The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups (21 page)

The idea of men not listening is such a well-worn cliché that a commercial on TV for Klondike ice cream bars used this notion to get a laugh. In it, a couple is sitting on a sofa. She’s talking, and he’s looking at her while mentally doing a five-second countdown. After five seconds, he wins an award for listening to his wife. For all of five whopping seconds! And what is this commercial called? “Five Seconds to Glory: Good Listener.”

Clearly, Klondike thought this was a concept that would resonate with their demographic. I’m telling you about it because it does ring true for a lot of women. So before you start teaching the man in your life how to listen, remind yourself that this is not going to be about immediate gratification. Teaching him how to do this will take time.

Remember, this is most likely a new skill for him. Not only that, but for most men (unless they grew up in a house with a dozen sisters), it’s one that doesn’t come naturally. It’s not as instinctively easy for him as it is for you. Listening without interrupting can be incredibly difficult for men because, as I said earlier in this section, their brains literally don’t process sounds
the way women do, especially in the heat of an argument or emotionally loaded discussion.

The goal of his learning how to listen is to allow you to say what you want to say, no matter how sensitive or emotional the subject, and no matter how off-base, illogical, uninteresting, or even wrong it may seem to him—at first.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that you can go on and on about whatever you want and expect a captive, silent audience at all times. (Listening and good communication goes both ways.) It just means that you can use that to establish the boundaries for the healthy back-and-forth that is the essence of good communication in a loving relationship. You have a chance to speak, and then it’s
his
turn.

Here are a few rules for men on how to be great at listening:

• Pay attention to what she is saying. Do not just nod and say umm-hmm. She’ll know if you’ve tuned out.
  

• Look at her when she is talking to you.
  Do not
  , upon painful risk of being denied sex for the foreseeable future, ever look down or away at an electronic device when she is talking to you (unless the caller ID identifies the call as a true emergency, and no faking allowed). Also, do not look down at her chest or any other part of her body—or out a window or around the room, no matter how nice the view might be.
  

• Do not interrupt.
  

• Repeat:
  Do not interrupt.
  Yes, you. Shut the fuck up!
  

• If you feel you are about to burst from not talking, count
  silently in your head to ten (or twenty, fifty, or whatever number it takes for you to stay quiet) until the impulse passes.
  

• Or try deep breathing. Breathe in for a count of five, and then breathe out for a count of five. Keep doing this until the impulse passes. (Try not to breathe too audibly, so you don’t sound like you are sighing impatiently.)
  

• Or try sucking in your abs when you do this and concentrate on holding the movement for a few seconds. Not only will it help you not talk, but it will improve your core strength!
  

• Men who are reading this section because your wife or girlfriend just shoved it under your nose, trust me that it helps to try to at least
  pretend
  that you’re listening. After all, you expect them to listen to you. After a while, you may surprise yourself. You actually
  will
  be listening, and you might even start hearing things that are interesting. And trust me, that will lead to better sex and more of it.
  

• Understand that women don’t necessarily want or need their partner to jump in to solve their problems or suggest ways to fix things (as you’ll learn in the last section of this lesson). Most of the time, they just want their partner to listen to what they have to say and try to understand without passing judgment. Resist the temptation to interrupt or debate. That doesn’t mean not talking at all; it just means giving a woman the time to finish her thoughts completely before you respond.
  

• If you’re still having a hard time listening, remind yourself that you already know how to listen, because you probably do it all the time with others. At work, for example, do you interrupt your boss or supervisors when they’re telling you
  about a big project? Of course you don’t, because you know the rules and don’t want to get fired. Do you interrupt your colleagues when they’re describing an important task at a meeting? Of course not, because you know the rules and want to succeed in your career. Pretend your partner is a client, colleague, or boss (in many ways she is), and treat her with the same respect. Remember that what works with your career and your colleagues will work wonders at home with your partner, too.
  

For both of you: Realize that it’s equally important to check the instinct to get mad if your partner’s response isn’t immediately what you expect (usually for women) and the instinct to try to solve the problem quickly (almost always for men). (See the last section of this lesson, starting on
page 198
.)

Here are some suggestions for men to ingest, memorize, and use so they can improve their listening skills, and make their partner feel loved and understood. You can also use them as a refresher course for yourself, because they apply to both of you.

• Stick to “I” statements—statements that express how you feel or think about something your partner has said.
  

• Stay away from “you” statements. Don’t accuse, and do
  not
  distract her or derail the conversation by throwing in something unrelated that bothers you about your partner.
  

