Sensuality is for Men, Too

**Note to the reader: When I use the term “men” in this article, I am referring to cis-het, traditionally masculine men, though this conversation can apply to anyone struggling with their relationship to masculinity and the “Act Like A Man Box.”

Before we dive into the men of it all, let’s first take a moment to celebrate where we are. 

Women and queer people have been working their butts off for generations to get to where we are when it comes to sexual health and wellness accessibility. We’ve seen sociopolitical movements founded by women and queer people happening side-by-side over the past century to get us to a place where we have at least some access to diverse, educational sexual health and wellness resources, whether they be online, or in our local communities, schools, and bookstores. We’ve come a long way, and even though it now often feels like we’re working backwards with the censorship on social media being so intense that we can’t spell the word sex without getting banned, women and queer people are continuing to come up with creative ways to push this important, life-saving content out there to support one another in connecting to our pleasure and sensuality. 

We’re starting to see a lot of progress in the world of sex education and sexual health and wellness, and thank goodness conversations about sex, identity and pleasure are becoming more accessible and mainstream. But with all of the progress we’ve made, I can’t help but notice that not everyone seems to be coming with us. 

As I look around me both as a sex therapist and as a human living in the world, I can’t help but see the extreme gap between sensuality for women and femme people, and the distinct lack thereof, for cis-het men and masc folks?

As we see politics becoming more and more polarized in relation to sexual and reproductive rights, are we also polarizing sex and pleasure?

There is also no issue with having low or no desire if it is not something that concerns you. A couple who engage in sex once monthly and are satisfied with that may not describe themselves as having low desire if they’re satisfied with the sex they’re having. Conversely, I’ve met couples that have sex 2+ times weekly, but because they don’t desire it daily they believe they have low sexual desire and lack sexual attraction. 

The Feminine Resistance

We live in a masculine world. 

I don’t just mean that we live in a world run by men and operate under the patriarchy, though this is still very much true. I mean it is  because we live under patriarchy in a world run by men, the systems and structures in place that impact how we actually live, and are expected to show up on a day to day basis both on the macro and micro scales, are by their very nature based in a masculine way of thinking, doing, and being. 

Under capitalism, we are taught to value and uplift the masculine traits that feed productivity, efficiency, logic, action, fast movement, power, a hunger for success and production. In order to be “successful” under patriarchy and capitalism, we are taught that we have to stay rational and logical, do as many things as we can as quickly as possible, and never show any sign of emotion or neediness that could be interpreted as weak. The fast-paced, as efficient and economical as possible without feeling way that we design our days and our lives then, causes everyone, regardless of their gender, to operate within a hierarchy where masculinity is at the top, and often the only acceptable way to be, with anything deemed softer, slower, more feeling or more feminine existing below what serves the masculine machine. 

We are very aware of how the patriarchy affects women and gender diverse people, but it’s important to recognize that the patriarchy hurts men, too. 

Women and gender-diverse people have had to rally together under these structures in order, firstly, to survive, and in doing so, we have found support, connection, and life-lines in one another. Women and gender-diverse people have found community and connection amongst ourselves, in opposition to the system, spaces where we are safe to be slower, more feeling, and more vulnerable, spaces where we can nurture and be nurtured, where we can sense and be sensual, and not exploited or extracted from in this process because it is reciprocal. We hold space for one another, we show care and kindness, and softness, toward one another. Women and gender-diverse people have worked for centuries in a state of resistance to protect our softness from being swallowed by the patriarchy, because without it, society would crumble. Without space for femininity in our world, women and gender diverse people could not be parents, partners, lovers, communities, and not only would we not be able to survive ourselves without this space, our children wouldn’t survive, and quite frankly, neither would men. 

The problem here though, is that these spaces for femininity and the innate vulnerability that comes with existing in feminine space, is that it has become just that, a feminine space. 

It is, of course, innately feminine to be softer, slower, sensual and more feeling, and I refer here to the feminine as an energy rather than a gender identity, but as we continue to operate under capitalism, what has happened is that men have been left out of these more sensual, feminine spaces, and have had to keep pushing under patriarchy to fit into what is referred to as “The Man Box” in order to stay afloat. 

