Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Size Queens, Faking It, and Fantasies: I Take Your Calls Live!

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

On today’s episode of “The Language of Love,” I am taking YOUR calls and giving love, sex and relationship advice live on the air. First up, I talk to a caller who wants to know if it is normal for a man to fantasize about other women when he is being intimate with his partner. Is it okay to think about other people during sex or is that a form of betrayal and infidelity? And, if you need to think about someone else during sex in order to achieve orgasm, is that a red flag that you aren’t with the right person or your relationship is stale? Listen to the episode to find out my advice on what to do if your mind wanders during sex. Next, I talk to a woman who says her husband doesn’t know what he is doing in the bedroom. Although he is a wonderful partner in many ways, he doesn’t have much experience. So, she’s been faking orgasm for years. How do you STOP faking orgasm once you have been doing it for so long, and how can you explain your subterfuge to your partner without hurting their feelings? And, more importantly, how can you teach a man how to pleasure you so that you both get to enjoy sex and have your needs met? Then, I speak with a man who is worried about the size of his penis and wants to know if there is a safe way to make your penis bigger. After comparing his penis to the penises of men he’s seen in porn, he is wracked with insecurity that he is too small and that he will be rejected if he gets close to a woman. Listen to this episode to find out: • Does size really matter? • How can a man with a smaller than average penis be confident in the bedroom? • And why porn can ruin your perception of actual intimacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, a sex and relationship therapist. And for the past three decades, I've been helping people learn how to love and be loved better. That's what we're doing here on The Language of Love, where I get to answer calls and emails from people just like you. My goal with The Language of Love is to help you discover more meaningful emotional and physical intimacy and to help you build more awareness of how precious and sacred your sexuality really is. Be sure to email me or reach out with your very own love sex relationship

questions, and I might just answer them live on the air. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. All right, here's a question from Angie. Is it normal for men to think about other women during sex with you? It is normal. First of all, fantasizing is totally normal. And we like to think, especially in a long-term relationship, that we're the only ones that our partner could ever be attracted to. But here's what you have to know about fantasy. It is just that, fantasy. So if your partner is fantasizing about other women, that doesn't mean he wants to be with those women. It doesn't mean that he wishes you were those women. It just means that we are really more programmed for novelty than lifelong monogamy. And so, it's actually a

strategy in many cases to be committed to monogamy because you can fantasize, but you're never going to act on those fantasies. Now, the one caveat to that, which can make things a little more complicated, is when you are fantasizing about someone real, right? So, if this woman your partner is fantasizing about is your next door neighbor or your kid's coach or someone who you have like regular contact with and is a real person in your life, then things can get a little bit tricky. If it's someone he saw on the street or on TV or in porn or a celebrity or whatever, you know, or a stranger he saw on the bus, let him have his fun and don't take it personally. it's not a reflection on you. It's a reflection on his need for variety, which is biological.

Everybody has it. Here's another voice message from Caitlin. Hi, Dr. Berman. I'm Caitlin and I'm 27 years old. I've been with my husband for three years and he's an awesome guy and a great dad and is really kind to me and very loving. He's just a romantic guy and very sweet. And all my girlfriends say how lucky I am. And I am. But the problem, he doesn't really know what he's doing in the bedroom. I'm the only girl he's ever been with. And he was he was Mormon growing up. And he's pretty clueless about my body and what to do with my clit and everything. Lots of times I just kind of fake it and act like he's making me come. Because otherwise, he won't stop. And honestly, it can sometimes almost hurt or feel annoying. So I honestly just fake it just to get it over with and to make him feel good. But now I'm in this trap of faking it all the time because he thinks he knows what I like, but he just doesn't. What can I do?

Should I admit that I've been faking it? That's a tough one. You know, what you've been doing, which is so common, is the famous mercy fake, right? He's trying so hard and you don't know how to advocate for what you want or maybe you don't even know what you want. And so you fake it because it's not going to be over until you do reach orgasm because he's such a good guy, wants you to reach orgasm. But then you run into this issue that you're facing now. How do you tell him that you've been faking? Right. And I think you do there. We'll talk in a minute, put a pin in that about how to bring this up to him. Right. But what what the fear is, which I understand, is that you are he's then going to be like, holy crap, like you're a really good liar. And I feel totally idiotic and bamboozled and embarrassed. And I'm wondering, like, what else you've been lying about. So you have to kind of repair the trust before you can ever get to the main issue, which

is the fact that you're not having orgasms in the first place. OK, so we'll talk in a second about how to bring this up to him in a way that I think will land well. But first of all, the most important thing is that you must know what needs to be done to sexually stimulate yourself. And then you have to be able to communicate with him. obviously he's a good guy who wants to please you. He's just not educated. And most men are not educated. Ironically, they can be with a hundred women. And if one of those women at least

doesn't show him what to do, and he's learning it all from porn, which is the worst sex education there is, or guesswork, or being with women who are mercy faking, he may never learn, right? So it's up to you to teach him and you can teach him by showing him, right? So self-stimulating in front of him or take his hand in yours and show him or guide him in a positive way. You can also use what we like to call bibliotherapy. There are some great books out there. You can get my book called Loving Sex. It's an intimate guide for couples in loving relationships with all sorts of positions and techniques and anatomical drawings. And you can read it together and you can show him the things you want to try. An author named Lou Paget,

P-A-G-E-T also has some great books. How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure is the one for women and How to Be a Great Lover is the one for stimulating men. So you could get like the pair of books, even though you probably know how to stimulate him. You could say, look, honey, I got these two books. Let's read them together. You mark the things you'd like me to try on you and I'll mark the things I want you to try on me, right? So you can kind of do it that way. In terms of bringing up the issue, I find saying, if you can get away with not saying, dude, I've been faking for the past four years, try to avoid that. Because like I said, if you're in sex therapy, bring that up, let the sex therapist help you heal from that betrayal really is what he'll feel like.

