THE MAN THEY CALLED A MONSTER - When you run into strife ...

are always ready and willing to engage in sexual encounters and in contrast with women
they can do this because their genital equipment is basically simple. The myth also
assumes that a man’s sexual desires are easily fulfilled — most men, it is reported, simply
want to ‘stick it in anywhere’ and engage in what the Americans popularly call the ‘wham
bam thank you ma’am’ syndrome. Support for this view is reinforced by the popular belief
that men have little interest in receiving or giving affection and that, in their relationships
with women, they treat them purely and simply as sex objects.
If the behaviour of adult men is seen as reflecting these sexual traits then society generally
considers that young men spotlight them. Most of us, when describing male adolescent
sexuality, for example, admit that young males will get ‘crushes’ on members of the
opposite sex. However, few people consider that adolescents are capable of, yet alone
seek, a close and intimate relationship with another person where physical attraction and
love for that person are closely entwined. Young men are also seen as epitomising the
‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ syndrome that is thought to characterise their older
brothers. Young men, it is assumed, have no need for the sophistications and subtleties of
close body touching, caressing and other forms of physical contact outside straight sexual
intercourse.
It is only recently that some of the myths about male adult sexuality are being exposed.
Bernie Zilbergeld, in his recent book Men and Sex, points out that vast numbers of normal,
healthy men without any psychological impairment have quite severe sexual difficulties. 20
He found that most men were not satisfied with their sexuality and wanted to learn more
about it. The problems were many: a great number of men were unable to obtain erections,
ejaculated prematurely, lost interest in sex at a very early age, and wanted a different sort
of sex than the type they were receiving. In my book intimacy I outlined similar problems
to those that Zilbergeld found. 21 Most importantly of all though, recent studies clearly
demonstrate that males of all ages are enormously ignorant about sex in terms of both its
social and physical parameters. 22 Men are very hesitant to ask for a different type of sexual
contact with a partner than what they have been receiving. Consequently while
penetration is, in hetero-sexual relations, typically asked for and received, body contact
and touching is rarely requested and therefore obtained. Men are constantly preoccupied
with how they are faring sexually in comparison with other men and are often obsessed
with comparing their sexual performances with the performances of other men. Almost
every man tends to think that all other men are having a better time sexually than he is,
and he cannot shatter this illusion because of the taboo among men about honestly and
openly talking about these matters. Men, in fact, are extremely secretive about their
sexuality. They certainly joke about sex and talk a great deal about it with other men, but
the talk that they engage in is of a trivial type which centres on the physical attributes of
their female partners.
Perhaps the most important part of the male myth centres around the set of rigid sexual
rules that dictate the way men think and act sexually and emotionally with the opposite
sex and with their own sex. These rules propel men towards a sexual history that they
often neither wish nor enjoy. Regardless of age, the rules seem to be the same: I know all
about sex; nobody (particularly a woman) can tell me about sex; the more sex I get, the
more I know I’m truly masculine; sex will give me a real ‘high’; sex is always fun. 23
Young males work under these rules and at times appear as though nothing else seems to
matter as much as sex does — thinking about it, learning about it, talking about it and
fantasising about it. Male adolescent popular culture reinforces this obsession on sexual