How to F*ck a Woman

by Ali Adler

  Her: “When you left the house with my car keys in your messenger bag, it felt like you didn’t see me. Like I’m invisible. And then I had to spend my day correcting your mistake by Ubering to your office to get my own keys. That’s because you think you’ve got more going on work-wise than I do, which makes me feel less-than . . .” Oh my God, if only there was a secret oral sex exit out of this level of hellish emotional brick breaking. But it isn’t the way women are constituted.

  The Truth from an Inside Trader/Traitor

  Okay, a little background about me. Who knows if I was born gay? If I was, it was obscured by the pinkity-pink of the dresses I was shoved into without a care as to my opinion. As I grew up, I kind of followed what my peers were doing, and that included exploring my sexuality with the opposite sex. Heterosexual seduction was like a very easy game; one, it seemed, boys would let you win.

  As my sexuality evolved into wanting women, sexual conquest was less triumphant. Even as a female, the quest for girls was always more complicated, the thirst never as easily satisfied. Simply, women are more emotionally complicated than men. Even if you know the inner workings of a girl because you are a girl, there are no gimmes. Not unless you are the fictional Friday Night Lights character, Tim Riggins. If you are Tim Riggins, you may stop reading and continue fucking.

  For this reason, my straight lady friends love to pepper me with “Is it true that . . .” types of questions. Like I’m the answer key, the Teacher’s Edition, to what men think and feel. Like I’m willing to be an inside trader. And the truth is, I am. Sure, I like girls, but I am one first, so my allegiance is with us. I do know stuff about guys that women may want to know, because I walk fairly invisibly behind the “enemy” lines. And I am happy to share this stuff with you. Guys tell me things I really don’t want to know. Didn’t ask to know. Can’t shake off, once I do know.

  But women also ask me things they wouldn’t, and couldn’t, ask a man. They conjecture to me as if I’m a guy with a higher capacity for comprehension. They muse, “If you’re attracted to women, do you spend a lot of time touching your own breasts?” “If you’re into girls, why aren’t you into me? Are you into me?” “Guys make a lot of jokes about how women smell and taste; are those rumors true? Are we gross?” All those terrible jokes men cling to because guys want to receive and not give oral sex. Those innuendos have had women throughout the ages wondering about the aromatic nature of our own genitals.

  Answers: I lost interest in my own boobs a long time ago. You always want what you don’t have. No, I am not attracted to most heterosexual women, because being with a woman who has never been with a woman is a little like teaching someone how to ice skate. Skating only gets fun after you’re done with the lengthy initial insecurities and instruction process. You want to skate with someone who has let go and found her own balance and style. And, as for the mythology of the scent of a woman: well, if for some reason it’s strong, there’s generally something going on down there. In their pristine state, vaginas are delightful.

  What We Say versus What Men Hear

  Here’s what we sound like to men: the dull, teasing, incessant whine of a housefly. This fly will neither die nor be hit with what was once a magazine, and is now probably one of a pair of flip-flops. I know this because I often am like this. I like to have sex with women, but genetics win here; I am one. I am a buzzy housefly.

  Here’s some good advice: the only way to stop this annoying habit is to quit whining and nagging and dwelling on expressing whatever it is you don’t currently possess. Inside your head or aloud, stop fucking complaining all the time. Stop saying it’s hot when it’s hot, or cold when it’s cold. No one exclaims when it’s the perfect temperature. No one needs to hear this constant emotional status report of what’s going on for you at any given moment.

  Be gentle with your words, and with your actions. Be grateful for what you have, and express that out loud, using specifics. Do something caretaking. This can be food preparation or extra thoughtfulness in your work, or exercise or sexual desire or generosity. If you have to complain, call your friends—they’ll interrupt you with their own problems, which may even sound worse than yours.

