Dameyo

Sex Manual Survival Guide (Part I)

// March 29th, 2009 // General

This article is for everyone out there who openly admits that they still don’t have much of a clue about life, love, or to be more specific, sex.

The Opposite Sex– What are they?
Before going any further in this quest for sexual knowledge, we really need to work out what on earth the opposite sex is all about.

Many men willingly admit that they haven’t a clue how the female mind works– that’s their excuse for not making the effort to understand.

Many women like to encourage this foolishness by pretending they are mysterious and enigmatic–and that’s their excuse for the fact that they don’t know what’s going on either. So let’s explode a few myths and take a look at the main identifying features of each sex.

Man
Brain - Confused, looking for his mother.
A Sense of Humor - Essential but often juvenile.
Clothes - Don’t try and judge a man by his clothes. He’s probably being dressed by another woman.
Attitude - Lots of men have attitude. You’re meant to be intrigued.
Wallet - An essential accessory, and one that many women mistakenly overlook.
Down Below - Don’t worry, size doesn’t matter. No honesty, it doesn’t.
Feet - The size of man’s feet is all-important.

Woman
Brain - Many men like to think that women are mentally inferior.
A Sense of Humor - When she says you’re the best she’s ever had - that’s sarcasm.
Clothes - Power-dressing usually indicates psychotic tendencies. To be avoided.
Attitude - It’s not just an attitude problem when she tells you you’re boring.
Wallet - Amazingly, many modern women have their own income.
Dow Below - To wax or not to wax?
Feet - Only porn queens wear stilettos. Sorry.

Now that you’re clear on how to identify members of the opposite sex it’s a good idea to look more closely at what makes them different to you. Whoever called them ‘the opposite sex’ wasn’t a joke - they’re about as far away on this planet as you could possibly hope to get. Just because you’re able to pick out a person’s sex from across a crowded room (well done!), there’s no guarantee that you will feel relaxed and comfortable should you be forced to speak to them. At this point it’s probably worth looking at some of the most common anxieties that we come across when first meeting someone.

Does My Breath Smell?
A common problem upon first meeting a potential partner is the worry over whether you’ll get close enough to risk a kiss. The reason for this is that you’ve been drinking black coffee all day at work, have chain-smoked twenty fags and your teeth are stained from red wine.

Because of this cumulative potential to disgust, you try to talk from behind your hand and the person you fancy ends up thinking that you’re offended by their halitosis.

Get over it! Most bad breath issues are all in your mind and if you get in close enough for a proper snog you should be able to cut off any air supply, thereby negating their sense of smell.

Does He/She Fancy Me?
When you’re worried about your ability to pull, your ability to judge anything becomes horribly distorted. Every smile, twitch and slap across the face becomes analyzed to death - is she smiling at me because she fancies me, or does she smile at everyone like that?

Herein lies the path to madness, and the only real way of finding out whether or not they fancy you is to ask their best friend.

Most best friend can be trusted to call a spade a shovel. It might sting a bit to hear yourself described as repulsive, but at least you know where you stand.

Do I Fancy Him/Her?
This seems like a silly question, but it’s one you’ll often find yourself asking. Usually just after you’ve managed to confirm that they fancy you. Now that you’ve got their attention and devotion you may start to think that a complete stranger on the other side of the room is much more attractive. Beware! It’s far better to go for the compromise and get off with someone who’s alright than to chase after the impossible dream of a person you really wouldn’t want to kick out of bed but who you’d probably never get into bed in the first place. Many of the world’s most stable relationships have been built on compromise. Never be afraid to do yourself down.

Have I Got Any Condoms on Me?
It’s a bit pointless indulging an anxiety like this because, let’s face it, whoever you’re talking to is not going to want to sleep with you. Not yet, anyway.

Do They Think I’m Stupid?
Gone are the days when a woman was judged by her looks and a man by his wallet. Gone, but not forgotten. You’ll still be judged by both these things, but even more important by both these things, but even more important in the modern age is the ability to impress with you mental agility. Unfortunately, your ability to down a bottle of wine in one go has long overtaken your Mensa application. If you want to impress, I don’t recommend doing mental arithmetic out loud. Instead, a good tactic is to casually drop literary and philosophical references into the conversation. For example, ‘Does Tolstoy deserve as much literary merit as Dostoyevsky?’

