest sex drive but you're hearing that that's that's just simply not the case. I don't think that stick that may be that may be true of 20 year old women and 30 year old women but as definitely not true of middle-aged and older women because and I think it only looks true of you. Younger women because they're still afraid they're still. There still have all these messages about if their sexual, it means they're a slut and, you know, loose and all that then around middle-aged women, often get over that and sort of reclaim their sexuality, which they've been not really embracing their whole lives, and they can be really powerful sexually. While men, unfortunately are often sort of shrinking, that is the poor choice of words sexually Although actually was a good choice of words.

6:44 And what, what's problem? Whether a lot of things are problematic. But the obvious thing that's problematic is that I don't think men are experiencing a whole lot of pleasure in sex. I think they're experiencing a lot of anxiety and insecurity and the urgency. What women mistake for libido? I think is more insecurity and the need for reassurance, but the the Other less obvious part of it. Is that if you go to the grocery store and you pull one of the women's romantic novels off the shelf that genre is known in the book world as bodice Rippers and it is full of stories of women. Women's erotica is full of stories of women being taken by men and the men of those stories are decisive. They're not, they're not raping the women, but they're a Furtive and decisive and in charge.

7:45 And so here you have men afraid to put their own pleasure out there and women wanting more than anything for men to put their pleasure and their needs out there. And so they often don't meet And I can see that this clash and what there's some with me to movement, and, and no means knowing that, like I said, guys, oh, I'm not, I'm not allowed to be forceful. I, if decisive, I'll be accused of something, or if you know, are you seeing that? Is that, I think that's absolutely true. But I want to be clear that what I'm talking about precedes, all that, so that just made it worse and we think now that that's the cause but men have been afraid of women. For as long as there, have been men and women.

8:28 I did an interview on a North Orthodox podcast, and the guy made a really interesting point. He started to get it about men's fears and he said, you know, he said it's making me think about the garden that the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. He said, you know, we focus a lot on white Eve, ate the apple. But then what, if you think about, why did Adam eat the apple? When Eve told them to Adam, knew that they'd be thrown out of the garden? And he said, maybe Adam was more afraid of Eve than he was of God. I said that the last time you were here it was you. Yeah.

9:10 Oh man, I'm sorry to repeat it. I didn't either, I'm the Orthodox podcast know, I wish you'd cut me off. I would hear I have repeated that story many times. I really it really hit home with me because you know, of course if you're if you're very religious, you think God wrote the Bible but I think people wrote the Bible. So it's interesting. As you look through history of these stories of men brought down by their inability. Ability to reduce to resist the seduction of a woman. So Samson, Ulysses, Adam, Hercules, you know, all of these, you know, Ulysses to this the VM Sirens its story after Story and all these cultures have images of in Spanish that call it vagina dentata. Which means vagina with teeth and many, many cultures, have an icon of a vagina with teeth.

10:08 Now what's the message in that? Well, sex with a woman intimacy with a woman risks emasculation in a very literal way. so, it's amazing that If it, if it goes back that far. Yeah. Is it just how it is? Like, what can we do about it? If it's that ingrained? I think it's that's how it is as long as we're all brought up in a patriarchal culture because men are most people, it is beginning to change somewhat, but I don't know how much it really changes yet, most people as babies are there first.

10:52 And really, only intimate relationship is with a woman inside of their mother or a caregiver. It's most likely to be a woman. And so, all our eggs are in one basket, and so, we become highly attuned. So, as an infant survival, depends in human, infants, have no ability. We can't even feed ourselves. So we're highly attuned to our caregivers because our lives depend on them liking us enough to take care of us and so we begin life highly sensitized to any indication that we have misstep with them and we carry it right through. And you look at the literature on when couples argue, they hook them up to physiological measures and interestingly men get more distressed. During relationship conflict and it takes them longer to come back to Baseline.

