Richard Sharon - Diary of a Lover

I am not a superstud. I am not tall, nor terribly handsome. Unlike heroes of the porno novels, I am not capable of performing ten times a night, nor five, nor even four. I was trained to be a sex machine, trained to be all of the things that most of the men in the world wish they could be, but can't. It took the love of a good woman to make me realize that my ability to please was relatively unimportant.

It was Susan, lovely Susan, who, by her gentle and giving attitude, taught me the truth. Orgasms last for only a few seconds and feel good, but that's all. The earth never trembles, the sky never falls, and the clouds never float, not even for the very best of orgasms. So am I saying that they aren't important? The answer is no. What I am saying is that they are not all that important. Millions upon millions of women lived happy, reasonably well-adjusted lives without them before the medicoliterary-in-duced Age of the Orgasm, and I believe that they can again, without having to waste their time sitting in a psychiatrist's office or wandering from man to man, looking for their own version of Norman Mailer's Perfect Come.

The answer is that people must learn how to become lovers, instead of merely orgasm-inducers. What Mora taught me still remains true, up to a point. I wish that every man could be taught to make love to a woman by a lesbian; be taught to make love like a lesbian. For one thing, this would completely remove the pressure to perform that has made so many men impotent and caused countless others a loss of esteem not only to themselves but also to their sexual partners. Because, finally, both sexes must learn that they can live without the squeeze technique, or the bumping and other techniques found in this book and the rest of the orgasm-oriented books. It's not important whether a man is capable of sawing hi and out of a woman's vagina for hours. It's not even important that he ever put his penis into her vagina, unless, of course, children are desired. Nor is it important if the man maintains his erection all, some, or none of the time. As long as there are lips, tongues, fingers, vibrators, and dildoes, any man, even an impotent one, should have no trouble making his lover climax often enough that she won't build up excess frustrations, assuming that she herself is capable of climax. And if she isn't, that's all right, too. Of course, a woman gets a great deal of emotional satisfaction from feeling her lover's organ inside of her body, but the organ itself is not necessary for sexual relief nor for sexual fulfillment, because these are two different things. A woman may masturbate for relief, but for fulfillment she needs a lover who is gentle and patient, a lover who appreciates not only her body but also the person she is, and knows how to show it; who savors the sensuality of her arms, the tiny hairs at the small of her back, the smooth, taut ligaments behind her knees, the gentle, giving pressure of her belly against his face, the sweet warmness at the back of her neck, the incessant beauty of the hundreds of areas of her body that are never discussed in sex novels and the how-to sex books. A real lover can make love to a woman every night for fifty years, and each time find new areas of pleasure to delight him, and her.

And therein lies sexual fulfillment for both, not in the highly touted orgasm, which simply feels extra good for a minute or so and relieves sexual tension, but in the sharing, the touching, the being together, the interaction of mutual warmth and trust, the tenderness, the giving, the respect, and even the humor, for it is these that truly satisfy.

Susan taught me that to a real lover orgasms are not the end of sex; they are simply a series of small hills traversed while on the way to a more distant, more worthy object. From the day that she straddled me on that kitchen chair, insistent upon pulling the sperm from me before I could satisfy her, I began to learn what love, both physical and spiritual, was really all about. Many evenings we made love for hours, without ever touching each other's sex organs. Sometimes we fell asleep doing this, and other times we finished by quickly relieving ourselves or each other, just to bring the tension level back to normal. Otherwise, orgasms wouldn't even have been important to us. On other occasions we would start by getting sexual relief quickly and then we would begin to make love; me with a soft penis and Susan already completely satisfied. Both of us had a sex-hormone level of zero, but we would make love, and it would be beautiful, with no objective left for either of us except love itself.

People who are easily capable of achieving orgasm should do so, keeping in mind that the feeling produced is only a temporary relief of tension and has nothing to do with either love or fulfillment. Women who cannot achieve orgasm and men who are impotent or who ejaculate prematurely should forget every book, every magazine article, every movie they have ever seen on the subject. People should love each other with all of the care, with all of the tenderness, with all of the compassion that is in them, fully, and without guilt or shame or embarrassment because they share their humanness with each other. They should live their lives together in happiness and pay no attention whatever to the hucksters who would have them believe that their relationship is inadequate if certain transitory physical sensations are not experienced. Then, with all artificial pressures removed, they should learn the joy of giving and of receiving true fulfillment.

It may take time.

But it's worth the trip.