My boyfriend is a very giving and attentive lover. He uses sex to express things that he sometimes has trouble saying out loud. Like before he told me he was falling in love with me his body had made it clear by wrapping my arms tightly around him while he was coming and asking me to hold him tightly with something close to tears in his eyes. Before he asked me to date him exclusively he would spread my legs and eat me out with this gentleness and reverence and admission that he would do anything for me. So I guess it should come as no surprise that I can tell what he’s feeling everytime he’s inside me. But somehow, after a year and some change together it still surprises me that he apologizes with sex because I have been raised to think of it as something only women do. Whether this is actually based on any statistical data or are just the impressions I have formed from life and watching TV I am not sure. I just know that every message I’ve gotten since birth has toyed with this notion that women use “pussy power” to get things they want and to appease after doing something wrong. I, not being prone to using pussy power under any circumstances myself, feel a little strange using my body to apologize after a fight. I usually just do it with words.
But then again I do everything with words. I tend to say everything I’m feeling. During a fight, I burst into tears if I want to. I make declarations of pain and hurt and I state my intent to do this or that. I say how my feelings have changed. I say what I am scared of and ask questions about what things mean if I can’t decipher them on my own. During fights my guy tends to be less verbal than I am. He either gets defensive and snarky or really stark and emotional. But during apologies, if he is wrong and genuinely has something to apologize for, it’s like his soul becomes the color of water. He apologizes and looks you straight in the eye and makes sure you understand and you accept. And then he proceeds to try to show you with his body how sorry he is. He wants to pleasure you till you forget that he ever made you angry or sad or hurt you. He wants you to come and come and come and come and come and come while he does nothing but hold you and tell you how much he loves your body and how happy you make him and how sorry he is. Fucking my guy after a fight is something akin to a spiritual experience.
I read somewhere once that the reasons why relationships, even those with good, fair-minded, progressive men who genuinely adore their partners, start going south when for some very valid external reason (fatigue, kids, work etc) the woman just isn’t as interested in sex anymore is because the lack of fucking becomes a plug on the guy’s emotional centre. The way it was broken down by the author was that there are some things that a guy cannot say without sexual intimacy, a certain amount of emotional accessibility and vulnerability men use their bodies to convey and so when they can no longer express that to the women they love the bottled up emotions turn to resentment and distance. I don’t know if I believe this but I think my dude definitely exemplifies some of it. His hands, his mouth, his dick, his body are all like the words in a language and without them he doesn’t seem able to form complete and coherent sentences. I love it because I love sex but I wonder where the hell it comes from and if other people are like this. Adventurers, help me out. Is this a dude thing or a my dude thing?
18 comments On Apologizing with Orgasms by Guest Contributor VV
She’s backkkkkkk!!!
Nana, you are such a silly goose. Stop acting like a Radio Gold DJ from 1998 and answer the question 🙂
I want someone to apologise 1000 times to me with multiple O’s 🙂
Hahaha, believe me it gets old after a while and then you start to develop more of an anthropological interest in the whole thing.
And then it makes you think back to other relationships.
So, weirdly enough, I had another ex who could never admit he was angry about something in the beginning. He was a pretty easy-going guy and he prided himself on being reasonable so even if something upset him he would just try to rationalize it away. I would see that he was upset sometimes about one incident or another from his behaviour and I would ask what was wrong, start a conversation about it and try to understand what I had done so I didn’t do it again. Even though he would engage in the conversation and not totally stonewall like some dudes do he would keep insisting that whatever had happened hadn’t upset him and there was nothing to apologize for.
Until later later kwraa in the day when we were in bed together and having sex and he would get really intense and kinda rough during the sex like he was trying to work something out of his system. Then once the fucking was over he would hold me really tightly and apologise for not being as tender as he usually was and say I was right, he had been angry and this thing or that thing I did had bothered or upset him but he but hadn’t realized it or known how to express it or even admitted it to himself until we were fucking and he realized he was fucking me with anger. Deep huh?
