When No Doesn't Mean No

Celibate monk-turned-successful sex-and-relationship mentor John Gray is waxing philosophic about a subject dear to our hearts--and lower parts: blow jobs. However, the volume of his diatribe is disconcerting. It's not that we don't share his enthusiasm for the subject, but we aren't used to discussing it so loudly. Gray doesn't stop with blow jobs. In fact, he gets even louder when he talks about other sex acts--masturbation, say--and just wait until he gets to the subject of sex on demand.

At a time when relationships between the sexes are more volatile than ever, Gray's message has struck a chord. His book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus has sold more than 10 million copies in 37 languages and has spent more than 200 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Mars and Venus in the Bedroom is one of the best-selling sex books of the Nineties, and Gray's cottage industry includes popular tapes, lectures and workshops. On the Net, in chat rooms and on message boards (on AOL: keyword Mars, on the Web: http://mars venus.com), Gray's sites receive more hits than George Foreman does.

At its core, Gray's message is logical and simple: Men and women are different--almost as if we were from separate planets. To get along we need to understand those differences. From there, his relationship counseling and sex advice is controversial. Indeed, though he counts mostly women among his fans, he has been denounced by feminists.

Gray, the fifth of seven children, helped his father run the family oil drilling business while his mother, who now operates a spiritual-books store, kept house. John says he had sex too early, as a teenager. His repentance was extreme: He became a monk--a follower of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi--and had no sex at all for nine years. In 1979 he left the order to help an ill family member and train as a therapist. Gray headed to California, where he got laid.

In 1982 Gray married Barbara De-Angelis, who has written six books about relationships herself, including the best-seller Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know. It was a short-lived union, and in 1985 he married Bonnie Josephson, who is president of his publishing company. Gray has spent years working as a therapist for individuals and couples and has written half a dozen books. His latest, for singles, is due out in June. In January he performed on Broadway in a one-man show titled Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Gray, who is 45, talks with his hands, which is something to behold when he discusses hand jobs.

Playboy: How difficult was it to remain celibate?

Gray: There were times when it was a struggle, when you just had to take a cold shower or go out in public so you wouldn't masturbate. But there wasn't a lot of temptation because there weren't a lot of women around.

Playboy: Was masturbation forbidden?

Gray: Part of being a celibate monk is that you don't masturbate, so you take cold showers, you jog, you go for walks.

Playboy: Did you have wet dreams?

Gray: You learn to wake up and not have a wet dream. You'd have very sexy dreams; I mean, you're still a man. But eventually it got to the point where you would wake up. You end up training yourself to completely sublimate your sexual desires.

Playboy: After nearly a decade, what happened?

Gray: Well, during those nine years I thought I was going to be a monk my whole life. I wanted to find God and the holy life. But I realized I had found God, and that leading a holy life doesn't mean you must not have sex--I realized that sex can also be a holy expression.

Playboy: Are monks celibate so that sex isn't a distraction?

Gray: If you want to open your higher spiritual centers and have spiritual experiences, you have to fuel them. Semen is the fuel for those higher spiritual experiences. One of the unusual things that happens when you train the sexual energy to be sublimated into spiritual experience is that the semen actually goes up your body. I would perspire when I jogged, and it would smell like semen. That's how you know if somebody's really celibate. I don't have that anymore because my semen goes to my wife.

Playboy: That's a result of celibacy the holy books tend to overlook.

Gray: It takes years for that to happen. It was after seven years of celibacy that I started noticing that when I would perspire it was the smell of semen. It also caused spiritual experiences. You read about Yogis and monks who have ecstatic experiences--it's taking sexual energy and experiencing it through a different part of who we are. It took about seven, eight years, but I would spend 15 to 20 hours in a meditative state, having all kinds of what are called kundalini experiences: energy flowing up the spine, involuntary movements, visions, hearing angelic music, having psychic experiences, traveling in my sleep. When I started having sex again, I noticed that certain kinds of spiritual experiences went away. Ones that have remained are a sense of spiritual peace and visual enhancement. Your senses become very enlivened; that never goes away. Light shines out of things, instead of the way it used to be. And sensual enrichment has continued with sex. I think the more spiritual you are, the more you can enjoy sex because you're able to feel more through your senses.

