8 life lesson I’ve learned at 40-something that I wish I’d known at 20-something

the article was copied from this link.

the pic was taken from here

Some of the things that come with age are great. Awareness is one of them.

My 40s are a lot different than I thought they’d be when I was still in my 20s. On the one hand, I have much deeper understanding of why my dad liked naps so much when I was a kid. I’ve learned not to ever fall asleep in an awkward position if I want to be able to walk the next day. I can’t just eat whatever I want anymore if I don’t want to suffer the horrible consequences either.

However, I’m also a lot more aware and secure in myself than I thought I’d be at this age. I’m calmer. I don’t sweat the small stuff nearly as much. And I’ve learned a thing or three about life that I wish I’d understood a lot earlier on. Here are some of the more important ones. Do yourself a favor and get this stuff straight now so you don’t have to do what I did and learn the hard way.

1.  There’s no such thing as too late or too old

When I was younger, I super concerned about whether or not I was keeping up with other people my age when it came to the big milestones in life. I was never what you’d call an overachiever, so I didn’t care whether I was the first of my friends to get married or land my dream job. I just knew I wasn’t cool with being the last.

That meant I jumped headfirst into things that deserved a lot more thought and consideration. I rushed into marriage in my mid-20s and would up divorced by 29. I pushed myself to take on huge responsibilities I wasn’t ready for way too soon in life and I wound up with bad credit it took me my entire 30s to fix. Now I couldn’t even tell you why I did those things or what the big rush even was.

Don’t waste your 20s rushing to become your parents. You’ll look back one day and regret simply being young when you had the chance to be.

There’s no set age by which you have to find your ultimate bliss in life, own a home, choose a life partner, or anything else major. For some people – myself included – that ideal time is a little later in life. For others, it’s never, because they get older, gain some perspective, and realize they don’t even want those things. So don’t waste your 20s rushing to become your parent. You’ll look back one day and regret simply being young when you had the chance to be.

2.  Who you were as a child is more important than you think

One of the dumbest thongs I’ve ever been led to believe was that children don’t know themselves – that I didn’t know myself. It eventually turned out that I knew myself better as a child than I have at any other point in my life. It’s just that it’s so darned easy to lose sight of yourself once society starts telling you how wrong you are for liking what you like and being whoever it is that you are.

For instance, I knew I wanted to make my life about creating things when I was a kid, as well as a typical 9 to 5 job probably wasn’t for me. My parents, on the other hand, had their heart set on my working in animal care for some reason and eventually managed to convince me that’s what I wanted too.

They did such a good job of it that when I eventually found myself working ridiculous hours as a vet tech at a local animal clinic, I couldn’t understand why I hated it so much. These days, I’m a full-time writer who works out of her home according to a flexible schedule of my choosing – a much better fit.

The thing is it is fine to want to make your family proud, but if their dreams for you differ from your dreams for yourself, you’ll be a lot happier if you listen to yourself. No one knows you as well as you know yourself and you knew yourself without limits or shame when you were a kid.

Hold onto the things you loved and longed for then. They turn out to be pretty important, especially when you inevitably find yourself wondering what to do with your life next. Chances are the answer is connected to something that made you come a live as a child.

3.  It’s better to make memories than collect things

My mother has this huge beef with people who spend money on stuff like concert tickets, vacations, or special dinners at restaurants. She reasoned that once you’ve gone to that concert, it’s over and you have nothing tangible to show for it, meaning the tickets were a huge waste of money. If you had to spend money on fun, you bought things instead objects. Unlike the concert tickets, you’ll have the things you buy potentially forever, especially if you take care of them.

That’s the approach to disposable income and leisure time that I grew up with and lived by for years. And as with that vet tech job I never truly wanted, I couldn’t figure out why all this crap I was buying wasn’t making me as happy as it was supposed to.

Part of it had to do with the hard truth that most “stuff” becomes pretty useless sooner or later. If it doesn’t break or wear out, it becomes obsolete – like the massive cassette collection that was my world when I was in my teens. Same for all the knickknacks I spent my 20s collecting.

