I wrote in another story about how things have changed as I’ve grown older. Whereas I thought my libido was being seriously eroded (it was never that big..) but have found that if anything it’s growing. I also made the point that, with my current (and hopefully lifelong partner) my own orgasm has been relegated to a nice to have. What has become paramount is ensuring my partner is pleasured, satisfied and content.
And yep, I’m a bloke! Now I know many of you will be reading this and shouting at your screens “About bloody time!” but stick with me this is a major transformation for a man, a major step for mankind! (OK, less of the moon landing hyperbole!). For years men have been the warriors, the hunter gatherers and sex fitted in with that perspective, as BBC Earth put it.
Once upon a time, animal courtship was thought to run something like a Barbara Cartland novel. The rakish males battle it out for a chaste female, who sits around choosing the prince charming to father her young. While her mate may sow his wild oats far and wide, she patiently tends her brood.
Notwithstanding a few counterexamples, these roles were thought to be largely the same across the animal kingdom: males were thought to be promiscuous, dominant and aggressive and the females chaste and passive. For many people, it was just the natural order of the world.
So no surprise there then that many men driven my their dicks lived by those rules. Indeed, these stereotypes are still reinforced by the likes of youporn — I’m guessing but men must be dominant and getting what they want in a particularly aggressive way in most (at least 60%+) of the videos on their, and other sites. The sexual liberated 60’s and more recently MeToo have made a difference but there’s still a bloody long way to go in many bedrooms, read Shannon Ashley’s ideas on the subject. And yes I’m holding my hands up here. For many years sex was a personal release, coming was critical — my partner? Not so important despite how much time was focused on the pre-penetrative phases coming was the goal. More than that the quality of my own orgasm became a measure of how much I’d enjoyed the whole sexual experience. Bad, bad man!
I grew up in the times of the Cadbury’s Flake adverts, tell me they aren’t about sex. There was one advert, actually from 1970, where the woman bites the tip off the flake, dear god, the symbolism was perfect for those adolescent male hormones. How they ever managed to get them through the advertising standards agency, still I suppose that was male dominated as well!
So that was my upbringing, my reference points, which combined to set me on a selfish path. It was more of a male first world in those days, no excuse, but it just was.
So what changed me? After all it was an abrupt change.
As my second marriage progressed my libido regressed, and with my wife’s untimely death it simply got parked. Sex was not something that I considered, well I didn’t totally exclude the possibility, but I just couldn’t see it arising. My friends were all in relationships, I was the odd one out. I considered myself a celibate, well not exactly, masturbation became my outlet, but only rarely, and that required me to resort to pornography to set the mood. You could view it as me reaching a low plateau, alone, and focussed on my teenage kids and my job.
The trigger was meeting my partner, via a dating app (I mean how else do you hook up these days?). I was sooo nervous, remember this was 25 years since I’d had the last first sexual experience with a new partner. To begin with I actually found maintaining an erection really tricky, I was overthinking things (I still do but for other reasons). Thankfully my partner was patient with me and we got through it. Maybe it was that, the selflessness of another that did it, maybe it was the realisation that as we say there is more than one way to skin a cat! Whatever it was I’m glad it happened.
All I know is that as my confidence came back, so did my libido (actually it’s better than ever) but my dick doesn’t always agree with me, but it’s no longer an issue. Giving pleasure is enough, honestly! Ok, my partner is particularly responsive, and seeing her experience pleasure is fulfilling for me, to see the different kinds of orgasm she experiences makes me smile (to be truthful I’m jealous of her — she knows this). I’m not saying that I don’t need to come I’m just saying it’s not as important as I thought it was. But when it happens it’s absolutely wonderful, and frequently quite loud (getting told off by your teenage daughter is an experience I can tell you!). It feels like we build up the sexual energy and, wow, when it gets released, sometimes that does involve a small blue pill (who cares) — boom! Yep it’s the face that gives it away how happy your man is!
I keep thinking what it might have been had we met 30 years ago, I know we would have had a lot of sex but I don’t know if it would have been as good as it right now.
I’m a different person now, a happier and more satisfied person but better than that we’re a very happy, very playful, very sexy and satisfied couple.