Playboy: What was sex like after nine years of abstinence?

Gray: Like a hungry man eating. It was a very significant experience. It was fantastic. Sex is better with my wife now because I love her, but the actual sexual performance was fantastic. It was three days before I had an orgasm. The excitement was building and building and building; my body didn't ejaculate because it had been so used to not ejaculating. It took a while to get that going again, so it really made the sexual performance fantastic.

Playboy: Who was the lucky woman?

Gray: She was a massage therapist. Here was this woman touching my body, and I hadn't been touched by a woman in nine years. She said, "You have to take off all your clothes." That turned me on completely, and then she was touching me. While she was massaging me, she asked why I was celibate. For the first time in nine years, I had no answer. My mind was blank. That's when I thought, Well, maybe I won't be celibate anymore. It opened my eyes. So I went around--starting with her--and would say to women, "I've been a celibate monk for nine years and would really like for you to teach me about your body. Teach me what makes you feel good. Teach me what brings you pleasure. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you don't like." Women were very open to telling me everything. It was a turn-on for them. When I tell that story, men say, "Boy, what a come-on line."

Playboy: It's a good one--and certainly one that not many women have heard before.

Gray: But it was real. I had been a monk, and I wanted to know. So I learned a tremendous amount going from one woman to another for that first year. I was having multiple relationships, women in six towns.

Playboy: Can you summarize the lessons you learned?

Gray: One of the basic lessons is that women need about ten times more time than a man to have a full-blown orgasm. But that doesn't mean you should take more time on every occasion. Often you should take a short amount of time, and the sex is for him; when you take a long time, the sex is for her. There needs to be give-and-take in a relationship. It's like if you're driving a Ferrari and you have to brake all the time. You'll get frustrated and will eventually lose sexual attraction for your partner. But if you have sex with a woman and it happens in three minutes, she's not going to have an orgasm. She's not going to be sexually responsive to you as the years pass because she's not getting what she needs, which is sex on her terms: slow and seductive.

Playboy: You've also said that a woman should give her husband a blow job whenever he wants one. Is that actually realistic?

Gray: I recommend it because a man should never have to go off and masturbate in the shower.

Playboy: The only women we know who give sex on demand are the ones (continued on page 120)When No Doesn't Mean No(continued from page 72) paid by the hour.

Gray: Women make a big deal out of a two-minute hand job. Two minutes! That's all it takes. It can make the guy's day, make him feel happy, and it can save your marriage. But she wants him to do something for her, to clean up or do this or that. She's pissed off because she's not getting what she wants, and she's using that as an excuse for not getting him off. But she'd get more of what she wants if she would take the time for a quickie. And I'm not talking just hand jobs. He'd resent it if all he got were hand jobs. How about a blow job? Or intercourse. A quickie. What's the big deal? Sometimes I pick up everything at the cleaners, take care of the kids, and she goes for a walk. You do things for your partner.

Playboy: What if the woman is simply too tired?

Gray: That's an excuse, complete baloney. That attitude ruins marriages.

Playboy: According to the women we know, it isn't baloney. Women have other demands on them, and sex isn't always the highest priority.

Gray: If she can't imagine doing a quickie, she should give him a blow job. If nothing else, a hand job. It takes two minutes.

Playboy: You've said that a few times. It usually takes more than two minutes.

