What Makes a Good Lover?

It would be impossible to list all the qualities that make people good lovers. People look for many different things in a partner, and what makes someone a good lover to you might not make that person a good lover to someone else. Overall, good lovers are sensitive to their partner’s needs and desires, can communicate their own desires, and are patient, caring, and confident. Being nervous or feeling silly can in­terfere with lovemaking abilities. It is hard to concentrate when you are worried about performing.

Men and women sometimes have different views of the same sexual behaviors. In the classic movie Annie Hall, the lead characters, Annie and Albey, each go to see their respective therapists, and are each asked how often they have sex. Annie replies, “Oh, all the time, at least three times a week,” whereas Albey says, “Hardly ever, maybe three times a week.” Do you think this reflects a gender difference?

Even sexual techniques can be viewed differently. One man recounts an early sex­ual experience:

 

I’ll never forget the first time. She was lying on her parent’s bed with the lamplight shining on her, naked and suntanned all over. . . . I climbed on that bed and I lifted her up onto my thighs—she was so light I could always pick her right up—and I opened up her [vagina] with one hand and I rammed my [penis] up there like it was a Polaris missile. Do you know, she screamed out loud, and she dug her nails in my back, and without being too crude about it I [screwed] her until she didn’t know what the hell was happening. . . . She loved it. She screamed out loud every single time. I mean I was an active, aggressive lover. (Masterton, 1987, p. 70)

 

Yet his partner viewed the sexual activity very differently:

What did I think about it? . . . I don’t know. I think the only word you could use would be “flabbergasted.” He threw me on the bed as if he were Tarzan, and tugged off all of my clothes, and then he took off his own clothes so fast it was almost like he was trying to beat the world record. . . . He took hold of me and virtually lifted me right up in the air as if I were a child, and then he pushed himself right up me, with hardly any foreplay or any preliminaries or anything. (Masterton, 1987, p. 73)

This is another reason that communication is so important. Here is a man thinking he is doing exactly what a woman wants and a woman wondering why he’s doing it. Eventually, this couple’s relationship ended, mainly due to a lack of communication, which left both feeling confused and frustrated. As we discussed earlier, communication is one of the most important aspects of a healthy and satisfying relationship.

Question: Are looks more important to men or women?

Men often report that when looking for a partner, physical attractiveness is important. Women are less likely to identify looks as one of the most important characteristics. However, women are more likely than men to report that a person’s career is very important. In essence, it seems that men value looks more, whereas women place more value on success.

We must keep in mind, however, that these differences may be due to the fact that men and women feel more comfortable saying that these characteristics are important.

In the past, women have not been socialized to value attractiveness in men, whereas men have not been socialized to value success in women (see Chapter 3).

As for body type, lesbian and bisexual women have been found to prefer a heavier figure than heterosexual men, perhaps because they are more comfortable with heavier figures and are unwilling to accept the media’s fixation on thinness in women (Cohen & Tannenbaum, 2001).

Good lovers are sensitive to their partner’s needs and desires, and can communicate their own desires.