“Stuff” becomes pretty useless sooner or later. If it doesn’t break or wear out, it becomes obsolete.

Memories are a different story though. Most of the physical objects I spent so much money on when I was younger hit a landfill years ago. But I still remember the concerts I went to, the vacations I took, and the festivals I attended like they were yesterday. Those memories and the way I felt when was creating them are as shiny and precious to me today as they were back then. So are the ways some of those experiences changed me as a person.

These days, I never thing back on the past and regret not buying some trendy piece of clothing that I probably wouldn’t have worn or yet another statue to sit on my bookshelf collecting dust. I think about that trip to Romania I had the opportunity to take in college, but ultimately passed on. I think about the time I went to Mexico on a cruise and let my stick-in-the-mud ex talk to me out of riding a burro up a dirt trail while I was there.

It makes me sad that I don’t have those memories to look back on, especially since I may never have those same opportunities again. But the good news is I learned to just go ahead and do the things I want to do in life, even if it means doing them alone. The memories and cool stories last a lifetime.

4.  The little things are big things

Speaking of memories, I’ve learned that it’s not always obvious when you’re creating one that’s going to mean a lot to you one day. Everyone knows their wedding day or the day their child is born is a big deal and that they’ll remember that for the rest of their life. Some of my favorite memories are the ones that kind of snuck up on me at the time though.

I’m talking about the time my husband and I drove out to our favorite barbecue spot on Memorial Day one year and spent the whole day there, though it got super cold and started to snow unexpectedly. I mean the day I was walking by the beach with my friends as a teenager in the fog, saw a seal, and thought for a split second that it was a mermaid. There’s the time I signed up for an online film appreciation class on a whim and realized I still love learning as an adult. And the week a random frog lived underneath my bedroom window and made me happy every night with all his little frog noises. Those are some of the moments and occurrences that turned out to mean the most to me over the years.

I couldn’t even tell you why, but there’s something magical about them – something that suggests they are what life is truly all about. They were little things that became big because they had meaning, especially if they were also shared with someone I loved.

5.  Taking care of yourself physically is every bit as important as people tell you it is

Ignore that piece of advice and you’ll eventually wish you hadn’t, I assure you. I’m not sure how things are for young people these days, but I wasn’t taught about fitness in much detail when I was young. Sure, I was taught it was important, but I was never properly schooled on why or told what exactly would happen to you if you chose not to bother. I certainly wasn’t given any practical advice on how to turn fitness and proper self-care into permanent habits.

Luckily for me, years of working on my feet and having friends who preferred physical pastimes to simply sitting around all the time meant I spent most of my life “accidentally fit”. The problem came when I got older, had more choices, and started making a bunch that meant I wasn’t very active anymore. That quickly led to the swift and blinding development of numerous health problems and this horrible feeling that I had no control over my life anymore.

Get so used to taking care of yourself that doing otherwise feels unbearably weird.

These days, I’m doing much better in that department. I’ve gone out of my way to educate myself on how body, as well as to establish a healthy routine that’s realistic for me. The “realistic for you” part is critical because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how effective a given fitness regimen is. If you hate it with the fire of a thousand suns, you’re not going to stick with it and you can’t benefit from exercise you’re not doing.

Don’t do what I did and wait until you’re 40 and your metabolism is slowing down to get your act together. Do it while you’re still young and stick with it. Find a way to love being active and to make it a daily part of your routine. Get so used to taking care of yourself that doing it otherwise feels unbearably weird.

You’ll be glad you did one day, because seriously. If I could change just one thing about how I ran my life when I was younger, this would be the thing. (Here’s a piece I wrote all about that in particular, should you be interested.) https://medium.com/@cat_the_knife/7-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me-about-fitness-and-weight-loss-a-long-time-ago-de704f2e0b

6.  The best time to make your dreams come true is now

Not in 10 years when you’ve figured out what your one true career path is. Not in a few months when you’ve finally lost that stubborn 20 pounds. Not tomorrow when the weather is better and not “someday” when your life’s finally the big, perfect bowl of peach cobbler you hope it eventually will be. It’s now. … Today!