Gray: The point is, everybody's needs should be met, and sex should not be neglected. Do you want to know why there's so much violence? Men are out of work; women are competing with men; we have new expectations; we have more pornography; we have more romantic novels; we have unrealistic images of what's real. But the bottom line is that a lot of men want to have sex with their wives, but their wives don't want to give them sex. They've always got reasons: "I'm bloated. I'm sick. I'm having my period. I have a headache." Any somewhat sensitive man is going to go, "OK, well, I don't want to make you have sex if you don't want to have sex." But this has all been in the past 30 years. I'm not talking about a woman who is abducted on the street and raped. I'm talking about a woman who's married to a man. The man goes out and risks his life for this woman. He works hard for his family. What does she do for him? She has sex with him whenever he wants. That's what sex used to be. Sex was always for the man. What's this sex-for-the-woman thing? Now, I'm all in favor of sex for the woman, because women are discovering they need their orgasms. It takes 30 minutes for them to have a real sexual experience. How do you have sex for 30 minutes every day in a busy life with kids? You don't. But you can do two minutes whenever the man wants sex. I tell my wife that I sometimes can't sleep because I'm so horny, but I don't want to wake her up. "Oh, honey," she says. "You should just come to me. I'm your wife. That's what I'm here for." Thank you, God, that I married this woman. Women are now brainwashed with all this feminist stuff: "I didn't get my 20 minutes of clitoral stimulation. How can you think about penetrating me?" It's OK. I'm not against it. Women should have great sex. It will make better marriages for men. Sometimes you go slow. Sometimes you take 30 minutes. Sometimes you have a romantic evening, an emotional getaway, a romantic getaway, and you have great sex. That's all making sure she gets what she needs. Other times, what a man needs is zero to 60 in four seconds. He needs his quickies, and what a gift to give him. Men are simple.

Playboy: So what do you have against masturbation?

Gray: If a man has a partner, she should be a part of it. She should be happy to love him to whatever extent she can.

Playboy: Won't women be the ones who are resentful, then?

Gray: They will be if the whole deal isn't done. That means once a month he has to take her away and romance her, plus they have to have half-hour sex at least once a week, so her basic sexual and emotional needs are met. Her superromantic needs must be met once a month. I mean, I don't think that it's realistic or possible for any man to stay attracted to his wife if he doesn't take her to a hotel or at least get out of the house and have sex with her someplace else. They have dinner out, or maybe he makes dinner for her and she feels like she's being waited on. She's special, she's the jewel; he creates the setting. She gets that once a month.

Playboy: You're talking about married men. How should single men satisfy their sexual needs?

Gray: Men are angry because they aren't getting it and it's advertised everywhere. It looks as if everybody is getting it, so why isn't he? Why is he meeting women who are saying no or wanting to wait? That makes men angry because they feel they're not getting what they need. My message to those men is to not have sex. They can sublimate that energy into creativity--music, writing or sports.

Playboy: Married men should get all the sex they want but single men should go jogging. Single men must hate you.

Gray: You need to take that energy from the sexual center into your heart and head, and you will then have the charisma to attract a woman into your life. You have to move it to make yourself more attractive. If men aren't getting it, I tell them: OK, use that energy. Masturbation is fine, but some people masturbate excessively. If you're masturbating that energy away, you're never going to build it up so you become magnetic. It sounds unscientific to say people become magnetic, but we all know there are magnetic personalities. We know there's a force of attraction between men and women.

Playboy: And you actually believe that men get magnetic personalities by not masturbating?

Gray: If you sublimate your energy, your urge for sex lessens. That energy moves up into the heart and head. On the other hand, it can be addictive to have sex with women you don't love. The sexual energy doesn't go up into your heart. Your energy is actually depleted. When the natural urge for sex comes up, you're attracted to women you don't love. I don't want to be too idealistic and tell a man he should have sex only with the woman he wants to marry. But I suggest you wait until you at least feel love for her--when you realize she's a quality person who resonates with your good qualities. Then have sex with her. I've talked with guys who say, "I can't stand her, but she's great in bed." If you keep having sex with people you don't connect with emotionally or mentally, you'll lose your ability to be attracted to the right person.

Playboy: Are you suggesting monogamy for everyone?

Gray: Most people who aren't in a relationship are looking for one. Sure, there's a time when you are young and want to play around and experiment. But eventually you will want a mature relationship.

Playboy: But some men are happy being single.

