Sex advice with Suzi Godson: Girlfriend doesn’t realise I need foreplay

My new girlfriend seems to think that men get turned on automatically — that she doesn’t need to touch me before sex and that all the foreplay should be directed at her. I also love to be kissed and teased, but if I want that, I have to ask her every time. How can I make her realise that I deserve foreplay too?

The kind of mutual, egalitarian foreplay you describe is a relatively recent expectation. Until the 1970s and 1980s the word “foreplay” was interchangeable with the words “blow job”, and oral sex was never automatically expected to be reciprocal. Things have changed, thank goodness, and sex is much more balanced.

Increased awareness about “real” — as opposed to “idealised” — female sexual function challenged the inequity between male and female orgasm and democratised sexual pleasure. Most adults realise that women take longer than men to achieve orgasm but are unlikely to do so if they don’t receive sufficient, or appropriate, clitoral stimulation.

Greater understanding of women’s sexual needs, among educated adults at least, has led to a prioritisation of female pleasure. For example, a recent study in the United States showed that among men of your age (30-39), 69 per cent reported having given a woman oral sex in the past year, whereas only 59 per cent of women returned the favour.

After centuries of sexual subjugation, that seems like a result. However, as your question shows, men have also inherited misunderstandings, most notably the one you describe; the lingering belief that men are so goal-orientated that they don’t need, or want, the kind of build-up that we recognise as essential to female arousal.

It is possible that your girlfriend does not realise that she is giving less than you. Research shows that when women do engage in foreplay, they often underestimate men’s desired duration.

In a 2004 study, researchers at the University of New Brunswick, Canada found that men and women consider about 18 minutes to be the ideal length of time for foreplay. Women underestimated the desired duration of foreplay that their partners wished to engage in by almost five minutes, and the desired duration of intercourse by more than three minutes. Men were accurate in their estimations.

The study’s authors concluded that rather than using explicit or implicit information provided to them by their sexual partner, men and women rely on stereotypes to guide their understanding of their partners’ preferences. This works out well for women because there is now symmetry between cultural sexual scripts for what women want ‘in theory’ and what women want ‘in practice’. Yet, the assumption that men are not bothered about foreplay means that women who adhere to stereotypes end up selling their partners short.

Gender stereotypes further complicate the issue by inhibiting men from asking for sexual interactions that might be construed as feminine. The same stereotypes inhibit women from being sexually assertive for fear of being judged as not feminine enough.

If you were completely self-interested you would have demanded that your girlfriend engage in foreplay for you in the way that you feel you do for her, but you are a man who wants your girlfriend to engage in mutually pleasurable, sensuous foreplay.

However, to make that happen without demeaning her, or undermining your sexual connection, you need to frame your request in terms of the conflict between your own sexual needs and sociocultural expectations. Explain how confusing it is to be a man who craves touch in a society that expects men to want sex, or what it feels like to be a sensitive male in a society that seems only to respect macho. If you can be categoric about what you want without implying that she has failed you in any way, this problem will resolve itself, quickly and pleasurably.

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