People make mistakes with lovers for the same reason their VCR blinks 12:00-they haven’t invested the effort to learn. Promoting communication can be difficult because not every lover is ready to tell you what rings their bell, but therein lies the quest. 
Ask her if it is because it tickles…when I was younger, early 20s =) it tickled more than stimulated…because I was not accustomed to getting oral. It took a more experiened woman to get me to enjoy it, perhaps because she wasnt doing it too lightly, or too hard [the other complaint] but just right…but it is possible to teach a man to do it the way I like it, but I am also not afraid to tell him exactly what I want. Although I still broke into a fit of giggling if they wanted me to talk porno-dirty. There is a big difference in asking ‘a little more to the left and harder’ and ‘ride me like a pony big daddy’ I guess it is because when much younger friends and I would go out to porn movies because when you work in a bar, and the only movie house open after 2 am is a porn theater…everybody goes and watches porn [so we could make comments about the action onscreen, like ‘Wow, I didn’t know the body coud move like that’ or ‘the bulgarian judges say that move is illegal…’]
I’ve always found it funny and a little annoying that bad sex is blamed on the guy. As someone saod on here earlier on, it takes 2.
My ex-wife, and a few others that I have been with, seem to have always been of the mindset that I should be lucky to be in their naked presence. In particular, with the Ex, by the time we were divorcing sex had become rote… kiss, some touching (me touching her), I go down on her, then sex. 1 position, because nothing else was enjoyable for her, and if I didn’t finish real soon after she did it would be over, period.
Too many women, imo, suffer from the delusion that being willing to have sex is enough.
Wow, were we married to the same woman?
My ex-wife ended up complaining that her “endometriosis” caused pain and therefore we couldn’t have intercourse. This condition appeared, oh, about six months into the marriage. (We’d been dating/living together for four years previous.) However, this was self-diagnosed and she refused to see a gynocologist about it. Soon after making that statement my sympathy for her “condition” dissolved. Funny, this didn’t seem to affect her with the other people she slept with…while we were married. :rolleyes:
I don’t think it’s a hijack; it’s a good example, actually, of why men are (sometimes? often? mostly?) bad lovers; it has less to do with the lack of some inate talent and more to do with a lack of interest in pleasing their partner, whether ignorantly or in a deliberate fashion. I don’t know you from…er, Eve…and maybe you do all nature of things to him rotten and foul, but that sort of carelessness reeks of a nasty passive/aggressive attitute, a “I’ll use my power to withhold affection get back at you,” that doesn’t really fix any kind of problems. I very much doubt any additional persistance on your part alone is going to resolve that kind of issue. If you are making a sincere effort to communicate your needs it hardly fits to blame yourself for his reluctance/carelessness/whatever.
I would never advocate that someone cheat on their spouse (unless it’s previously agreed upon, I guess) but I’m starting to understand why many do. Pleasing your partner isn’t about doing something you like; although it should result in reciprocal consideration, it may involve doing something you aren’t particularly “into”. But as long as it isn’t something completely repulsive to you (and cuddling, stroking, and kissing can’t concievably fall in that category), whatintheheck is the excuse for not complying? Kreest, aren’t relationships difficult enough without introducing some kind of tension over a basic request?
Maybe I just don’t get it–I feel like I’m some kind of alien when I hear women speak of their experiences and men talk about getting the foreplay over with–'cause to me, that’s just as much, if not moreso, a part of the experience as intercourse. But then, I’ve never had the urge to just roll over and fall asleep, afterword either. Properly done it is a symphony with piece, cresendo, and coda, not a single guitar riff. Am I that off the wall?
Stranger
No-not at all. And he is passive-aggressive (diagnosed by a therapist, no less–and then he quit going to couples counselling). So, as you see, there is more to this.
As to the it takes 2 to tango and the query as to why it is assumed that it is the guy’s “fault”–that is the topic of the thread.
It is not always the guy’s fault–I know some women who do not move during sex (it boggles my mind, too)–I am not sure just what they are getting out of it-perhaps they have bad backs(?). And women can be just as passive/aggressive as men and just as controlling and manipulative. But the topic is Men. If anyone wants to start a thread on why women are bad in bed–I’ll join in!
It’s funny, but having posted what I did and seeing the responses–it’s been a good reality check for me. Why the hell shouldn’t I get my neck kissed? WTH? Strange how you can get accustomed to skewed things and consider them normal after awhile. I’m a going to try again with this (after the weekend, I am for 2 12’s today and tomorrow). Thanks, Stranger ! 
