Sexual Cues

One last post on something heterosexuals can learn from gays and lesbians. It has to do with being tuned in and aware of your partner's level of arousal.

In Masters and Johnson's study, they found that straight men and women were not adept at identifying their partner's sexual cues: The straight man "became so involved in his own sexual tensions that he seemed relatively unaware of the degree of his partner's sexual involvement. There were only a few instances when the husband seemed fully aware of his wife's levels of sexual excitation and helped her to expand her pleasure..." And "rarely did a wife identify her husband's preorgasmic stage...and suspend him at this high level of sexual excitation..."

Gays and lesbians exhibited much greater skill in tuning into their partner's sexual responses. They teased each other and "tended to move slowly...and to linger at...[each] stage of stimulative response, making each step in tension increment something to be appreciated..."

It's not easy, balancing a focus on your own sensual pleasure with an attentiveness to your partner's responses. Sex is an intricate dance - and one that gets better with practice.