Now, I didn’t think angry-fucking ex’s behaviour and apology-fucking ex’s behaviour were related in any way and had any bearing on this theory about men and sex I had read until a recent event. I overheard one of my uncles confessing to a group of male relatives that he had realized that when his wife doesn’t allow him to “chop,” even when she hasn’t done anything he finds himself insulting her “by hat by hat” (to non-Ghanaians, this means “haphazardly”) and he doesn’t know why. The men around all commiserated with him and said it happened to them too. After I had finished laughing cos it was such a hilarious admission (this uncle is a very religious and rather meek person) it got me thinking about that article I had read http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324874204578438713861797052.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_LeadStoryNA
which offered a perspective on guys and sex which is really different from the one in the dominant narrative.
I know there is this belief in popular culture that women come to sex through love and men come to love through sex, basically: women have to love you to fuck you and men have to fuck you to love you but I am aware enough to know that isn’t really true. Lots of women have sex feelings-free and lots of men don’t and at the end of the day, in my humble opinion, it is far less a gender thing than a personality thing. Very sensitive people of either gender tend to not be able to compartmentalize very easily and as such cannot always separate their actions from their emotions. Relatively thick-skinned people of both genders are able to.
Of course I think that women are not socialized to separate our bodies from our feelings the way men are, so, it goes without saying, there is a greater likelihood for sex to become emotional for women than for men and since men are socialized to separate bodies from feelings there is a greater likelihood for them to remain fairly removed from sex. But I actually think that may be the root of the whole thing. Given that argument, I could see how since men are socialized to separate their bodies from their feelings and to keep their feelings bottled up, over time their bodies could possibly become one of the ways in which they ACCESS their feelings since sex is such an intimate thing, such a personal thing, that no matter how removed you are it has some impact. So once that avenue is shut off to them their feelings become difficult to express. Or maybe over time, since sex is an emotional avenue for most women, men develop an association of sex with emotion in order to relate to women emotionally and find it difficult to express their bottled-up emotions to someone they aren’t fucking.
I am really eager to hear other people’s thoughts on this matter. Kofi Ametewee et al can you help out?
Wow this comment is so interesting, and thought provoking…I almost feel like cutting and pasting it into a whole new blog post of its own 🙂
I am one of those people who compartmentalizes my emotions, and I keep my emotions so far away from my sex life…which is why I can’t answer this question. So generally I like people I’m sleeping with, but I hold back emotionally so that I don’t fall for them…
Interesting…
But even when you hold back emotionally (i.e. don’t tell the people you are fucking your emotions or go to them for emotional support) do you feel like even just the act of fucking itself alleviates stress and clears out whatever emotional buildup you have? Like, outside of the physical pleasure and release, after fucking you just feel better about life in general? Or at least less stressed in other areas when you are getting a regular supply of Vitamin D?
Ah VV but you know the answer to this one 🙂 Of course sex is a big stress reliever. I remember one day in particular when I was having a really bad day. In fact it had been a ‘not so good’ couple of days, I had been feeling flat for a while, not excited about anything, and then some my guy called me and asked if he could come over, so I said yes, and after we hooked up the bad mood that had lingered for days had miraculously gone.
This blogspot reminds me of a book I read called “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. Chapman theorizes that people express their love in one or a combination of these five loves: exchanging favours, exchanging gifts, spending quality time, exchanging words of love/care, touching their loved one. Each person has a dominant way of loving. For instance, someone who exchanges favours, feels loved when their partner decides to do the dishes for once, or will express love by offering to pick up their partner’s mom (I don’t know… whatever, you take to mean a favour). For people who show love through gifts, each gift is a significant reminder of a good memory shared with that person. For instance, in the book, Chapman talks about a case where a boyfriend discovers that his girlfriend has 20-something teddy bears; each of which were given to her as a gift. She took great care of them and even gave her names. Chapman clarifies that the gift doesn’t have to be expensive (it could be a rock) as long as you explain to the person, why it reminded you of them.
In my case, I am someone who likes spending quality time. So when I want to bond with someone, I like to meet up and spend hours on end talking to them and listening to them etc.
I suspect that your partner expresses his love through touch. My ex was like that. He always wanted to be hugged; he liked cuddling etc… And even at times, when I was crying, he would try to have sex because he thought that it would be a stress reliever and help me forget what was bothering me. Which frankly for me is a little strange but hey! Anyways, back to your boyfriend. I guess that physical touch is the way he naturally expresses his love, whilst yours is through words of affirmation.
What do you think? (I just noticed this was published in February so I might be a little late with it but hey)
After I’ve given it some thought, I think it might be a YOUR guy thing. I agree with the idea that it depends on the person’s personality, gender aside.