Gray: I hear all the time from men who have been happy being single but no longer are. These men want something more--something deeper. But they can't get it.

(continued on page 159)When No Doesn't Mean No(continued from page 120)

Playboy: What advice do you have for them?

Gray: A lot of men have been having purely sexual relationships for so long that they can't commit. Men who can't commit are the ones so many women complain about. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life single, the first thing you have to realize is that you want to commit. For the man who pursues women, sleeps with them and then loses interest, my advice is: Don't go all the way for a while. I counseled a man who's 38 years old and wants to be in a committed relationship. He's been in one relationship after another. He loves women but can't commit; he has a fear of committing. I said, "If you want to commit and don't want to spend the rest of your life single, you have to say, 'I want to commit.' You have to feel like you want to do it. How? You meet the next woman and fall in love with her. But don't go all the way with her. Just say to yourself, I'm not going to go all the way until I'm ready to marry. If you try that and it doesn't work, say, I'm not going to have sex until I get married. Put that condition on yourself. Tell the woman, 'I have a tendency to sleep with someone and then lose interest. I'm not going to do that anymore. I want to get to know you first."' I asked what he thought. He said, "It's probably good advice. Most of my relationships have been sexual and that's all. They stay superficial. I never really get to know the woman or become friends with her." He hit the nail right on the head. The energy stays down in the sex center; he never gives it a chance to come up into his heart and head. When it gets into his head, when he feels attracted to a woman mentally the way he's attracted physically, things will change. If he always uses that energy physically, it won't get forced up. If he doesn't have sex, it will. There are other reasons why it isn't forced up. He may have been rejected by his mother, so he's afraid to really love a woman. You can probe it psychologically or take the tested route: Just don't have sex. If you feel the need for release, take a cold shower.

Playboy: Earlier you said that a woman should take care of all her husband's sexual needs. But almost every enlightened sex therapist says that masturbation is healthy--even for married people. Do you really disagree?

Gray: Every time you masturbate alone, you're leaving out your partner. Why masturbate if you have a healthy marriage? Certainly there will be times when your wife is not in the mood for sex and you want it. You might feel frustrated, so masturbating may be all right. When I have to, I can masturbate, but I do it thinking about my wife.

Playboy: And not, say, Teri Hatcher or Alicia Silverstone? Do you really think a man can't be in love with his wife and also have sexual fantasies about other women?

Gray: It's probably fine to a point. But if you're married, you want sex to stay inside the marriage. If at all possible, you should share your sexual energy with your partner.

Playboy: How about when you're not together?

Gray: You call her on the phone and masturbate together. You have phone sex.

Playboy: If you disapprove of masturbation, do you frown on pornography?

Gray: Too much of anything becomes unhealthy. For certain personalities, too much exposure to pornography can become addictive. There are different degrees of addiction. If you're masturbating to pornography too much, then you lose your ability to get turned on by a real woman. You can get turned on only to a fantasy. Plus, with women in pornography, you're catching them at their best age, airbrushed, with perfect lighting. It's not real but it certainly emulates something real.

Playboy: Can't it also be a harmless release?

Gray: Sure, but some men develop unrealistic expectations. Pornography can set up in men an inability to have a serious, faithful, monogamous relationship--because real women can never live up to these expectations. For a married man, it can make it so you are no longer turned on by your wife. It looks as if these women in the movies and in magazines want to have sex, but then you go home and your wife or girlfriend doesn't necessarily want to. You get angry and become even more obsessed with sex. It all goes against a good relationship. I've learned to direct my sexual energy into my wife and keep our relationship vibrant instead of building up resentment and turning off to her. When my wife takes off her clothes, I'm ready for sex in a second; she turns me on that quickly. It goes back to my message for men: Women need to feel special and beautiful. How will my wife feel if I'm getting off on images of other women? Will she feel special? In moderation, pornography is fine. You look at a woman's body; it creates erotic feelings. Great. Now go home and make love with your wife.

Playboy: How about single men? Do you discourage them from getting off on pornography?