11:50 Is it all in the physiology and not expressed like do men, cover up that fist distress or is it obvious? Yeah, the physiology the reason they measure measure of physiologically is the body, don't lie, so ya know that it's absolutely and, you know, and so if you say to women do you know that your partner is really even more upset than you are. When you argue, they would be like, no way. He could care less, he doesn't need me at all, it's completely hidden from women, they have no idea. Yeah. So, how does one help a man get get over this, this sense of competition. The sense of inadequacy that the sense of trying to prove something via sex. Well, I think this is where things like your show come in, because I think it really is men learning how to talk with other men, because I think it is intimidating for men to start out talking to women and it is much easier for men to start out talking about themselves with Two other men. And so there are a variety of ways that can happen that can happen through a show like this.

12:57 That can happen in a book group, that can happen in a lot of different ways. And one of the things I did in the book, which I'm really happy with. Is, there's a chapter for men about how to find other men who might like, to talk with them about this stuff and how to get together and form a group of guys, who, what? Because every man says to me, I'm interested in having closer relationship with other guys, but none of them are, I'm like, well, let me That's not mathematically possible, right? That, that make any sense and so I think it's just that they don't know. They all are afraid to reach out. I just had this conversation with somebody yesterday they said well how do I do that? I said at easy all you have to do is take any situation that you normally respond on this level and just drop it down one level just just be slightly more personal or ask a question that slightly more personal and you were very quickly find out Whether that person and I think you'll be positively surprised, I think you will find that most men are dying to talk to other men and I think that's the success of your show.

14:02 I think that's why. Yeah, and any group of men I've ever been in it. Just takes that first man to be vulnerable authentic, share problem, ask a question and then and then the competitive sense almost kicks in and why I want to share more and no, no here. I here's my worst case here. No, no, I'm in much better shape. Here's my My story. So that's when our, the male competitive idea, can can really help each other and that might be one of the power of men's groups. The therapy groups that I do for men. Are the only groups I have in which people openly talk with each other about loving each other. That does not happen in mixed groups and groups of men which you think never in a million years would that happen. It's routine to get men and women to better understand each other. It sounds like the first step is get to get with men had let I think so just understand each other with men. And then you intuitive but I think it works better that way because I keep seeing it again and again, and again I see guys in men's groups learning how to talk about themselves with the help of other men and then they're bringing it back to their relationships and I hear the feedback from the wives, you know, just the other night some you know guy reports his wife said God, you're so much more open since you've been in group so the wife loved it, you know, they're thrilled. It's what it's what, you know, it's the door. They've been knocking on for as long as they've been together our men consciously afraid of something related to two sex itself, or is it is it more hidden to them? I think they're afraid of

15:33 appearing inadequate. Both both the obvious, you know, not being, it's if fascinated by the language. When a man has sexual difficulties. What words do we use to describe it? We say. Can't perform. What is it? The sir. Otis, you know, but the language tells us everything and that's how men are taught to think about it. It's not that they couldn't enjoy themselves or it couldn't give their partner pleasure, it's that, they couldn't perform, which I think tells you everything you need to know of how I think, you know, certainly when I was growing up in teens and 20s, sex is performance and it is the circus. Yes. How many times did you put on a show today? You know who did Conquer, you know how quickly did they come? It's not about oh, did you fall in love this weekend? It's not how intimate were you.

16:25 It's it's all performance about the loneliness in that position, you know. It's just an incredibly alone experience to be thinking about sex as performance and, and the irony and the sad part is, you know, there's what you want lying right next to you. It's not your even have to go find it. It's right there. And, and probably Only someone who's interested in connecting with you, and so, to be alone, you know, it's like starving at a, at a smorgasbord, you know, it's like this food everywhere and you're starving yourself. Oh, I got to get up and do something about it to eat like, oh well, you don't, it's actually. You could you could say if the do saying about or you could say you just have to stop stopping it, you know. It's like you just have to stop trying so hard to prevent it from happening.

17:17 Might be enough to just allow it to happen. So one thing I've, I just almost as long as I've talked to other guys, no matter what age I have been at a common complaint or an issue and dealing with women or complaints around sex is that is monogamy, you know, I can't be faithful. And so it is Monogamy and artificial creation of our society, or is there some, some, some truth to it? Like it, are we forcing something? What do you think about? That's, that's a really interesting question. It does not. It does appear. That most species are monogamous. I think that polyamory is incredibly interesting. And I admire the courage of people who want to kind of push the boundaries and try that, I have to say in my limited experience that the layers of complexity are so overwhelming. That I'm not sure how they, how it adds up as being worthwhile, because there are so many complexities of feelings, and so much negotiation around that.

