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Sex can be many things — passionate, fun, spontaneous, intimate, sometimes even funny — but it can also bring up some of our biggest fears and insecurities.
We all want to feel like we know what we’re doing, but men can face particular pressure in the bedroom. Traditionally, men have been socialized to see themselves as sexual experts: expected to initiate sex, pursue opportunities when they arise, always be ready and somehow know exactly how to please their partner.
But what happens when they don’t know? Often, men won’t tell their partners about their insecurities or questions — but they will tell their therapist.
“What I’ve noticed is that most of the things they’re embarrassed to ask about are actually very normal,” said Camille Espinoza, a certified sex therapist and licensed clinical social worker. “Men are rarely allowed to express uncertainty regarding their sexual experiences. They’re expected to automatically understand how to perform sexually, as if being unsure was some type of flaw in their masculinity.”
According to therapist Jericho Feng, it’s not uncommon for men in therapy sessions to ask beforehand if they are “allowed” to talk about sex.
“I always say yes, and what comes next might surprise people,” Feng said. “Men are often curious, confused or intimidated by their partner’s body and venturing into the sexual unknown. It makes sense — society teaches various, and sometimes opposing, scripts about what and how people ‘should’ approach sex.”
Within the therapist’s office, Feng said, “most men express that they want to ‘have good sex’ and they want their loved one to feel good and strengthen their connection.” Here are some of the questions therapists say men are often too embarrassed to ask.
“How do I know if she actually likes what I’m doing?”
Kiki Maree, a sexologist, said this is a surprisingly understandable — and common — question.
“A lot of female arousal and orgasm is simply less obvious from the outside,” she said. “With men, particularly in heterosexual sex, there can be some very visible cues — an erection is visible, ejaculation is usually obvious, and there is often a fairly clear physical event that tells a partner that something has happened.”
“With women, it can be much harder to know exactly what is happening internally.” That uncertainty can be compounded by the fact that some women do fake orgasms. “I can understand why some men become unsure about whether the signals they are reading are ‘real,’” Maree said.
But she cautions against becoming so focused on reading physical signals that partners stop communicating. “There is no universal way that women respond to pleasure,” she said. “Some women are extremely vocal, some go very quiet when they are close to orgasm, some move a lot, some become very still.”
Her advice? Ask. “What feels really good to you right now?” “What do you want more of?” “What should I keep doing?” “What do you want me to know about your body?”
“The goal is not to memorize one perfect technique and repeat it forever,” Maree said. “It is to stay interested.”
“Am I actually good in bed?”
For some men, that question is really asking something much more vulnerable: Am I good enough? Or — is my penis good enough?
Espinoza said one of the questions she hears “almost every day” is, “Is my body normal?”
“Most of the time this relates to penis size,” she said, “however, it could be related to anything else, like how curved your penis is, the way you look, etc., as long as there is an expectation of what you should look like when compared to others.”
Those expectations can be difficult to escape, particularly with pornography in the mix. “This can lead men to worry about things that are well within the normal limits for the average man due to the unrealistic expectations created by pornography,” Espinoza said.
Feng said men can become particularly anxious about penis size because of what they believe it says about their ability to please a partner. But, Feng said, “sex is much more than penetration.”
“Penis size does not determine whether someone can be a good sexual partner,” Feng said. “A man with a smaller penis can be attentive, creative, exploratory and highly responsive to their partner.”
Instead of focusing on what they think they lack, Feng encourages men to think about adaptation. “Toys, different positions, different forms of foreplay or changing how someone seeks pleasurable sensations can help accommodate physical differences while creating new sources of pleasure,” he said.
“If she wants to use a vibrator, does that mean I’m not enough?”
“The fear underneath the question is often the feeling that ‘if this object can create sensations I can’t create, what does she need me for?’” Maree said. But she encourages couples to look at toys differently.
“Partnered sex doesn’t have to be one person proving they can single-handedly produce another person’s orgasm,” she said. “Toys are simply tools for creating sensation. [They] don’t replace intimacy, attraction, eroticism, touch, kissing, communication, humor, connection, fantasy or the person that someone is having sex with.” Instead, Maree said, remember that “the goal isn’t to defeat the vibrator. The goal is pleasure.”
