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7 Sex Mistakes Men Make

Experts' Sex Tips for Men Who Have Sex With Women

By Martin Downs, MPH
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Imagine you're learning to drive a car for the first time. Someone gives you the vehicle owner's manual to read, and then hands you the keys.

If drivers were trained that way, no one would be safe on the road.

But it's a lot like how most guys learn about sex. You're taught the basic facts of life, then turned loose to puzzle out your partners' sexuality, and your own, by trial and error.

Experience is useful, but it isn't everything. Even guys who've had a lot of sexual experience with women still make mistakes that could be avoided with better knowledge.

So you don’t have to learn the hard way, WebMD asked three well-known sex educators to tell us what they think are the most common sex mistakes men make with women.

Tristan Taormino is an author, lecturer, and video producer. Her latest book is The Secrets of Great G-Spot Orgasms and Female Ejaculation.

Patti Britton, PhD, MPH, is a clinical sexologist practicing in Los Angeles, past president of the American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), and associate professor of sexology with the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

Chris Donaghue is a sex therapist and educator in Los Angeles and host of Bad Sex, a reality TV series on Logo.

Sex Drive Killers

Sex Mistake No.1: 'I Know How to Please a Woman'

Men often assume that the way they've learned to please one woman works for all women. Not so.

"With every sexual partner you have, you do gain a growing body of knowledge of female bodies and female pleasure," Taormino tells WebMD. "But women's sexuality is complicated, and it's really individual."

Every woman's body responds in different ways to sensation, and every woman's anatomy is a little different. What feels amazing to one may do nothing -- or even cause discomfort -- for another.

"That is the detective work you need to do each and every time," Britton says. "We really each have a sexual fingerprint."

When it comes to intercourse, one key variable is your thrusting technique: Does she like it fast or slow? Deep or shallow? Or does she like to mix it up -- slow and shallow at first, and then fast and deep?

Also, no one sex position is every woman's favorite. She may prefer a certain sex position for several reasons. Different positions allow various angles of penetration, depending not only on her anatomy, but also the size and shape of your penis. Differences between partners' body shape and height may make some positions better than others. And for some women, it's important to have face-to-face intimacy during intercourse.

"I talk to tons of women who say, ‘I know missionary gets a bad rap, but I really like it.' Others say, ‘It's got to be from behind,'" Taormino says. "People are really across the board when it comes to positions."