18:28 And so I think mostly When men object-- to monogamy, it's not that there are so much concretely saying. I want to be able to have sex with more than one person. I think what they're saying is, I don't like the pressure. I feel to be open and vulnerable with one person and I'd like to be able to just go have a casual relationship with someone else. So they don't have this feeling of all my eggs being in one basket. I think that's really what they're talking about. So then again it's really fear-driven. Yes, I think so. Yeah. If I'm having sex with a lot of people nobody can touch me because if you weren't my feelings, I just go on to the next one.

19:09 Yeah. You know, I think that marriage, there are a lot of problems with marriage, but I think the function it serves in the way I talk to people about marriage. Marriage is like, is like locking the door and some people's reaction to locking the doors, you know, like you, I don't like being in a room with the door locked on the other hand, you know, if we want to try to solve, World Peace. The way we would do that as we get everybody in a room and we'd lock the door. You know, we would we would create a situation in which you're not leaving until we figure this out. And so there's a depth that comes, you know, when I do therapy groups I don't say come on. You want. Don't come if you don't want I say no you have to be there every time because if somebody start something with you they want to know you're going to be there next week.

19:56 So yeah, that's commitment and that restricts your options, but then you get a depth of connection that I don't think you get without locking the door. You know, I was often afraid to make commitments to anything out of fear of being wrong about it and being home. I made a mistake and now it's forever. I think it's men and women. Human beings are driven by fear more than we realize, perhaps, well, what kind of hardwired for it? You know, we have the same nervous system that we had when we were on all fours in the, in the And so, mostly we're wired to scan for danger. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of danger anymore and so our nervous system, you know, takes a long time to catch up with the new reality. Yeah.

20:39 So we'll make some artificial danger and and over emphasize things that aren't that big of a danger actually. Yeah, well, whatever you're looking for, you're going to find, you know. And so, if you walk around looking for danger, you will find it. Do women and men, see sexual issues or challenges that the same way or no? No, no. I think it's the like much in much of heterosexual relationships were actually often working at Cross purposes. I think women are mostly thinking about sex, not as an orgasm, but as a way to connect, there's an old saying and I'm probably going to butcher it. But women women want to feel close. Before having sex and men want to have sex to feel close. And you can see how that might not always line up. So, one of the things I say to guys is, you know, how to work a lot better.

21:33 If you think about foreplay as starting the minute, you open your eyes in the morning. Everything you do from the minute. You wake up to the minute, you want to have sex Has everything to do with, how it's going to go. Yeah, because I mean, I often hear from women that they just want a hand on the shoulder or a hug the waist as you walk by and it's all those such minor things. But if most men are walking around just updating, all right, but just focus on everything except their partner or or think I only touch, I only touch her when it's time to do it. That that really takes intimacy out of the rest of the day. Well, look at the way men taught, you know, if your watch a sporting event or whatever, look at the way men. It's very aggressive and bravado, and Slam on the back and, you know, jump up and and look at the way, women touch each other, which is like gentle caressing and you know, they're they're they're feeling the connection, they're touching to connect.

22:34 One things that has struck me as I as I've traveled the world how often I'll see young males, like, 20 year old men holding hands walking around and it's not, it's just a comforting thing and is much more open hugging and embracing in so many cultures. Once you leave the United States is so a great documentary. Once about u.s. vets going back to Vietnam, Vets going back to Vietnam. And this guy a vet went back and met a guy who they had faced each other in combat and he tracked him down easy. And they had this amazing encounter with each other. And at the end of it, the American tried to hug the Vietnamese guy which in their culture is like out of bounds and way off, but then as they're walking away, the Vietnamese guy takes his hand and they're walking down the road it just different Different cultures, is it possible?

23:23 For if a man realized I have low sexual desire, he's been the partner. He wants to stay with that partner, is it get a men's group? Get a counselor, you know, start that inner dialogue? Would someone else first said that? Basically, and then moved to the point where you might actually begin to take the risk with your partner of talking with her about how anxious you are about sex, and how, how much baggage comes for you with it. It and how worried you are about her, not approving of you and and you may talk enough about it where you start to talk more during sex, you may say, how's it going? Are you liking this, is there anything you'd like me to do? You know, you might not just sit by yourself with your anxiety to begin to learn how to talk with your partner. Okay.