Are My Friends Embarrassing?
Few people would admit this, they’re often concerned about the impression their friends give in relation to themselves. And with good reason! I mean, would you go out with someone whose best friend drank Bacardi and Coke or wore leather waistcoats? If you really want to pull, it’s probably a good idea to take a long, hard look at your acquaintances and if they don’t meet the mark then leave them at home. (Obviously, don’t forget your friends completely - their sympathy will be essential when you eventually get dumped for being a shallow so-and-so.)

Am I Wearing Clean Pants?
What can I say? This is the most crippling anxiety of them all, but one that really shouldn’t be occurring at the stage in your life. Did your mother teach you nothing? There’s really no excuse for not having a pristine pair around you at all times of the day, so if scummy pants are your downfall - well, so be it!

OK, we’ve dealt with, and dismissed, some of the most common worries but we still haven’t really got to grips with what it is about the opposite sex that makes us so anxious. Let’s have a look at some of the reasons why you’re never going to understand them.

They Were Born That Way
Men and women are just born different. It’s no one’s fault that men like cars and woman like lipsticks - that’s the way we’re made, and it goes all the way back to the womb when your mother’s bodies were creating the bits of us (brains, personalities, addictive disorders) that would influence the rest of our lives.

To try and fight this is like trying to arm-wrestle God - you’re never going to win, so learn to give in gracefully.

Their Mothers Ruined Them
Many adults like to blame their problems on the parenting they suffered, and personally, I’m more than happy to collude in this denial of responsibility. If there’s anything wrong with your loved one it’s far easier to blame it on their mother than to try and understand it. After all, that’ what mothers are for and they won’t mind at all that yet again they are held responsible for the ills of the world.

Social Conditioning
Every day we see all around us the influences that have made our partners impossible to understand and plain impossible. From the cradle to the grave we’re fed messages that mould our personalities and make us hide our deepest emotions. It’s either that or we’re all just a bit messed up.

Ex-partners
Hah! Now there’s the rub! Most adults have been scarred for life by an inconsiderate, selfish ex-partner who is probably better looking than you. If only you could have reached your true love before they were chewed up and spat out by this monster, you might have made a chance at happiness. But that chance has now gone forever and it’s left to you to pick up the pieces and look at them in despair. You’re handling second-hand goods and you might as well get used to it.

Careers
Far too many young people today have careers. They put their career first and everything else second. That includes you. The good news is that one day they’ll wake up, realize what a load of old tosh work is, throw it all in, travel the world and remember how fantastic you are. Or they’ll meet an amazing Kiwi lover in Bangkok and forget you forever.

If you’re still feeling a bit dazed and confused (let’s face it - I have no idea what makes the opposite sex so weird) it might be worth casting out minds back to younger days when life was really bad. I’m talking about when we were teenagers. You think you’ve got it bad now? You should pause to consider what it was like having your first snog with half your mates watching and giving you points out of ten. Our ability to cope in the romantic arena is often defined, and more often ruined, by our experiences as an adolescent, and it’s worth going back to those early days just to remind ourselves what it was all like and why it could only have got better. So let;s revisit the life of a teenager.

CHAPTER 2
Teenage Kicks
A good counselor can work wonders when it comes to erasing the scars left by teenage experiences.

While we all complain about getting old, how many of us would really want to go back to what our parents assured us were the happiest years of your life? Oh, happy indeed for them, as they mocked our acne and laughed in the face of our dress sense. But miserable for anyone trapped in the teen nightmare. So you may not be inclined to thank me for stepping back into the golden age of ‘can’t shag, won’t be shagging for the next ten years’. But if we are to understand and solve our problems, we really need to ponder the teenage traumas that turned us into the broken men and women we are today.

