so i was reading this morning...

[much_ado]

...in a classic example of all things that went wrong as soon as women were taught to read. you know, we think about things. and we put ideas together in strange and unusual ways. it's not as simple as the whole "men/mars, women/venus" phenomenon would have the pulp-reading masses believe, but there's definitely a difference in how our brains are

Comments

[lightcastle]

(BTW, fair warning: i've apparently started to get really twitchy about the cultural assumption that sexuality *is* intimacy, or at least is the only kind of commonly-acceptable intimacy we acknowledge. it's not quite become a button for me, but it's heading that way. and it's not just because i come from a personal history where sex and vulnerability were anything BUT connected.)

Yeah. Button for me. Has been for a long time.

they often get red with embarrassment and claim they don't know how to talk about the subject,

And i sometimes feel my penchant for asking for clearer information is viewed as pressuring and problematic in such cases. I've struggled with the "how can I ask for the information/give them space to safely volunteer the information" issue in the past, do so in the present, and I am sure I will in the future. Hell, I've proposed giving someone a list of all the things I might enjoy doing to/with her and having her just come back with anything absolutely out crossed off,a nd any other notes she wants to put in added so that she doesn't have to straight up answer questions or admit to something in the heat of the moment and I can work from some parameter of consent and knowledge I feel safe in.

so it occurs to me this morning that this is likely a symptomatic issue, a big red flag indicating an issue with general intimacy and nonverbal communications, if not an indicator of other dissatisfactions in the relationship.

I am going to vote for the former more definitely than the latter. While I think it can both lead to and be symptomatic of dissatisfactions in the relationship, I have enough history of involvement with women with terrible communications issues that I am quite convinced the only assumption you can be sure of there is that it is indicative of a general problem with communication.

no-one likes to tell someone else that their sexual technique could "use some variance", "is lacking", "needs work", "doesn't work for me". and certainly, no-one likes to hear that from a partner.

Indeed. Lord knows I have had problems doing it, because it is emotionally fraught. I am confused by your "critiquing in the heat of the moment" statement. Are you saying that people bottle it in, not wanting to critique int he heat of the moment, and then let it slip in other ways when it spills over?