Your woman isn’t going to tell you this, but if she’s like most women I counsel, she wishes you were a little more aggressive, edgy and even dangerous in bed.

I’m aware that many of you have spent 10, 20 or even 30 years trying to refine the animal impulse you in you. Thing is, when we wanted men to be less aggressive, it wasn’t in bed.  We wanted our emotions respected and tended to. We wanted empathy, tenderness and appreciation. Over time you gave us these experiences. What we didn’t ask was that you become passive and disconnected from your sexual passion. And yet, when that happened we didn’t know what to do.

How do you say to a man, make me yours? Claim my body. Rip my clothes off; take me and fill me?

It’s not more sensitivity and more refinement of that perfect stroke that women tell me they crave. It’s a man who’s confident to both please a woman and take what he wants from her — a man who can act powerfully and confidently on his passion. Instead most men are overly dependent on “directions” and asking permission.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying for pushing for more sex and the same old routine. Rather this is about animating that aspect of you that was once guided by what you saw, smelled and felt. Open your eyes, use your nose and your feelings, and let what you feel be a feast. And please, make some noise.

If you’re like most men that I work with, your habit has been to focus solely on what your woman wants and to close off to your own body. This is only part of the picture. It’s great to tune into her,  but you must also tune into the waves of your own passion. Give her a taste of what you feel, by transferring that feeling through sound and touch. What a woman wants is to know, unequivocally, is that you desire and crave her.

Yes, we want you to care and to be sensitive in bed. But we want that balanced off of the Dark Knight energy in you –the man who is unafraid of his passion and where it takes him, who can both crest his own pleasure and direct it into the woman he loves.

Karen Brody, copyright 2012 All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author, or simply use a link to this site.

It can be just about anything. You’re tired. You’re angry. You’re not turned on. Whatever it is, you say “no” to protect yourself from having to give.

The problem is you’re cutting your man off from “emotional intimacy.” That’s right. He needs to be touched to feel loved and he needs to touch to fulfill that need. Imagine for a really unpleasant moment if he cut you off from sharing — your emotional intimacy.

Instead of “no,” you can learn how to facilitate one important process that fosters and deepens intimacy between you:

Your opportunity is to suggest other intimate acts (with limits) that please you – such as hugging, kissing, eye gazing, head massages, lying together in stillness, breathing together, or hand and foot massages. This way you engage him in a way that feels intimate instead of shutting him down or punishing him for wanting his kind of intimacy. Often men go for sex, when what they want is to be held or to hold you.

You can say, playfully: “I want you. I just don’t want sex tonight. I’d love to be intimate, although with limits. How about if we just kiss? How about if I massage your head? That would feel really good to me.”

What’s key is to convey that not wanting sex isn’t not wanting HIM, and then SHOW him other ways to be intimate with you that are satisfying for you. He often doesn’t know that he too will find fulfillment in these other ways. Be expressive in how much you find these other acts of intimacy to be satisfying, and thank him for giving them to you, and for maintaining the boundary of no sex.

Opening yourself in this way, instead of shutting down, also makes you feel more love, and more like making love – and that’s a good thing, although not required.

A woman naturally shuts down when sex is offered before emotional intimacy. Notice this, and then use these smaller intimate acts as a way to get what you both need to feel loved and fulfilled, and to find yourselves on the same intimate page.

Karen Brody, copyright 2011 All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author, or simply use a link to this site.

Most of us believe that it’s our partners’ job to please us in bed. So when the job doesn’t get done so well, and expectations go unmet, clearly you know who to blame. You probably don’t fire your lover, but you might withdraw your interest and withhold expressing exactly why. As you might have already discovered, this is a recipe for sexual disaster.

If your partner is in fact responsible for the mediocre sex and lack of connection you experience, that means that you are powerless to do anything about it. Your lack of satisfaction is being done to you. You are saying: I cannot change this. It’s not my fault. And thus, nothing will change.

When I work with couples who have stopped making love for a year, 5 or even 10, it’s always the same issue. They’re stuck in blame. It sounds like this: “She’s frigid.” He’s a “sex maniac.” “She doesn’t express pleasure.” “He doesn’t last long enough.”

