Recently, a girlfriend was telling me about the best sex of her life. Did her story involve a roaring fire and strawberries soaked in champagne? Hours of foreplay with her boyfriend lightly kissing her kneecaps while Josh Groban played in the background? Not exactly. Instead, it went something like this: After heavy flirtations at a party, she and her guy had just walked through the doorway of her apartment when he suddenly grabbed her from behind and told her how hot she was. Bending her over a hall table, he hiked up her miniskirt, yanked her panties down, and went at her. It was feverish,  gruff,  dirty—and a huge turn-on. She said it only took five minutes before they both collapsed in a satisfied heap on the floor. 

Based on my own experiences, I can’t say I was surprised. And in talking with other women, I’ve recognized a trend. For years men have been conditioned by bullshit gurus like Dr. Phil and books like The Sensitive Guy’s Guide to Sensitive Love to get in touch with their gentler, more romantic side in the bedroom—or, more accurately, to get in touch with ours. But somewhere along the way (maybe around the same time men started showing up at our salons for biweekly waxes), attentive sex morphed into...wimpy sex. Last February one Seattle woman got so fed up with all the sexual kowtowing that she resorted to posting an angry rant on Craigslist that was picked up by dozens of blogs and viewed by thousands. The title: “Just fucking fuck me, already.” A sample line: “We’ve been kissing for a half-hour and your hand keeps grazing my ass. That’s nice, but it’s time to move forward. Get on top of me.”
The ultimate truth:Every now and then, what women want in bed is for our men to be men. That is, rather than spending five minutes breathing on our earlobes, waiting for us to guide your mouth elsewhere, be decisive; take control. Of course, there’s a way to be aggressive that’s incredibly sexy and a way to do it that’s creepy and terrifying. In the name of bringing maximum pleasure to her and minimum jail time to you, I’m going to teach you the sexy way—with the help of an army of women all clamoring for a return of the manly man.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?
The first thing to understand about rough sex is that it isn’t really rough; it’s passionate. The subtext is that we’re so unbelievably sexy that you have to take us however, whenever, and wher­ever you want. After all, the hottest sex is rarely sweet—it’s primal and animalistic. And while romance certainly has its place in the bedroom, elaborate stabs at it can sometimes come off as strained or even silly. “After a day of exchanging dirty e-mails, my boyfriend called to tell me he couldn’t wait for me to get home that night,” says Carly*, a 28-year-old grant writer. “I expected him to attack me the second I walked through the door, but instead I found him waiting in the bedroom with about 30 candles lit. He handed me a glass of wine—rosé, no less—and then proceeded to strum his guitar and sing a song he’d written for me. I prayed I was having some kind of waking nightmare, but no. It was real.”

Even when it comes to what you ask of us in the bedroom, we secretly hope your base desire is for the fast and furious over the slow and soft. “I once asked my boyfriend what his favorite thing was that I did sexually,” says Audrey, a 27-year-old copy editor. “He said, ‘I love the way you hold me.’ He might as well have tucked his junk between his legs while he was saying it.”

When it comes to turning her on, sometimes a display of raw aggression can go much further than gauzy romance. “It’s my boyfriend’s attitude during rougher sex that turns me on the most,” says Charlotte, a 31-year-old fashion buyer. “He’s more demanding, he flips me around in different positions, he talks dirty. The whole thing is so different from his usual sweet demeanor that I love it.” As with borscht-belt humor, the key here is all in the delivery. When tossing your girl around like she’s a rag doll, don’t ask permission. “Turn over so I can look at your ass while we do it” is a far cry from “Honeybear, would you mind turning on your tummy so we can do it from behind, please?” But don’t try taking the same liberties outside the sexual arena. Suddenly bossing your woman around the Piggly Wiggly won’t win you any points when you get home.