The unshakeable optimism that comes with being young is amazing and I remember it fondly. I figured my whole life was still ahead of me and took it for granted that everything would simply work out in my favor one day all by itself, so why force things? I wanted to travel, but I thought the experience would be better “someday” when I had tons of money and a perfect job that didn’t feel as soul-sucking as my current one did. I wanted to speak multiple languages, but I wanted to learn in the perfect house I thought I’d own someday while sitting in the perfect combination office-study I also planned on having. I wanted to teach myself how to do genuinely awesome makeup, but I wanted a flawless life and a circle of brag-worthy friends to show it off to first.

Well, guess what. The perfect life never materializes because it doesn’t exist. Even if you’re crazy successful one day, you’ll forever have constraints on your time or your resources. There will always be something going on that stops circumstances from being ideal, so start working on the things you want to do, be, and experience now. Then you can spend middle age building on what you’ve already learned, not starting from scratch.

7.  Nobody’s coming to save you from yourself or your life

Like a lot of very shy young girls, I spent a lot more time reading books and watching movies than I did having real-life experiences and meaningful interactions with other people. That gave me the impression that my life was eventually going to play out like the stories I loved so much and that I wouldn’t have to do anything special to help it happen. My life was legitimately hard for me when I was young for lots of reasons, but it never occurred to me to try to rise above it so I’d be able to build myself a better one eventually. Instead, I fantasized about the day someone else would love me enough to do it for me. I thought one day my emotionally unavailable parents would suddenly become different people and want to help me out in life the way my friends’ parents helped them. Or that whenever that perfect partner finally materialized he’d take care of me and provide for me. That way I’d never have to step out of my comfort zone, try anything scary or new, and figure out life for myself.

Well, life doesn’t work like that, so if you think this way, it’s to your benefit to get it sorted now while you’re still young. “Princess-in-a-tower disease” isn’t a good look on someone who’s in their 30s and it’s an even worse one on someone middle-aged or older. Don’t be fooled either. You don’t have to have been a young girl who enjoyed Disney princess movies a little bit too much to have this issue, so it’s worth asking yourself some questions.

Are you an aspiring creative who’s banking so hard on “being discovered” one day that you’re not actively seeking out and seizing opportunities? Are you coasting through life because you assume you’ll eventually inherit money or property when your parents croak? Are you a parent who thinks your kids are going to grow up one day and undo all your mistakes for you?

If so, it’s time to grow up. No one is out there chomping at the bit to save you from your apathy and lack of gumption. And if you do luck out one day and meet someone who’d love to give you an awesome life just because you’re you, trust that they’re going to expect you to pitch in and help on one level or another. People get tired of being the only horse on the team who’s actively working to pull the wagon. Always do your share and pull your weight, even if no one asked you to.

8.  No one is entitled to a relationship with you (and vice versa)

I’ve touched here and there on the fact that my home life was pretty dysfunctional when I was growing up. It was that low-key-type of dysfunctional that sneaks up on you though. No one hit me or put lit cigarettes out on my arms, but there was a lot of emotional abuse and gaslighting going on. There still is.

Eventually, I concluded that it was better to end my relationships with some of the most toxic people in my family and put up extremely strict boundaries with others. I’ve made similar decisions with other people in the past, especially ex-partners and false friends who took so much more than they gave. Learning to say no to harmful relationships with toxic people changed my life overnight.

Healthy relationships that are two-way streets are much too good to miss out on, but you need to make room for them in your life.

No one is entitled to a relationship with you for any reason, especially if they’re unwilling to treat you with basic human decency – not even family. People who care about you don’t kick you while you’re down or try to destroy your joy in the things you love. They don’t tell you you’re worthless, mock your appearance, and delight in being cruel to you. If you have people like this in your life, you are absolutely within your rights to cut them off, protect yourself, and move on. Even if they’re family.

