Sex is not only physical for men either

It is commonly believed that women's sexual pleasure consists of a physical component and a psychological component, whereas men's sexual pleasure consists only of the physical component. After all, it is well known that an average woman won't enjoy being fucked by just any man – she needs the feeling of emotional closeness to the partner in order to enjoy sex. An average man, on the other hand, would be more than happy to fuck any woman who isn't too ugly – he doesn't need to spend time with her, or to even know her name, and it's certainly no obstacle that it was less than a minute ago that he saw her for the first time.

However, that belief is shattered by this obvious paradox – why is sex more enjoyable than masturbation? The orgasm is the same – in fact, many a masturbation-orgasm can be more intense than many a fuck-orgasm. But still we desire sex. Why? Women often ask that question – if men can easily have an orgasm any time they want to, why they're still so obsessed with sticking it into a vagina? What's the difference?

The first time a girlfriend asked me that, I was shocked – how can she even say such a thing? But I was unable to explain to her what was the essential difference between jerking off and fucking. I just knew that the latter was a million times more desirable. But why? It had nothing to do with some stupid love because I knew I would gladly fuck every second woman I saw on the street. But there obviously was something I couldn't put my finger on.

It left me puzzled for years, until I finally came up with a hypothesis. I believe that men's sexual pleasure also contains a psychological component. The reason why it's easy to overlook is because it's not the same as women's. The psychological component of men's sexual pleasure is not emotional closeness. It's the feeling of conquest. Just like a woman (usually) needs to feel emotionally close to the man in order to truly enjoy the mechanics of genital movement, a man (usually) needs to feel that he has conquered the woman in order to truly enjoy the mechanics of genital movement.

That hypothesis would explain several paradoxes of human sexuality – starting with the question what is missing in the admittedly strong pleasure you get from masturbating. Or the paradox why men madly desire sex but still hate it when the woman takes too much initiative. It may be because a woman who asks to be fucked can't be conquered. That is especially true in the case of prostitution, which can be a very important reason why many men refuse to still their sex hunger with a prostitute even though it's available in their location.

Also my hypothesis makes it perfectly understandable (although there are other explanations which are just as good) why most, if not all, men lose the desire for their wives or girlfriends sooner or later. After all, if you have fucked a woman hundreds of times and made her do pretty much anything imaginable, there is obviously nothing left to conquer.

There are strong reasons to assume that there are two very different kinds of conquest, and thus two types of conquest desires. I call the types "body conqueror" and "soul conqueror" (and of course a man can well be a mixture of the two).

In brief:
1) the body conqueror desires to make a woman do what he wants;
2) the soul conqueror desires to make a woman want to do what he wants.

For the body conqueror type, to conquer a woman means to make her submit to fucking, no matter by which means. He wouldn't mind raping, and probably the most important thing that prevents him from doing that is that he would risk being put to prison – or worse in some cultures. Even when he's having sex with a consenting partner, he might enhance his enjoyment by imagining that he's raping her (or some other woman, for that matter). He would enjoy pressing a partner, who is consenting in principle, into doing things which she is reluctant to do and doesn't actually enjoy – such as anal sex. "I enjoyed it because she didn't want it," sums nicely up the attitude of a body conqueror.

The soul conqueror type is different. For him, conquest means making the woman desire him. He abhors rape. Even if he's suffering from the lack of sex so desperately that he has to rely on rape to get laid, he tries to make it appear as if the victim actually wanted it, or at least began to enjoy it during the rape. Research seems to indicate that actually three rapists out of four (74% according to one statistic I read) are like that. They would say things like "Come on, you slut, admit it that you actually like it," while fucking the victim. Some rapists are reportedly so deeply engulfed in their own delusions that they actually suggest to the victim after the rape that perhaps she would like to meet him again another time. The body conqueror would do nothing of the kind.

Both conquest types dislike prostitution, but for different reasons. The body conqueror can't truly enjoy sex with a prostitute because it's clear that the prostitute wants it – she doesn't even need to be convinced, let alone forced. (Also, and perhaps more importantly, prostitutes usually set very clear boundaries as to what they will do and what they won't, so there is very little room for pushing their limits.) The soul conqueror, on the other hand, can't truly enjoy sex with a prostitute because it's clear that the prostitute doesn't desire him, she's only doing it because of his money.

As in the case of rape, the soul conqueror type likes to pretend that the prostitute is actually a "decent" woman who likes and desires him. That is probably the reason why many prostitutes fake pleasure, like moan while you're fucking them. I don't think they would do it unless a great majority of customers wanted them to. A body conqueror type would find that disgusting. In fact, I know of cases where a man quickly lost his erection while he was fucking a hooker and she began to moan in obviously faked pleasure.

Another situation that illustrates the difference between the two types of conquest is BDSM (I mean the dominant role; the submissive role is beyond the topic of this article). Both types of men can enjoy it, but their expectations are profoundly different.

For the soul conqueror, it is essential that the "slave" consents to everything. There was this sadomasochist couple where the guy would spank the girl and made her do all kinds of humiliating things not only in private, but he also took her to S/M parties. She found it all profoundly disgusting, but she endured it because she loved him. The moment when she snapped was when he, in blissful ignorance of her feelings, told her that he wanted to get a second slave like her. Then she threw it all in his face, letting him know how she hated all his perversions. The point of the story is this: he was devastated. He would have never done the things he had done to her, had he suspected that she was only pretending to like it. The remorse seemed to be killing him. Obviously a soul conqueror type.

Quite differently in another true story about which I read in a submissive women's forum. One woman was describing her relationship which was very different from most cases, where the "slave" has a so-called safe word – a sort of a password previously agreed between the partners which means that she really can't take it anymore and he has to stop the whipping or whatever he's doing and free her from her bonds or whatever. That woman explained that she had nothing like a safe word. She said something to the effect of "You had a choice when you decided to give yourself away. After that, you have no way of telling him that you can't take it any longer. I hear myself screaming it all the time." Clearly her partner was a body conqueror type who would feel that agreeing to the use of a safe word would be equivalent to taking orders from a slave.

I absolutely don't mean to say that the desire to conquest is present only in the case of abnormal sex. I merely brought examples where the difference between the two conqueror types is most obvious. In the overwhelming majority of sexual relations, the difference would be subtle. The two types of men would act very similarly. Some would tend to get less excited when the woman seems too willing, some would tend to get less excited when the woman seems too unwilling, but there are so many other factors involved that for the observer it might be difficult to tell if one or another man is a body conqueror or a soul conqueror or something between them.

All in all, the feeling of conquest as the psychological component of men's sexual pleasure is the theory that explains men's sexuality better than any other I know of (at this point of time).