Do guys already know all they want to know about sex? Are men not interested in becoming better lovers?

If you considered the attendance patterns of my sex skills classes, you might think so. Women flock to my sexual improvement classes, but men show up in much smaller numbers. Other presenters, organizers and various venues report similar results.

Take my “JoyStick Secrets: How to Thrill a Man” class. Whenever and wherever I teach it, this class sells out quickly. The women attending are lively and eager to participate in the exercises. Sure, many are nervous if they’ve never been to an adult sex-ed class, but they’re willing to give it a try. Fearlessly, they grab their zucchinis and stroke away, and suck and lick the lollipops to the bare pulpy stem. They banter with me and the other women in class about sexual mishaps and moments of awkwardness. When introducing new skills, someone in the class will invariably ask, “Do men really like that?” and other women will respond with their own experiences. They’re involved and seem invested in improving their own sexual skills, their lovers’ pleasure and their shared desire. They sit comfortably with one another, supportive and delighted. After class, the participants tend to linger, exchanging ideas and jokes with other women or to engage me conversation about some in-depth technique questions.

Women are really into becoming sex goddesses and making sure their guys know that they can make some serious gasket-blowing sex magic.

On the other hand, when I teach “How to Eat a Peach: Pleasuring Her,” men sign up in slow dribbles—and sometimes, women outnumber the men. Some of the gals are there with their male partners, some are there to learn how to better pleasure themselves, still others come to learn how to better please other women. The gentlemen who attend tend to be quiet and serious about the exercises, and aren’t prone to much banter or mutual comments. They’re absorbing all the advice with 100 percent sponge-like attention. They are the few and the brave, it seems, fully invested in becoming super lovers and thrilling their partners. But what about all the other guys?

Women and men talk about sex differently in the company of their own gender. While men do talk about sex, it’s qualitatively different than how women discuss it. We women get down to the nitty-gritty and talk about details. We talk openly about what we don’t understand and our challenges. We swap information on what works and what doesn’t, while offering sympathetic support to one another. We dissect our lovers' performances with a certain cool analytical detachment. This is not how I’m told men talk about their sex lives with other men—which may be part of the problem.

Sometimes, I get the chance to chat with the guys that come to meet their ladies before or after “JoyStick Secrets” or other similar sex skills classes. I’ll mention the “How to Eat a Peach” class to them. They smile broadly and tell me proudly that their bedroom skills get no complaints and they don’t need such classes.

But, in every city and town I ask my female students how the local male lovers rate. From Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis to London—so far, none of the men in any cities have been given the resident women’s unconditional seal of approval to skip sex ed.

What I have noticed is that the minority of men who do come to the classes, especially those who attend “JoyStick Secrets” class with their female partners, have a markedly different demeanor about sex than the self-proclaimed bedroom stallions. These guys appreciatively smile at the homework I assign the women. They have knowing grins and expression of studious insights on their faces as they listen to the inner most thoughts of the female students rarely shared in public. They have a confidence that seems to express their satisfaction in getting more out of the company of women than what the ordinary blokes are getting.

Primatologists recently found that the male great apes who find ways to spend more time in the company of the females, grooming and playing with them and sharing in seemingly female group behavior, had more success in mating and offspring production than their male counterparts engaged in territorial competition behavior against other males. In other words, boy chimps that hang out with the girl chimps get laid more than the burly chimp dudes beating their chests at one another.

This primate strategy also seems to work quite effectively among the hairless primates known as Homo sapiens.

Curiously, the gender balance shifts when the class gets more gear and tech intensive. Classes on kink skills that have lots of working parts and require technical finesse tend to get a lot more guys attending than women. What baffles me often, however, is that sometimes the questions seem more about the equipment stats rather than how to blow her mind with amazing skills. Many guys ask about the technical pros and cons of one tool over another, its features, benefits and joys, as if their object of lust is the gear itself, not the gal. I love the guys who ask the questions on how to get into a woman’s head and turn her on beyond belief using the tools of play.

It’s not what toys you have, but how you use them, that separate the gods of pleasure from the boys with toys.