People also have the right to decide the same when it comes to you, so learning how to gracefully let others exit your life is also worthwhile. Healthy relationships that are two-way streets are much too good to miss out on, but you need to make room for them in your life. There won’t be any if you’re clinging people who don’t value their relationships with you to the extent that they should.

I am not a huge believer in regret as far life goes. I do believe strongly in learning as much as you can from your experiences. That’s a process that won’t ever stop for me, as I’ve learned to enjoy the challenge of growing and evolving over the years. Whatever age you are now, please do the same. It keeps life meaningful, colorful, and worthwhile.

Frienemy with Mom

My relationship with my Mom was not as smooth as my relationship with my daughter, Angie. I believe I am not the only person who experienced this. For instance, take a look at Gilmore Girls serials. Lorelai's relationship with Emily, her mom was not as good as her relationship with Rory, her daughter.

 

the pic was taken from here

Around a year ago, I wrote one article I entitled "parent-child relationship". In it, I illustrated that good relationship between parents and children was caused by a big age gap between parents and children. One comment was written by a friend of mine, "I have frienemy relationship with my mom. This was caused by the time when I was born, my dad passed away." Another comment from another friend, "I have an awkward relationship with my mom; we love each other but we were not close to each other. This is totally different from my relationship with my daughter. Perhaps I am more 'friendly' than 'motherly' to my only daughter. Perhaps what you said was right: bigger age gap between my mom and me made our relationship awkward."

the pic was taken from here

 

Well, in fact my age gap with my mom is shorter than my age gap with Angie. My mom was 23 years old when I was born; I was 24 years old when Angie was born. However, learning from my experience as a child, I treated Angie differently from the way my mom raised me. Well, I could do this perhaps because I have only one child. Although I was busy as a breadwinner outside home (my mom was a housewife), I have more intimate relationship with Angie.

 

Nevertheless, I have never come to the term 'frienemy' to describe my relationship with my mom. Although both of us were born in August -- under the same zodiac, Leo -- our upbringing and education were different.

 

***********

 

On facebook, I have one cyber friend who often writes about her bad relationship with her mom. In the past, she disliked her mom. However after learning meditation, where loving oneself, healing oneself and forgiving others are included, she seemed to view her relationship with her mother from different point. Of course she could not 'change' her mom's attitude or behavior; it is easier to change her own way of thinking in understanding her mother. Realizing that she was quite successful in it, she spread this to her facebook friends.

 

 

In my 'feminist' blog, I used to write about my spiritual view which was difficult to understand by my mom. Some comments told me to try explaining my spiritual awakening to my mom -- in order that she would understand me better -- but I chose to be quiet when my mom sort of investigated me about this. Some questions like, "Are you not Moslem anymore?" or "So, what is your religion now?" or "Why don't you do rituals (pray five times a day) anymore, while when you were little you even did them diligently?" or "Do you want to go to hell?" etc.

 

I chose to keep quiet because I thought she would never understand my 'awakening'. Besides, I didn't have any courage to do it. I was a coward. 😓

 

However, after my mom passed away, I believe she still loved me no matter what I have become. She never pushed me to go out of the house, although in fact Angie and I were ready to leave the house. She never refused me when I was by her side to accompany her during her last few months living.

 

I love you Mom. Rest in peace.

 

PT56 18.08 07-July-2020

Why women leave men they love

Why women leave men they love – what every man needs to know

By Justice Schanfarber 

As a marriage counselor  working with men and women in relationship crisis, I help clients navigate numerous marriage counseling issues. While many situations are complex, there’s one profoundly simple truth that men need to know. It’s this – Women leave men they love.