Until each partner takes responsibility, nothing shifts.  Blame is a brilliant strategy if you want nothing at all to change.

On the other hand, if you want to get unstuck in your relationship you’ve got to ask yourself: What am I doing to contribute to our lack of connection and lovemaking? Really listen to what comes forward for you.

Then, if you can verbalize your part to your partner – and own your part – your partner will be willing to own hers or his. Then and only then, can you can make progress toward having that passionate sex you both want.

I always tell my clients, “You’re in the relationship you’re ready for.” In other words, it’s no mistake you’re having the challenges you’re having with intimacy. It’s simply what’s up for you to learn.

The question is: Will you own your challenges so that you can take that next step on the sexual rung — to experience a greater degree of pleasure and connection — or stay stuck in blame?

I suggest that you take 100 percent responsibility for what you’re going through in your relationship, and through that, you’ll discover  the power to make things change.

By Karen Brody, 2011. All Copyrights Reserved. Please contact author to reprint or simply link to this page.

The very thing that enchants men is the very thing we most fear giving them – our vulnerability. Rather than let them see where we hurt and how we need, we hit them over the head with our pain and push them away with complaints.

Trust me, I know how hard it is to be vulnerable with men. My mother pounded into me that men are insensitive. Share feelings with men? Would you give your heart to a butcher?

My mom was a product of her time. She didn’t’ expect to be cherished, held and comforted by her man. But we women today do, so opening the gates to our hearts is essential.

It’s not easy to let a man in if you fear he will use your vulnerability against you. Yet, being vulnerable is exactly what makes a man feel he can trust you – and, that he can trust his own feelings with you.

A conscious, loving man actually appreciates a woman’s vulnerability. She doesn’t have to play a victim, or be someone he needs to save. This is where we miss the point.

There is a vast difference between being vulnerable and being a powerless victim.

There is also a vast difference between blaming a man for how you feel and launching your feelings at him angrily – and allowing him to witness you in your pain and need.

A man is attracted to a woman who is emotionally masterful. Really hear this distinction. In other words, she has what I call “Embodied Emotional Presence.” This means that you can express your feelings in a way that is self-honoring, and also honoring of your man. Very different from throwing blame and complaints.

Embodied Emotional Presence gives a man the spaciousness he needs to hear you, and you get the benefit of his affection and care.

Next time you are hurt or angry or sad and want to share feelings with your man…

A. Put your hand over your heart and take a deep breath

B. Ask him to simply listen

C. Share your heart from that place that has no perpetrator, free of words that blame or sting.

For more excellent information on how to get a good man and to keep him, there is no (other) better teacher than my friend, Rori Raye.  Check out her book, below:

When a woman is complaining about something in your relationship, you probably do what any red-blooded man would do, you defend yourself. You puff up your chest and become determined to prove her wrong. It feels vital to be right – to not end up in her emotional trash compactor.

It might sound a little like this: “Not enough time with you? I just took five days off this month so that we could be together. Last Sunday I spend the entire day with you, when what I wanted was to play golf. And what about the past three Saturdays with your friends? Was that not time with you?”

There you said it and you proved yourself right. But instead of dropping it, she says something baffling like: “You’re not listening to me.”

Not listening to her? Not only are you listening, but you proved your innocence — and now she can just drop it and move on. But she doesn’t let it go, because unlike in a boxing match or a ballgame, a woman is not an “opponent” who follows the rules.

The way women communicate tends to have an emotional subtext.  She might say her complaint is about a lack of time together, but what you’re not hearing is the emotional plea or subtext behind that complaint. This is the real conversation. It’s the communication she says you’re not hearing.

Women often hide their hurt behind complaints. And, also, believe that they are revealing their hurt when they complain.

Make sense?

It’s not that women are trying to confuse you. Just like men, women have a hard time expressing hurt and emotional need. It comes up a lot for women because women are deeply effected by emotions. Complaining can be a bad habit of trying to get emotional needs heard and met.

It’s not the best way to communicate and it certainly doesn’t feel good to you as a man. But if you can hear her a little differently, you can guide the conversations toward a satisfying end.

