A few weeks ago I was talking to Lonnie, a friend, and she mentioned she had just had a really lousy sexual experience. I started thinking about the concept of lousy sex and realized that I had never heard a man say, "Yeah, I had this chick last night and I was just off. You know, I wasn't paying attention to her needs. I just screwed her without caring about what she felt. I guess I was a really lousy lay for her."
Nope, men never say that. They say instead, "She just lay there, didn't move, didn't respond to anything I did. No matter how hard I shoved it into her, she didn't move. Grimaced a couple of times, but other than that ... nothing. Man, that was the worst lay of my life."
So I decided to research the question of just what constitutes lousy sex?
For men the answer is easy. If the woman just lies there, it's bad. If she watches TV, falls asleep, eats an apple, reads a magazine, or talks on the phone, it's bad. Other than that, if she moves or makes any noise, it's good.
Kenny, 57, said, "I was all over the world in the service and had several hookers. One, in Vietnam, lay there eating an apple. Of course I was nineteen and horny so I didn't care at the time. Looking back ... I still don't care. I guess it wasn't really bad, just funny."
Jim, 52, said, "She just lay there like a sack of potatoes. After twenty minutes of trying to get a response out of her, I got up, said good night and left."
George, 63, had this to say, "The preliminaries were great. She was animated and really into it. But once we started doing it she was like a rag doll. She basically just lay back and said, 'Do whatever you want to me.' There was just no feeling there."
For women the answers are more complicated. The most common complaint is no foreplay or not enough foreplay. Occasionally a woman will complain about too much foreplay, but that's rare. Once, years ago, I was with a woman and after about fifteen minutes of playing around she stopped me. She said the feeling was too intense and asked if we could just get on with the sex.
Christie, 29, had a guy over supposedly just for sex and he ended up being what she considered to be a bad lay. Expecting a great night, she started by giving him a full body massage. After that her statement was, "When we finally got down to it he gave a few pumps, came, said I was great lay and that was it. No foreplay; age-old problem." She also said he was "too giggly and immature."
Another complaint is that the sex itself doesn't last long enough. Cathy, 45, had this to say about staying power: "I always seemed to stick with men that were around my own age. It wasn't until I was about thirty-one that I tried it with a man in his mid-fifties. It was wonderful. He was polite, patient and made sure I got what I needed out of it. The first night we were together we did it three times, the last one going on for nearly forty-five minutes. Then just a few months ago somehow I hooked up with a man in his early twenties. What a disaster! A little bit of clumsy, ineffective foreplay, then get it on. And he only lasted about ten minutes. Not what I had come to expect. I'm sticking with the older men from now on.
However, women being rather weird, will sometimes complain that it lasted too long. It could be that the guy did it for forty minutes and she got tired; or a guy did it for ten minutes and she wanted only a minute or so.
Geri, 30, said, "My ex and I always had great sex. After I caught him in bed with another woman it was over. We've gotten together several times since then just for sex and I've reached the point that while we were doing it I was visualizing what they had done. I think the lack of love and respect has killed the enjoyment and now I just want it to be over."
Camille, 36, told me about her worst experience. "We made out for at least a half-hour, you know, kissing and playing with each other. He got me off with his hand and I was thinking it was going to be a great night. Then, when we got down to it, he just did his thing. No kisses, no stroking, he just lay on top of me for twenty minutes or so doing his own thing. It got to the point where I was thinking, 'Come on, get it over with.'"
Juliana, 42, said, "I like it a long time sometimes. But if I'm not really into it I sort of dry up, if you know what I mean. It happened once and it started hurting after forty minutes. That was just too long. On the other side, I once had a man spend only about thirty seconds inside me. That was just too short."
Carrie, 36, beat that record. "My ex and I, for our first sex, went to a friend's cabin in the mountains. He (the friend) and his girlfriend were there as well as his fourteen-year-old brother. The friend and his girlfriend went to bed and my ex and I lay on the couch. While we waited for the brother to go to sleep we played around under a blanket. When he finally went to sleep we started to do it and he got ALMOST inside me and I was soaking wet. Later when I went to the bathroom I saw why. He didn't even get inside me before finishing. I had had other men before and he said he had had other women. It wasn't until nearly five years later that I found out that: 1) That was his first experience, and 2) He didn't consider what we did that night as being sex. Hmph, neither did I."
