Sexual Satisfaction Isn’t Just One Destination For Men, Either

Here's one of my great­est regrets as a sex blog­ger — and what I wish I had said.

When a friend of a friend men­tioned being unable to fin­ish dur­ing sex with his wife, I wish I had suggested:

1. To decen­tral­ize penis-​in-​vagina intercourse
2. That he could adjust some­thing on his end

It's not that there wasn't "a real solu­tion" — there were plen­ty. However, some of them involved the dis­com­fort of shift­ing what is nor­mal or standard.

For one, vagi­nal inter­course doesn't have to be the ulti­mate stan­dard main course act — and even if it is for you, you could frame fin­ish­ing a dif­fer­ent way as dessert. It's okay to have dessert!

And an orgasm dur­ing inter­course isn't nec­es­sary for sex­u­al sat­is­fac­tion. I often tell women it's okay to have inter­course but fin­ish dur­ing oth­er sex acts, like mutu­al mas­tur­ba­tion, oral sex, using toys on each oth­er, and more. The flip side is that it's okay for men, too!

And when peo­ple say, "It ruins the mood" to fin­ish with a part­ner in a way oth­er than straight-​up vagi­nal inter­course, my main ques­tion is: "Would it ruin the mood more than not fin­ish­ing with them at all?"

If not, con­sid­er chang­ing the activ­i­ty to some­thing that does get you off.

If yes, don't fin­ish, and own it.

We also didn't have to jump imme­di­ate­ly to, "She's not tight enough for him."

Yes, pelvic floor exer­cis­es on her end can strength­en mus­cles around the walls for a firmer hold. And at the same time, there were many unknowns to me about their situation:

• His mas­tur­ba­tion habits
• How tight of a grip he used
• His hand move­ment cadence
• What he thought about when masturbating
• Whether his porn fan­tasies cor­re­spond­ed to what he did in "real life" sex

Were his favorite kink porn deals rough and rife with aggres­sion? Did he watch sen­su­al erot­i­ca focused on feel­ings and sce­nar­ios, and if so, what themes were promi­nent? It's cer­tain­ly pos­si­ble to con­sume inter­net porn with inten­tion, but it takes aware­ness of what turns one on about the fantasy.

When you break down what's "nor­mal," you real­ize that what's expect­ed isn't des­tiny, and it doesn't have to define you as a sen­su­al being. You don't have to be stuck with any one met­ric by which you mea­sure nor­mal­cy or suc­cess; there are many ways to be nor­mal and have risk-​aware con­sen­su­al spice.

When peo­ple say, "It ruins the mood" to fin­ish with a part­ner in a way oth­er than straight-​up vagi­nal inter­course, my main ques­tion is: "Would it ruin the mood more than not fin­ish­ing with them at all?"

If you can't cum dur­ing inter­course, it's okay, really!

Focus on the ways you can cum.

And if cum­ming isn't easy for you, focus on the ways you can have fun. Just as women are told that orgasm is a nat­ur­al byprod­uct of enjoy­ment, it's okay for men to enjoy the ride with­out focus­ing on fin­ish­ing, too.

And if sex isn't fun for you yet (or any­more), focus on what turns you on. Maybe explore dif­fer­ent erot­ic con­tent than usu­al, see what your body responds to in day-​to-​day life, and con­sid­er how that can trans­fer to the bedroom.

And if you're not turned on, focus on what makes you feel good — because you deserve pleasure.

It's been years since I told him that I didn't "have a real answer" when I, in fact, had mul­ti­ple poten­tial answers for a man con­cerned about whether his wife's vagi­na was tight enough for him.

While it was easy for him to say a too-​loose vagi­na was some­thing on her end — and that is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that can be worked with — oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties for break­ing out of a sex­u­al rut deserved nuanced con­sid­er­a­tion. Whether they would have been com­fort­able to hear at first doesn't change that.

This post was spon­sored. Views expressed are my own, though a blog post is no sub­sti­tute for the nuances of sex therapy.

I don't know enough about this cou­ple to tell them what to do — and I might nev­er. But if there's any­thing I've learned since that con­ver­sa­tion, it's to appre­ci­ate that we often have more options than we think. Seeing them might take a shift in perspective.