Sex and the male response

A new survey on male sexuality shows that men want sex more than once a day, still want to marry virgins, are prone to cheat, prefer sexually active women and react with disbelief on hearing of their wife's infedility.

MEN ARE ROMANTIC sensitive souls, they enjoy candlelit dinners, soft lights, hugging and kissing, they think the ideal sexual relationship is within marrriage, they are assiduously solicitous for their partners sexual enjoyment, they seek companionship and self- assurance in their female partners and they still want to marry virgins.

This is the conclusion of a new surrvey of male sexuality conducted by two American psychologists, on the basis of interviews with 4,066 American men chosen on a representative sample. It seeks to confound the prevalent male 'myths' that 'men are only after the one thing', 'all men are animals' etc. and to debunk much of the stereotyped characterisation of men inspired by the Women's Liberation Movement.

Among the more durable myths the survey explodes is the myth that men very often tend to see and evaluate a woman primarily on her looks. It shows that most men's priorities are a quality of self - assurance in the woman, an air of confidence in herself that ennhances every aspect of her appearance and personality. The modern man is more turned on by naturalness and poise that is not the product of affecctation, quite the opposite of the image conveyed by the heavily made - up models who dominate magazines and billboards.

Men also emerged as surprisingly romantic in the conventional sense Àsoft music, low lights etc., provocative

nightwear. Quite the opposite of the Boston husband who arrived home recently to find his wife had prepared a candlelit dinner and exclaimed: 'I know we have an energy crisis but this is ridiculous'.

The Hite Report (a recent study of female sexuality) castigated men for their failure to understand women's sexual needs. Other recent surveys have stated that many men have hanggups about sex because it isn't 'useful', takes up time and exposes the body which is a source of embarrassment, therefore men want to get sex over with as quickly as possible.

However, this survey shows that men are quite maudlin about sex preferring kissing and caressing as foreplay to more exotic preliminaries. Hardly surprisingly older men (over 55) were somewhat less acrobatic in their advances than younger men, for whom sex would appear to becoming a major gymnastic performance. Meticulously, the survey reports that the better educated men are,the more adventurous they are about sex.

For younger and better educated males, breasts are out as an object of foreplay. While 27% of men over 40 cite the bosom as the source of most pleaasure, this figure drops to 21 % for the 30-39 age bracket and, alarmingly, to a mere 18% for men under 30. The report observes that there is a shift away from the breasts.

There has also been a shift in attitudes towards nudity. Younger men are not turned on by nakedness unlike those in the 55-65 age group. The younnger males are more addicted to lingerie which regrettably many women confuse with fetishism. On this point the report is re-assuring, pointing out that so long as the man finally engages in sexual activity with the woman and not the lingerie all is well.

Most men want women to be more active during sex, the sawdust types are out. However, apparently, a woman need not be Nadia Comaneci in bed but neither should she approach the nuptial couch with caked face, curlered hair and a tub of ice cream. Some sort of running commentary also seems to be desirable, but it should not be overdone - less of the Mick O'Hehirs and more of the Mick Dunnes.

In spite of the wave of sexual impootence that is sweeping the western world in the wake of liberation, men want sex more than ever and with greater variation. According to other reports men have sex on average one and a half times a week (the half preesumably being by Catholics), but this survey shows that 13.1 % want sex more than once a day, 25.3% 5 to 7 times a week and a further 34.6% more than 3 times a week.

Married men who supposedly are in a state 'combining the maximum of temptation with the maximum of oppportunity' (G.B.S.) actually wanted sex less frequently than singles who opted for 'more than once a day in large nummbers. One suspects that a similar survey in Dublin would find different results where married men appear to be connsiderably more frantic than singles. For no obvious reason the report notes in passing that an obscure African rodent known as a jird has been observed havving sexual intercourse 112 times in one hour.

A fifth of the respondents said that sex was the most important pleasure in their life, while another 60% said that, while it wasn't the most, it was a very important pleasure in their life. This latter sentiment would be endorsed by a prominent Irish journalist who innformed President Hillery at an official function some years ago that a plate of new spuds was better than sex any day.

While over half the respondents said that a monogamous marriage (wife being the only sex partner) was the ideal condition, the ideal of the faithful hussband is losing popularity. Only 40% of the under-30's and 36% of university students believed in this.