A third common complaint is lack of variety. Time after time after time, it's always the missionary or it's always dog-style. Why can't we do it some other way? Or place. It's always in bed. Why not on the kitchen counter, or in the shower, on the sofa, or even the floor or outside on the patio?
Frankie, 25, told me, "Every time I had to get on top. Don't get me wrong, I love being on top because I can control everything that happens. But occasionally, maybe just once I'd like him to get on top of me and slam it into me."
Jennie, 19, said about her last boyfriend, "Every time he got on top. If I even suggested anything else he'd get pissed. His thought was, 'the man's place is on top. Anything else is demeaning to a real man.' "
Juliana's comment was, "Variety is the key. It's fun occasionally to do the petting thing, then regular sex for a while, then oral, then playing, then back to the regular sex."
Strangely enough, only two women I talked to mentioned "poor equipment." One just said poor equipment mattered. The second related that her worst time was with a man whose equipment was about two inches long and the size of a pencil. "I actually wondered if he was really inside me." However, the topic of "Does Size Really Matter?" has been and is still so hotly debated I won't dare go into it more deeply here.
The next question then is whose fault is it? This seems to be the only point on which both sexes agree. He says, "She was a lousy lay." She says, "He was a lousy lay." So now that we know whose fault it is, see if we can figure out what causes such an intimate experience to be lousy.
One cause can be that one partner is distracted by problems. Let's face it, making love is a full-time job and if you're thinking about concerns such as work, family, money or illness, you're not going to be paying attention to what you're doing in bed.
Bob, 56, said, "Distractions? Oh, yeah, that'll end it every time. A few years back my wife and I were talking and she asked if I had ever done it in a public place. I said no and asked if she had. 'When I was young,' she said, 'my boyfriend and I did it at the beach. Broad daylight, hundreds of people around, and we just pulled a blanket over us and went at it.' I forgot about it until a few weeks later when we were coming home from shopping and she said, 'There, pull over in the park.' I did and she led me across to the restrooms. 'We're only a minute from home, can't you hold it?' I asked. She looked around and pulled me into the men's room. 'What the hell are you doing?' She laughed and said, 'Shh, we're going to do it in here. I've been thinking about this and waiting for the right time.' She opened one of the stalls, pulled me in, closed the door, then opened and pulled my pants down. 'Sit down,' she ordered. I did and she pulled off her pants, knelt down, and started using her tongue on me. In seconds I forgot where I was and was really into it. She stood, straddled me, and ... somebody walked in. It was a man and his young son. That did it! I went from rigid, ready-for-action lover to limp, scared guy about to get arrested in only one-point-seven-seconds. We sat there, me on the toilet, her straddling me, until our visitors left. I stood her up, pulled up my pants, waited until she dressed and we walked out. As we walked out there was a man standing beside the water fountain with a young boy and he was looking at us VERY strangely. Yep, distractions do take their toll."
"You want to talk about distractions?" Kirk, 59, started off. "A few years back I was living in Orange County and started going to a dance club there. High-class place. Not strippers, just exotic dancers. My first time there I saw the sexiest belly dancer I've ever seen. Tall, slim, hips and ass you wouldn't believe. I started going in there twice a week for nearly three months. I'd buy her drinks each time and she'd occasionally come down and sit with me. Once, just once, she let me stroke her leg. Her dancing paid off, she had muscular legs, but silky smooth. Her complexion was flawless and kinda cinnamon-colored. After all that time she took me back to her apartment. We got there, played around a bit, and when I finally got my hand between her legs ... yep, she had a dong bigger than mine. Never went back to that place."
Lack of confidence due to inexperience or having had a prior bad experience can adversely affect a man's performance. As has been discussed many times over the years, performance is always the man's responsibility. Unfortunately, the man is the one who really has to keep his mind on what he's doing. Thinking about that upcoming promotion, the new transmission for the car, or any number of other things and ... down it goes.