They feel terrible about it. It tears the heart out of them. But they do it. They rally their courage and their resources and they leave. Women leave men with whom they have children, homes, and lives. Women leave for many reasons, but there’s one reason in particular that haunts me, one that I want men to understand:

Women leave because their man is not present. He’s working, golfing, gaming, watching TV, fishing … the list is long. There aren’t bad men. They’re good men. They’re good fathers. They each support their family. They’re nice, likable, but they take their wife for granted; they’re not present.

taken from here

Women in my office tell me “Someone could come and sweep me off my feet, right out from under my husband.” Sometimes the realization scares them. Sometimes they cry.

Men – I’m not saying this is right or wrong. I’m telling you what I see. You can get as angry or hurt or indignant as you want. Your wife is not your property. She does not owe you her soul. You earn it. Day by day, moment to moment. You earn her first and foremost with your presence, your aliveness. She needs to feel it. She wants to talk to you about what matters to her and to feel you hearing her. Not nodding politely. Not placating. Definitely not playing devil’s advocate.

She wants you to feel her. She doesn’t want absent-minded groping or quick release sex. She want to feel your passion. Can you feel your passion? Can you show her? Not just your passion for her or for sex; your passion for being alive. Do you have it? It’s the most attractive thing you possess. If you’ve lost it, why? Where did it go? Find out. Find it. If you never discovered it you are living on borrowed time.

If you think you’re present with your wife, try listening to her. Does your mind wander? Notice. When you look at her, how deeply do you see her? Look again, look deeper. Meet her gaze and keep it for longer than usual, longer than comfortable. If she asks what you’re doing, tell her. “I’m looking into you. I want to see you deeply. I’m curious about who you are. After all these years, I still want to know who you are every day.” But only say it if you mean it, if you know it’s true.

Touch her down with your full attention. Before you lay your hand on her, notice the sensation in your hand. Notice what happens the moment you make contact. What happens in your body? What do you feel? Notice the most subtle sensations and emotions. (This is sometimes called mindfulness.) Tell her about what you’re noticing, moment to moment.

taken from here

But you’re busy. You don’t have time for this. How about five minutes? Five minutes each day. Will you commit to that? I’m not talking about extravagant dinners or nights out (although those are fine too.) I’m talking about five minutes every day to be completely present to the woman you share your life with. To be completely open – hearing and seeing without judgment. Will you do that? I bet once you start, once you get a taste, you won’t want to stop.

Valley of twenty something guys

The title of this posting was intentionally taken from one episode of SEX AND THE CITY serials, of season 1. What I am writing here is absolutely inspired by the issue shown in the episode,

 

(Background: the four main characters in SEX AND THE CITY were around thirties or mid thirties.)

 

The story in this episode apparently illustrated a bit similar 'culture' between New York (maybe the whole America, or western culture?) and Indonesia: women are supposed to date older men. Therefore when they date younger guys, they do it just for fun, (say, mostly for sex) or as an alternative -- or entertainment? -- after being rejected by other men: to make yourself feel attractive and lovable.

 

Miranda and Carrie showed this. Miranda dated Skipper, a younger guy, because this younger guy was crazily in love with her, and sex was good. :) Carrie eventually had sex too with Sam, who was younger than Carrie, one night after having hot kissess for hours for days before. This was intrigued by her feeling rejected by Mr. Big, her future boyfriend.

 

Do younger guys date older girls only for sex?

 

One guy interviewed by Carrie answered, "smart pussy" for question, "What do you think of thirty-something-year-old girls?" Skipper answered, "They know what they wanna do, what they like to do." for the same question.

 

I remember around a decade ago, a twenty-two-year-old boy told me, "It is very comfortable to date a thirty-something-year-old woman because when in our date, sex is involved, I don't need to control myself, or feel worried that I will take a woman's virginity." (Note: if the woman is married, so she is expected to already have had sex; meaning the woman is no longer virgin. 😜) In Indonesia, during that decade and decades before, some men felt responsible to marry a woman who was still virgin when they 'accidentally' had sex.

 

A twenty-six-year-old man said, "Women in that age are (more) experienced in sex than women younger than us."

