Out From Under

Remember that study which found that the average duration of — no, the “best” — North American sex was 13 minutes? With the majority of women saying three minutes was “adequate”?

Did you, like me, find that just a tad odd? Women, who have been trying for decades to get men to SLOW DOWN, are now supposedly finding three minutes “adequate” and more than 7 minutes “too long”? How could that possibly be?

Who even comes in three minutes? (Besides men, that is?) I considered it both ways: If he goes down on her and she does come in an efficient three minutes, what of him? But if we do the rumpy-pumpy first, and he comes in three minutes, what of her? The whole thing was a mystery to me.

Further investigation indicates that what is being measured is not sex, but merely penetration.

Ohhhhh….

Suddenly, the previously inexplicable becomes clear. They confused me, see, by calling it “penetrative sex”, which, being a woman and therefore unclear on what really constitutes sex, I took to mean “foreplay through nakedity to foreplay through to some more foreplay to orgasm for her and foreplay to penetration and orgasm for him (and occasionally a second for her) to afterplay.” How can you get through all that in three minutes? Not humanly possible!

Nuh-uh. “Penetrative sex” means penis-in-vagina, thump, thump, thump. That’s it, that’s all … thump, thump, thump till someone comes. And I can tell you this much — it won’t be her. Suddenly I have visions of exasperated women waiting for him to finish up and roll over so she can get the job done herself.

Okay, then. I see it all now. By those standards, seven minutes is a longish time. By thirteen to fifteen minutes the initial lubrication has long since worn off and the heat starts to build up for her, and not in a good way. Anything beyond fifteen minutes of thump- thump-thumping is likely getting to be damned hard work for all. Not to mention just plain old … boring.

A Brisbane (Australia) sex therapist comments, “Usually women are quite happy with short intercourse, and are not bothered about prolonging it at all.” No kidding. Given solid majority of women do not climax through penetration alone, no wonder women want shorter “sex”. Because what they want is more foreplay. But that, apparently, is not sex.

The therapist cautions that it’s “important not to obsess over the length of intercourse, with time often suspended during the act anyway. ‘I mean really, who’s counting?’”

Who’s counting? Legions of understimulated, bored, chafed women pinned under sweating, laboring men, that’s who. Legions of women who need to rise up and redefine “sex” in terms that are mutually satisfactory.

Three minutes. Pfft!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Ilona's Take, the change it is a-comin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.