Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Why Men and Women are Sexually Different

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

On this week’s Language of Love bite, we are talking sexual relationships and how men and women approach sex from different angles. Guys and gals, young and old, whether you are single, married or it’s complicated, if you love sex, this episode is for you!  Listen to this short and pointed discussion (pun intended) as I explain why we are the way we are. Why men are so focused and driven? Why women are so amazing at multi-tasking? And how you can enjoy your sex life to the fullest despite the difference in approach. At the end of this Language of Love Bite, I will tell you some things you can do to attend to those differences, so be sure to listen to the whole episode! Visit my website and check out my books on love, sex and relationships. Be sure to tune in regularly to The Language of Love for great discussions and thought-provoking conversations with accomplished individuals and experts offering invaluable advice on how to love and be loved better.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the last 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Bites, where I tackle your most asked questions and requested topics. These episodes are designed to be fun, quick and to the point. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. So in this video, I'm going to get into the differences between men and women sexually and why we're different because it actually has a lot to do with evolution. And at the end of this episode, I'm going to get into some of the specific things you can do to attend to this difference. Okay, so why are we different? First of all,

a lot of it obviously has to do with society and the way we're raised and the way boys and girls are conditioned. But honestly, evolutionary psychologists who have studied the evolution of human beings from caveman times have a lot of information about why men and women are different sexually. And it all comes down to the hunter-gatherer society. Men were the hunters, right? And women were the gatherers. So for the women, we had to be, those of us who survived to pass our DNA on to future generations had to be good at doing a lot of things at once. So when we started walking upright, our pelvises got more narrow. And as they got more narrow, our babies started to be born at a much more vulnerable stage, right? They couldn't just like jump on

our back. Like when we were apes, we had to carry them. We had to protect them. We had to attend to them, right? So women were having these babies and were in a very vulnerable position and then had to carry those babies with them, attend to those babies. And we were also the gatherers. So we were the ones that were really getting the nuts and berries that were key to our survival. So imagine the scene, it would be a group of women walking together through the Savannah and each of them had to do many things. We had to carry our babies and attend to those. We had to scan the horizon

and make sure there were no predators coming. We had to be attuning and looking for any nuts and berries that we could gather. We were also bonding with each other because we were social ties were key to our survival. So we were chatting and talking and connecting. We were doing all of that at the same time. And that's what got cultivated into our evolution

to be why women are such great multitaskers today, right? We can talk on the phone for work, help a kid with homework, make dinner, all at the same time. We can do many things at once. So it's a gift, but it actually is a curse sexually because if we're not feeling good about ourselves or our bodies or the person we're with,

or we're worried about something or we're stressed about something, it's really hard to quiet that multitasking mind and focus on the scenario at hand. So women need that opportunity to quiet the mind, which we'll get to in a moment. Now let's talk about the guys. The men who survived to pass their DNA on to future generations were amazing hunters. What made an amazing hunter was that they would gather around in a circle.

The hunters, they were going to hunt the bison, let's say. They would gather in a circle and they would draw out in the earth, okay, when the bison come through, we're going to drive them. You're going to get on this side. you're going to get on that side. You're going to come from above and we're going to drive them into the ravine and we're going to shoot them with arrows and we're going to get the kill that is key to our survival. And it was extremely coordinated and extremely dangerous and very high stakes because the outcome, not only the hunt and the kill played a big role in what your status

in your tribe was going to be, and that played a big role in your survival, but also it was the whole tribe depended on the kill. So those hunters that were really good hunters were very focused. They were focused on what their job was, what their role, no distractions, just like the best hunters today, focused and driven and no distractions. And that's how men operate in the world today, right? They can be really focused. They can be on the job at hand. They can get anything done. They're just focused with the blinders on. It can be an issue because men are sort of the opposite. Typical man is sort of the opposite of the multitasker, right? He does one thing at a time. It's really hard for him, much harder than for a woman to multitask. That's why

women complain. I can't talk to him while he's driving, right? Like, you know, a lot of men have trouble doing multiple things at once. That's not necessarily a problem, right? That's just a side effect of their DNA's gift. And boy, is it helpful sexually. In fact, the research that they did on Viagra, this is interesting, when Viagra first came out is that they found that only 10% of erectile dysfunction is psychogenic, meaning caused by emotional or relationship factors. But when they took the Viagra and were able to get an erection, Viagra worked 80% of the time. So it didn't matter if they weren't feeling good about themselves or their bodies or anything else. Once they got aroused, all other thoughts kind of flew out the window and they could focus

