Men offer romance to women in order to experience eroticism; women, in turn, offer eroticism to men in order to receive romance. Many women want to feel desired by their partner. When she does, she transforms the love she experiences into romance, and then into the eroticism that follows — and ideally, she reaches both romantic and erotic pleasure.

For many men, a sexual stimulus alone may be enough to experience erotic pleasure. But because of her emotional and physical makeup, a woman often becomes ready for sex more gradually. For a man, being ready for sex can be as quick as striking a match; for a woman, it is often like striking two stones together to create a spark and start a fire. As this metaphor suggests, many women need effort and time.

For a woman to be ready for sex, her partner needs to prepare her. If he approaches her romantically and emotionally before sex, and satisfies her sufficiently during foreplay, she can open up to him with all her desire and passion. In other words, both partners share the return on that effort. And let me be clear: men should not read this as pressure or a duty. In fact, it is a journey of discovery that multiplies the pleasure for both.

What I really want to talk about here is "emotional touch." A woman's preparation for sex doesn't begin only in bed, with foreplay. It is a process that lasts all day — a sweet message, a tender glance, or lightening her mental load.

The most common mistake men make is selfishly focusing only on their own erotic pleasure, seeing their partner as an object, and treating the act of pleasing her with nothing more than his sexual organ as a task.

Such an act is hardly real sex. It is sex in which neither the woman — nor, in fact, the man — can experience maximum pleasure. It is utterly superficial, utterly bland. Real sex begins the moment two souls and two bodies meet at the same frequency.