Male Sexuality Explained

How could a man not know that cutting himself off from someone and objectifying her would make a woman feel like he didn't care about her?

He does and doesn't know. You often hear men say, "It doesn't matter what I do. I work all the time to make her happy. Nothing's enough." Women will think that's bullshit. They'll think, "You're not doing the right things and you're not doing enough of the right things." He's actually being quite honest, but then rather than trying to listen closely and get it right the next time, the man gives up. He thinks, "Well that's the way women are. You can't ever please them."

That attitude is toxic because the woman feels that she's not being understood and that she's a burden.  A lot of women will come to therapy because they believe they're too much to handle and that their needs are too great. On the man's side the misunderstanding is that he's selfish and cold and doesn't care about her. But what I find with these men over and over is that they care too much.

So, wouldn't porn feed into this objectification in an unhealthy way?

I don't believe that there's any strong evidence that porn creates feelings of hostility towards women. The problem with that point of view is that it takes the superficial story and makes it the only story. So for instance, you have a woman in a porn video that is hitchhiking and a couple of bikers come and they start to have sex with her. At first she resists and then she gets into it and has sex with both of them. 

A lot of people would say that this is teaching men that women are just there for sex and that you don't have to care about them as people. I argue that that's a complete misunderstanding. The porn fantasy is generated by a man's underlying want and need for the woman to be happy—that's why men imagine that the women are always turned on.

What's your theory on why people have sexual fantasies?

Sexual fantasies are the mind's way of temporarily overcoming the threats to arousal that exist in all of us. Most people have inhibitions about getting fully aroused and feeling intense pleasure. We're not neurotic for feeling that; we all have inhibitions, but we don't give up our need for pleasure just because we have inhibitions. We have to figure out a way of overcoming our inhibitions to feel pleasure even if it's momentary, so what we develop are sexual fantasies.

I use the example of somebody who likes to be dominated. Usually that person struggles in their waking life with the idea they're going to hurt their partner or their sexuality will be too much for the other person. They worry about the other person's feelings so much that they can't surrender to their own sensations. Being dominated is the perfect solution because then they don't have to worry.

What about the opposite, the fantasy of doing the domination?

There's one secret that's essential in 95 percent of the domination fantasies that men have: the woman enjoys it. The reason that that's so crucial to the fantasy is that it shows that the woman isn't hurt. It shows that actually she's robust, feeling good. To the man that's very reassuring against the fear that they're going to hurt the woman. So even in domination fantasies you have a way to negotiate this problem of hurting others because instead of hurting them, you make them happy.