• Use reflective listening techniques to clarify what is being said. You can say, “I hear you saying…” and paraphrase what your partner just said. Ask if what you said is correct. This can help you avoid misunderstandings and demonstrates that you really have heard what your partner is saying. It also allows you a minute to gather your thoughts to respond respectfully.
  

• Avoid talking about sensitive or difficult subjects when either of you is extremely tired or stressed, or both, which always exacerbates any conversation difficulties. This is one of the most basic rules, yet many people use the most stressful time of the day to bring up something that will push buttons. (It reminds me of toddlers having tantrums. Many of their meltdowns happen simply because the child is tired and hungry.)
  

• Never have an important conversation when either of you is under the influence of alcohol or some other substance that makes it harder to control emotions.
  

• Don’t make threats or ultimatums if your partner has mentally checked out or picked up his or her iPad. Let it go for now, but make it clear that the conversation will continue when you are both not so stressed and tired.
  

• If you feel “stuck” in a disagreement, back off, cool down, and remind each other of the core values you both cherish about each other and how much you love each other. If this doesn’t work repeatedly and you can’t get unstuck no matter how hard you both try, it may be worth seeking out a neutral referee such as a therapist or counselor who can help you both.
  

• When a woman is talking,
  she doesn’t want to be fixed.
  A lot of men are in the problem-fixing business. They want to treat their relationship partner the way they’d treat a business partner. But what works professionally should stay in the office. In a
  relationship
  , men should not decide to fix the problem unless their help is solicited.
  

In other words, don’t try to fix something that doesn’t think it’s broken. If she wants a fix, she’ll ask you for a fix. The worst thing you can do while you’re listening is to tell her what you’re going to do, or what you think is the way to fix the situation. She doesn’t care what you think at that particular moment. Maybe she’ll care later. That’s not the point. The point is: Shut the fuck up, leave her to fix it on her own, and listen.

In addition, if your wife is talking to you about tulip bulbs the cat dug up in the garden, that’s just as important as what
you
want to talk about. Understand that a problem she thinks is worth discussing is worth it, whether it’s small or monumental. So if you say, “Why are you talking to me about this?” I promise you there will be no sex that night.

Most of all, realize that in relationships, if the woman isn’t happy, nothing’s going to happen in bed. Nobody is going to have sex if they’re not happy with the person with whom they’re having it.

Think of this as the Italian cheesecake rule. I am fairly good about watching what I eat, but my downfall is the Italian cheese-cake at my favorite neighborhood restaurant. Every time I go in there, I swear I’m not going to get a big, fat calorie-bomb slab, and every time I end up scarfing one down. Why? Because it’s fun.
Because I love it. Because eating it tastes great. So great, in fact, that it’s worth the extra workouts or my wife rolling her eyes at my lack of willpower.

So when people ask me, “Why am I not having sex?” the answer is easy. If you enjoy sex, you’ll have it more. If you’re not having sex, somebody does not like something about it, and that something could easily be your behavior. If women don’t like their partner’s behavior or they don’t feel loved and
heard
by their partners, they don’t want to have sex. Want to have more sex? Make your partner feel loved and attended to. This isn’t rocket science, guys.

Getting back to the cheesecake, remember this: great sex is like a meal. There’s the appetizer, the main course, and dessert.

Your relationship itself is the appetizer.

All this talking and the communication is foreplay. It may sounds as unsexy as listening to your accountant tell you about your taxes. Really. But when done right, good communication is the all-important emotional foreplay before the physical foreplay of lovemaking.

Next comes the main course: the sex itself. And then dessert is when you’re smiling and satiated.

Guess what—your partner’s practice time on listening skills is not going to be with you.

If you’ve tried and tried and
tried
and just can’t seem to get conversations to work, it may be time to back off, cool down, remind each other of the core values you both cherish, and then, if needed, take the discussion to someone who can mediate as a neutral party and with whom your partner can talk and listen. This can be a therapist or counselor, a trusted member of the clergy, or even a friend or family member who knows you well and whose advice you can trust to be neutral and positive.

Even if he is driving you so crazy that you’ve vowed never to have sex with him again, try as hard as you can to give your partner some space to talk things through with someone else. Especially if it has to do with sex. Like my wife, you may have been talking to your girlfriends about dating and sex and boy talk ever since puberty, but boys just don’t talk that way. (That’s the reason I’m writing this book—men don’t know who to talk to about sexual issues and communication issues and women issues!)