And welcome back VV! Gawd, you’ve been missed.
It’s good to be back, Malaka. I missed you guys like Asamoah Gyan misses crucial penalties.
I think the apologizing for stuff with sex is definitely a MY GUY thing. But I think sex as an emotional outlet, and as a way of expressing what they are feeling might be an ALL GUY or MOST GUY thing.
I say this because I recently talked to a family member who had a torrid, steamy, scandalous affair a few years back. He cheated on his wife with a close friend who she considered her little sister and it was a clusterfuck of massive proportions. His wife was devastated and almost left and it took a long time for them to fix their marriage.
Now, I knew he really loved his wife, and from her account, things had been great between them until their first child was born and so she soooo didn’t expect him to cheat on her. And more importantly, he wasn’t jut her husband, he was her friend so she just couldn’t understand how something like her being pregnant or a new mom with baby weight was something that would make him think it was okay to step out on her.
So anyway, I talked to both of them about it separately and the guy had a really interesting (albeit ridiculous) explanation. I rolled my eyes till they scraped my skull, chale, but it was clear that he really believed what he was saying and he had come to it after a lot of analysis and soul-searching. So basically, his explanation was that he and his wife had had this great relationship where they were the best of friends and the best of lovers and they used to fuck in the kitchen and lie by the fountain in Legon and talk about their deepest darkest feelings and whatnot. Her being attracted to him and as hot for him as he was for her was like a huge source of security for him.
When she got pregnant (something they had agreed on oh, which he really wanted), he didn’t realize how little she would be interested in having sex. Not only did she not want to fuck at alllll, she also didn’t want to be touched at allll, like cuddling or oral or anything was totally out of the question. And all of a sudden (please, this is his account, don’t lynch me) he went from having this person who was HIS PERSON to being with someone who seemed to have no interest in him sexually. So I asked ” Ah, but isn’t that just an ego thing? Are you a child? No sex for a few months and so you can’t relate to your wife in other ways? What stupid excuse is that” And he basically said that a lot of their talking, like their discussions about feelings and check-ins about how the other person was doing emotionally and stuff (basically most non-logistical intimate conversations) happened after having sex. So once they stopped fucking he didn’t know how to talk to her about how neglected he was and how disconnected from her he was feeling. It wasn’t the fucking necessarily that he missed, It was the being close to her. And he thought, okay, let me wait it out till the baby comes but then once the baby came she still wasn’t interested sexually and there seemed to be no way for them to communicate. So he kept everything bottled up and started to feel like she was no longer interested in him and then along came this nubile young lady and he felt like flirting with her would get his wife’s attention so he flirted with her and then she flirted back and his wife didn’t seem to notice cos she was so wrapped in the baby which he then interpreted as oh she doesn’t care, well let me show her, let me give her something to care about and then before he knew what was what he was having an affair.
And I had read something somewhere about the fact that a lot of relationships start going downhill once the sex stops. My response to the article was of course, “Abi men dieeee, they reduce even the woman they love to the sum of her parts, they are socialized to feel entitled to sex and once they are not getting it they act out.” But the article interviewed a bunch of men who said once the women stopped having sex with them (cos usually, at least in the cases in the article the woman for some reason or another (probably valid ones like stress, body changes, finances, the man was chaaking her etc etc) they began to feel all this tension and pressure and like there was something sitting on them and they realized if they didn’t end the relationship they would cheat. Now if it was only about the sexual release then why wasn’t porn or jacking off enough? But the article was basically making the case that for those guys without the sex with their partners they were basically choking on all these emotions they couldn’t express and dealing with feelings (not only of rejection and ego which was what I thought it was) but feelings in general (work stress, money stress, family filla, existential crises blah blah blah) that they had no outlet for.
These men can all go cry me the River Volta…
It’s good to be back, Malaka. I missed you guys like Asamoah Gyan misses crucial penalties.
I think the apologizing for stuff with sex is definitely a MY GUY thing. But I think sex as an emotional outlet, and as a way of expressing what they are feeling might be an ALL GUY or MOST GUY thing.
I say this because I recently talked to a family member who had a torrid, steamy, scandalous affair a few years back. He cheated on his wife with a close friend who she considered her little sister and it was a clusterfuck of massive proportions. His wife was devastated and almost left and it took a long time for them to fix their marriage.
