Chapter 11

"To Err Is Human But It Feels Divine"

A doctor recently stated that many couples are never able to adjust to the vital, intimate part of marriage, that these couples have hang-ups which are very rarely physical ones.

He broke down their emotional problems into five categories. These were things the sexually compatible couple takes for granted, but to others they are incapacitating obstacles to marital love, at least, until recognized and attacked.

Communication, in its truest sense, is not merely an exchange of words. It is the expression of intangibles, a discussion of hopes and fears and, among other verbal intimacies, the enjoyment, as well as the frustration, that prevails in a marriage relationship.

A young wife came to see the above doctor. She was frightened and unhappy about her marriage, and she said that her husband and she were no longer close.

This couple had never made any effort to confide to each other their innermost thoughts and feelings. During their first year of marriage, it had been enough that they had each other and a new home. Sex was soon taken for granted, and slowly, they settled down to a life of watching TV. They watched it during dinner and throughout the evening. They shut out any opportunity or need to talk to one another.

The doctor suggested that they seek to share their thoughts and feelings and to discuss their marriage relationship. Startled, the wife said, "We just wouldn't know how to start. And we'd both be embarrassed to talk about sex."

"All right," the doctor said, "why don't you start by admitting all this and then try to trace the reasons for it?" He knew that-likely they would find that childhood prejudices or perhaps the shock of some youthful experience was at fault. He assured the young woman that just sharing this knowledge could well prove a giant step toward future communications.

Neither person was particularly articulate, and it took months for them to achieve true communication. But the wife, at least, rates their efforts as infintely worthwhile.

"Jack has taught me how to use my tongue on the underside of his cock," the wife confessed, "to suck him softly, lightly. I like the feel of his prick when it tightens and swells, and our new discoveries have added much to our sex lives."

Said the husband a few days later, "I begin to suck deeply at her clitoris, moving my lips back and forth. She clutches my head and enjoys oral contact. It's like a new life! Sometimes she leans forward and puts my testicles in her mouth, one after the other. She licks over my penis, taking it deep into her throat. Then she goes wild, and we really have a session!"

"We're so relaxed these days," the wife added, "that neither of us hesitates to ask for special favors and caresses."

Resentment and hostility impede the warm drawing together that should be the essence of the marital embrace. A husband may resent a wife who seems more concerned with her own family than with his. A wife may resent her husband's refusal to become indignant any time his mother is critical of her. A husband may be irritated by what he considers his wife's poor housekeeping and extravagance.

Mary D., in her forties, was resentful because her husband had bought a boat and spent his weekends fishing. "He paid so much for that boat," she said bitterly, "that there's no money left for a vacation trip for me."

Ben, her husband, made good money, and they owned a lovely country home and were prosperous.

"Your husband has worked hard," the psychologist told her. "It could be he needs the precious escape from pressure that fishing provides. Men in his position are often subject to heart attacks, and his boat and fishing could add years to his life."

"My husband isn't going to have a heart attack," she said indignantly. "He's a big, healthy guy, and when it comes to making love, he sure saves himself! He gets his bang from reading sexy books!"

The psychologist knew that this wife was punishing her husband by being deliberately unresponsive, indulging in a dangerous form of retaliation. It was important that she correct this at once.

He recommended that she confess to her husband how she felt, assuring him also that, if he had the need for relaxation that fishing provided, she should be grateful for his boat and the hours he spent on it.

Because of her resentment, she did not find this easy to do. But she did it. Later, she was very glad. Her husband admitted he had been reacting badly to work pressures, had several times lost his temper, but that his weekends on the water were making him feel almost human again. Then, taking her into his arms, he said, "So that is what has been bothering you! I knew something was wrong!"

Tensions relieved, they resumed a normal sex life. They even learned new techniques. "I let him go the limit with me now," the wife admitted. "And sometimes I rub his penis between my hands and put it in my mouth. I begin to suck him. Later, I straddle him and almost scream with joy when he enters me to the hilt. I move my hips and cry out as I feel him working inside me. He says I'm getting to be a tongue and finger expert."

A lack of communication had been the root of their trouble. Had this husband confided his problem to his wife, she would not have turned resentful and unresponsive to him.

Preoccupation with the children is probably the most unfortunate problem of marriage. When women transfer their attention from husband to children, they risk estranging their husbands and depriving their children of the most valuable thing in family life, a happy, relaxed home and loving parents.

A successful banker went to a psychiatrist, insisting he no longer loved his wife. He wanted a divorce so he could marry an actress.

