The Sexual Skill Gap: When She’s More Experienced Than He Is

0:00If you're a woman who's been in a long term relationship that spans years or decades and you've about had it with your husband's or partner's inability to satisfy you or to approach you and seduce you in a way that really excites you, this episode may very well be for both of you. Welcome to the Closeness Podcast, your new Sexual education. My name is Tari. I'm your host. If it feels like you haven't heard from me in a while on the oral side of things here, it's because I've been making a considerable amount of content on YouTube, X TikTok and Instagram.

0:32I thought it would be fun to hop back on the traditional podcast format and create an episode based on an amalgamation of hundreds of couples that I've seen over the past decade. So while you may resonate with this episode, or you may strongly resonate with this episode, I'm not talking about you, but I am talking to you.

0:51We can call it an anonymous case study if you will, but I think it's highly likely that whether you've been with your partner for a week, or a month, a decade or three decades, you're going to find something that hits home outside of mismatched libidos, which is possibly one of the most difficult things to fix in a relationship. When one person's drive is through the roof and the other one's barely exists. The next difficult hurdle to get over is when there's a skill gap. The skill gap is real, and yes, it can be fixed, but it's exceedingly difficult when a man's skill set is significantly less than his female partners.

1:31This may happen if he was raised in a religious household, a very conservative home, or had parents who weren't very sexual or affectionate, or just simply was quirky enough to never really care about it, or you just happen to be his first love. And a warm congratulations to you. You've been together for the last 20, 30, 40 years. But because of that, his sexual education likely stopped when he was a teenager.

1:56If a woman doesn't know anything about sex, or doesn't know her way around the bedroom, or doesn't know how to give a great blowjob, or doesn't know how to be or perform sexually, so to speak, this is an easy fix. A man can simply teach her and it's not a problem. He doesn't mind doing so. In fact, he probably loves doing so. It's exciting for him. It's a turn on. But if a woman's skill is significantly higher than a man's.

2:22This is where we run into some trouble. Because almost no woman wants to teach her partner how to do it. It's frustrating, it's annoying for her. And by the way men, this is not your fault for not knowing her unconscious choice to become angry, vicious, mean, cruel, condescending, negative, short tempered, short fused is not your fault and your problem. It just happens to be a part of female nature.

2:47So let's take a look at a couple that in this case is 20 years into their relationship. Now, why some people wait months, years, decades to get this handled is beyond me, but many, many of us do.

3:03Many women will get to the place where they're sexually frustrated. They both know it, and neither of them know how to break the cycle because it's either exceedingly difficult for them to talk about it, someone is reactionary, someone is accusatory, or someone, AKA her, has rediscovered herself sexually, or has begun to discover what she actually likes, or has finally given herself permission to indulge in fantasies or figuring out what they are, or has finally realized that the same old tired way of having sex that she's been doing for the last 5, 10, 20, 40 years isn't cutting it for her anymore and her body cannot take it anymore.

3:50So let's say that in our case study, our imaginary couple has been together around 20 years. In your personal situation, you might have been with someone for one or five or ten, but the rules still apply.

4:03This couple has children.

4:05They genuinely like each other and love each other. They parent well, they share values and life goals, and they both might even say, as almost every one of my clients do, that they're best friends.

4:19But their sex life is, to use her words, not great.

4:23What's going to make this episode fascinating is you're going to get both of their perspectives back to back. It's a little heartbreaking, but fixable at the same time. So here's a little snapshot that will tell you a lot. She has an extremely healthy sex drive. She masturbates frequently, if not daily, has no problem reaching orgasm, knows exactly what she wants. Clitoral stimulation, dirty talk, dominance, a man who takes charge. She's kinky, experienced, and she's been patient for years at this point, decades, trying to guide this man. And she is done being patient. This also plays into why women don't want to teach at this point, something she might have been willing to do in the beginning. When you guys are in your romance phase, when you're first figuring everything out, is a very Very different story many years in now. Who is he in this case? We're going to say he's only had one or two partners, but it's highly likely that in your situation, he might have been a virgin when you met each other.

5:30He might have been raised in a conservative religious household where sex was shame and masturbation was sin.

5:38And especially if he's never had another sexual partner, his entire sexual identity was built inside this one relationship. And that one fact is going to color every aspect of their sexuality. Because no matter how much he loves her, how much he tries, how much he cares about her, it is just impossible to not get stuck for both of them in old childhood patterns. And this also goes for men who are very sexually experienced, but maybe they've had sex with five or 10 women, but it's only been once or twice.