Now, I knew he really loved his wife, and from her account, things had been great between them until their first child was born and so she soooo didn’t expect him to cheat on her. And more importantly, he wasn’t jut her husband, he was her friend so she just couldn’t understand how something like her being pregnant or a new mom with baby weight was something that would make him think it was okay to step out on her.
So anyway, I talked to both of them about it separately and the guy had a really interesting (albeit ridiculous) explanation. I rolled my eyes till they scraped my skull, chale, but it was clear that he really believed what he was saying and he had come to it after a lot of analysis and soul-searching. So basically, his explanation was that he and his wife had had this great relationship where they were the best of friends and the best of lovers and they used to fuck in the kitchen and lie by the fountain in Legon and talk about their deepest darkest feelings and whatnot. Her being attracted to him and as hot for him as he was for her was like a huge source of security for him.
When she got pregnant (something they had agreed on oh, which he really wanted), he didn’t realize how little she would be interested in having sex. Not only did she not want to fuck at alllll, she also didn’t want to be touched at allll, like cuddling or oral or anything was totally out of the question. And all of a sudden (please, this is his account, don’t lynch me) he went from having this person who was HIS PERSON to being with someone who seemed to have no interest in him sexually. So I asked ” Ah, but isn’t that just an ego thing? Are you a child? No sex for a few months and so you can’t relate to your wife in other ways? What stupid excuse is that”
And he basically said that a lot of their talking, like their discussions about feelings and check-ins about how the other person was doing emotionally and stuff (basically most non-logistical intimate conversations) happened after having sex. So once they stopped fucking he didn’t know how to talk to her about how neglected he was and how disconnected from her he was feeling. It wasn’t the fucking necessarily that he missed, It was the being close to her. And he thought, okay, let me wait it out till the baby comes but then once the baby came she still wasn’t interested sexually and there seemed to be no way for them to communicate.
So he kept everything bottled up and started to feel like she was no longer interested in him and then along came this nubile young lady and he felt like flirting with her would get his wife’s attention so he flirted with her and then she flirted back and his wife didn’t seem to notice cos she was so wrapped in the baby which he then interpreted as oh she doesn’t care, well let me show her, let me give her something to care about and then before he knew what was what he was having an affair.
And I had read something somewhere about the fact that a lot of relationships start going downhill once the sex stops. My response to that article was of course, “Abi men dieeee, they reduce even the woman they love to the sum of her parts, they are socialized to feel entitled to sex and once they are not getting it they act out.” But the article interviewed a bunch of men who said that once the women stopped having sex with them (cos usually, at least in the cases in the article the woman for some reason or another (probably valid ones like stress, body changes, finances, the man was chaaking her etc etc) they began to feel all this tension and pressure and like there was something sitting on them and they realized if they didn’t end the relationship they would cheat.
Now if it was only about the sexual release then why wasn’t porn or jacking off enough? the article asked. And basically the men were saying that it wasn’t the same because they wanted to connect with someone. So the article was basically making the case that for those guys, without the sex with the partners, they were basically choking on all these emotions they couldn’t express and dealing with feelings (not only of rejection and ego which was what I thought it was) but feelings in general (work stress, money stress, family filla, existential crises blah blah blah) that they had no way to release.
And the primary reason for this of course is that guys don’t get to be vulnerable or honest a lot of times in society. So whoever they are fucking, in a steady sexual relationship with kinda becomes their safe space where they get to dump all that shit. Once that safe space gets taken away they become kind of unmoored.
I know, I know, you’re playing the world’s tiniest violin right now, lol. But mull it over and tell me if you think there’s any value to this….
WOWZY!!! @Voluptuous Voltarian. I just had one heck of a crash course in “sexo-pology”. Thanks and welcome back.
I recently traveled a long distance to visit my fiance with high hopes of “getting some” only to be told she was on her period. After some negotiations, I was given an ass for the night and I had never fucked with so much anger. It felt like a detoxification session. Post-cum session in bed was as if I had never been mad in the first place. So yeah, some guys like myself don’t do too well compartmentalizing.
Wow, Vancouver B!
That is so deep. Thanks for your response. And chale, it’s sooo good to be back. I missed the hell out of all of you.