  Clear Your History

  Let your boyfriend or husband watch whatever the hell he wants to watch on TV. It doesn’t matter if you don’t enjoy a documentary about Nikola Tesla; just step up your game and stop kvetching—just watch your own thing on your laptop. I literally can’t get enough of the Housewives of all the Bravo states, but men can. The Housewives are the composite of his greatest fears: yelling, plastic surgery, wigs, backstabbing, shit-talking, spending, fighting, wine-soaked lunches, matched sets of costly luggage, beach houses, wire fraud, gossiping, and lack of satisfaction despite enormous wealth—and all of it in a world where nannies are watching the children 24/7.

  Stop bringing up old issues, remembering old details and using them against him. Clear your history of these events. Either forgive and move on, or literally move on. There is no yesterday. We only have today and tomorrow, so make today fresh and new.

  Contain your web of complex thoughts. Rope them in, shush them like a crying infant. This vessel of fears and list of things you have to accomplish is the buzzing of the fly. If you can’t totally shut up, just know that the fly is way less annoying if it is just flitting noiselessly. So stop being so negative. Do it. Do it even if it hurts to do it. Bite the insides of your cheeks and pretend to be an entirely different person than you are if you have to. Act as-if, pretend to be better than you are, and see whether gradually things start to shift. Mostly, don’t misinterpret what he isn’t saying as what he is feeling. Don’t take things he doesn’t say personally—after all, he never said them.

  In his silence, he may even be feeling something positive about you. Then, you add your own lens, distort it, layer in your own fictional narrative and historical baggage and emotional cologne, which makes him defensive. It will drive him away.

  Don’t Assume He Understands

  The most important thing I’ve noticed about all relationships is the idea that we assume our partner should understand us. We imbue him/her with the ability to mind read, and then are offended when he/she is not a crystal ball–gazing soothsayer. I hear this all the time from my friends in varying degrees: “He should know how I feel! After all this time, how can he not know?!”

  Okay, but he doesn’t, and he can’t. What is obvious to you is not obvious to him. You come with your own wiring and, like it or not, speak with a language that is truly foreign to him. “Why are you asking me if there’s more toothpaste, when I’m talking about how I feel about not being included on a task team I wanted to be on at work?” “Are you not listening to me?” “Do you not have feet that can walk to the medicine cabinet and check yourself?” “You know the answer to that question; you buy toothpaste at a place called the grocery store. Same location they sell vodka, so I’d think you’d be more familiar with it.”

  Truth: when women’s voices reach a certain sharp pitch, men’s brains switch to hearing “blappity blap blappity blap”—even if she is shouting the winning Lotto numbers. No matter what she’s saying, because of how she is saying it, they simply are not listening. I’ve watched football for more than a dozen years, but still don’t know what all those stupid hand signals the referees make mean. I’ve given up wanting to figure them out. Instead, I’ve learned to listen to the sounds of the crowd. If the crowd cheers after the ref’s hand gestures and that’s the team I’m rooting for, I know to be happy. Same thing for you. Even after telling him how you feel, he may not get it.

  Masturbation Doesn’t Mean He Loves You Less

  Here’s another important thing to understand: before guys were men, they were boys. Boys love to masturbate. Any second that they are alone in the world, they’re playing with their dicks. And men do this, too. Not much about this changes. Of the men I surveyed, most said self-stimulation relaxed them and relieved stress, and they didn’t want to bug their g
irlfriends or wives for a couple minutes of purely selfish pleasure. A man loves to play Madden, but cock fondling is his original sport. I mean, Eve gets a lot of credit and blame for offering up the allegorical apple in Eden but, even without her, Adam would’ve come across this forbidden piece of fruit and fucked it until it was cored.

  Listen up, ladies: men do not love their woman less because they jerk off. It has zero to do with how often you fuck him or how rich you perceive your sex life to be. This is simply their way of quick release. It is a relationship they’ve had for a very long time, and they wouldn’t want to disappoint their penis. It reminds them that they are still free, still alive. It quiets their constantly whirring motor. They do this so they can get back to listening to you, playing an idiotic game with their kids, remaining upright during a boring dinner with your judgmental friends who discuss nothing that ever interests them. They must release, and so they do.

