Why Don’t Men Listen to Vagina-Holders?
By: M. C. Frances
Tags: Relationships, Life Lessons, Sex, Women, Sexuality

Why Don’t Men Listen to Vagina-Holders?

What gets in the way of attentive listening, and what I’m doing about it

Photo by olly18 on Deposit Photos

Before we get started, I’m going to let ya’ll know that this isn’t some man-bashing rant. I love men. I adore their fuzzy chests and scratchy faces. I love their shoulders and legs. I love muscular men and dad-bods.

I’m also sick of men who won’t listen to me.

I’m very good at using my words. I’ve made careers out of public speaking, literacy education, and writing, so words are my jam. I’m also wholly unafraid of using words related to sex.

It’s not uncommon for me to tell Hubby to circle my clit with his tongue while lightly pressing a finger against my opening. I will ask for digital anal stimulation and am not afraid to say, “push the dildo into my ass while you fuck my pussy.”

I know what I want and ask for it.

I do this with new partners as well as established. If I’m on a date, it’s going well, and I’ve decided I want to sleep with this new person, I will steer the dinner conversation towards my discomfort with sexual choking with new partners and make the person aware of my latex allergy. If the person I’m with has a hard time having a conversation about sex, it’s a safe bet that he and I won’t be compatible between the sheets, so I move on.

The problem is that despite my use of explicit language, some penis havers do not listen.

I am annoyed when despite my use of appropriate. Sexual vocabulary and direction, men proceed In a way that is directly in opposition to what I’ve said. Even more troubling is that I’m relatively certain women who aren’t as good at speaking up would give up and accept orgasm deficient or dangerous sex.

Here are three examples to illustrate my point

Once, I was on a date with someone, and I let him know explicitly and upfront that I can’t handle choking with a new partner. We were undressing in his room when I mentioned it, and he confirmed that he’d received the message. I have some sexual trauma from my past, and choking is a trigger for me. I’ve written in more detail about this experience here, but suffice to say he didn’t listen, and it ended badly for him.

Why You Need Consent For Choking

Failure to secure enthusiastic consent could result in a broken bone.medium.com

More recently, Hubby and I were on a date with another couple. The evening went well, and the four of us ended up in a sex pile. My partner used lube, and moments later, my vulva was on fire (and not in a pleasurable way).

I didn’t shut the evening down due to this; I wanted to let Hubby and his new friend finish what they’d started. I let the man of the couple know that my vagina was closed for business and that I was heading downstairs. I told him he could join his wife and Hubby or hang out with me downstairs and have a cocktail.

I believe my actual words were, “My vagina feels like it is on fire because of something in the lube. It is closed. I’m done with sexual stuff for tonight.” That seems pretty explicit to me.

After a bit of conversation, the man attempted to perform oral sex on me. I was sitting next to him, wrapped in a towel at the time. When our spouses resurfaced in the kitchen, I put my skirt and top on and leaned over the kitchen counter.

The husband of the couple decided it was an invitation to start trying to eat me out from behind. It took quite a bit of effort to get him to stop. All of this licking on my fire-laden vagina was not putting “in the mood.”

The only mood that put me in was an irritated one.

Another man I saw for a few dates before I decided he was worth getting naked. I went to his house, I had a glass of wine, and he had a couple of beers. When things heated up, and we moved upstairs, he started complaining about condoms.

He was newly divorced and hadn’t used one in years. If you read my work, you know that my condom game is strong, but it wasn’t always airtight (pun intended). At the time, I reiterated my stance on condoms, and we got down to business.

Like many men new to condoms, he had some erectile trouble. I’m happy to engage in non-penetrative sex or take a break when this happens, and we did. Once things were working again, I felt him pause as I was on all fours, and he lined up behind me.

The asshat removed the condom and was going to try to bareback fuck me without consent. (Yes, I know that would classify as assault). I gathered my clothes and left asshat’s house immediately.

In all of the above situations, the men heard me and acknowledged what I said. But, they didn’t listen.

The science of listening

Listening involves a solid understanding of the message and acting on or responding to what a person says. In the case of boundaries, the listener should ask questions to clarify, acknowledge that those boundaries won’t work for them, or agree to proceed with the limits in place.