Gray: No, but they have to know that they don't need a beautiful model to generate those feelings. Pornography gives us a taste of what we want and motivates us to get it. A picture can generate those feelings. But if a man is masturbating to pornography too much, it can prevent him from going further in a relationship.

Playboy: That certainly goes against the prevailing wisdom that pornography is harmless for adults.

Gray: But if we didn't have an economy and people got whatever they wanted, most of us wouldn't work. Look at the sons of rich men; many are losers. Not all, but most. They never have to do anything. You have to do something or you don't rise to the occasion. The energy is there, and if you always release that energy sexually, why risk getting involved with a woman or getting married? It's a huge mess if it doesn't work out--the alimony, your life is ruined, you've got kids. So why should I risk that if I can satisfy myself alone? Because you miss out on the richness of life. There's no doubt that creative people channel their energy. A lot of them are lonely people. Loneliness creates the best writers. And they're not masturbating. They agonize and they write about their agonies, and they create these incredible masterpieces because they're sublimating their sexual energy.

Playboy: Are you saying that creative people shouldn't masturbate, either?

Gray: Well, you don't have to be celibate to be a creative genius. But you have to be able to bring up that energy. You can have sex, but if that's your only outlet for creative energy, then you're going to get lazy and release it only through sex.

Playboy: Besides to refrain from masturbating, what advice do you give to men who haven't had luck in relationships?

Gray: There are a lot of sensitive guys--let's say considerate, since "sensitive" has a negative connotation--who give up when a woman isn't instantly interested. The guy who gets her is the one she wasn't interested in but who kept pursuing her.

Playboy: Are you saying that no doesn't mean no?

Gray: Yes, when it comes to pursuing women for relationships. My wife is my soul mate; I saw it in her, but she didn't see it in me at first. I pursued this woman. I wouldn't take no for an answer. I was obnoxious--I'm not normally an obnoxious guy, but with her I persisted. Women can't resist it after a while, because they need to feel special. Women, regardless of how liberated they might be, enormously appreciate men who initiate a relationship. At my singles seminars, women have said things like, "If a guy persists in getting to know me--even if I'm initially uninterested and say no several times--I begin to feel so special that I eventually say yes." If you're willing to put in that much energy and take that much rejection, even if she's not interested she will at least give you a chance.

Playboy: We're suspicious of this advice. There are many stories of men relentlessly pursuing women who reject them. Some waste years.

Gray: Of course there's a limit. If you pursue for years a woman who isn't interested, you've gone too far. But at the first stages of dating, no doesn't mean no. No doesn't mean no when it comes to asking her out. No means, "No, and let's continue talking about it." If a woman says, "I just want to be friends," take it as an invitation--there's potential for a sexual relationship. That means there's some mental intimacy going on. Now you have to be attentive to her for a while--woo her, romance her. You might open her heart, which will open her sexuality, and you'll find she'll be your soul mate.

Playboy: In the current sexual climate, isn't it dangerous to tell men that no doesn't mean no?

Gray: When it comes to sex, no does mean no. No doesn't mean no in terms of pursuing a woman for a potential relationship, but it definitely does in terms of sex. In fact, you've got to watch the signals long before that. It used to be that a woman felt safe making out with a guy; that's often all she wanted to do. Now, though it may still be all she wants to do, he starts wanting to push it. The woman says, "Whoa! Wait a second!" and he feels led on. He's wrong. It's normal for women to want to go slowly. It's normal for women to want to cuddle and kiss and wait to go all the way. So when she says no, listen. It's only when it comes to asking women out that no doesn't necessarily mean no. It's actually not a good signal when a woman wants to jump into bed right away.

Playboy: A lot of men want women to jump into bed with them.

Gray: But it's not a good way to start a relationship, partly because of the way a woman responds to it. She wakes up the next day and either has the morning-after syndrome--what am I doing here?--or, more commonly, feels emotionally needy. It's because she had sex before she was ready to have sex. Some women think the way to get a man's love is to do what he wants. What man is going to say no? She may not be ready to have sex but does it because it causes him to want her. But if there's nothing in her heart for him, she will feel hungry. She then will push, and he'll retreat.