6:11So this relationship, where he's been married for decades, has been telling him in no uncertain terms that he's not good enough in bed for years. You've got two people at complete opposite ends of the sexual experience spectrum trying to meet in the middle, and they keep missing each other.

6:30She's communicating clearly and he's hearing it as criticism.

6:34He's trying and she's watching him fail to retain anything that she's taught him. So it's a bit of a doom loop.

6:42On top of all that, it's very likely that the way she's talking to him and teaching him and trying to help him learn is being done in a condescending, disrespectful manner, one that no man would want to be spoken to in the doom loop is this. She gives feedback, he shuts down, he doesn't implement.

7:02Sex stays bad, she initiates less. He feels rejected, she feels resentful, his confidence drops further. And now they haven't had sex in months.

7:14And from my perspective, this is textbook sexual avoidance. Driven by shame and performance anxiety on his end, and on her end, accumulated resentment from carrying the entire sexual load of the relationship, including her own orgasms, for close to two decades.

7:33This type of cycle is what makes sex feel very nasty for the woman.

7:39He might finish and might finish quickly and say, well, that was nice or that was fun, while she's left to deal, cleaning up everything else. Her body, his bodily fluids, the sheets. And the only thing that she can possibly think is, yeah, that was good, maybe for one of us. Oddly enough, couples like this still like each other. They're still best friends. And this I cannot tell you. It matters enormously to people.

8:07We're Best friends is probably the number one thing I see written on every intake form that I read. And every single time there's a disconnect sexually.

8:20So this isn't a couple that has contempt for each other. They're a couple with a very specific, very solvable skill gap. And it's wrapped in years of emotional scarring that makes it feel unsolvable.

8:35So let me name what this actually is. He has sexual performance anxiety compounded by shame based religious conditioning. And for you guys who are listening, you might swap this out with bad parenting, poor upbringing, your parents never speaking to you about sex, never having a good understanding of it, never having a facility with women, never having women show you what to do.

9:01He has never had a sexual success story outside of this relationship, and therefore he has no reference points. And again, this goes for men who have had sex with multiple women. But maybe it hasn't ended well, or you finished in two to three minutes, or she didn't give you positive feedback.

9:21So when she says touch me here, even if she says it kindly, his nervous system is reading it as you're failing.

9:30And a man who thinks he's failing in bed goes one of two ways. He either doubles down and gets better, or he freezes and avoids.

9:39In our story today, he froze.

9:43Now, the odd thing about this kind of an avoidance strategy is it tends to make a man also want to race. Race to orgasm, race to finish, race to try to make her come, try to get it all done before he has time to fail.

10:01He's not being selfish because he's a selfish person. He's being selfish because slowing down means risking failure and failure is excruciating to him.

10:13Meanwhile, the woman needs the exact opposite of what's happening to him.

10:18She needs either slow or intense, or she needs buildup.

10:24She needs a man who can take control and take charge, knows what he wants, knows what she wants, and knows how to implement it with his implement.

10:33She needs a man who's not in his head, who's present and focused on her. And when someone is feeling so much shame and guilt about their situation, it is almost impossible for a man to show up like this. No matter what he's taught, no matter how patient she's been, and no matter what book he reads because he is stuck in feeling shame, guilt, inadequacy, sadness. She has literally told him dirty talk. Clitoral stimulation, dominance, don't race to penetration. These are very, very simple strategies.

11:09He doesn't even know what to make of them, especially the dirty talk he hears It. But he doesn't execute. Not because he doesn't care he loves her, but because in the moment anxiety is taking charge. Then there's also another compounding factor. The oral sex situation. This is something that really slows couples down. He or she might have made a comment very, very early on in the relationship. It might have been about the way her vagina looked or tasted or smelled or, or was groomed or manicured and she never forgot it for decades. He didn't know this. He just thought he made a gentle passing comment.

11:51And by the way, she also may have made a comment that hurt him that he never forgot. One that might sound like, I don't like to give blowjobs.

12:01And then he took that and ran with it and then never ever requested it again.

12:07Whereas that was what he heard. But what she meant was, I have to be in the mood or I won't do it to someone I don't love. Or I like to get a little when I give a little. So when someone makes a comment and the other person takes it personally and then never addresses it, that door then gets closed for the next 15, 20, 25 and 30 years.

