BODY LANGUAGE
Kim Majid
It’s nothing new that women keep “their” men on sex rations. It’s so common, in fact, that together with having to go to the pharmacy at 11pm to look for Tampax, some men come to expect it’s just one of those things that comes with being in a relationship.
But while acres of book space have been devoted to the likes of “return to sexual normalcy post-partum”, not much has been said about what to do when the male is brandishing the coital whip.
Enter the male equivalent of the famous female cock-teaser who uses deprivation of “it” to get his way. Or, as anecdotal evidence suggests, to “not spoil her too much”.
And make no mistake, they are out there withholding their penile arsenals in a bid to reduce even the most strong-willed among us to quivering, begging wrecks or, as women’s nature would have it, surly specimens with mouths like chickens’ anuses.
Just like the legions of married women out there who only let their husbands see them knicker-less once every two months in a bid to “maintain his interest” these men treat their equipment like a Faberg egg, or the Shroud of Turin, bringing it out only on rare occasions to bedazzle and confirm our faith. And, lest we become too blas, stash it away again.
But men may have come to expect cock-teasing as a part of life, and find it perfectly acceptable to put their pride in their pockets and beg. But to tell one’s female friends that a man is keeping you on a sex diet can be the worst humiliation for a woman. After all, “men are supposed to want it all the time they’d do anything in a skirt”.
For women who get the short end of this stick, and regard begging for it as “infra-dig”, the experience can have devastating effects.
Just ask me, I have a friend (no, really) who dated such a man.
Throughout our oops, I mean their time together, he seemed to think their relationship would lead to imminent ruin because the ratio of spending time in the sack outweighed the time spent talking about plans to solve world hunger.
In other words, they were not getting to know (the rest of) each other nearly as well as they should have been. Since, as everybody knows, familiarity can kill any relationship, I guess he had a point. Eating perlemoen loses its novelty if it washes up on your beach-house steps every day.
But truth is, women are just not equipped to deal with a man who turns into Sir Lance-a-Little after things have already been going strong for months.
Mothers and girl joke-books may teach you how to brace yourself for days when you, the woman, have to pretend you have a headache but not with a man who gets you all hot and flustered whispering sweet nothings into your ear, only to then, cool as a cucumber himself, back off and croon “next time, baby”.
The fuel these monsters consume is any hint on the woman’s part that she actually enjoys balling him. It’s this little trump card they can use to keep you in eternal submission.
It’s not to say there aren’t times when men, too, “aren’t in the mood for love” as my friend’s personal tormentor was fond of saying. Then there was the old lie by some of these types that they “respect” you too much. Or they may trot out one of needing to create “spaces in your togetherness”.
Which is all you’ll ever know, unless the truth slips out in some drunken haze, or during one of your Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus bonding sessions. He likes doing it. He’s doing it deliberately. Because if you exude any hint that you love sex, keeping you deprived (he reasons to himself) for some time will make you want him more.
But you can spot the type straight away that silent smile he gives you as he zips up his fly. Beneath his calm, caring exterior could be a cold, calculated, ruthless Fanny Inflamer.
My friend (ahem) tried the silent blowfish look. But that didn’t shift him off the path from which he would not swerve. To chip away at resistance until he got what he wanted, one guesses, what he really wanted all along an inflamed woman pushing him down on the floor and ripping off his clothes. In one fell swoop, he’s got a virtual virgin (having been off it for eternity) as well as a scarlet strumpet with no inhibitions.
Which makes one think isn’t that what they say all men dream of, anyway?