The teenage dilemma is a difficult one. We all desperately want to have sex but nobody knows what it’s all about. It’s disconcerting when you look at spotty Darren Biggs and he tells you about his six-times-in-a-night session. Or if you’re a girl, you’ll be jealous as hell of Sharon Wood and her brushes with teenage pregnancy - but she won’t tell you about it because you’re not cool enough to be in her gang. Face it: you’re a virgin and irredeemable out of touch. Just thank God that all your friends are the same. Except you don’t. No one will ever admit to their lack of experience, so you really do believe that you’re the one frigid stick in town. Even Mrs Brown next door is pregnant again and she must be at least thirty.

So, how do teenagers go about combating this nightmare?

Hair Gel
According to teenage mythology, bad hair is a real puller. If the top half of your head looks like a grease slick, a hedgehog, or a rat’s nest, then you’re in there! The basic rule of thumb is: if it hurts to run your hands through your hair, you’ve got it right. Of course, this all goes back to obscure caveman mating rituals, where they’d do just about anything to alert the opposite sex to their existence. Ruthless corporations like Boots the Chemist encourage these sexual delusion, as they stand to make a tidy profit selling you glue masquerading as hair gel.

In time, you will grow out of this desire to abuse you crowning glory but these mops will haunt you forever. Friends over thirty should have all photos confiscated, because otherwise you can guarantee that on your wedding day someone will pull out a picture of you looking like a complete tit. And you will only have yourself to blame.

Hair Reduction
Teenagers also become prey to the desire to pluck, shave and wax their entire body shines with scrubbed good health. Well, that’s the theory. What is means in practice is that male teenagers will start shaving before they’ve even got a hint of a whiskey, leaving their faces covered in shaving rash and not much else.

Teenage girls pluck their eyebrows because, well, they’ve never done it before, and come to school looking like Greta Garbo on a spectacularly bad day. They’ll also apply sugar solutions to their legs, which they then can’t scrape off without it really really hurting. They’ll be obliged to cover up their legs with thick socks for the next sex months, chiselling off a bit of cruddy sugar for a snack each time they feel themselves fainting because they’re on another cabbage diet.

Being In A Band
As Jarvis Cocker quite rightly pointed out, you only become a singer so that people will sleep with you. Let’s look at the evidence: Jarvis himself, Mick Jagger, any member of a boy band…yep, if you passed them in the street you’d be more inclined to kick them in the shins than drag them off to bed. But because they all mime into microphones and mince around a stage, people seem to find them very desirable. On this basis, millions of teenagers have formed bands. Records show that at least three of them are able to play an instruments. Further records show that 98 percent of these groups disband after six months. Or, in other words - once they’ve got a lay out of it.

Reading Teen Mags
A whole industry of pap has been established on the back of teenagers desperately seeing advice on their woes. Agony aunts and uncles take, ooh, at least fifteen words to give an answer to problems. These answers often contain gems about self-esteem, learning to love yourself and politely asking that big bully to leave you alone. None of this advice is worth the paper it’s written on. If you want to go out with someone, ask them for heaven’s sale and if you’re being bullied - well, look up the local hired assassins in the Yellow Pages.

Drink Cider…
Often the only way to overcome crippling shyness is to get drunk. But at the age if fifteen there are two barriers to wise tippling: firstly, you have no money discernment (you actually don’t know if one glass of vodka will get you pissed, so you drink five just to be on the safe side). Having clubbed together, you and your mate step into the local off-license. Your priorities are: cheap and strong.

Decades of research by generations of teenagers have shown that the chosen tipple is usually a big plastic bottle of cider. Because you can’t go home with alcohol, you sit in a park and take turns at swigging straight from the bottle. After a bit you’ll proclaim, ‘Ooh, I’m really pissed,’ despite feeling nothing other than a need to burp. After half a bottle you’ll be incapable of proclaiming anything, but will be projecting large and powerful streams of cider and stomach goo. By now you have completely forgotten your plan to chat up anyone.