24:11 So now you know saying talk about a thing you're saying talk about what you're doing? No no what's for dinner honey? You know if you were playing doubles tennis With your partner. You would talk about the game. You would say, oh maybe you want to move a little closer than that or let me take the backhand. I don't play tennis. So I don't know what the but you would. I think if you wanted to get better you were talking about. So I was I was going to ask what you wish more men knew about sex but prefer is that it be willing to talk about it. Yeah. What I wish been more men knew about sex. One of the really surprising pieces of research is you know men have a bad rap for being completely self-centered love Hers that they're all about their own pleasure and they don't care about the woman at all.

24:54 But actually, when surveyed men say that the most important thing about sex is pleasing the apartment. So I think those are two ends of the Continuum and neither one is very satisfying sex works. Best when both Partners have a commitment to their Partners, pleasure and their own pleasure, and it doesn't go. Well, if either person is only interested in either, On Pleasure or their Partners pleasure, it is not fun to make love with somebody who's only interested in themselves. And it's not fun to make love with someone who's only interested in you. But if both people and so what I would say to men is it's just as important to be committed to your own pleasure as it is your partner's, it's okay, you're not being a jerk or a pig or a dick, it's a good thing and your partner will like it if you are also paying attention to your own pleasure.

25:51 Because if the risk otherwise is to people faking it and if we're just pretending to just to get this, this act over with get it out of the way. Yeah, yeah. Like the answer don't goes. It goes back to being again. It's a chore. Yep. Like it seems everybody wishes for the intimacy. But so, few take that first risk to be intimate. So things stay shut down, you know, and the other thing that goes with that is people put Shockingly little amount of energy into their sexual relationships, you know, like they like a lot of times people say to me, well, I'm just tired. Like, well, when do you make love? I'll usually like 11:30. I'm like, I can't even pronounce my name at 11:30 at night. Like you're taking one of the things that you say is most important to you and you're waiting till you've done everything else in the day.

26:44 And now this is last, it might not go. Well, what's the solution to that for? For some of the family for when these children, because usually it's at night because you got to take care of the kids get her into bed and then it's not quiet and then Mom, Dad or exhausted. So the best solution to that I've heard, is the family who this was reported to me by an adult, but it's an experience from his childhood that his parents every Sunday afternoon, probably after church would say to the kids. Okay, mommy and I are going to take a nap now. And unless the house is burning down, do not knock on the door, whatever you need. And so the kids after a certain age, realized that every Sunday afternoon, their parents had sex and it was, it was very comforting to them.

27:29 And it was very reassuring to know that their parents had a regular and enjoyable sexual relationship and that the kids could fend for themselves and you didn't have to wait till they went to sleep. They could watch cartoons for a while. So that way, you're you're making your Ship and your children's upbringing more resilient as well. Exactly. Exactly. And you're saying to kids. This is not an odd thing that's hidden in the darkness behind closed all. Oh God, there's some of the door, you know, I bet I knew someone once who was from Mongolia and in my in Mongolia, there are still people who live in Yurts, you know the big round. Well, there's no walls. Yeah.

28:12 Oh so it's not one couple per your tits. No entire family groups are extended family, groups multi-generational gotcha, there's no one else, the blankets but you know so sex is something that's part of everyone's lives. Its people have desires. It's hardwired into us yet. It's still something we're lucky to talk about reluctant to have anyone know that you're doing it reluctant to heaven when see it. And it would there's so many Veils of secrecy and things on it in Judaism. It is considered a special good deed to have sex on the Sabbath, got a like that but again, it's the Sabbath is a day of rest.

28:58 You put the concerns of work and all the side and then it's considered, you know, like a part of observing the Sabbath to make love. Is there anything else related to men's fears of sex or men spheres? Keeping them from sex that that we haven't hit on know? I think the thing we've talked about that I would highlight for people as a takeaway is the person next to you in the bed is your friend, not your evaluator, not your criticized ER but your Ally and that you both want the same thing and just think of her as a partner, think of her as a partner in this.