What’s the excuse? The excuse is that they’re hooooorrrrrrrnnnnnyyyyyy, and they gotta stick it in RIGHT NOW, or they will spontaneously combust. Besides, all that kissing and cuddling stuff takes extra time, and they might get the blue balls and die. I’m being only a little tiny shred facetious. These guys are almost never quite that melodramatic about their phrasing, but that’s the underlying message.
The other excuse is that all that kissing and cuddling stuff doesn’t actually do anything anyway, so it’s just a lot of work for nothing. (Yeah, I know, the mind boggles that nuzzling someone’s neck or touching their hair is considered any particular effort.) Near as I can tell, guys who think this way don’t really consider sex with someone who’s truly aroused any better than sex with someone who’s going through the motions. As long as they’re getting off and not having to put up with unnecessary delays to said getting off, they’re having incredible sex.
I have to agree with this.
Having been with both women and men, from my experience, it is all about communication, and not being afraid to tell your partner what you enjoy.
Talk to each other. test things out, and don’t be afraid to tell your partner what doesn’t or does feel good.
If you really love someone, and have built up a trust with them, and they really love you, you will find what works.
I also think a woman can be just as bad a lover as a man, if she is afraid to ask and explore what the man might like.
And, of course, practice makes perfect. 
Hey, I dated him!
Or at least someone sorta like him. Like some of the men have expressed, if the guy is repressed or just woefully inexperienced or whatever, I love the challenge. Not boasting, but I’m comfortable with my sexuality and don’t feel like just showing up is my contribution, I will bend over backwards to try and help.
Two years ago I was seeing a very sweet man who was 32, he was divorced and I was treading carefully since it was a very bitter divorce and he’d been licking his wounds and staying single for a couple of years. I was flabbergasted once we started becoming intimate just how bad of a lover he was. Not bad as in selfish, he was very sweet, but innocent and incompetent and naively clueless.
The first time we went beyond kissing and were on our way to intercourse, at least I thought we were, I took him in my mouth as a natural progression of foreplay. A whopping ninety seconds later it was apparent he was taking that gesture far more seriously than I intended it, but I chalked it up to nerves, long dry spell, whatever. That wasn’t the surprise, him acting as if the encounter was finished was the surprise.
Okay, maybe he’s insecure or embarassed, so I didn’t worry about it. The next encounter, I was careful to be a bit less aggressive and let him set the pace. Turned out, he seemed to have no idea how to touch a woman at all, sort of a rote ‘I should squeeze here and poke there’ randomness with no sense of being connected. He was missing all my verbal clues so I took his hand and stopped him, looking straight into his eyes as I gently explained what would feel good for me. He had a total deer in the headlights glaze of fear, I was doing every thing I could think of to help him relax and not feed his insecurities and lower the sheer intensity level to something manageable and not life or death. I started massaging his shoulders and relaxing him, then once again made the mistake of stimulating him directly a few moments later and we were done.
I directly asked him in the most non-accusatory gentle manner just why he thought we were finished when obviously it was one-sided and we had yet to get anywhere close to intercourse. He was amazed that I expected differently, embarassed that he hadn’t realized that himself, uncomfortable and guilty and it was just a mess.
We continued talking about it all week, communication being King and all, and the next weekend was a flop too. I gotta admit, I pretty much just gave up. He had so much Catholic guilt going on, he explained he had a very difficult time even thinking about the particulars of what would make our sexual encounters more mutually satisfying, he was mortified when I explained that climaxing after sixty seconds of stimulation wasn’t the end of the world but the unwillingness to continue was…it was horrible, ack. He really was a very sweet guy, but unbelievably clueless, although he claimed his married sex life was “fine” of course. He refused outright to read any books, not being able to see any difference between gaining knowledge about sexuality and ‘filthy evil prOn.’
I don’t fully understand how one can get to that age and not only not realize all they’re missing but be unwilling to find out, but there it was. I tried, I swear I did everything I could think of to be supportive and non-pressuring and ironically it must have worked somewhat, he still tells me years later I was the ‘best’ lover he’s ever had. Just sad.
Sorry about the novella, guess I’ve been waiting to vent a while. To answer the OP, some men are bad lovers because apparently the idea of learning and becoming a better one is more scary than being alone and unsatisfied.
I agree with Scribble here. To use an analogy (or bad innuendo)–I’m incredibly ticklish, but I can’t tickle myself.
This is appalling to me. Simply appalling. It’s the journey. So much can happen with a hug, a kiss, a slow caress along skin ( or, jammies or whatevers ). I am personally a huge fan of neck nuzzling. Then again, I’m a huge fan of licking my lover’s wrists very softly, so what do I know…