…And Smoke Tabs
Benson and Hedges, given a choice. Unbelievably, despite all the advice given by sensible grown-ups, teenagers prefer to throw caution to the wine and try on the cool cap by indulging in a nasty habit. Contrary to parental opinion, this really hurt the teenager more than it hurts their parents. You have to put in a lot of hard work and commitment to get past the body’s natural objection to nicotine. Your first few cigarettes will probably make you very ill indeed, your favorite clothes become littered with cigarette burns, and awkward newsagents no longer agree to sell cigarettes singly, so it’s quite an expensive habit too. No wonder teenagers are forced to turn to crime.

Are You Still A Teenager?
Find out if you still secretly think like a teenager by filling in this multiple choice quiz. Obviously, if you are under the age of twenty, you don’t need to do this.

When you go to the supermarket, what do you buy?
a) Sundried tomatoes and creme fraiche
b) Nappies for the baby
c) Bottle of dry cider, please

What does the word ‘organism’ make you do?
a) Look it up in the science dictionary
b) Tell the biology boffin to go away
c) Snigger and nudge your maters

If you’ve got a spot, what do you do?
a) Cover it up with concealer and wait for it to go away
b) You don’t get spots any more
c) Squeeze it until your face starts bleeding and then burst out crying

The person you fancy has just come over to say hello. What do you do?
a) Offer to buy them a drink
b) Ask if you can ask their phone number
c) Turn bright red and ignore them

You think your mum is:
a) A wonderful woman who deserves a big hug
b) Worth more than your dad, but you resolved that in therapy years ago
c) God, just like, really embarrassing

If you answered c) to two or more of these questions, then you definitely have a teen complex. God help you.

But All That Was Ages Ago
OK, you think, I have now relived the hell of teenage life. Thanks very much. But how does this relate to my idiot performance in the sack these days? Well, the quiz you’ve just done is fine for revealing superficial similarities between you now and you with spots back then. But teen angst never really goes away; it just masquerades as adult misery. All those tortured famous people rattling around in the Priory aren’t really dealing with addiction issues or nervous breakdowns. They’re still trying to come to terms with the fact that when they were a teenager they were fat, ugly and unloved.

Such demons are not exclusive to the rich and famous. Particularly in the arena of sex you’ll discover that many of the worries that plagued you as a teenager are still rattling around at the back of your disintegrating brain and have a major influence on what floats your boat now.

Is My Willy Too Small?
Teenage boys spend hours in the bathroom with a ruler trying to decide whether or not they are enough of a man. Self-help guides advice these teenagers not to look down at their member as their instantly distorts perspective, but to look at it in a mirror. They don’t give any advice if you have to squint to see it in the mirror.

This is a obsession that stays with a man all his life. He will never lose the secret fear that he is inadequate. (which, of course, he is. In lots of ways.) And frankly, women don’t help by guffawing or wiggling their little pinkie at him.

Ear Blowing
There are some aspects of heavy petting that are extremely unpleasant. But it’s only by testing them out that we discover quite how unacceptable they are. Anything that involves licking, blowing on or nibbling the ear is to be avoided at all costs, but many teenagers think that this is a sex way to behave.

This is because their only information about what is sexy comes from bad porn films or American film stars playing, ‘Let’s make-believe that sex is a beautiful thing.’ If you are still indulging in these petting antics after the age of eighteen, then you are doomed to sexual failure. Somebody really should have said something to you by now.

How Do You Put A Condom On?
Pity the poor teenager who first tries to put a condom on. They really are the best ever forms of contraception, because by the time you’ve fumbled around and failed to wrap anything in rubber, you’ve completely lost your erection. Self-help manuals are fantastic source of hilarity on this subject, recommending that you get the hang of condoms by rolling them down over a banana.

Other self-help books suggest turning the condom moment into a sexy one, by asking your partner to help put it on. Again, I am forced to laugh in the face of such advice. Condoms just aren’t sexy. Not even banana flavored ones. You will always turn to fingers and thumbs when putting one on. When it comes to condoms, you are forever a petrified teenager.

Lovebites
Teenagers wear their lovebites with pride. It is an essential clause of the heavy petting contract that you should walk away from a romantic encounter with several purple bruises on your neck. The coy will wear a scarf for the next few days, but any teenager worth their salt will recklessly leave their shirt collar gaping for all to see their badges of honor.