"Don't think I'm taken in by her youth ant beauty," he said. "Oh, she's beautiful, all right. But the important thing is the way she makes me feel, like I'm ten feet tall!"

He could not understand why his wife opposed the divorce.

"We never have sex. She shuts me out, and she doesn't give a damn about me! The kids are her life. She's all wrapped up in them and doesn't want to go anywhere or do anything! Of course, I'll fix her up financially."

The psychiatrist first pointed out that the children were his responsibility, too, that it would be bad for them to grow up without a father. "You and your wife surely once had excellent sexual relations," the psychiatrist reminded. "And it's possible, of course, that you could again."

He shook his head. "It won't work any more. Who wants a woman who sloshes around with cold cream all over her face and her hair up in curlers?"

Nevertheless, he agreed to try the psychiatrist's suggested experiment. He was to take his wife on a luxurious holiday, leaving the children at home.

When the wife came to see him, she admitted that she'd been warned by her mother that she was making a mistake in concentrating on the children.

"Should you go on this holiday, I hope you'll be well-groomed," the psychiatrist said. "Remember, men are visually stimulated."

Later, he also reminded the husband that women respond to verbal endearments which make them feel desirable and loved.

This couple vacationed in the Caribbean. "My husband was a real lover," the wife later confessed. "He laid his head on my leg and began to work on me, kissing and sucking until I thought I'd die. I took his big, stiff thing and put it into my mouth and began to suck it like it was a lollipop. Later, he took me orally, and I came. I let him do everything to me, and he did it every night, and I loved it. We'd never done it orally before, but it got so I loved his big penis in my mouth."

Because of their mutual willingness to please, their marriage probably can be saved.

Insecurity takes many forms, all detrimental to marital harmony, with physical insecurities especially so.

Men may worry unnecessarily about their masculinity or advancing age. Those who are sterile may fear impotence, although the two conditions are quite separate. And those who heed the tall tales of their friends may wonder if their lesser need for sex indicates a lack of virility. It is the quality of a couple's love-making, not its frequency, that is important.

Women with small bosoms may think they're undersexed. Following a hysterectomy or the menopause, a woman may worry that she will be an unsatisfactory lover or find sex less enjoyable. Often, with the fear of pregnancy removed, the contrary is-likely to be true.

Women who are frigid may need analysis. Many women, however, are incapable of a completed enjoyment of sex because of upbringing. They believe nice people don't talk about it, and its activities are things nice people don't do. As a result, they are only passive partners and do nothing to add to their husband's pleasure.

Helen B. confesses: "His mouth found mine, this time open. His full lips were warm, wet, searching. It was a new experience to me, and for a time, it was my world. He buried his face in my breasts and kissed my nipples. Gradually, his mouth slid down, his open lips sliding back and forth like a snail. He kissed my navel, and I heard the sound of my own breathing. The lower he went, the louder and harder the sound. His hand went around my legs, along my thighs. His face eased slowly down, down Suddenly, I jerked away. I couldn't let him do that to me! I just couldn't!

"His cock was hot. Reluctantly, I let him work it at me. He was successful at finding my opening. He wiggled it in, then thrust further. He panted heavily as he worked his cock in and out. He moved his hips now, dancing the dance of love as he wiggled in his excitement. I lay there, feeling very little. Finally, when it was over, all I could think of was to take a shower. My body was thoroughly contaminated. I got under the shower and stayed a long time."

Helen confessed that her mother had insisted that sex was dirty. She'd never been able to get over that childhood impression, and so she'd never been a satisfactory sex partner to her husband, Jim.

Only after she'd been seduced by a neighbor did she warm up sexually. It had happened one night at a party. After drinking and dancing, the neighbor had led her to the outside darkness, into the garden. He ran his hands over her thighs, and then over her buttocks. He grabbed her two mounds with steel-like fingers and dug his nails into her soft flesh. Then his hand raced to her face, pulled her mouth down, and began frantic kissing. She tried to stop him, but he pleaded that his thirst was great.

He threw her down on the grass and worked his turgid cock into her. His bulky frame worked lasciviously as he screwed her. She tried to endure the humiliation and hurt, but she felt as if her insides were being torn by his monstrous cock. He struck a steady rhythm, and she lay there, giving him the outlet he craved.

For a long time, she felt nothing but shame and hurt. She couldn't even bite her lips because of his cruel hand over her mouth. He worked his body in crazy animal lust as he moved up and down on top of her, breathing heavily and panting loudly. Then, with a final thrust, he started to come. He kept his cock in her as far as possible.