The Man Box

In the early 1980’s, Paul Kivel and a group of other men working at the Oakland Men’s Project in California, coined the “Act Like A Man Box” as a concept experienced by most all western men that keeps men disconnected from sensuality, pleasure, and connection, in order to “be a man” in contemporary society. 

The Act Like A Man Box is a set of rules, structures and guidelines for what it means to be a man in the world, which is all aligned with what it means to be successful in a capitalist, patriarchal society. 

The Act Like A Man Box tells men they need to be strong and powerful at all times both physically and mentally, be able to provide for themselves and their families, be willing and capable in the face of anything life throws their way, and never show any sense of emotion, vulnerability, or weakness at any moment along the way. 

The Act Like A Man Box teaches men that the only time they’re able to be softer or emotional, if at all, is behind closed doors with their romantic partner, and that even their children must receive this image of strong, unfeeling power and authority in order to be “prepared for the real world,” especially if their children are boys who will also, turn into men. 

Men are taught to toughen up, to “just get on with it and keep going,” to never let anything get to you, and also, that if something threatens you in any way and it’s “rational” to show emotion, that the only acceptable, masculine emotion one may show is anger. Think about The Incredible Hulk for example, and how The Hulk as a super hero is perhaps one of the most masculine characters in contemporary culture. The Hulk’s superpower is to literally get angry or stressed, that’s how he literally becomes The Hulk. This is just one example, but if we consider the role models in media we have for young boys, almost all narratives are fueled by male rage, anger, revenge, strength, or hunger for power. 

So women are harmed by patriarchy in that they are shoved into the corner and discarded as less valuable because of their femininity, but men are harmed by the patriarchy by being told that the very essence of their manhood is contingent on acting more like a machine than a human or they simply aren’t worthy of being a man, and surely, then, aren’t worthy of love. 

What happens here then, is that women come together to find safety in their femininity and band together to feel seen and safe in the world, and men, because softness, connection and vulnerability are seen as feminine weaknesses, are forced to go it alone. And this is how we end up in a world where such things as The Male Loneliness Epidemic becomes such a large issue, where men’s mental health is in rapid decline, and where people start to wonder why more heterosexual women are choosing to stay single rather than to put up with men’s lack of emotional availability and relational skills. 

And for many women in relationships with men, the male lack of ability to soften and connect becomes a large issue when it comes to sex and relationship dynamics, because women know what true connection feels like based on their experiences being held by other women. If men don’t have the opportunity to soften and connect with other men, including their care-givers, throughout their lives, then participating in a romantic and/or sexual relationship is so foreign that they often end up resisting, and showing anger toward their partner(s) for wanting to connect when what they’re really feeling is fear. 

The Man Box and Sex

As you can imagine, when it comes to sex and relationships, The Man Box is detrimental to men’s ability to engage the way they want to, mostly because they have been conditioned to almost completely turn off their sense of sensuality for the majority of their lives. 

Without access to sensuality, men struggle to experience real, true pleasure in their bodies both in the context of sex and outside of it, and this leads to difficulty with sexual function that can show up in struggles to gain and maintain erections, low desire for sex, trouble with ejaculation, or being able to orgasm either only when masturbating or only in a very specific way with a partner. 

For most men, sexual pleasure is one of the only real pleasures that is acceptable within the context of The Man Box, but it has to be sexual pleasure that comes from penis-centric acts because their masculinity still needs to be reinforced by acts to do  with power, hardness, and strength of both mind and body. 

When sex becomes solely about the penis rather than being about pleasure, men often find that sex becomes anxiety-inducing since so much pressure has been placed on their penis to perform. Not only is this detrimental to their relationships with people with vulvas, simply because people with vulvas need more stimulation than just penetration in order to become aroused and experience pleasure, but it also becomes detrimental to themselves when they’re experiencing low desire or erection difficulties because they don’t know any other way to find pleasure in their body that could support their arousal. 

Difficulties with sexual function then often impact men’s self esteem and mental health because, if their worth under The Man Box is connected to their ability to be strong, capable, powerful, and un-feeling, then a man who can’t get his cock hard or pleasure his partner is therefore not a man. 

The great irony in this, is that in order for men to engage in sex and relationships that are more sustainable, stronger, and longer lasting, they actually need to do the very thing that they’re so resisting. In order to experience more pleasure, men have to get in touch with their sensuality. In order to get in touch with their sensuality, men need to be vulnerable.