Why aren’t these men listening to very explicit boundaries? What is it about sexual activity that makes some men incapable of listening? Or are these men incapable of actually listening in any situation?

I’ve chatted with a few friends who think that during arousal are no longer able to function at the same cognitive level as pre-arousal. The blood flows to their penis, and their brain shuts off.

However, as a woman, my brain still works just fine when blood is flowing to my genitals. I can even consent or withdraw consent. I can still hear my partner’s words and respond appropriately. I refuse to accept the idea that men’s brains are more primitive than mine and, thus, unable to listen and enjoy pleasure simultaneously.

One study suggests that

Generally, strong emotions can compromise executive functions, including control of attention, and can increase impulsivity (see Davis & Leo, 2012 for review). In effect, sexual arousal can exert a strong attentional and motivational pull such that sexual cues draw increased attention at the expense of others, and interpretation of situational cues (including a potential sexual partner’s behaviors) is shifted toward consistency with one’s sexual desires.

The idea here is that a strong level of arousal diminishes a person’s capacity for attentiveness.

Similarly, Communication in the Real World from the University of Minnesota Publishing mentions that most theories of gender differences in communication break down when evaluated in a clinical setting. However, there appear to be several barriers to listening that may explain my experiences and have nothing to do with gender.

Lack of eye contact, environmental noise, even seemingly innocuous things like temperature and lighting can impact our ability to listen attentively. Internal forces, such as illness, pain, or stress, can reduce a person’s ability to listen, regardless of how the speaker communicates the message.

The barrier to active listening that most clearly explains my experiences is prejudices that interfere with incoming messages. Everyone takes in what they hear and runs it through the filter of their worldview (or what their mind is going through at the present moment) and comes up with a recorded message.

Based on experience and what these sources say about listening, I assume that the insistent vagina licker wanted me to say yes so severely that his internal filter recoded my message. He may have heard my words, but his brain was unable to act upon them because he’d already decided that I consented.

As for the choker with a broken nose… my best guess is that alcohol consumption played a significant role in his inability to adhere to my boundaries. Couple that with the fact that, according to him, many women he’s slept with enjoy choking, and his filter probably told him that choking wasn’t as off-limits as I made it seem.

Adjusting my behavior

I’m not making excuses for these men, don’t get it twisted. There is no excuse for not listening to your partner’s sexual boundaries.

I’m just trying to evaluate where the communication broke down to avoid situations like this in the future. I can’t control other people; all I can do is adjust my behavior based on what I learn. Here’s what I’ve come up with

I discuss the choking thing before any clothes come off, and I speak explicitly about the reason for the boundary. Rather than alluding to previous trauma, I expressly say that I was choked during a sexual assault as a teenager and cannot handle hands around my neck. I let the person know that if they violate this boundary, I will leave, but I also let them know about the man who got a broken nose instead of an orgasm. Fair warning.

When I’m discussing sexual boundaries, I do it face to face. When I told the insistent licker that I was closed for business, we were in a room with his naked wife and Hubby going at it. I could see how such an environment would distract from the message.

I’m not sleeping with someone who has been drinking. A glass of wine with dinner or a couple of beers is one thing, but if I’m with someone who is pounding back alcohol like I drink fruity non-alcoholic seltzer, I’m not sleeping with them. It’s not worth the risk that they won’t respect my boundaries.

If a man gives me any flack about condom usage, I do not get naked with them. Like the choking conversation, this one takes place face-to-face and before things heat up.

I hope that by taking care of these few barriers to effective communication, I’ll avoid the discomfort (both physical and emotional) that comes from experiences with men who don’t listen.

When I relay these experiences to Hubby, he’s surprised that women sleep with men at all if this is how some percentage of the male population behaves. I’m sure that there are plenty of women out there who’ve encountered enough asshats that they’ve decided their vibrator and an erotic novel are all they need.

Luckily there are men out there like Hubby and Seth who are as into enthusiastic consent as I am, and remember to stop and check-in periodically to make sure their partners are having at least as much fun as they are. As for the men who don’t listen, get your freaking act together so we can all have more sex.