29:41 And this you don't have to please anybody but her and yourself and you whatever you like to certainly fine without talking about it, your assumption. Ins about what's pleasing to them, is you totally making guesses. Absolutely. And I have to say I'm a therapist and so I think I'm better at guessing than the average bear and I am wrong all the time and so you know, when my wife and I are getting to a conversation now, I try to remember the simple trick of saying to her as the conversation starts. Whether just a minute is this the conversation in which you want me to help you figure something out and solve a problem or this is a conversation.

30:23 Nation. We want me to listen and be supportive. And I'm wrong most of the time. But once I know then I can relax. I'm not, I'm not trying to discern and figure it out. She just tells me and it's so much easier, right? But it takes that vulnerable risk for you to ask. Yeah. Yeah and coaching people often tell them like what you're most afraid of like see that as the go sign. Not the stop sign exam if we willing to take the action of what we feared. Yeah. But It fears quickly dissolve and and all the years of trauma and negativity and performing in the circus can kick and fall away.

31:06 You know, the only thing I'll add to this and it's maybe a bit controversial. But I've been asking women recently, an interesting question I've been asking him, what did you learn from your mother about men? Not just with the word she told you but through her behavior towards your father. What did you learn about men growing up and sadly, the answer. Pretty uniformly, is I learned not to trust. Men, not to count on them, not to respect them and certainly not to expect to feel close to them. So, you know, we hear men all the time talking about feeling criticized. And and we kind of pathologize that but when I'm learning more and more, they're not wrong, they are picking up on something unconscious that is going on in the relationship. And so women have just as Pig and responsibilities as men men to do, as you say, to lean in, to the fear. But women also to look at the ways in which they lead with criticism and disdain and accelerate that fear on and then complain that there, Partner is withdrawing. Yeah.

32:16 We're so both parties are kind of continuing what they were learned, but if they're continuing the worst aspects of what they were learning about relationships. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We've all got to be willing to again to challenge. What doesn't feel good thanks to. Yeah. So ever, what's the best way for people to learn more about you and stay in touch and find out about all the things you're up to? If you go to my website which is AA from Weiss PhD.com. You will find a mailing list there and you, if you sign up for the mailing list, you will get a free ebook. I don't have T-shirts to give out. I should get t-shirts. I wish I had t-shirts. That's pretty cool. But you'll get on the mailing list and I'll send you a free ebook about relationships. And then, I usually write something every couple of weeks or so, for psychology today and you will get copies of that. And the other thing is, I, it's a point of Pride for me that I have responded to every email I've ever gotten. In my life and it may take me a little while but I really can't stand people who, you know, think they get too big for their britches and don't want to reply to their email. So I maybe maybe I'll get to the point where I'll do that but at least for now I'm committed to.

33:27 So if people, if you have questions or thoughts or things, you want some input on, I will respond and it just share that my original like, note holding the place for this call today, it just said sex with avram So, maybe that's what your T-shirt should be that, what's next? Okay, well, I have to check with our wives first again, always a pleasure talking to you come back anytime and I apologize for Miss attributing, that quote, but I hope what you heard in it was how much I liked it. Yeah, it's not every telling my story but now I remember who came up with that really brilliant idea and I will give it the proper attribution. All right.

34:09 Excellent. So thanks everyone for joining us. And thanks everybody for tuning in and listening wherever you're discovering real Midfield. Please Subscribe follow like share their someone post a review, a comment crank this up and have sex you know whatever works for you always reach out to me at ribemont feel at gmail.com. Love to hear from you and I respond like Ivan's does to if you want to explore making next year, your best year. I invite you to book a free Clarity call with me. That's an actual live discussion. Not a podcast, Don't Be Afraid. Visit D&D Grant.com, talk for that. And until next time, I'm be good to yourself. And if you have a partner be good to them, too. Yeah. And that can start by asking because it comes back around. Yeah.

34:51 Don't treat your don't treat each other like a circus. Thanks everyone. Bye. I'm be good to yourself. And if you have a partner be good to them, too. Yeah. And that can start by asking because it comes back around. Yeah. Don't treat your don't treat each other like a circus. Thanks everyone. Bye.