12:2920 to 30 years of your life. I mean, this is a lifetime of not being able to experience physical pleasure in one of the best ways possible because someone took a comment the wrong way, or someone said something insensitive, or someone didn't even know what they were saying when they were a teenager.

12:50So let's say he made a comment about her down below.

12:55And now not only will she not let him enjoy her, she will deny her self orgasm despite being highly clitorally responsive and fully knowing that oral sex with past partners was out of this world for her.

13:10One careless sentence.

13:12Two or three or four decades, no oral sex. This is how fragile sexual confidence is.

13:20And friends, if you're hearing this and this is resonating with you, this is why it's so important. Like, if you can't bring up these subjects, you have to get a third party involved, obviously, such as myself. But just saying something can break the silence.

13:37If you are resonating with this and you know someone else who would really benefit by hearing this episode, please send it to them or have them visit closeness.com to book a paid session. Let's get back to the episode. But that tells us something critical about how to fix this problem. Because what broke it was words.

13:55And likely what's going to rebuild it is also words. Specifically his words to her.

14:01So if this particular couple came in to see me here's what we would actually do to help them out. Typically, it's not necessary to work with men by themselves, and in fact it can even hinder their performance with their partner because they'll think they understand something from me or from who they're working with, and then they go home and implement it and it's a disaster because she wasn't there for me to read her body language, what she likes, what actually turns her on, etc.

14:28But in this case, and with this particular couple, he would strongly benefit from some individual sessions to help and make sure that the couple's sessions actually work. Because his shame, his performance anxiety, it would be very difficult for those aspects to be processed while she's in the room. When you sit down with another man, one on one, it gives you a place to unpack the religious conditioning, the virgin in a long relationship identity, and the years of feeling inadequate without your wife watching.

15:02Now, another path some couples may choose is to address these subjects separately and with different professionals. So you come to me, for example, for the intimacy, the sex, the communication, the building chemistry, and anything related to intimacy. But to work through that childhood piece or the long standing shame element, sometimes people prefer to have their own psychotherapist, therapist, or even healer of sorts.

15:30The next step is to rebuild via verbal, not necessarily physical. So in this case, our imaginary client wants dirty talk. And there's no way he could do it in the moment because he's anxious. When a woman wants dirty talk, it sounds like you just say some nasty dirty things and it's hot and she gets turned on. Then you have sex. No, there's context, tone, attitude, the energy you have when you say it, the way you look at her when you say it, the power behind it, and whether or not she believes that you can execute on some of the things that you're saying.

16:04But the way that you can start with dirty talk is through texting. Maybe he sends her one explicit text per day. What he wants to do to her, what he's thinking about.

16:15No pressure to perform, no live audience.

16:18He builds the verbal muscle in a low stakes environment first.

16:24Step three the Oral Reset.

16:28One way to address previous pains or trauma is to write your partner a letter. A direct acknowledgment about the comment that he made, what turned her off. It doesn't necessarily have to be an elaborate apology, but something along the lines of I said something stupid years ago and I never meant it. I've thought about it, I want to try again, I want to taste you again, I Want to enjoy you again. This was so long ago. It's not even me anymore. We've grown together. I've grown with you. And then, if she's open to it, whether it's scheduled or spontaneous, maybe she wants it to be scheduled. A lot of women don't. A fun, playful interaction where his only job is to go down on her until she tells him to stop. No penetration, no rushing. She just talks him through it in real time if she'd like to. This would be one way for skills to get built.

17:23Now, step four is removing the orgasm from it being his responsibility.

17:28Again with the qualifier here. Being in this particular situation, I generally believe that woman's sexuality can be so much more complex than men's that it is important for a man to take responsibility for her orgasm. And if he knows what he's doing, and for a multitude of reasons, she may not be able to figure it out. She may require lots of different types of stimulation to get there. She may never have had phenomenal orgasms during sex. It may require you to use a toy and your fingers and your mouth and everything else.

18:03So many women are already using vibrators during sex. And in our story, she is too. This isn't a problem, it's actually a solution. But in order for him to reframe it as a participant in that, he needs to not be displaced or replaced by it. His job during sex is to be present with his voice, his hands, eye contact, pace.

18:26Maybe she handles her orgasm with the toy, but maybe he can hold it as well. Maybe he can have his hand on top of hers. Maybe he can stay in the scene. That means he's actually present with her. They're making eye contact. He's participating, even if he's not using himself to stimulate her. And this is instead of letting her get hers or letting her handle it, or worst of all, racing to the finish line before she ever gets there.