Your comment just gave me life, mehn. That is toooo funny. Cos it’s exactly what I was talking about in relation to my ex. He was a super-sweet, quiet, loving dude. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. And in bed he was super-romantic, not forceful, all gentle and slow and whatnot. But when he was upset about something he turned into another guy in bed. A throw you down, ravage you, blow your back out kind of dude. I mean not rapey or violent but much more aggressive. And similar to your experience, once he’d come he’d have figured out what was wrong and no longer be mad, and be ready to talk about it (usually by way of an apology like “I’m sorry. I fucked you with such anger. I didn’t know I was mad. But I saw you talking to that guy and he was looking down your shirt and you guys were speaking Ewe and all of a sudden I felt like he had more in common with you than I did and I got scared that I was going to lose you.” And I’d be like “whaaaaaat?” Wow. That is a big difference from the ‘Nothing is bothering me. I’m not upset’ that was your stance earlier. It wasn’t something that made me mad though. I just found it soo fascinating.
I think a lot of guys, just like a lot of women, find sex to be an emotional outlet. And when they are experiencing anger or disappointment or something sex is their way to express it. This is from an article I read
“Increasingly, experts believe sex is a more emotional experience for men than for women. Men tend to express feelings with actions, not words. Unlike a lot of women, they probably don’t have heart-to-heart chats with everyone from their best friend to the bus driver, and they often limit hugs and physical affection to their immediate family.
No wonder they miss sex when it disappears. It’s a way for them to be aggressive and manly but also tender and vulnerable. “For some men, sex may be their primary way of communicating and expressing intimacy,” says Justin Lehmiller, a Harvard University social psychologist who studies sexuality. Taking away sex “takes away their primary emotional outlet.”
It is overly simple to assume male sexuality is primarily biological and that men are constantly looking for a physical outlet, says Esther Perel, a licensed marriage and family therapist in New York City and author of “Mating in Captivity.” Men, much more than women, relate to a partner through sex, she says, as evidenced by their fear of rejection, concerns about performance and desire to please. “When a man gets depressed because he’s not being touched, it’s just like the little boy who stands in his crib and cries to be picked up,” she says. “He is experiencing emotional deprivation.”
Still, there is a chemical reaction going on. Physical touch of any kind drives up the brain’s oxytocin levels, for both men and women. Orgasm causes the brain to release oxytocin and vasopressin, the “feel-good” hormones that promote attachment. Men may rely on their partner not just for sex, but for most of their nonsexual touch as well. They tend to have orgasms more frequently than women and to get a testosterone boost from them, which makes them feel better. “Take sex away and they don’t have the chemical stimulants that give them a sense of well-being,” says Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University research scientist in anthropology.
Ermmm, curious minds want to know. A literal arse or?
Hahahaha @ND. Yeah, Ass as in butthole…lol
This blogspot reminds me of a book I read called “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. Chapman theorizes that people express their love in one or a combination of these five loves: exchanging favours, exchanging gifts, spending quality time, exchanging words of love/care, touching their loved one. Each person has a dominant way of loving. For instance, someone who exchanges favours, feels loved when their partner decides to do the dishes for once, or will express love by offering to pick up their partner’s mom (I don’t know… whatever, you take to mean a favour). For people who show love through gifts, each gift is a significant reminder of a good memory shared with that person. For instance, in the book, Chapman talks about a case where a boyfriend discovers that his girlfriend has 20-something teddy bears; each of which were given to her as a gift. She took great care of them and even gave her names. Chapman clarifies that the gift doesn’t have to be expensive (it could be a rock) as long as you explain to the person, why it reminded you of them.
In my case, I am someone who likes spending quality time. So when I want to bond with someone, I like to meet up and spend hours on end talking to them and listening to them etc.
I suspect that your partner expresses his love through touch. My ex was like that. He always wanted to be hugged; he liked cuddling etc… And even at times, when I was crying, he would try to have sex because he thought that it would be a stress reliever and help me forget what was bothering me. Which frankly for me is a little strange but hey! Anyways, back to your boyfriend. I guess that physical touch is the way he naturally expresses his love, whilst yours is through words of affirmation.
What do you think? (I just noticed this was published in February so I might be a little late with it but hey)
My love language is ‘acts of service’ and ‘quality time’ 🙂