Men’s fear of being judged a failure as a man in...

“Men’s fear of being judged a failure as a man in the eyes of other men leads to a certain homosocial element within the heterosexual encounter: men often will use their sexual conquest as a form of currency to gain status among other men. Such homosocial competition contributes to the strange hearing impairment that men experience in any sexual encounter, a socialized deafness that leads us to hear ‘no’ as ‘yes,’ to escalate the encounter, to always go for it, to score. And this is occurring just at the moment when women are, themselves, learning to say ‘yes’ to their own sexuality, to say ‘yes’ to their own desire for sexual pleasure. Instead of our socialized deafness, we need to become what Langston Hughes called ‘articulate listeners’: we need to trust women when they tell us what they want, and when they want it, and what they don’t want as well. If we listen when women say ‘no,’ then they will feel more trusting and open to our saying ‘yes’ when they feel that. And we need to listen to our own inner voices, our own desires and needs. Not the voices that are about compulsively proving something that cannot be proved, but the voices that are about connection with another and the desires and passions that may happen between two equals.”

Michael S. Kimmel, “Clarence, William, Iron Mike, Tailhook, Senator Packwood, Spur Posse, Magic…And Us”