18:56Step five, we would need to look at, as we so often do, methods of initiation.

19:02This is by far the thing that blows couples out of the water every single time they step into my office. And almost every man has no clue how to initiate with a woman. But to be fair, almost every woman has no clue how to initiate with a man. Nor does she know how to ask for what she wants or needs.

19:20Consequently, want. A back rub is not foreplay. He needs at least three, but maybe, ideally five or six. Go to initiation moves that don't sound like a timid request for permission. Not a script, a posture, an attitude, an energy she's told him many times she wants to be firmly squeezed or grabbed. She wants to feel claimed. She wants to be taken. This does not mean softly rubbing her arms or putting your head on her head, or gently, softly. A hand reaches out in the middle of the night, so come up behind her in the kitchen or maybe in the bathroom when she's getting ready, but her position doesn't look compromised or she's not in a rush. Press up against her firmly, maybe with your waist or your entire body, and say something low and direct into her ear. Don't ask, don't hedge. And then carefully watch her response and respond accordingly.

20:22Step 6 It's very likely that a woman has been doing all of the heavy lifting during sex. And that means sometimes real time instruction. Stop. Faster, harder. Do this. Lick here, kiss me here, bite me here, slap me here, taste me here. This feedback loop is likely killing his confidence in the moment.

20:45So instead of her giving play by play or blow by blow, which is what a lot of men want, it's better to debrief afterwards outside the bedroom when it's not charged, she says one thing that she liked, or two or three. He says one thing he wants to try next time.

21:03Small forward facing, not a critique session. But she is allowed to speak up and mention things that she doesn't like or she doesn't find pleasurable.

21:14With couples like this, I don't want to sugarcoat it. It's very likely the woman is at an inflection point and it's because she's waited so long before she's taken action or so long before she's done something about this. And I understand that many of you women listening out there will say, I have taken action, I have tried to address it.

21:35But if it's always been in the same way, through criticism, critique, put downs, pulling back, it's not helping, and it's likely doing far more damage than good.

21:46One of the hardest things to address in these types of situations are the very real conversations that sometimes need to be had around whether or not you should stay together, whether or not this is a big enough and important enough issue. And by the way, I know a lot of you minimize it, but it really is. Usually someone will get to the point where they say, if we can no longer talk about sex together, I don't see a path forward.

22:12It's not a threat.

22:13It's a person who's been patient for 20 to 30 years telling you that the well is nearly dry.

22:21As a man when you hear this, when a woman has almost had it and she's holding on by a thread. Which, by the way, if I was consulting someone in a dating situation and the woman was holding on by a thread, or someone had been together for a year and there aren't children involved, I would actually advise the man that he's probably going to get broken up with soon or he may want to think about getting out of the relationship. Because it is very hard for a woman to stay once she's hit the point of no return, once she's already thinking long and hard about getting out.

22:53But in this couple situation, you have to understand that this is not a normal rough patch. This is something that means a lot to the other person.

23:02It's not one of the ups and downs in the marriage. It's not something that just gets fixed with a little bit of time and a good night's sleep.

23:10It's a structural problem that requires structural change.

23:14Not one good week of trying, and then every woman's worst nightmare reverting back to the way it was after getting her buy in.

23:24But here's something for the ladies who might find themselves in this situation.

23:29Coaching your man in the moment, trying to explain and adjust and help him understand what you like during sex. Even though this is exactly what a lot of men want, and logically it makes sense, it's very likely that this hasn't been helping. When you have that shame element or an element of self loathing, it's not because she's wrong about what she likes. It's not because she's wrong to want to teach him and show him that's actually awesome.

23:57It's because his nervous system cannot receive correction during the act. It's too vulnerable, too intimate, too exposing. There's too much going on, too much at stake.

24:10She's got to change her delivery method, not her message.

24:14And he needs a win.

24:16If the female partner in your relationship is naturally dominant in their sexual dynamic, if she's more experienced, more confident, knows exactly what she wants, and he's been playing catch up since day one. At some point he needs her to let him lead, even if it's imperfect.

24:34And women, you really have to ask yourself, well, if I do it my way, it's going to feel better. If I let him do his way, it's going to take too long or end too quickly or he does this thing that I don't like or I don't know.

24:45But if you want him to win and you want this to get fixed and you want a solution and you want him to begin to step into the shoes of the kind of man you want him to be. You got to let him lead.

