Hello Coco : A diary

Tag: Men

  • The Biological & Gender Shock of Re-Introducing Sex with Men after 7 Years.

    If you’ve been reading my stuff, you know already that I have been sleeping with a lot of guys lately. For quick context, I just recently got out of a six year relationship with a woman where for most of the time there was a severe lack of sexual intimacy.

    Getting out of that relationship, I wanted to experience men again and being 30-years old now with a new perspective, 10 years of therapy, and liberated by all the wonderful changes I’ve already experienced – I’ve been going a little wild. There have been many guys, good & bad & neutral, and plenty of journal entries highlighting all my favorite moments for my future self to look back and be proud of.

    With all my new…experiences, I’ve compiled some observations.

    Sleeping with men after 7 years of being strictly with women has been an entire gender shock for me. I’ve had to look at sex from a difference, more serious, lens in terms of biology and risk mitigation. Then of course there’s personality differential between the sexes and navigating communication and emotional connection differently.

    I’m going to preface this entire post by saying that these notes are based solely on my own personal experiences over the course of the last 2 months with various sexual and non-sexual partners.

    The solo mustaches and fish pics are SO real. Just wow. More just an observation here.

    No condoms.

    First off, just the topic of protection is foreign to me considering I’ve been with a woman for 6 years and we were not concerned for STDs or pregnancy, but I was absolutely gob-smacked at how a lot of men do not carry condoms with them or even have them at home. It’s as if they are in the same boat – coming out of a gay revelation into exploring heterosexuality.

    I’m starting to put it together that condoms are stigmatized more than when I was 23 and last had sex with a guy.

    The words “Feeling Protector” has come up too many times to feel comfortable.

      I’m curious if it’s because abortions have become more normalized (even though the legalities haven’t) that men don’t have the same fears they did back then at accidentally conceiving. It also makes me think that they think abortions are a quick, easy thing for women’s bodies to go through – or if they care at all about the bodily trauma.

      I recently tried ‘the [infamous] pill’ and that was awful for a full month just getting used to elevated levels of Estrogen and Progesterone in my body on top of the spotting for a week and knocking my period completely off it’s cycle.

      When that failed I decided to get an IUD, which fucking hurt and now I’m spotting all over again and it’s been over a week of cramping.

      Having sex with men has opened up my eyes that it’s really up to us women to figure it the fuck out.

      Talking about feelings is like pulling teeth. I bet you all can imagine that in a woman-loving-woman relationship we talk about our feelings a lot. We’re in-sync with how our bodies and hormones work. The girlies that get it, get it.

      Thinking that I could be open with men just the same was a big mistake. I will say my situation is different than if pursuing a relationship in that I’m primarily seeking physical intimacy, however it’s been quite tricky to just understand someone’s emotional intelligence at the surface. I like to warm up a little bit and understand the nature of the person I’m about to sleep with.

      I’ve had men get highly defensive and shut down entirely to questions like, “When was your last relationship?” and “Oh you’re on the road a lot, does that get lonely?”. One man snapped at me for asking him to tell me about why he bailed on me one night we were supposed to meet up (mind you, I came at with no intentions of being combative).

      They don’t ask questions.

      I know it’s a normal thing based on my Tik Tok algorithm of women talking about it, but what the fuck is that? I will ask them question after question – mostly trying to stay relevant to the goals of our hang out but notice they never ask any questions back, as if they don’t care about my experience even though it’s a mutual arrangement.

      Is it nerves? Is it ADD/ADHD? Is it truly that you don’t care?

      They really do love to just ‘teach’ us, don’t they?

      Yes, sir I know why my bathroom door won’t close.

      Yes, sir I know the purpose behind why pets should get a dental cleaning regularly.

      Yes, sir I’m so aware of how to submit a maintenance request for my broken dishwasher.

      The first guy I had sex with off the bat spent a solid 30-mintues telling me about geopolitics and why religion is the way it is.

      The last guy spent a good amount of time giving me pointers on every answer I would give him about nutrition and protein intake.

      There’s more but I stopped listening.

      I have never received so much pointless, unsolicited information in such a short amount of time.

      Lastly (for now), the oral sex.

      I have been with a lot of woman partners to have experienced getting eaten out in quite a few different ways and styles. There’s angle, sucking, blowing, edging, soft kisses, hard kisses, side-to-side, finger & tongue play, etc;

      So far out of the 4 guys I’ve slept with only 2 really knew what was up and made me come with their mouth, but a common theme amongst them all has been the noise.

      I think in porn women learn that men like their oral sloppy, right? They have probably assumed the same for us? That might be in some women’s interest – won’t yuck someone’s yum – but a trend I’ve seen is that they do not get embarrassed about the sloppy sounds of lips on lips in fact, I truly believe it’s a goal at this point.

      Personally, not interested in the dramatics – I know my pussy is wet.

      What I have appreciated though is that each guy I’ve been with so far has been open to direction – something that wouldn’t have flown back in my early days of getting with guys in college.

      They listen and are appreciative to the direction and I fucking love that.