Next time ask: “What’s really at the heart of this complaint? Tell me what you’re feeling.”

This approach will take you a lot farther than building a case against her. It will also encourage her to be a more direct communicator and to complain less.

All Contents International Copyright Karen Brody 2010. All International Rights Reserved. Contact the author for permission to reprint, or simply link to this article here.

Approach her Shamelessly

In my research on what drives couples apart sexually, I’ve discovered that women have a highly-attuned sense of when a man feels confident sexually and when he doesn’t, and it greatly affects her desire for him.

If you’re approaching a woman feeling bad or wrong about wanting sex, she feels that energetic. It seems as if you’re hiding something. And in a sense you are, you’re hiding the fact that you want sex because you feel bad and wrong.

If you feel bad and wrong how is that going to make her feel? It’s not a compelling sexual space, that’s for sure. Read the rest of this entry »

Guys, I know you want this to be about sex. Techniques ideally. Believe me, I’d give you those techniques in extraordinary detail, if I thought they’d would actually work to get you more sex.

My passion is to help you to win with women. And as an expert on this topic, my goal is to give you the information will actually make the difference.

I won’t deny that if you’re masterful with various parts of your body at pleasing, you’ll get big points and more sex.

However, if you miss the heart of what lights a woman up, your sexual success with her will be hit and miss. Techniques are not sustainable as a diet for love.

On the other hand, get inside what flips a woman on romantically, and you’ve got the recipe for how to turn her on for life!

So three things you need to master in the romance department to turn her on, and you can begin this Valentine’s Day:

1. Connection

Connection is a “coming together” that features mutual affection.  You share how much you appreciate each other, or love each other, or see each other, or delight in one another. This creates as sense of togetherness. This is very important to women – that you feed the “we.” Time together just isn’t enough.

2. Create a sense of possibility

Romance is about what’s possible with you and together. What could happen is often more exciting than what is happening. Women love to talk about you might create together in some imaginary future. It delights us to no end.

A woman’s most ecstatic state is a state of anticipation – whether that’s in bed or on a date. Anticipation is foreplay. It’s a state of surrender — living on the edge of possibility.

The more she feels this with you, the more turned on she’ll be. This may be new to you, so don’t wear yourself out trying to be her “magic man.” But keep in mind, that a woman dreams into what’s possible, and stoking the fires of her imagination will satisfy her romantically.

3. Surprise and Delight

Women love to be surprised. Often men ask women what they want, so they don’t get it wrong.

While, it’s nice to be asked and get exactly what you want, it’s not romantic.

It’s far more exciting to open a wrapped box and surf the wave of anticipation. For us this is sexual energy.  If you investigate beforehand, you can easily and covertly figure out what she wants, wrap it, and revel in her delight!

If this idea intimidates you, get her one thing she said she wanted and throw in a surprise all your own.

Keeping a woman in a state of ongoing delight is a sure-fire way to keep her sexually interested.

All Contents International Copyright Karen Brody 2010. All International Rights Reserved. Contact the author for permission to reprint, or simply link to this article here.

There’s no better way to find out what a woman  wants in bed (or somewhere else!) than to ask her directly. What a concept!

AskMen.com did just that. Relationship Correspondent Isabella Snow reports the full RESULTS here:

Who’s In Charge?

It might surprise you to learn that of the women who responded to the AskMen.com survey, their number three fantasy was FANTASY “rape.”

Let’s be absolutely clear that a rape fantasy is nothing like criminal rape. Women (at least mentally healthy women) have no desire to be hurt or violated. A rape fantasy is about being relieved of choice, essentially being  “forced” to experience pleasure.

Why would a woman want to be relieved of her sexual choice?

Women can harbor a mountain of residual guilt about sex – guilt dished up by our religious upbringing, by our parents and their hang-ups, by a culture that says, “be sexy girls, but don’t have sex.”

Essentially women are raised to be the sexual “gatekeepers” of virtue. Whether we like it or not, it’s our “job” - and a thankless job, too.

I can remember, even as a young girl, boys pressing me hard to be sexual with them. That pressure, and my own sexual desires, created the incredibly difficult challenge of balancing the hand of moral judgment with the pressing urges of young love.