 

Two answers above justified the 'conclusion' that twenty-something guys date thirty-something girls for sex only.

 

Another man (who happened to be married already) who was approaching thirty year old said to me, "For men around my age think that women around your age look very sexy and attractive because of their maturity. Younger girls are just spoiled and boring. We are enough already with spoiled wife at home." LOL. Furthermore, he also said, "But I don't know what I will think about when I reach the age of forty or fifty. Perhaps I will be more attracted to much younger girls, to make myself feel young." LOL.

 

Well this is a decade ago. I no longer keep in touch with those guys I mentioned above. I am wondering if this is still the same like this now? Younger guys (let's say twenty-something year old) date older girls (more than thirty years old) only for sex?" I don't wanna say that it is wrong though. It is up to them. LOL.

Porn makes men terrible in bed

This writing is taken from here. 

What turns women on? Well, they don’t show it on Red Tube.

I hate porn.

I don’t hate it because it’s immoral, or because it often explores “unusual” tastes, or because it has uncovered a bestial side of humans we pretended didn’t exist. I hate porn because fucking men who have watched a lot of porn is the worst. The absolute worst. For the sake of your future partners, go easy on the porn. Many young men will watch porn more often than they have sex with other humans. Their beliefs about sex will come from porn and not from interactions with real people.

And the real humans who eventually have sex with suffer for it.

Most porn is about watching women pretend to enjoy sex acts that are unpleasant to them. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is. Men who watch this type of porn are basically being taught sexual practices that will not work in real life. Why does that matter? Well, if you’re an 18 year old virgin, the only moves you’re learning are moves that will leave your partners miserable.

More than that, however, is men become accustomed to watching women pretending to be turned on. Being good in bed, fundamentally, is about being able to read someone else, and men are learning false cues. Humans are very sophisticated at reading the emotional expressions of other humans. We call tell when someone fake smiles because there are certain involuntary muscles that can only be activated when someone is genuinely smiling. Similarly, we can tell when someone is sad, or in pain. Porn actresses are not usually genuinely turned on. In fact, they are often in pain. Porn actress Shelly Lubben (former porn actress) describes filming porn:

To add to the mind-numbing process, women are never able to experience sexual pleasure because of the continuous cutting during sex scenes. In the background the director constantly yells, “cut” and the flow of action is interrupted in order to get a better shot, adjust lighting or to wipe up bodily fluids. Repeatedly pornographers stop scenes and ask actors to “freeze: in position during very hardcore sex acts, which causes great physical and emotional pain for porn actresses.

I speak from personal experience when I say to be in the middle of a hardcore sex act with several actors at the same time and told to “freeze” in position for several minutes while lighting or cameras are adjusted is extremely painful and degrading. It’s also very humiliating when scenes are stopped in order to wipe up bodily fluids such as semen, feces, and blood.

Shelly Lubben  describing the filming of porn

Men become conditioned to watching women in pain pretending to enjoying sex. How good an actress is your average porn actress? Good enough to cover up all the subtle cues that she’s hurting? Good enough to be able to face genuine sexual pleasure? I suspect not.

This means that your average young man is starting at worse than zero when it comes to sex with women. If he’s having sex with a girl, and she’s giving out cues that she’s in pain (through her facial expression, or the noises she makes) he’s going to think that’s how sex should be because that’s what he learned in porn. If she’s genuinely turned on, he will not know how to identify it, because he’s watched so many women pretending to be turned on that his ability to identify genuine pleasure has been scrambled. And, this is best case scenario porn. This is if he watched where the women were at least pretending to have a good time.