on the task at hand. That's why I always say that women are a slow burning stove and men are like a microwave oven because they can go from zero to 60 really easily and really fast because they are focused and everything else kind of goes into the background. Women with our beautiful multitasking minds are thinking about many things at once. And that's why it's really important to give her an opportunity to slow down that multitasking mind. She has to take that opportunity and her partner has to support her in that opportunity. Hey, don't forget to go to drlauraberman.com. You can find so much great information there and sign up for my newsletter. So you get weekly updates on how to love and be loved better. And also on my website, you can get my brand new ebook. You're

not crazy. You're just ascending. It's a practical guide to spiritual awakening that many of us are going through right now. And it's enough to make you feel crazy. So check it out. I'm here for you. always helping you learn to love and be loved better. So what does that look like in action in a sexual relationship between a man and a woman? Well, number one, you need to recognize that you approach things differently, right? So she's a slow burning stove. So that stove needs to be stoked all week long, not necessarily with sexual materials or coal as the case may be with this analogy or metaphor, but also emotionally. So if you are going to be, let's say you're having sex once a week, right? All week long, you're making emotional connections. You're sending

flirty texts. You're investing in your connection with one another because the more emotionally connected she feels with you, the more satisfied with the relationship she feels, that's one huge element of multitasking that's not going to be present and one more way that she can relax into the sexual scenario when the time comes. Number two is to give her an opportunity when it's time to have sex to slow down. What does that look like in action? If you have kids, it may mean that you're giving the kids a bath and putting them to bed while she's chilling out. Now, that does not mean that she goes and does all the things on her to do list and keeps her mind spinning. It means she slows down. She takes a bath. She meditates. She chills out. She's slowing her multitasking mind while you're helping take the burden off. So she has the opportunity to do that. number three once you are in the sexual scenario spending a lot of time just slowly building up

to things to help her get into her body that's why a lot of women say and a lot of couples tell me that before they have sex the guy will say she always asks for a massage I always have to give her a massage before we have sex why because she doesn't even realize she's doing this but that helps her calm her system down, get back into her body, and be available for a sensual frame of mind and a sexual frame of mind. So those are three really key ways to attend to the woman's multitasking mind. Now what women need to understand about men is that it's also on you to know this about yourself and to attend to your own multitasking mind by learning through meditation and mindfulness and practice how to slow down, how to slow down your multitasking brain, how to become

more like a guy in terms of being able to be fully mindful and present with that one thing and to recognize, because if we go back to the DNA and to the evolution, men are programmed to spread their seed as far and wide as they can. They have very high libidos for that evolutionary reason. They have very high testosterone compared to women. And monogamy is not natural. It's not something that we evolved to have. We actually evolved to be serially monogamous.

That's a conversation for another time. But the truth is monogamy for life was invented when farming was invented. And that was far beyond the beginning of our evolution. And when monogamy was created, we didn't live past our reproductive years. Now we're living to 100. So monogamy for life can be a challenge, especially for a man with a healthy libido. Now, does that mean she has sex with him to keep him from cheating and he'll cheat otherwise? No. I mean, that's not why I'm saying this. What I'm saying is that it's in men's DNA to want to be sexual. And as a result, what I see time and time again, talking to thousands and thousands of men, is that men

achieve a sense of emotional closeness and connection through the physical act of sex. Now, ironically, women achieve desire, want to be sexual in a monogamous relationship because of the emotional connection they feel to the person they're going to have sex with. But what this means in action in terms of this conversation is that even if she has a multitasking mind, even if she's thinking about a million things, even if it's taking a moment to get into her body and she'd rather be doing something else onto the list and she's thinking about a million things, if she can recognize that attending to the sexual connection, getting back into her body and slowing down the multitasking mind, she can do that.

She is attending to not only the physical needs of her partner, but as or more importantly, the emotional needs of her partner. And when she does have sex with him, more often than not, she maybe wasn't starting off really excited and focused, but when she does get into the moment and get present, she says, wow, that was really enjoyable.

I really loved that. That was really pleasurable and really fulfilling. We should do that more often, right? And that's what I hear from women all the time. I may not have started out that way, but once we had sex, it was amazing. So remember that and make that a priority to attend to the multitasking mind and the distractions and tune in to your partner and your sexual connection. Believe me, your relationship will thank you.

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