Politics of the double bed

As a young man growing up in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s my mates and I held strongly to the belief that the perfect weekend involved lots of drink, a winning football team and getting off with a woman. In the post-weekend analysis the kind of question posed to those who did meet a woman was "how much did you get?". The typical answer was of the "I stuck it in the back of the net" kind, when in truth most of us were lucky if we hit the post or even got near the penalty area.

We were in fact living out some of the key myths of masculinity which, in many respects, still govern ideas about men. These include needing not only to be heterosexual, but to prove it, viewing male sexuality as predatory, reducing intimacy to stories of conquest and regarding women's sexuality as something to be conquered. And never ever admitting to vulnerability or disclosing your fears around how to chat up girls (or worse still, boys!), never mind about how to have sex with them. Even now the idea that men "lose" their virginity is misleading. It is seen by other men as a gain, another notch on the bedpost. Indeed, this idea has become so powerful that men, such as priests, who choose not to have sex routinely have their masculinity questioned.

As Pat (not his real name), 32 years of age and a priest for six years, put it to me: "I have heard men say that because you haven't had sex you're not a man. Or that you're not a full man. Hence, I would reply: `There are balls between my legs as well!'." Ultimately, it is the need to "have someone to hold" that celibate men really miss. "I still miss the physical thing and all that and I would love to go to bed with a woman", explains Niall (45), a cleric for 25 years. "But as you get on a bit it's more the fact that knowing there's someone there that loves you and you love them. That's what I miss." Thus it is the loss of intimacy rather than simply sex which now makes celibacy so difficult.

Behind the myths, then, the reality of real men's relationship with sex and intimacy is complex. For Edward, a professional in his late 30s, "it's like you make love, and it's exciting and it's everything. But in fact it's not like that, if you know what I mean. For me it's like, how do I have pleasure out of this and how do I or my wife have pleasure, how do I support her to have pleasure in it at times, you know? And I just think people are, from my own experience, very vulnerable around sex."

Sex is just one of the areas in which Edward finds himself in constant negotiation with his wife (others include housework, childcare and bread-winning). While this dialogue persistently challenges him as a man, he feels it brings joy to his life, helps him to have his needs met and to better meet those of his loved ones.

Edward's life exemplifies the challenges men face nowadays in a world where relationships are more likely to be based on a transformed kind of intimacy which involves negotiation in every sphere of life-decisions and emotional communication - with oneself as well as others.

In the era of sexual repression from which we are now emerging, men were bread-winners and women were nuturers. Sexuality was not something to be worked at, chosen or enjoyed. The influence of feminism and the greater openness about gender roles and sexual pleasure has meant that sexuality is now much more closely tied to our emotional lives, touching on issues of choice, negotiation and equality.

The men quoted here are from a sample interviewed by Sean Reynolds and myself in our study of the lives of Irish men. In general, sex has a much lower place in their priorities than might be expected. Some - shock! horror! - are not that interested at all. This can arise from the boredom and disillusionment of a stale relationship or, more commonly among older men, from the contamination of sexuality with traditional guilt and shame. For these men, sex never became a source of pleasure. This lack of interest also occurs where a man continues to see sex as performance and conquest and never develops the ability to give and receive pleasure. For many such men the problem is that sex - understood as penetrative intercourse and orgasm - is the only way they feel able to connect intimately with their partners and themselves. This ultimately fails to satisfy emotionally because the sex is so non-relational.

Making love places men (as well as women) in the most vulnerable position known to us. We are stripped bare and exposed for who we are, as our level of self-esteem, our capacity for openness and negotiation, assumptions about gender and sexuality and the legacy of emotional attachments with parents get played out. Women can have difficulties in all these areas too, of course, but the impact of male conditioning is such that we should never underestimate just how hard it can be for men to openly receive as well as give, to move away from a performance-based sexuality. At its worst, such dynamics can lead to the complete objectification of women and an eroticisation of dominance which results in the use of pornography and various other forms of sexual violence.

Many, perhaps even most, men could do with a hand with some of this, so to speak. But all too few take the risk of asking for help and many just muddle unhappily through. When help is sought it can have dramatic effects, especially for men who have lost their capacity for intimacy because of past trauma. Rob (40) grew up in the industrial school system where he was systematically beaten and emotionally abused. He drifted into crime and drugs and quickly became an addict. Early sexual encounters were about physical relief and he had only one-night stands until he got married and had children. It was on entering a rehabilitation clinic that he began to address his behaviour and its causes and learn to articulate himself to his partner. In therapy, Rob was given the task of telling his wife he loved her, something he found immensely difficult.

"So I actually told her I loved her and things got easier. She told me she loved me as well." He now loves sex and finds it comforting, a source of security, particularly when he is feeling down. He enjoys the physical sexual relationship but also values the emotional closeness and his newfound ability to `touch' his partner, who stands by him no matter what, when he needs someone to validate and support him and he endeavours to do the same for her.

Rob's profound journey from self-hatred to a re-negotiated intimacy with his partner and his own self has helped them to create a truly loving, egalitarian relationship. This exemplifies the scope there is for even the most wounded of men to develop their capacity for true fulfilment in sex and intimacy and reaching what the American psychotherapist Terrence Real calls "relational maturity".

The secret lies in men shifting the basis for their self-esteem from work and other "outside" performances, to a new kind of intimate relationship with the self and others based on the hard discipline of loving from within.

Harry Ferguson is Professor of Social Policy and Social Work at University College Dublin