Bad girls: a meditation on how women screw up in bed

There I was on the bed on all fours, trying to keep my shoulders back, boobs out, but stomach in and my ass at a perky angle. If you’ve ever tried giving a blowjob in this position, you’ll know it’s a bit tricky. Licking and sucking on a large object while pulling in your tummy muscles is an art form – unfortunately one I hadn’t mastered.

A woman may be able to multi-task but even the best of us can only concentrate on four things at once. Something had to give and unfortunately it was his erection when I accidentally scraped it with my teeth.
Poor blokes, I feel sorry for them. When it comes to sexual faux pas they get most of the blame. Men who are less than perfect between the sheets are stock characters in a long running joke – we tease them about being inconsiderate or clueless, we laugh that they think the mere presence of their penises is enough to get us off or that they need GPS to find the clitoris. From what you read and see on television you’d think that many men were sexual Neanderthals until the love of a good women and a trip to sex boot camp sorted them out.
Personally I blame Sex And The City. The makers knew their target audience well and whenever things went wrong, sexually or romantically, it was always the fault of the poor chump dating one of the lovely ladies. No one ever suggested to Carrie and company that perhaps they were slightly neurotic, difficult, cynical, demanding or just too damn selfish and hard to please. If any blame was flying around, none was landing at their perfectly manicured feet and staining their Manolos.
Women’s magazines have a way of compounding the problem. They may teach you hundreds of tricks “to drive him wild” but a few pages later they’ll have another article telling you how to upgrade your man, whether it’s getting him to be more romantic, stop dressing like a teenager or wean him off his football habit. In Cosmo world, men have the problems; women have the latest spring fashions.
This attitude has become internalised by many women, so if things go wrong sexually, most of the time we decide that the poor guy – whose only crime was a desire to shag us – must be responsible. In the depths of our hearts we may know there’s a decent to even chance it was our fault, but we will never, ever admit it. Perhaps it’s only whispered at between best mates at late night drinking sessions when everyone else is safely out of earshot – but sometimes women screw up sexually too. We can be rough, selfish or insensitive; expect the men to do all the work, read our minds and give us multiple orgasms; be suffering from inhibition or just plain not good at a particular move.
Near the top of most men’s sexual complaint list is that women are often too body conscious to relax and enjoy the experience. I completely understand this – why else would I have tried giving someone a blowjob while auditioning for the part of an amateur contortionist? It’s all very well flirting with a man while wearing make-up, your push-up bra and magic jeans that make your derriere look like a peach, but if, as soon as you remove this armour, you worry that he’s going to find you a whole lot less attractive then there’s bound to be problems.
Too avoid this, there are women who feel the need to stage direct the entire sexual experience – fine if it’s an exercise in sexual psycho drama that teasingly brings your mate to his knees, and then lower again! But for others it can be a case of going into hiding. We may be naked with you, but we don’t want you to actually see us – is the message. This is why some women insist that all the lights must be out or will only have sex under the quilt. You can touch, but you can’t look.
For other women certain sexual positions are absolutely verboten. Most girls realise that if they are on top, sitting on you, their stomach and tits look their best and their bottoms are hidden from view. Throw in a wind machine to blow her hair over her shoulders and she might even be happy to let you take a photograph. But if she’s on the bottom with her legs over your shoulders her breasts are flattened, her nipples no longer look like gorgeous summits and her tummy will be squashed, creating a less than perfect spare tyre. For certain girls her, and your, enjoyment of the sexual experience is less important than how she looks while doing it. It’s not vanity – it’s paranoia.
If all of women’s sexual idiosyncrasies were the result of worry and self-consciousness, it would be easy enough. Several hundred compliments later, we might begin to believe that you do genuinely find us sexy despite the fact that we don’t have size zero waists and DD breasts. However, guys also have to deal with women who are sexually selfish, prudish or have unrealistic expectations.
Some women expect their men to be entirely responsible for the sexual enjoyment of both parties to the action. She expects gushing gratitude that she’s deigned to fuck you so she’ll lie back and expect you to do all the work, never once doing anything that you might enjoy. This woman treats all men as if they were rent boys – you’re there for her pleasure alone.
Pity the man who sleeps with a woman with an overly romantic view of sex. In her mind, if she’s with the right man, he’ll magically know exactly what to do. Like Goldilocks, she doesn’t want it too hard or too soft, but just right and if you don’t happen to luck into the correct formula first time, she’s not going to tell you. Instead to add insult to injury, she’ll fake an orgasm and complain to all her friends just how bad you were.
Then there are the squeamish girls. Probably the worst of all, they are a bit wary of your nasty bits. For this girl it’s all okay if things are happening down south, but she doesn’t want to get up close and personal with your penis. You can inform her how good sperm is for the skin until you’re blue in the face but unless she’s wearing a hazmat suit, she ain’t going anywhere near it. Don’t be too insulted guys, this girl isn’t particularly enamoured with her own sexual organs either. That’s why she’ll be glad you went down on her but she doesn’t want to kiss you afterwards. Yeugh!
The list of sexual transgressions goes on – lack of sexual confidence, insensitive remarks about your bodies, anecdotes about ex-boyfriends, using sex as a bargaining tool – you name it and we’ve done it.
All things considered, it’s remarkable that men haven’t given up on women yet. I can only think that this is why the universe gave women breasts and men testosterone. Without these, we’d all be screwed (or not, as the case may be). Come on girls, it’s time to own up to your sexual flaws and make amends.
As my teachers used to say, it’s never to late to try harder. And as all bad girls know, hard is good.