      In summation, I’ve had more positive experiences than bad and overall I’m happy that I it turned out that I’d be exploring men all over again in my 30s. Where I am mentally; the work I’ve put into myself and knowing exactly what I want and need and most importantly how to communicate it has made this experience liberating on a few different levels.

      The shock of understanding and connecting with men is still on-going. Every new guy I meet and/or have sex with is a fun new experience and I learn something new about my own body and preferences. I so appreciate them for that regardless of my points above – though the condom thing I won’t get over, still bat-shit crazy to me.

      More to come.

    1. Breaking the Cycle: Compassion for Men, Mental Health & Intimacy

      I took a 7 year break from men. From the ages 23 – 30, I dated women and tried my best to forget men existed for all the hurt I felt from high school and college. It wasn’t their fault, we were all just figuring things out at that age, but it was my first impression of intimacy, and it stained me.

      The sex that felt transactional, harshly pornographic, and hasty made me feel like I was just a body – that I couldn’t have a deep romantic relationship with them.

      Experiencing men now, I’ve began to realize that the world did guys dirty. Obviously, they have their privilege, but the men that I have personally experienced have this underlying sadness. They are hurting and don’t know how to express it.

      I think you could probably guess that a romantic relationship with a woman is highly communicative. We’re in-tune with our cycles, hormones, feelings, and the complexities behind them. Women are also generally more likely to get vulnerable. Testing that theory; if a woman was crying in public people wouldn’t be all that surprised, but if a man was crying in public people would think something is deeply wrong. It’s a bias we all contribute to whether we like it or not and that’s just because the world taught men to suck it up.

      I’m meeting these thirty-something men and I’m seeing it all over their faces. When I bring up a boundary, call them out on being shitty, or even harmlessly tease – I see their eyes glaze over and they get defensive, quiet or completely refuse to acknowledge it, dodging the words altogether.

      Over the years, we’ve developed this kind of man-hating culture because of all the really bad news coming to light on celebrities and college boys assaulting women and covering it up. Don’t get me wrong, there are a LOT of bad men out there doing all sorts of fucked up shit, but I feel the over-arching generalizations have made the state of men’s mental health even worse. They are more scared than ever to open up, again just judging from my personal experiences.

      One guy I have been talking to, Drake, struggled to even form words when I asked him a vulnerable question around loneliness. He stumbled and I could see him trying to change the topic completely out of discomfort. I did everything in my power to show him he could be safe and say what was on his mind and it was like pulling teeth. Trying to know the push and pull balance is a new dynamic for me, coming from a prior relationship where everything was on the table.

      Another guy I had been talking to, Jesse, just didn’t engage with me when I would ask slightly personal questions. Everything was a soft spot, even me asking when his last relationship was. He became defensive, snapped at me to derail the conversation, and would ghost me for hours only to respond on a completely different topic. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I don’t know these men very well and they could very well have past traumas that I could never understand – but I was gob smacked at the stark difference between interacting with women these last 7 years and then my first interactions with men being so alike to one another.

      My biggest question, obviously stemming from the ignorance of the male experience, is why they wouldn’t want to try and help themselves – to feel better. To go to therapy and try to break past those barriers. I suppose some feel that is what they have to do to fit in and that perhaps it’s not wrong. I suppose others are too imbedded in their traumas and experiences to see that they can help it. And some are just perhaps stubborn and don’t believe they need the help.

      Regardless of whatever it may be, it breaks my heart. Talking, and having intimacy with these men as a 30-year old woman, has changed my entire outlook on men. As sad and twisty it is to admit, it has healed some of my inner-child’s harsh beliefs from judgement to compassion. It has built some bridges for me from difficult memories into re-framed sad ones.

      I had been really mean to men when I dated them back then because they kept hurting my feelings in so many different ways. I don’t make excuses for them but reapproaching those memories with 8 years of therapy and a fresh perspective, I can at least try to understand and not take them as personally.

      So, where do I go from here?

      I think it’d be difficult for me to say that I won’t date a man who can’t communicate, express their feelings appropriately, or have a hard time doing the work to better themselves, but I’m beginning to realize that a boundary I need to have is balance. I can’t work with a man who won’t try.

      For those who can’t or won’t try, for their own reasons, I have compassion, but my heart can’t save theirs even though I do have so much love to give.

      The tricky part is knowing for certain what side of it they are on. There are men who say they are trying, but the proof isn’t there. You want to believe in them, root for them and give them the support but it’s a torturous game of figuring out when to walk away.

      I had to walk away from Jesse because my alarm bells wouldn’t stop going off and I began to feel that perhaps one day I wouldn’t be safe with him. Jury is still out on Drake and this new guy I’ve been seeing – Wesley – seems to be the first out of about 5 guys that hasn’t shied away from a vulnerable question.

      I didn’t think that this period of sexual experimentation and discovery would lead to me reflecting on every experience with a man that I had ever had, but I’m so grateful for it. But I’m equally as sad processing it all through.

      I have this deep desire to cup these men’s faces between both my hands and tell them it’s okay. That everything will be okay. That they are safe. I wish them all the love they could possibly imagine and that whatever is holding them in a vice grip will just let them breathe already.