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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Pleasing your partner???
Message-ID: <611@opus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Jul-84 02:59:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.611
Posted: Mon Jul 23 02:59:22 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jul-84 01:48:46 EDT
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 35

In several recent postings here, I've seen allusions to the idea of
"pleasing your partner" - in the sexual sense.  I find the phrase a little
bit curious, in the following sense:  It seems to connote either an
objective or an obligation, and both connotations seem out of place.

I certainly don't see a woman's role during sex as one of "pleasing" me.
(I'm assuming heterosexuality simply to make the phrasing easier and
because that's my own inclination.)  If it comes to that, it's not
lovemaking; it's just masturbation, and I can do that just fine by
myself, thank you.  (No help needed; I've had plenty of practice over the
years:-)  By the same token, I don't see my goal as that of pleasing a
woman.  I don't buy the way that smacks of a "performance".  Turning sex
into a performance is an invitation to unhappy results, in my experience.

In fact, I don't see sex, in the form which we call "lovemaking", as being
goal-oriented, and I think that trying to cast it in that light only
confuses it.  It makes it far too easy to get into a game of counting and
keeping score.  ("Gee, I'm sorry.  I owe you one.")

It just isn't like going to a movie, or to dinner, where you may let
external circumstances favor one partner or the other.  (For example, you
may go to a movie that you're only lukewarm about if your partner is really
interested in seeing it.)  First, there aren't that many external
circumstances to deal with; it's just the two of you.  (Again, I'm assuming
"two" just because of my own inclination.:-)  Second, and I guess this is
really what I'm getting at, focusing on EITHER yourself OR your partner is
missing the point.  It's the union of the two that counts, and you can't
separate out either member of the union without losing something in the
process.

In the way I see it, it isn't possible for either partner to be pleased if
the other isn't.  Is this an unusual view?
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...I'm not cynical - just experienced.