Adults also like lovebites (the suburban version of S&M), but tend to request their delivery to parts of the body that can be easily covered up. If your partner tries to give you a lovebite on the neck, sack him immediately. If you ever do spot an adult sporting an obvious lovebite, you can safely assume that they have recently left their long-term partner and are rediscovering the joys of reckless sex. Sad, then, that they should have so little imagination as to equate reckless sex with um, lovebites.

Sex In Public
Most teenagers become accustomed to an audience when indulging in a sexual act. The only time they have the opportunity to get it on is usually at house parties where there is a limited opportunity for privacy. Because of this, it is quite common to see rows of couples on the living-room floor like sardines in a tin, all fumbling and groping after the requisite consumption of dry cider.

There are always a few sad boys who have failed to pull and it will be their role to watch proceedings and report back to the rest of the school on Monday. On such a basis the reputations of thousands of teenage girls and boys are broken (or immortalized) forever.

And so, twenty years on, crammed at the back of the adult mind is the thought that sex in public places is, well, groovy baby. Such exhibitionism is not part of an erotic thrill - the danger of being discovered isn’t such a big one. Any stranger happening across your coupling will probably just turn around and walk away. No, this is all about the desire to return to our teenage selves when sex was exciting and fun. It’s called, ‘Let’s pretend I’m still young’. And if you need to have sex in a park to recreate the fantasy of youth, I recommend plastic surgery. Much more dignified. And you won’t be recognized if you are caught doing it in a park.

Tweaking and Tugging
Oh dear. There’s so much that goes on between a teenage couple that’s really rather painful. In our teens we’re just discovering the beauty if the sexual act, but we operate as though we’re still playing with Lego. In other words, we’re clumsy buggers. Teenage boys think that nipples are there to be twisted like a couple of volume dials. Teenage girls are almost equally hopeless, as they pull about bits of their partner’s body with all the dexterity and gentleness of an ape. I sometimes wonder why we didn’t all vow to turn our backs on sex forever. And yet, and yet…

Down the years we discover that the gentle touch is the route to seduction. Well, some of us do. Some of is are still mistaking cries of pain for shouts of ecstasy. Well, listen up! Clean out your ears! If your partner refuses to speak to you after sex session, perhaps you need to stop and think about what you’re doing wrong.

Masturbation
Let’s face it, this topic almost deserves a chapter all to itself. How can I write about the teenager without mentioning masturbation? Teenage boys masturbate approximately twenty times a day. (Perhaps more, perhaps less: I just made that figure up). Teenage girls swear blind that they wouldn’t know how to, and definitely never have. But masturbation fulfills an essential function in the life of a teenager. It stops them from exploding and gives them something do do during history lessons.

So how does this affect our adult selves? Well, we might masturbate a little less often but the same rules still apply. It gives us something to do. Masturbation is basically a comfort blanket for grown-ups, reminding us that a tiny part of that teenage lust for sex is still with us. And with maturity comes the realization that nobody does it better for you than you!

Nobody Understands Me
It’s not easy being a teenager - your body’s going through loads of really weird changes, at a time when you’re desperate to appear irresistible to the opposite sex. You feel completely alienated towards pretty much everybody and think you’re the only one who knows what it truly means to be completely miserable.

But it is at this point that some lucky teenagers also discover that life’s not all bad. Your skin may be bad, your hair greasy but then you find someone to go out with who also has greasy hair and skin. They even like the same bands as you, and guess what? They write bad poetry, too. Bizarrely, in the midst of the worst teenage angst, some people have the chance to spend time with someone they like to call their ’soulmate’. Of course, in a couple of years you’ll dump them for someone more gorgeous - but in the meantime, it’s great to find someone to join you in your tortured isolation.

This is probably the only time in your life when you’ll feel totally in sync with another human being. Because given a few years (usually after you’ve first been dumped), you’ll realize that we’re all just lonely beings who happen to be sharing the same planet. Most people are vicious, selfish brutes who laugh in the face of your pain. But at least for a short while you discovered one of the nice sides of sex - someone who’s there to keep you company and put a bucket by the side of your bed when you’re drunk.