More sadistic porn will teach young men to derive pleasure from causing women pain – and I’m not talking about BDSM. I’m talking about “vanilla” porn where men fuck women in ways that hurt them. Jenna Jameson describes one of her more “epic” porn scenes with TT Boy in her autobiography:

He raced through the foreplay – a little kissing a little oral sex – then all hell broke loose. He slammed me so fast and hard that it took every ounce of control I had to stay focused and in the moment … I could feel my thighs bruising against his. Then suddenly it all stopped. He pulled out and shot straight into my mouth. I wasn’t expecting him to pop so soon.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“No,” he said. He grabbed my hips and helped me just over his lap and started slamming me into his dick. I was in decent shape cardio-wise, but he moved with such force and speed that I was winded. I felt like my insides were going to fall out. And then, finally, he popped – again.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“No,” he grunted.

And he put it right back inside. The guy was a machine. There was no lull. His focus never dimmed. His intensity never wavered. He’d throw me into position after position, and would come in each one. I was in shock. I’d never been fucked like this in my life.

I couldn’t wait for him to finish. I was starting to get sore. Finally, after four pop shots, he said, “Hold on. I have to go eat something.”

“Are we done?” I dared to ask.

“Not by a long shot.” He said.

I didn’t think I could take anymore, but I kept my mouth shut. I was curious to see what he was up to now. He walked off, devoured three cans of tuna, and was back with a raging hard-on still pulsating in the air. Within minutes, he was pounding me over and over, in every position I’d ever imagine and some I hadn’t, until finally, with one last climactic pop, he was done. Time elapsed: 156 minutes. …

I literally limped away from the set, licking my wounds. …

Jenna Jameson, How to make lovelike a porn star: A cautionary tale 

Obviously, TT Boy’s “pleasure” was the center of the scene. He came – what – like 5 times? And, she was supposed to just lie there and take the pain. This was normal, standard issue porn. This is the type of porn that young men will be consuming in vast quantities. THIS is the type of porn that people will grow up modeling in their private lives.

Why would a woman ever want that done to her? Even Jenna Jameson, who romanticizes a lot of the porn she was in, admits, “I couldn’t wait for him to finish. I was starting to get sore.”

I almost hesitate in posting that quote, because I’m sure a bunch of people are going to read it and be like “that sounds hot”. Sure – Jameson is a porn star, and she wanted to present herself as sexy in her autobiography so she’ll write things in a way she knows turns people on. But, in a way, that sort of proves my point. A woman in a lot of pain reads as sexy to a large group of people. And, ok, some women like painful sex and they can go have painful sex. But, I’m pretty sure most women don’t like having painful sex. Or, maybe they romanticize the idea of it, but when their vaginas are actually being run raw, they realize they’re miserable.

We idealize women in pain as the epitome  of “hard core” sex then wonder why nearly half of all women  suffer from female sexual dysfunction. We create porn that caters to male pleasure while eroticizing female suffering, then philosophize on the low female libido. Men learned to get turned on by female suffering, and women expect to get turned on by their own suffering. But, suffering sucks, and a lot of women eventually decide they’d rather not have sex than suffer whenever they do.

Then, when their relationships suffer from sexual anorexia, the advice women are offered for their low libidos is usually advice about to please men. Joan Sewell, in her book “I’d Rather Eat Chocolate” describes a book by relationship expert Myreah Moore called Date Like a Man:

In it there’s section with the bold title “How to Have Sex Like a Man.” But very curiously, the majority of the chapter deals with what men want sexually, not women. Here are some of the headings:

Men like blow jobs

Get to know Mr. Happy

Kiss It, Lick It, Squeeze It, Tease It

Deep throating

Men like women who swallow

Men like pornography

Men like lingerie

Men like to talk dirty

Men like women who bring on the noise

Men like women who are flexible

Men like Lesbians

I’d Rather Eat Chocolate:Learning to Love My Low Libido  by Joan Sewell

When I think about wanting to have sex like a man, I think about wanting to enjoy sex with reckless abandon the way men enjoy sex. Devoting all my energy to please a male partner at the cost of my own pleasure isn’t having sex like a man. It’s having sex men like.