It’s not uncommon for the same boy who presses for sex and urges a girl to loosen her social restraints to tell his friends that she was  “easy.” Sometimes the choices that girls make for love or pleasure are crushing in their social consequences.

We women have been trained to not only expect this double standard, but we have adapted by learning to seem as if we don’t want sex or don’t like sex — to seem as if we’re not choosing sex, but succumbing to it. Think of the woman who silently lies there as you make love to her, unknowingly wreaking havoc on your ego. By not saying a word, or making a pleasurable sound, she can enjoy sex secretly, and maintain her image as a “good girl.”

So a rape fantasy is, therefore, the perfect antidote to a woman’s sexual restraint.

There is no right choice or wrong choice when a powerful, all-knowing lover “forces” pleasure on a woman, when he “makes” a woman do those things she wants to do. There’s no violation of morals. No way to be judged as “bad” or “wrong.”

Often, powerful men too fantasize about being sexually dominated, as a means to surrender control.

Fulfill Her Fantasies

You can learn a lot about a woman’s secret sexual “landscape” by unraveling her fantasies.

How can you, as a man, use this information to turn a woman on and to help her tap into her own deepest desires?

Most importantly, do NOT enact a rape scene without her consent!

Begin by having a conversation with her about her fantasies. Allow her to reveal whatever fantasies she’s willing to talk about first, which will likely be fantasies that she feels are the least “threatening” and most socially acceptable. Ask her to share them with you in detail, so you don’t have to guess, and don’t “get it wrong” when the two of you fulfill one or more of her fantasies.

As she becomes more comfortable and more confident in you and in herself, you can encourage her to share more fantasies. At some point when you know she has trust in you, you can ask her if she’s ever had a rape fantasy. Not all women have this fantasy, so don’t press if it’s not there. But if she does, ask her about the details. What does her lover say? How does he take her? What is it about how he takes her that really turns her on? Does he tie her up? Hold her hands down? Tell her what she must do?

Your discussion may or may not lead to her agreement to act it out. If she wants to keep it as a mental fantasy, only, simply honor that. If, however, she feels comfortable enough to act it out with you, then plan it with sensitivity, so that it unfolds in a satisfying way for both of you.

Be Willing to Take Charge

I’ve noticed a trend toward men becoming less and less aggressive in bed, and becoming more and more sensitive to women and to what they desire.

This is good news and bad news. Good in that you’re “listening’ and attuning, and bad in that you’re throwing out your masculine edge. I can’t tell you how many women reveal to me that they wish their lovers were more aggressive in bed.

Women want men who can be sensitive and loving, and in this regard the more that you can be sensitive and loving, the better.

But women also want to be captured and taken by the wild, unbridled, even dangerous part of you. They want to feel your raw hunger –that part of you that drives you to rip her clothes off and penetrate her into oblivion. I also know that many of you men want this too.

The more you aren’t a “gentleman” the less she has to be a “lady.”

Now don’t confuse a woman’s desire to let go of her sexual control and have you exert yours for a woman wanting a sex hound. Being sexually needy is very different from being sexually powerful. Hunger comes from instinct, while need comes from a perception of lack.

How to Tap Into Your Edge

Here’s a potent visualization and practice that will help you bring the relationship of sexual power into perspective, that also helps you learn how to merge your heart and your edge:

Imagine your penis as an incredible wand of healing light – potent and loving.

Imagine penetrating your woman so deeply and lovingly with your wand of light, with so much fierce and wild abandon that you blow her heart and her joy wide open. Be focused like a tiger, certain like an eagle, wise like a wolf throughout.

This practice will center you in the power and the certainty that you need, to not only be her fantasy rapist, but also to be her deepest lover. A woman wants, simply, to surrender into love and pleasure. Your clarity and certainty of purpose, as her lover, helps make that possible.

Play with your edge. But also keep your sensitivity. This is the beauty of making love in contrast, with depth and interest.

All Contents International Copyright Karen Brody 2010. All International Rights Reserved. Contact the author for permission to reprint, or simply link to this article here.