He Comes Next by Ian Kerner Read Free Book Online

be simultaneous, but they are emotionally and creatively hollow, no better in qualitative terms than the sexual release each partner could have had on their own. This is the world of the lonely orgasm.
     
    Desire
     
    Sexuality researchers Masters and Johnson determined that the human sexual response cycle consists of four distinct stages: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.
    But experts concur that there’s another stage as well, one that overpowers the others: desire.
    Desire is the most mercurial and mysterious of all the phases. In fact, when Masters and Johnson first defined the sexual response cycle, they didn’t even include desire. One of the reasons for this is that desire and excitement (often used interchangeably with the term “arousal”) are closely interlinked, especially in men. Give a guy an erection, and he wants to use it; hence the success of Viagra and other erectile stimulants, such as Cialis and Levitra. Stimulating arousal or excitement often stimulates desire itself.
    But when Pfizer tested Viagra on women, they were unsuccessful and ultimately abandoned their hopes of developing a female version of the little blue pill. Interestingly, Viagra had some of the same physiological effects on women as it did on men: It stimulated blood flow to the genitals. But whereas in men, this physiological arousal quickly led to desire (with just a bit of prodding through, say, a porn magazine or erotic video), it by and large did not create desire in women. For men, desire and arousal are virtually one and the same. Give a guy a hard-on and he wants to use it. But for women, desire usually requires components that don’t necessarily need to be present for men: intimacy, affection, trust, humor, respect, and security among others. Men appreciate those qualities, but we don’t necessarily need them to get turned on and have sex. This difference in how men experience desire explains why men are more easily able to compartmentalize between sex and love.
    Though there may be some truth to the statement that men are more easily aroused than women, we should not fall prey to the assumption that guys are walking hard-ons, always ready for action. While men may be able to have sex without emotion, that doesn’t mean they don’t want the emotion or cannot refocus the lens of their arousal to encompass these emotions.
    As an example, I meet with many guys who have cheated or are thinking about it. Many have told me that they’re not looking for sex, so much as an emotional connection they’re no longer getting at home. Men may be more easily aroused, but that does not make them any less fundamentally interested in romantic or emotionally based love. And desire is the phase that keeps sex interesting and fresh over the long term. Desire is what starts the ball rolling…and keeps it rolling for that matter.
    As a relationship progresses, it’s more important than ever to remember that male desire for sex doesn’t begin in the genitals; it begins in the mind. Yes, Pfizer was right: Desire and arousal are generally more closely interlinked in men than in women. But as time goes on, sexual experiences substantially redefine the nature of that link. What starts out as a small gender gap can become an abyss when a man’s locus of sex becomes singularly associated with the goal of erection and orgasm. Viagra and porn can become a quick substitute for actual desire and intimacy. But the gender gap can also be diminished when the primary focus of sexual interaction is placed on building and sustaining desire.
    In the next chapter, I’ll specifically discuss the brain chemistry of the mating process, and why a loss of desire (relative to the infatuation phase) is a perfectly natural and ultimately manageable part of a healthy and fulfilling love life. But in a world wrought with clichés about male sexuality—“men are dogs; they’ll screw anything”—the worst thing a woman can do is take desire for granted