But if you're not going to do that, then the easiest way to bring this up is just say, listen, I'm noticing that I'm just having a much harder time. So you make it more recent, right? I'm having a much harder time reaching orgasm and getting aroused. And I was listening to this podcast and this woman was talking about these strategies and these books, or I've been experimenting myself and I found that touching myself this way or that way is really helpful. So I'd love to show you. And you have this conversation outside the bedroom, not as you're like in the middle of it where everyone feels a little vulnerable and is more likely to take things personally, but you talk about it and you talk about it in the positive, what you'd like

more of. Last night was so great. You know, I love being with you. I love your body. I love being touched by you. And I'm noticing I'm having a hard time getting there. And I would love to try these other things. I would love if you touch me more here or in this way, and I'll show you next time. So you're setting the stage. So the next time, or even if it's before you are about to be sexual, you know, if you know that night you're going to get busy, then maybe that morning you have that conversation. But then you're setting the stage to educate him and you have your resources lined up ahead of time. And maybe you even give them to him. You say, next time we have sex, let's each try one of these positions or one of these techniques. So you make it into a fun

game. But you deserve sexual pleasure. And a woman, if you aren't going to honor your own sexual pleasure and learn what pleases you and be able to communicate that effectively to your partner, then you're never going to have the pleasure that you deserve. I hope that helps. Oh, we have an anonymous message from someone. Let's see. Hi, Dr. Berman. I'd rather not say my name because this is really awkward and embarrassing. Ever since I was in gym class, changing in the locker room afterwards, I noticed that I'm a lot smaller than the other guys in the gym. And when I watch porn from time to time, I just noticed that I'm minuscule in comparison to the other guys that are doing the porn films. I mean,

I know maybe they're not the average size guy who are acting in porn movies, but really I feel so ashamed of my size. And, you know, sometimes even when I'm talking to women and I reach at a point where it's like, it looks like maybe something's going to happen, but I just self sabotage because i can't imagine being rejected or laughed at because of my size and um it's really really stands in the way of me doing anything because you know up to now i actually haven't had a real relationship i've just had some drunken hookups with a few people who i know i would not mind if they rejected me but i just don't want to have to be in a serious relationship and be rejected for the size of my penis. So is there any way of making my penis bigger than it is?

And does size really matter? I'm so sorry that you are plagued with that insecurity. Do not compare your penis size to porn stars. That is like me comparing my body to Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. You're not going to measure up. They are in the porn business because they are insanely well endowed. Okay. And by the way, size, it matters to an extent, but it's not the size of the ship. It's the motion of the ocean and only 30%. Okay. 30% of women only reach orgasm through intercourse. Most women who reach orgasm are doing so through foreplay and afterplay through manual stimulation and oral stimulation. So whether you prefer being with men, women, both, either in between, whatever, learn all the different techniques for bringing someone to orgasm.

And by the way, every guy should learn all the techniques for bringing someone to orgasm manually, orally, because that makes you a significantly better lover. And especially if you're with women, it makes you, you know, your penis significantly less important for her sexual pleasure. All of that said, it sounds like, you know, we don't even know you have micro penis. Micro penis is like smaller than my pinky, right? Like teeny tiny penis. Your average penis is the size of your average toothpaste tube. Not very huge. Okay. And it's much different when it's flaccid or soft. It gets larger when it's erect. And if you are less endowed and you really are the size of my pinky, there are penis enlargement surgeries. They are tricky, right?

So first of all, you have to go to someone who does a ton of these and is a specialist. And basically what they are going to do is remove the tissue from inside your penis and replace it with two, usually silicone, like two rods that, because that's what's in there now, two rods shaped parts of spongy tissue that fill with blood. And that's what causes an erection. But what they do is they take those out and they replace them with artificial rods that you pump up or you push a button underneath your scrotum and they elect, you know, they, they fill up and it stretches out and makes your penis larger. So they basically stretch out some of the tissue. And they put in these artificial, they're called corporal cavernosum, those two rods

of spongy tissue that are in the penis. They replace those with the silicone or fluid filled, saline filled rods. So it's a big surgery. And I would not say that it is necessary in most cases, because in so many cases, and I think yours may be one of them, you've been, you know, living with this story that your penis is too small when it really isn't. And so if I were you, I would really go see a urologist. U-R-O-L-O-G-I-S-T. That's a doctor who specializes in, you know, a male urologist, someone who sees men and specializes in things related to the penis and urination and ejaculation and all of that and ask them about it, right? Is this average or do I actually have a micropenis and what can be done about it, right? Because they see millions of

penises and they will be able to tell you where you fit into the spectrum. But either way, learn all the other ways to stimulate a partner and understand that penis size is just one small part of pleasure. As men think that that's everything, but believe me, especially for women, it is not. So I hope that gives you some guidance. And the surgery, while it does tend to increase things by a couple of inches in many cases, it's not a huge difference. And it's a real change. It's replacing major biological tissue with artificial tissue. So it's no joke. And you only want to do that. You want to do that after deep consideration. Let's just put it that way. And you probably, my guess is you're just self-conscious because you've been

watching too much porn and your penis is just fine. Like I said, your mouth and tongue and fingers are much more important than your penis when we're talking about women. That was fun. Thank you so much for those questions. There are some juicy ones there in this language of love episode in the bedroom. So I'll see you next time. In the meantime, if you have questions or comments or things you want to ask or hear about, I am always open to it. Just reach out to me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com or you can always leave a voicemail. Just go to drlauraberman.com and you will find both links. I'll see you next time.

All I wanna do, I wanna do is take you home with me I wanna make a move, I wanna make a move But I'm too shy