Playboy: How do you counsel men who feel unattractive to women?

Gray: If a guy feels unattractive because women don't respond to him, he's going after the wrong women. He has to figure out why they're the wrong women. Maybe he's trying to get a woman who looks a certain way because it's a status symbol, but she's not really the right woman for him. Eventually a man should stop longing for women who don't want him and learn to long for women who do. He will find such women by getting to know them, intellectually and emotionally, before trying to make it a sexual relationship. Women at first may not seem attracted, or they may not even think they're attracted, but if you open their minds and their hearts, they will next want you sexually. Women often don't know what they want.

Playboy: No wonder many feminists attack you.

Gray: In therapy sessions and workshops, I hear from women who consider themselves feminists, who have not had fulfilling relationships but want one. In many cases, they've bought the line that women are supposed to be like men. All I can tell you is that they're very open to what I'm saying. They say that when they pursue a man, he doesn't commit. Well, men like being pursued, but then we don't commit.

Playboy: On the other hand, a man may well enjoy being pursued and may end up committing to a woman who has pursued him.

Gray: For a man to commit to a relationship, he has to find the part of him that really wants the woman. That he pursued her, and succeeded in winning her over. When he feels that success, that "I did it," then he has the confidence to make the commitment. I didn't invent this--it's in our genes and in our hormones.

Playboy: You say that age is a factor in sexual response in women. How about for men?

Gray: Hormone levels change. As a young man, you don't even think about having sex; your testosterone level is up, you get an erection and you know if you have sex you're going to climax. Once a man is over 40, he starts becoming more like a woman.

Playboy: We're not sure we like that statement. More like a woman?

Gray: It's a fact that he begins to have lower testosterone levels and he needs certain things that women need--fore-play, to go slower and more gradually. The important thing is that the man understands it. Since he never needed fore-play before, he assumes his penis isn't working. He's not about to lie naked in bed with a woman when it's not up. But he has to learn to. She may have to rub it awhile before something starts to happen. She might even need to give you a blow job while you're still soft, gently pulling on your penis, massaging your testicles, moving your thighs, touching your nipples and your chest. To a certain extent, you're more like a woman. You need the foreplay, and then--boom. The penis comes back.

Playboy: What's your view on other forms of sex--on sadomasochism, for example?

Gray: On one level, anything consenting adults want to do together is fine. But as a therapist who wants people to have healthy relationships, I think too much of this stuff can be harmful. I want to teach people what will make their marriages or relationships work. Certain kinds of sex are like dangerous drugs, and certain kinds of sex are innocent. The fringe of what couples experiment with may be beyond the innocent. Indulging in sadomasochism is a form of backward therapy. A man who wants to be dominated, for example, is acting out his neurosis and getting some release. It's not going to heal him. I would rather see him get well. It may take some type of therapy.

Playboy: Do you have anything against group sex?

Gray: In general, it's a male fantasy. Women didn't invent that fantasy, OK? I have counseled couples who are in swingers' groups and the woman invariably says she does it to please her husband. Well, here we go again: Women need to feel special. She wants a monogamous relationship with a man. Is she going to feel special if he needs more than one woman? The reason he wants to involve other women is that he has lost his ability to stay attracted to his wife. But the more he uses other women to turn him on, the less he has the ability to be turned on by his wife. And it increases the problem. It's another symptom of men and women with low self-esteem. It is not natural. Go back in history, when there were harems. That was different. They certainly didn't have romantic relationships; they were not trying to achieve what we're trying to achieve today, which is real intimacy. And to achieve real intimacy, it takes one on one. From that we can experience an altered state of life that is better than any other. It can happen if two people learn to grow together in love. But if you need another woman every time, forget it. We're back in the Dark Ages.

Men are angry because they aren't getting it and it's advertised everywhere.