One of the more durable male myths is that they are all afflicted by an Oedipus complex and would therefore always avoid sexual association with any woman old enough to be their mother or who would remind them of their mother. However, the survey shows that only one out of six men insisted that their sex partners be no older than themselves and this attitude is more prevalent among men over 55 where more than a third make this demand.

The male-female conflict in recent years has centred on sexual gratifiication and especially on the female orgasm. The Women's movement and the Hite Report have insisted that males are solely interested in their own gratification in sex and this survey seeks to refute this thesis. An overrwhelming number of respondents ¸about 98% of all men surveyed - felt it was important for a woman to exxperience orgasm and four out of five men make a conscious effort to proolong sex as long as possible to achieve this.

However only a third of men succeed in· consistently bringing their partner to orgasm but only 15% make no attempt to delay their own orgasm.

In a previous study by another American psychologist, Gebhard, it was found that when penetration lasted less than one minute before ejaculation, only 25% of wives nearly always achieved orgasm; 50% did so if penetration lasted for one to eleven minutes and if penetration was susstained for sixteen minutes or longer, almost all women had consistent orgasms.

The famous Kinsey report, 'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male', pubblished in, 1948 estimated that about 75% of males reached orgasm within two minutes of intromission. However,a more recent American study by Morton Hunt estimates the median duration of intercourse as about ten minutes. Hunt concludes that motivation is the prime factor affecting delay of ejaculation, for young men took longer to ejaculate than older ones, contrary to biological expectations.

Conventional wisdom assumes that most men have an orgasm, roll over and go to sleep, often leaving their partners unsatisfied and frustrated. However more than two - thirds of all men surrveyed in this study regarded women's satisfaction as the criterion for terrminating sexual relations.

In direct conflict with the Rite report, this survey shows that nearly

one third of men brought their parttners to orgasm through intercourse nearly every time and more than half succeeded 60% of the time.

The stereo-type of the sex-frenzied, cynical male takes a knock with the disclosure that 38.4% of males in this survey believe that love is the most important· thing in life, another 25% said it's good but one can live a full life without it and a further 21% said that if you're in love, sex is better.

A majority of men stressed the importance of communication between partners and an unbelievable 71% said they enjoyed hugging and kissing withhout it leading to sex. Another 12% said they actually had a strong need for hugging and kissing.

The survey shows that while sex is an important aspect of most marriages, it is rarely the reason that people marry today. Nearly half the respondents said their main reason for getting married, aside from love, would be companionnship, another quarter said it would be having a home life, while only 7% said it would be regular sex. Although several sociologists have predicted innformal living-together arrangements as the  future replacement for marriage, more of those living together think that the ideal sex life exists inside marriage. Also 85% of all currently unmarried men said they would marry eventually. The living-together phenomenon of the last two decades can therefore be seen as a transitory stage between single life and marriage rather than a replacement of marriage.

The survey suggests strongly that marriage is still viable.

One - third of men still prefer to marry virgins, according to the report, thereby reaffirming the endurance of the double standard. Although another third of the respondents said it would not matter what sexual experience their wives-to-be would have, the report disparages the latter result. Howwever, younger men were less fussy about the previous sexual experience of their partners, only' 25% of men under 30 want an inexperienced woman as commpared with 51% of men over SO.

In spite of this growing indifference, according to Hunt's survey only 56% of men under 25 felt that it was acceptable for a female to have pre-marital sex where no strong affection existed, while 80% approved if strong affection did exist.

Again, according to Hunt's 1972 study, 81 % of married women under the age of 25 had engaged in premarital sex, nearly twice the percentage reported for that age group by Kinsey two decades earlier. Yet, in both studies, only about half had ever been involved with men other than their fiances, indicating that while the incidence of premarital interrcourse has markedly increased, many non-virginal brides have adhered to the traditional standard of monogamy.

On the question of infidelity. on the part of wives, the reaction of most men on hearing of it is not rage but dissbelief.

In spite of the male preference for the faithful female, about half of all married men have sexual intercourse with women other than their wives, according to the survey. This is exactly the same proportion as reported by Kinsey in 1948. The available statistics on this issue suggest that cheating is, not so much a phase that some men go through, as a general way of life for those who engage in it .•

Beyond the Male Myth by Anthony Pietropinto MD and Jacqueline Simenauer. (Times Books, New York 1977)