Sensuality For Men

In order to have better relationships and sex both partnered and solo, men must get in touch with more pleasure in their lives both within and outside of sex. 

In order to get in touch with more pleasure, men need to connect to their innate sensuality and become vulnerable in that. 

Despite what has just been discussed around sensuality being inherently feminine (energetically, not identity-wise), we are ALL innately sensual beings. 

We experience the world through our five senses so long as we live in a human body in the material world, so getting in touch with the senses is how we connect to the present moment, and being connected to the senses in the present moment is what we call sensuality. 

To access our sensuality however, we have to ditch The Man Box and recognize that our worth as a man is innate in our very existence as a human in this world. Your worth does not come from some arbitrary list of rules and structures designed by other power-hungry men to turn you into an efficient cog in their patriarchal machine, your worth is in you because you exist. 

And, as a matter of fact, your sensuality is not something that has to be given to you or earned, your sensuality is already yours. It’s in you, it always has been, you just have to go back inward looking for it. 

How To Reconnect To Your Sensuality

Most men don’t have time in their lives to work in a 3 hour sensuality practice every day in order to reconnect to their pleasure - I’m not that naive! What most men already do have, is some form of daily routine that serves their mental and/or physical health in some way. 

Most men have some sort of hobby, whether it’s going to the gym, running, or some form of physical exercise, or reading, or crafting, playing music, being in nature, or any other thing they do that supports their well-being in some way. 

One of the most accessible ways I’ve found for my male clients to start to reconnect with their sensuality, is to focus on the sensory experiences available in their existing routine, to become aware of what they’re already experiencing and see how their current routine actually feels for them on any given day. 

By getting in touch with the senses in our existing daily routines, we can start to become more familiar with what things actually feel good for us, what we’d like more of in our lives, what our body needs in any moment, what we’re feeling while we go about our day. From here, we can start to get curious about how to add more pleasure into our lives that’s non-sexual and fulfilling, and this will lead us to living in a state of more sensuality in general that can then translate into the bedroom. 

For example, if you’re a guy that goes to the gym because it’s good both for your mental and physical health, then you could try to bring some more awareness to what you’re actually doing at the gym while you’re there. 

We’re often going through our workout while also listening to music and thinking about what we’re going to make for dinner afterward and that thing we forgot to do at work that day, and we’re not actually that present with what we’re doing during our workout. 

Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with listening to music, that’s often what keeps us going in the up-regulated state we want if we’re at the gym. Pump those beats babe.What I am saying though, is that the gym is an extremely sensory place, and we could become a lot more aware of how things actually feel for us around our exercises. 

If you’re lifting weights, could you take five seconds before lifting them off the rack to feel the texture of the bar in your fingers, and feel into your feet stabilizing you against the floor?

If you’re running, could you really be aware of what you see as you move through the world and take in all the colours, textures, shapes and lives around you as you go?

If you’re swimming, could you take a moment to really feel the temperature of the water, the smell of the sea or the chlorine, the sounds all around you? 

For many of us, that post-workout shower is one of the best feelings in the world. How could we make that experience even more sensual? Could you really become aware of all the sensations happening in your body as you shower? Can you feel the water on your skin, smell the soaps as you lather your body, feel the touch of your fingertips in your hair, hear the water hitting the floor and walls around you. Can you let out a big deep breath?

And then, how can you apply all of this to other areas of your life?

Can you really feel the warmth of your partner’s arms around you when they hug you? Can you smell all the mixing scents coming from the meal you just made? What sounds can you hear as you walk down the street or when you’re at work, what things do you love to look at when you gaze out the window of the train?

Getting connected to sensuality in all non-sexual areas of our lives is the best way to start introducing sensuality as a concept in our lives when we’ve been so disconnected from ourselves as sensual beings. Once you’ve started to practice bringing your awareness to your sensual experience in the rest of your life, then when it comes to sex and sexual pleasure, you can start to incorporate using your senses there too. 

Our arousal comes from the entirety of our sensual experience, not just from our genitals, it’s a whole system that brings us to sexual pleasure and the whole thing needs to be engaged. 

By connecting back to your sensuality, you say to yourself: I am worthy of love and connection because I exist, I am worthy of feeling and pleasure, I matter.