We think of all these cures for low female libido – testosterone patches, sexy lingerie, getting husband to help with the cleaning (?) –but not one of these cures is ever about doing more of things that turn women on. Not one of them is exploring the type of erotica that women like. No one ever looks to the root of female desire, and why so many of us are cut off from it. As Vera Mass says in Facing the Complexities of Women’s Sexual Desire:

Books that, while asserting the importance of sex for women and promising to provide guidance for women in raring for their sexual selves … have devoted only about 6% of their volume to the discussion of the topic of sexual desire.

Facing the Complexities of Women’s Sexual Desire  by Vera Maass:

All the sex advice out there generally tends to cycle back to the same thing: how can women get more comfortable with doing what men like? Even women reporting on their own pleasure has become suspect, because somewhere along the way, women figured out that men like it if they pretend to be turned on. So now you have all these women claiming to love sex, and love getting fucked over 5 ways from Sunday, but three years into their marriage, they’re like “don’t touch me.”

Men are all confused, like “omg, she pretended to be into sex, then once I married her ass, she went celibate! She led me on!” but any attentive man wouldn’t be confused by this at all. If a woman is constantly easy to please, if she requires no work, if she never makes requests or opens up about fantasies of her own she is faking it. Apparently, 80% of women fake orgasm  half the time during sex. Half the time. 80%! And of course, men can’t tell, because most of the sex they’ve been exposed to has involved the insincere moans of porn stars.

Researchers found that women are often quietest when they are actually receiving pleasure, like during oral sex or foreplay. They make the most erotic noises when sex starts feeling uncomfortable or when they get bored.

They also get noisy when they sense their partner is ready to climax – to boost their partner’s self-esteem, many reported.

CBS News 

I never fake my orgasms, and having sex with men who are conditioned on porn and fake orgasm sucks. I’m like, the perpetual bearer of bad news. No, I’m not ready to come yet. Sorry, I need more attention. More time. More foreplay.

I’m sorry, everything you learned about sex is wrong.

Porn culture has warped female pleasure to be just another thing women do for the benefit of men. This is why I’ve grown wary of sex-positive feminism. Sex may be fun, and pleasure may be good for you, but in my experience, very few women are actually adventurous enough to go out in selfish pursuit of their own pleasure. Many women like to appear sexually forward because this is a way to attract men, but the best strategy for attracting men is to pretend everything that turns them on also turns you on. Sex positive feminism, while good in theory, often becomes another way to justify catering to male pleasure.

Most women, I think, get stuck in a rut around male pleasure because it feels safer to cater to someone else’s pleasure than it does to open up about your own. If you are not actually receiving pleasure in sex, you are the one in power; your partner will always crave you more than you crave him. This gives you some degree of control. And universally, while women may not be the ones enjoying sex, they sure seem to be the ones controlling it. Keeping tight control over sex was probably how women negotiated for the things they needed when they relied on male partners for their survival. But, such sexual control came at a cost; the cost of our pleasure.

Anyway, we now just act like that’s the normal stage of things; women have lower sex drive than men cuz testosterone! But, frankly, I’m surprised women have sex drives as high as we do given how little of our culture is devoted to appealing to feminine desire. We’re fed lines like “looks don’t matter to women” to which I would respond HA HA HA HA HA. Yeah, looks don’t matter if women aren’t expecting to get any sexual pleasure out of the relationship. Which many aren’t. if you want to attract women for something other than your wallet, however, put some effort into your physical appearance. The average straight guy sets the bar so low on this one, frankly, you probably don’t need to do too much to be pretty good looking. And, even if you don’t end up looking good, looking like you care is probably good enough. It signals that you value a woman’s physical attraction to you.

So, what do we do about this? I have no fucking idea. Seriously, this situation is so messed up the best thing I could think to do was not have sex with men for 5 years. But, I guess for a start, realize that when it comes to what women like from sex, we are perpetuating far more lies than truths. Try to re-learn what women like, or what you like, from real women or in person experiences. Ignore the media, ignore porn. Ignore anyone trying to sell you something. Spend more time observing real life.