All at once, for the first time, she began feeling something. "Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried, and it was like living dangerously. Something was building up in her, and she felt as if she would explode. Her hands began to explore the man's body eagerly. She felt a tenderness now in his caress and was awed by the beauty of their act. Her tensions broke, and she experienced pure ecstasy.

Now, the man did something strange. He gripped her and put his mouth on her cunt, and she yelped at the intimate contact of his hot tongue. He was making her come alive in a way she'd never experienced before. It felt so good.

She was excited beyond words.

Helen didn't dislike the taste of semen and described it to her psychiatrist as thick and warm She'd later let the man force his penis down her throat and she'd taken it with full-length strokes until he'd come. "My clitoris throbbed in response to his tongue again. For a short time, he did nothing more than suck it gently. And then as he sucked, he tickled my anus with his finger, and I was sensitive and went absolutely wild!"

That evening, Helen learned detailed information on the performance of mouth-genital acts, including the steps a woman must take in performing fellatio, and the ways men can satisfy women with cunnilingus.

Of course, when she first tried oral love on her husband, he was surprised. But pleased. Somehow, it gave them both the most possible in sexual pleasure.

Often after that, Helen was the sexual aggressor with her husband.

Another hindrance to sexual compatibility is the unrealistic descriptions of the marital embrace found in magazines and books. The human body is capable of holding considerable pleasure, but it just isn't up to the raptures some writers attribute to it. This fanciful reporting often causes couples to regard each other with dissatisfaction and criticism.

Emotional immaturity doesn't contribute to sexual harmony. The immature are-likely to want what they do not have, and this sense of unrest engentlers disharmony. The resulting quarrels of the immature are apt to be fraught with accusations and sneers, and even degrading insults.

The immature are unable to adjust from courtship and the honeymoon to the practical facts of married life. They may seek escape in the romance and excitement of a clandestine courtship.

Women enjoy flirting, sneak-dates, and the flattery of being wooed again. Men relish the joy of conquest and seek to prove they haven't lost the old magic. And they relish the flattery of such attention that they no longer receive at home.

Kinsey reports that 75 per cent of married men and 25 per cent of married women indulge in extramarital affairs. Probably, since the advent of The Pill, those figures have risen.

Trapped in extramarital affairs, the victims will cry, "It all began so innocently. We just liked to talk to each other. We enjoyed dancing together."

A person whose imagination is drawn toward someone outside his marriage is, understandably enough, less drawn to his marriage partner. He may even resent her. Often he will blame her for what has happened.

Margaret B. liked her sex with young boys. She fed her lusts from the mouths and bodies of young boys and hard, bronzed, athletic adolescents. She found her satisfaction in bizarre acts.

"I enjoy making it with boys," she confessed. "I like to feel a hard, young cock working inside me. And I like tongue and finger experts. I like the ones who kiss and lick and take me into their mouths and tongue my clit ...

"The best fuck I ever had was from a sixteen-year-old service station attendant. He lay down on an old cot in the back of the station and I straddled him, almost screaming in joy as he pushed up and entered me to the hilt. A lot of boys like Bill know more about sex than I do."

Margaret had found no joy in sex with her husband. There was something about a clandestine affair that excited her and gave her greater sensation. With her husband, she always felt she should be getting more. With the virile boys, she felt she was "doing it like an angel."

Of another young bedmate, she says: "His talented hands, fingers and mouth would work on my hot body. He knew what sex was really about! He'd close his hand over my cunt, then massage carefully. One of his fingers would slip slowly down into my slit while his organ stood stiff and straight out. He'd push in, and I'd feel my sex closing around him. He'd suck me, and I'd suck him, and once, we had a three-way session with a friend of his. This boy knew some of the French thrills and skills, and things happened that time that I never before dreamed possible! He sucked softly, lightly, and then he'd go in deep. His swift tongue wouldn't stop. He showed me how to use my tongue on the underside of a man's prick."

When caught in one of these affairs, a wife will insist that she would never have become involved had her husband not been immersed in business or taken her for granted. A husband will blame his wife for lack of interest in his business, or antagonism toward his family, or for interrupting him

All, of course, are justifiable complaints. But not excuses. It is most unlikely these matters would have led to any extramarital embroilments had not the husband or wife, emotionally immature, sought the excitement of a new courtship.

The couple who feel sexually incompatible should seek the reasons and attempt to correct the faults. Cure is quite possible once the psychological fault, which deprives one of the joy of marriage, is known.

One husband flippantly said, "If I came home early, my wife figured I was after something. If I came home late, she figured I'd had it."

Still another, who had had extramarital relations, put it this way: "To err is human, but it feels divine."