But distractions can apply to women, as Diane's unique story will show (52). "My worst sexual experience? Had to be thirty-some years ago. I married my high school sweetie right after graduation. We had been married three or four years when he started bugging me about how he thought it would be neat to watch me have sex with one of his friends. Six months he was nagging me about it until I finally gave in. His friend, call him Ralph, came over a few days later and I was a nervous wreck. I had never had a man other than my husband so that unnerved me; then the thought of having him watch scared the hell out of me. We sat on the couch, had a few drinks, and shared a joint until my husband pushed me over against Ralph. He and I started kissing, then making out, then undressing, going further and further all the time. Ralph was very experienced and gave me a big 'O' ten minutes into it. He looked at my husband and asked, 'You sure about this?' When my husband said yes, Ralph had me get on my hands and knees and, well, started doing me right there on the couch. Another five minutes and I had another big 'O' and was really getting into it. It was feeling so good I actually forgot my husband was there until he suddenly said, 'Okay, that's enough.' Ralph and I both nearly screamed, 'What?' My husband reached over and actually pulled Ralph out of me saying, 'I thought I'd enjoy this, but I just can't stand watching you two.' I was so hot that, after Ralph left, I was nearly begging my husband to take care of me. Not only wouldn't he, but he wouldn't even touch me, sexually, for two weeks and never, ever talked about it. So, that's my worst ... no my only bad sex."
Strangely enough, just having had many women doesn't necessarily guarantee a man will be great in bed. Kaitlan, 39, told me her first time was when she was eighteen and her lover was an experienced twenty-eight. She said, "Two minutes and it was over. I got nothing out of it."
Lonnie, 30, is the friend who got me going on this topic. Her story is a little more involved, but cute. She was not forthcoming about the details of the first time with this one man but I gathered he: never took off his pants, couldn't get it up or couldn't keep it up, and went down on her and spent more time talking than taking care of her. Then she told me about the second try. "I had tried with Jack once before but he just couldn't get it up. I decided to let him redeem himself and dressed in a gorgeous nightie from Frederick's. When we started everything got hard and then nothing. Like the first time, he didn't take off his pants, but rather stuck his dingy through the open zipper. He complained about the condom, saying that was the problem. We started making out again and when I assumed we were both ready to get to it he just stopped everything. Then when I tried to kiss his stomach and open his pants he stopped me, assuming I was going to give him a blowjob. What an ass. What kind of guy would try and stop that? So we tried again and I assumed we would finally do it so I straddled him and he got soft again. Then he started to go down on me and I thought, alright! Let's see if he actually spends some time on it instead of a lick here and there and the comment that he likes to play. I had told him the first time, 'Don't play, do it!' Then he starts talking and asks me if it's close to my period because I taste like blood! It was not close and I am extremely clean and no man has ever complained, only raved! So I said forget about it for tonight and he started to leave. On the way out he said the condom was the problem and could we do it without. Somehow I ended up on my kitchen table and just the tip made it inside me when he got soft again."
Lack of communication is another common problem. Jenna, 21, told me that with her first lover she never got off, and never said anything because she was nervous, afraid, inexperienced, and just didn't realize she was allowed to say anything. Then her third lover was very experienced and got her off all the time. She had no need to tell him what to do or how to do it so she never developed the skill of telling her partner what to do or how to do it. After that she finally got to the point where she would say something. She told me, "If I liked him, I'd train him. I got so I could tell my partner: up, left, harder, slower, whatever it was that I wanted. If you want something, you have to speak up."
Amy, 41, married now sixteen years confirmed that. "Sometimes I want to make love; slowly, gently, for a long time. Sometimes I just want to fuck; give it to me hard and fast and I don't care if it only lasts two minutes. It took me many years to feel comfortable enough with my husband that I could tell him exactly what I wanted. Actually, it took me even longer to figure out the difference. Before my husband I only had seven men and always just considered it as having sex or screwing, whatever you want to call it. When I started sleeping with my husband I thought of it for years as making love. Then one night we came home from a party where we had been dancing and rubbing against each other all night and as soon as we got in the house he bent me over the couch, was inside me in seconds, and out again in just a couple of minutes. And I loved it! After that I sometimes craved it that way and was disappointed when my husband would take his time. I finally told him one night and from then on we never had a communication problem."
Of course communication means between lovers, not the telephone. Ailene, 30, told me her worst experience was with one lover who actually answered the phone while they were having sex. Men, never a good thing to do if you want to keep your woman happy and in your bed!
Another obvious factor is drug or alcohol use. For the most part this affects the man more. He either can't get it up or falls asleep in the middle of doing it. Sandy, 23, told me she had once had a boyfriend with whom she had sex only eight times in three months and he was high each time. "He would, like, you know, do his drugs, then we'd start, you know, making out until they hit then he'd, you know, like have me get on top of him because he'd be, like, too strung out to do any of the work. Then it was, like, thirty or forty minutes and he'd get, like, limp and it was, you know, over."
