Women are complex, nuanced creatures who need to be admired, listened to and taken to a nice dinner at a hard-to-get-into restaurant once in a while. But when you’re fucking them, they would like you to insist that they call you “daddy,” tell them how tight their vag is and remark on how incredible it feels to be inside them. In that order. Got it?
These are the decidedly unscientific results of a “survey” of some 5,000 people by the Australian jeweler Forktip, who, in the service of moving some nice rocks, asked the internet to tell them about the nature of their modern-day romantic entanglements. (Note: We can’t promise you these answers weren’t just totally made up by three sad dudes in a conference room.)
One question involved asking women what they want to hear during sex (and it wasn’t “two months’ salary”). What to make of this? As we’ve explored in our fetish series, the Daddy Dom/Little Girl fetish is alive and well, which can range from simply uttering the word “daddy” while doing it to an immersive relationship dynamic that hinges on control and submission, and involves a man playing caretaker and patriarch to a woman happily acting the part of the innocent in need of stern guidance.
But clearly, as the survey suggests, you don’t have to have a full-blown fetish to want to be called something synonymous with authority. Regular non-fetish types want to get in on this daddy action, too. They key here, it seems, is that you have to demand she say it. (It’s not as fun if you ask sheepishly.)
As for the other two preferred utterances, they make logistical sense. Being told you have a tight pussy is as important to women as it is to hear you’re beautiful while wearing an acne-fighting mask on your heaviest flow day. Likewise, simply saying sex feels good to your lady lover is a no-brainer (unless it literally doesn’t feel good and then you need to start doing another sort of talking). One could convey this sort of glee in other ways — sounds and/or enthusiasm — but another part of the survey reminds us it’s possible to get too carried away. Forktip asked their participants about the things they don’t like about their male and female partners during sex. Topping the list for women? Weird noises.
It’s not clear what the women surveyed meant by “weird noises,” but informal polling of the women of MEL suggests it could be anything from too much grunting; saying “Oh my god” over and over again to the point of total weirdness; that guy in that episode of Sex and the City who blurts out, “You fucking bitch; you fucking whore!” when he comes; and bodily noises like the unrelenting thwap of balls slapping skin. Hey, what’s a guy to do (tape them?), but it’s distracting — even when it feels good.
Though it wasn’t included in the Forktip survey, we know from the internet and existing on earth that as soon as early man was aware he had a dick, he asked the nearest woman to remark on its aesthetic properties. So it’s no surprise that men want to hear that they are shockingly well-endowed, that they feel amazing, and that there has never been a more capable, competent lover between your sheets. (Bonus points if you throw in that they have, in effect, ruined you for all other lovers.)
But it’s interesting that women’s other least-desired qualities in a man included “penis too small,” “ejaculates too quick” and “changes position too frequently.” Communication won’t solve the first two, but rhythm matters, and this complaint only underscores why telling a guy when something really feels good is so important, because otherwise he’s probably going to stop doing it.
That said, men in the Forktip survey indicated that “too many noises” from women during sex are a turn-off, too. (Some men have written about their female partners wanting to hear them make noise when they orgasm, only to admit they don’t actually seem to make any.) Women making too much noise is a pervasive enough phenomenon that researchers have studied this so-called copulatory vocalization. Their conclusions? Women ramp up the theatrics to either make a dude feel good about himself, or speed up intercourse so he goes ahead and launches his wad. Nobody likes a faker, but it gets the job done (and the same researchers note that it successfully triggers orgasm in other animals too, like monkeys and baboons).
The takeaway here, as always, is that sex requires some careful embroidering of reality on both sides, but bald-faced lies won’t lead to better sex. Still, we can’t all have tight grips and big dicks, so any sex-haver worth his or her salt should take note that one must go along to get along, especially if you want to be called back for a second audition.
Tracy Moore
Tracy Moore is a staff writer at MEL. She covers all the soft sciences like psychology, sex, relationships and parenting, but since this is a men’s magazine, occasionally the hard ones. Formerly at Jezebel.