24:58What's the alternative, ladies? You continue to get frustrated, exacerbated, irritated with him. You start to feel resentment towards him or even dislike him for how he's behaving. You punish him in the act.

25:13So it's not forever. It may not be perfect and it doesn't have to be every time, but once in a while where you do not correct him or redirect him, but you just receive him. This experience of I did that and it worked is what breaks the shame cycle.

25:33He has never had that.

25:38Now, sadly, when pain goes on like this for quite some time, it's very likely that one or the other partners may develop an emotional affair with someone outside the relationship. And it might be sexual, but it might also be attention based, praise based, he just makes me feel good based.

25:58Someone who's nice to you, someone who flirts with you or sees you, or doesn't make you feel small.

26:04What the person who committed the transgression needs to understand is that when their partner brings something up that's bothering them and the transgressor shuts down or minimizes or.

26:17We've talked about this, we've been there. I don't want to deal with this again.

26:21You are repeating the most painful dynamic of your marriage.

26:25So staying present, even though it's uncomfortable, is not an option at this point. It's like the whole game.

26:32So to close, is this a fixable situation? One where a woman has been with many different partners, knows what she likes sexually and a man is sexually inexperienced?

26:43Absolutely. Especially if they have the foundation and they're best friends and they're really close to one another and they're great parents and, and they share values and have a genuine desire to fix it. And that is the key word, ladies and gentlemen, the desire to fix it. And they both have to have it.

26:59What our couple today didn't have were the right tools for the job or the right delivery system for those tools, which is learnable. But it does require both people to do the internal work that likely both have been avoiding. Specifically around shame, around possible religious conditioning, around upbringing about what it means to be a sexually confident man when you've spent your entire life feeling like you're failing the woman that you love.

27:29I believe more than ever in today's day and age, it is almost impossible for a man to feel like a sexually confident man almost around anybody.

27:41Comfortable naked, comfortable with his body, comfortable around her body, navigating her. Her body, her orgasms, her ups and downs, her weight gains and the way she feels about herself. All of these things and so many more come together to be a sexually confident partner.

27:59It also requires the female partner to give him a real shot.

28:04Not another year of the same cycle. Not he's got one chance to fix this. Which, mind you ladies, is going to be extremely hard for you when you're already at the end of your rope.

28:14But a genuinely different approach, which can only happen in my experience after you've done a coaching session like this or you've had your breaker switch reset. It needs a different approach where the feedback isn't real time correction in the moment and the standard isn't perfection. It's a shot where the man feels like he can succeed.

28:37And many, many women who are frustrated and rightly so, who are hurt and rightly so, will never ever give their man a chance to feel confident or succeed.

28:49Alright, some final notes before we wrap up. The idea of texting or dirty texting before performing is underused. In reality, most people will never do it in real practice. But this is something that genuinely works for men who freeze under pressure.

29:07Dirty talk is a muscle. Sexual confidence is a muscle.

29:11Being able to perform is a muscle.

29:14You don't build it mid performance in front of someone you're already anxious around and worried that they're judging you. You build it when the stakes are low. First, number two. A woman cannot be both the person he's trying to please and the person coaching him on how to please her at the same time. It's too much of a role conflict. Now, many of you listening may be in a situation where you're still saying to yourself, wait a minute, I want her to tell me. I want her to give me the guidance for her to tell me what feels good. You're going to find in most cases, sadly, and maybe even at the end of the day, erroneously, that the woman and your woman does not want to do that because it's not hot, it's not exciting, it's not helpful for her, it puts her too much in her head. It makes her feel like she has to lead and make choices. And all of those things do not usually lead to sheet clenching orgasms.

30:12But for those of you women who do teach their man and who do put in an earnest effort trying to show him what you like and how to turn you on, I totally get it. You want your man to know, you want him to learn. You want to have a good time and everything he's doing feels wrong.

30:26It just tends to be the case that you need a third party to help work through some of this and to create that breaker switch, that reset that you're looking for.

30:36Because until that shifts, every piece of technique and advice that you give him is always going to land as evidence that he's failing.

30:46And I think I can safely say that if our imaginary couple does the work, he does some solo work, he puts the right energy into her, she changes the feedback loop, she's able to be patient a little bit longer, a little more receptive to his advances and quirky initiation strategies.

31:05I would bet on this couple. I genuinely would.

31:10And there you have it. That is the Closeness Case Study today.