Feng’s advice for his clients: “Toys can expand sexual possibilities rather than compensate for something ‘missing,’” he said. “I also recommend having regular sexual check-ins with their partner, which can help folks introduce new things. Conversations about toys, positions, experimentation and satisfaction don’t need to happen only when something has gone wrong.”
“What if I don’t want sex as often as she does?”
The assumption that men are always interested in sex can create a different kind of embarrassment. “We hear so much about women feeling pressured to want sex that we sometimes forget that men are living under their own sexual script,” Maree said. “That a ‘normal’ man should always want sex, should never turn it down and should be delighted by any opportunity to have it, which can very much make having lower desire than a female partner feel shameful.”
Maree said she’s seen men become “genuinely worried that not wanting sex frequently enough means there is something medically wrong with them, that they’re no longer attracted to their partner or even that they somehow aren’t masculine enough.”
Espinoza said this is another question she hears from men who immediately worry that something is wrong with them. “‘Why has my desire changed?’ is a question that can really scare men,” she said. “But desire changes for all kinds of reasons, including stress, sleep, aging, medications and the fact that desire doesn’t always show up spontaneously.”
Espinoza said most of the men she sees are “shocked” when she tells them it’s normal that they don’t always want sex. “They’ve been socialized to believe that men are almost always interested in sex, so being less interested than his sexual partner, or wanting to be pursued by his sexual partner, can cause him to feel as though he has failed personally,” she said.
Adds Maree: “Men are allowed to not want sex. They’re allowed to need emotional connection first, they’re allowed to want cuddling without it escalating, they’re allowed to say no.”
“What if I want to be submissive, held, praised or penetrated?”
Some questions are embarrassing not because men are unsure whether they will enjoy something, but because they’re worried about what enjoying it might say about them.
Maree said some men worry that wanting a partner to take control, wanting praise or tenderness, wanting anal stimulation or wanting to be penetrated means they are less masculine or says something about their sexual orientation.
“What I like to say in these instances is that a sexual behavior is not a personality test,” she said. “Enjoying anal stimulation doesn’t determine someone’s sexual orientation. Wanting to surrender control during sex doesn’t mean someone lacks control elsewhere. And wanting tenderness certainly isn’t incompatible with masculinity.” The more useful questions, she said, are: “Do I enjoy this, is it consensual, and does my partner want to explore it with me?”
As Maree puts it: “Pleasure is pleasure.”
“Can I ask what she fantasizes about — and what if the fantasy isn’t about me?”
This question can feel particularly shameful because men sometimes interpret a partner’s fantasy as a secret assessment of the relationship.
“For some men, asking a female partner about her fantasies feels risky because they fear hearing about another person, a type of sex they don’t provide, a gender they don’t belong to, or a scenario they can’t fulfill,” Maree explained. “The fear is often that fantasy is secretly a review of the relationship. For example, ‘If she fantasizes about that, something must be missing with me.’”
Instead of immediately asking, “Does this mean you want someone else?” Maree encourages people to become curious about what part of the fantasy is erotic. “That conversation can teach you far more about your partner’s sexuality than focusing on the cast of characters.”
“Will you do that with me? [points to porn video]”
“Porn is usually a big part of men’s sexual education, and I’ve heard a lot about the unrealistic expectations it can create between partners,” Feng said. “One question men may be embarrassed to ask their partner is, “Will you recreate this porn scene with me?”
According to Feng, “The shame on their faces when I point out this internal desire is clear.” But Feng believes there can be value in talking openly about what someone finds a turn-on.
“A lot can be learned from what kind of porn a man watches and what sort of situations turn him on,” he said. “It is important for folks to learn about their partner’s desires outside of conventional sexual scripts.”
Ultimately, Feng said, “Knowing what your partner likes increases sexual confidence. The more someone understands their own desires, and learns what a partner desires, the less they have to rely on assumptions about what sex is ‘supposed’ to look like. Learning what a partner actually wants— and paying attention to their responses— can make someone both a better and more confident lover.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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