  But take a journey with me to their boyhoods, when their pubescent sacs really start thumping. It must be so distracting to all of a sudden receive higher and higher surges of testosterone, and not know what to do with it. Their bodies are developing faster than their social skills, and it’s way too early for physical contact with the other gender, so they find release through self-stimulation.

  Okay, fine, but walk down this path with me for a second. Let’s do the simple math, here. These boys achieve erection just because they’re wearing a slightly less worn-in pair of boxer briefs, and are used to satisfying themselves in several delightful strokes. These same young men are supposed to suddenly understand how to pleasure a female person. But their wiring is whacked. It is conditioned for speed, not stamina. It is a practice designed for release, to not get caught by a snoopy parent or sneaky sibling while covertly jacking it. So this same muscle, the one they’ve spent endless hours privately honing during puberty . . . is the same one they take to game day. And speed is generally the opposite of what a woman desires sexually.

  So okay, the much anticipated day arrives when they finally have some type of sexual interaction with a woman. What do you think is going to happen? Well, they have no clue what to do with this real live person. They are only used to unrealistic visual stimuli via the computer, fantastical mental pictures, or substandard descriptions from peers.

  They have no clue sexually, physically, or otherwise what to do with this enigmatic thing that is a vagina. And to be honest, at that point in their fucking careers, they don’t really care. They want release. Just like they did all over the bathroom/bed/car/garage/shower/toilet/sock/soft sandwich-bread/wig while practicing for the big day. It’s just that they were practicing for the wrong thing. They know how to jerk themselves off very well in no time flat. Anywhere, and utilizing anything. Even at fourteen, boys are creative, resourceful, and industrious in terms of innovating ersatz vaginas. They are the MacGyvers of masturbation. But ask them to come up with a unique anniversary gift for the mother of their kids, and they want a knees-on-the-ground ovation for roses and baby’s breath wrapped in cellophane purchased at the gas station convenience market.

  Since boyhood, these guys have been overly familiar with themselves. Through practice, they know their way around this thing that alternately dangles and thunders between their legs. They know exactly what they want. But wait. Now they’re supposed to please a female. Well, the first time they meet a vagina, pleasuring it has got to be their eightieth concern. They are thinking, “Yessssss, I can’t believe I’m here!” “I made it to the Bigs!” “Right this second I am having a rite of passage!” “I’m now in the club of knowing!” “Omigod, this feels so wet and weird and messy and crazy and different from mine and omigod!” “I can’t wait to tell my friends!”

  But all of that is super secondary, superseded by the larger, physiological drumbeat of their nuts and dick: “Goodfeelgoodfeelcumcumcum!” Their major concern—beyond what boobs actually feel like or this new weird orifice in front of them—is not blowing an accidental load on her leg, or even before they can get their dick out of their underpants.

  Go Easy on the Critique of His Technique

  So, this is some approximation of his first time. After that, his partner is trying not to crush his tender young ego, but instead is just encouraging him to do what he’s doing. After all, the social dynamics of a burgeoning sexuality are shameful and weird and competitive . . . so why would a young teenage girl going through her own list of primal firsts go, “No, no, you’re doing that all wrong!” or “Ow! No, that hurts, you’re too ON IT, ouch!” or “Don’t squeeze my boobs so hard, they’re attached to me! They aren’t two blobs of pizza dough!” “No, I guess you man-handle your dick like that, but my private area requires woman-handling.”

  Girls, like guys, are just blooming, too, so now is the opportunity for girls to develop their own emotional deftness. They want to be loved, to fit in, to be adored. So why would they take this, their actual first opportunity, to literally bust balls? So our primary physical interaction is the blind leading the kind. That is how men develop what it is they do in bed (or car). And by the time women have the ego strength to offer up even gentle thoughtful hints or suggestions, men’s habits are solidified.