Kaitlan feels that intimacy was what made sex good. She said that early on she never climaxed and didn't even realize she was supposed to have one. Her first one with a man was during foreplay and not during the actual sex. After that she came to realize that the feeling of intimacy was the most important thing to her. "If I can feel close to the man, I can enjoy the sex, even if I don't climax every time."
Fran, 26, said, "There's never been a single worst for me. But there is one thing a man can do that is such a turn-off that I'll never let him near me again. Just six months ago I dated a guy for three months before deciding to sleep with him. When we did it was okay, nothing special, but okay and I had almost decided to do it again when he looked over and, with no preamble, just said, "So, did you climax?" I wanted to hit him. I absolutely hate it when a man asks me that and it ruined the mood of the whole night. And put an early end to it."
As a follow-up, I went back to Camille and asked her about that. She actually laughed and explained, "I have never had to worry about that. I make sure I get what I need when I have sex. And when I climax the guy will definitely know it. In fact, I think all the neighbors in my apartment complex know when I have a climax. I'm VERY vocal about it."
Kim, 28, told me her worst experience was when she was asked to recreate an experience she had with a previous lover. "We had just finished having sex and, for whatever reason, I had let him do it without a condom. He led me into his bathroom and told me to sit on the commode. I did and he opened a drawer and took out a douche bag! I was surprised but sat there as he filled it with warm water and some kind of fragrant oil. As he slipped the nozzle into me I leaned back and enjoyed the feeling. When he squeezed the bag and forced the liquid into me I nearly came. Then he leaned down and used his tongue as he was squeezing the bag and squirting more of the sweet liquid up inside me. It only took a couple of minutes and I had a great climax. We ended up doing it twice more that night because he was so off-the-wall and really took care of what I wanted. I always treasured that experience and thought of it as the ultimate until three years later when I was with Jack. We had been making out for at least an hour and I had a great climax halfway through. Then out of the blue he asked, 'When's the last time you had a man?' Uh, weird question to ask when we're in the middle of making out, but I answered, 'Two weeks ago.' Then he asked, 'Did he wear a rubber?' Okay, this is getting really strange. 'No, why?' Then he said, 'I can't do it with you after another man has been inside you. Can you douche before we do it?' That did it. My first douche with a man was so intimate and sensual and now this idiot wanted me to douche because I had a man two weeks before. Nope. No way. I just said, 'I'll see you around,' got up, and walked out. If he had been patient and done what my previous lover had done, I would probably have gone along with it and enjoyed it."
When I spoke to Winnie, 27, she immediately started off by saying that her worst sex was the first and only time she tried it with another woman. She was several seconds into it before I started to cut her off because the original concept of this article was about bad sex. And, stupid me, I at first assumed that meant men and women. Then it dawned on me that a lot of women have tried other women so here is her story. "I felt pressured. It was my first job in an executive position and one of the senior VPs started making advances at me. I gave in and we had drinks and went back to her apartment. It felt so weird the first time we kissed and I was uptight for ten or fifteen minutes until I finally relaxed and started enjoying it. She pulled out a 'toy' and gave it to me. For nearly a half-hour I used it on her. Knowing what it felt like when I used something like that on myself, I think I did a good job taking care of her. Then, suddenly, she said, 'God, but that was great. Thank you.' She leaned over, kissed me again, and said, 'I'll see you in the office in the morning.' I felt ... dismissed ... used ... unfulfilled .. like shit. I got dressed as she sat on the couch and watched TV and I left with nothing else being said. No, men are not the only assholes in the world."
There you have it. With these in-depth interviews we have conclusively proven that: 1) sex can indeed be lousy, 2) it's always the man's fault and 3) it's always the woman's fault. Now that we've settled this question something else comes to mind. While I was talking to these women it amazed me that they would openly talk about their sex lives with a relative stranger. I'll have to admit it was something of a turn-on for me. One of them even got off track and started talking about masturbating. Hmmm, maybe I'll pretend to write another article on that topic and see what I can get out of it. As with this article, I'll spend much more time with the women than the men.
Originally published April 2007 - "Dirty"