  For the brave and heroic women and girls who helped instruct their boyfriends on what they actively like: good for you. Because sometimes guys will dump anyone they perceive as critical. Women are simply trying to tell him what they like, but of course he’s going to take it personally; it’s super personal. It’s what he’s not doing that is displeasing her. The woman is attacking the guy at his core, his nuts, where he actually lives. It’s all embarrassing and new and vulnerable. So go easy on your guy when you’re critiquing his moves. And have him read chapter 8 of this book.

  How to Know Which Guys to Avoid

  There are many types of guys to avoid when deciding to start dating someone. But sometimes, you have to scratch the surface to find out who they really are. If I could draw labels on their foreheads in Sharpie pen, I would say to avoid the following. Again, this list is by no means comprehensive; feel free to add to it.

  • The guy who you wish was more into you.

  • The fuck buddy who you wish would become more.

  • The guy who won’t grow up. Peter Panstein.

  • The half-truth guy.

  • The man who won’t say I love you.

  • The short-term serial monogamist.

  • The scared-to-commit guy.

  • The commits-too-fast guy.

  • The super-pursuer.

  • The guy who won’t text back.

  • The guy who is prettier than you.

  • The guy who isn’t even in your league.

  • The super-sarcastic.

  • The too-earnest.

  • The crier (I know this can sound good at first; he’s emotional, that’s nice. But if he’s crying all the time, chances are his tears aren’t even about you. They are about the fact that no one was around to wipe them away originally. Or maybe someone was always around to wipe them away, so he never got a chance to do it for himself. Either way, this is too much for you to handle in a partner.)

  • Too many exes.

  • Too few exes.

  • Too many kids.

  • Doesn’t want to entertain the idea of having kids.

  • The one with too much to prove.

  • The one who doesn’t have enough to prove.

  • The workaholic.

  • The slacker.

  • The too-small-penised—and yes . . . I know it’s hard to fathom, but also . . .

  • The too-big-penised.

  • The guy who thinks he has all the answers.

  • The guy who doesn’t bother asking the questions.

  • The mama’s boy.

  • The daddy’s boy.

  • The separated guy. (I feel like I don’t even have to mention the married guy, but avoid this one, too. He lives in an odd place that indicates he knows how to commit to marriage,
but he also can’t commit to divorce.)

  • The too-confident.

  • The too-insecure.

  • The guy who reminds you of your ex, your dad, or your brother.

  • The broke guy.

  • The out-every-night guy.

  • The guy who doesn’t want to leave the house.

  • The secretive man.

  • The oversharing man.

  • The one who doesn’t like your job, your hair, your friends, your family, your cat, your height, and your knuckles.

  • The one who tells you that you can’t do something; who doesn’t encourage you to follow your dreams.

  • The one who will let you live in your delusional ambitions when they are way past the point of failing dangerously.

  I get it. After this list, it leaves pretty much no one. But they are out there. Don’t be content to just scour the dregs of a club or be the friend who got dragged along with your best friend’s new boyfriend’s friend. This is an important choice that affects you for forever, so pick well and go slowly. Don’t waste your time on those who steal your energy, or who you know aren’t the right one. Sure, it’s fun to go have a good time. It’s fun to fuck whomever you want, too. But just be careful. If you’re with the wrong person for too long, it can sidetrack your life from being the one you’ve always wanted for yourself. Wasting time with the wrong person can steal time away from the path you’re actually supposed to be on. Every penis is a choice.

  An example of someone not to date: About seven years ago, my friend Melissa, an extremely bright woman with equally bright green eyes, was excited to introduce me to her new boyfriend. We went out to lunch. He was nice enough. Paid for his food with a debit card. His wallet was held together with yellow duct tape. He wore too-light denim, too-plaid shirt. No watch. Didn’t even check the time on his phone. He ordered blueberry pie with ice cream. As his entree.