I had a laptop disaster over the weekend (Mac says the crash was caused by old liquid damage, ouch. No more wine while writing.) Anyway, I got a brand new computer today, and am up and running once again. It’s good to be back and I learned something important during this period: I’m not indispensable! The discussions continued without me, which is so great. Let’s dig in.
Mating, romance, sex and love are inherently strategic. Our strategies are designed to solve particular problems for successful mating. Though modern conditions of mating differ from ancestral conditions, the same sexual strategies operate.
David Buss, Professor of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
It didn’t surprise me when there was pushback from sex crazed feminists on last week’s post about Jaclyn Friedman seeking encounters on Craigslist. What did surprise me was the absolute tenacity with which Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon demanded to know how many sexual partners it takes to make a woman a slut. Like a dog with a bone, she growled and defended her turf, wary and distrustful of an interloper who dares to question, much less refute feminist orthodoxy.
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/20164716797"]
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/SusanAWalsh/status/20165520286"]
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[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/SusanAWalsh/status/20165715041"]
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She belabored the point again in her rebuttal:
We got into a Twitter battle over this, and I kept trying to get Susan to define a “slut” for me, based on the universally understood idea belief that you’re a slut once your Number gets over a certain point.
While I suspect that she was trying to bait a trap, so that she could proceed to deride my definition, she lent validation to the concept that sluthood can be achieved after one has climbed (or descended) a ladder of sorts. If sluthood is a good thing, a badge that feminist “badasses” proudly wear, then they must need a metric to know when a woman has met all of the requirements. She needs to have been sufficiently indiscriminate in her choice of sexual partners in order to claim membership in that hallowed sisterhood. When I suggested that for women who want relationships, casual sex may not be the best strategy, Marcotte replied:
[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/20168205799"]
Apparently in the femosphere, having a lot of casual sex is a way of communicating that you are confident, and sexy, and have no needs, or at least not any that might be fulfilled by a male. I believe there are less risky ways of getting that message across.
The Sexual Double Standard
Sexual promiscuity has always been a real issue for women. I’ve written about this previously, in The Sex Risk for Women That No One Likes to Talk About. Known as the double-standard, invented and perpetrated by patriarchy, feminists refuse to accept it, which is entirely their right. However, ignoring what is largely a matter of biology is erroneous. The double-standard has historically served a very important purpose in sexual relations, namely that of decreasing false paternity claims, which cost men dearly in emotional and physical resources. Indeed, jealousy is believed to have evolved as a means of discouraging cuckoldry:
“Jealousy, experts agree, is a survival mechanism, although what is most at stake is a matter of debate. The most destructive of passions—it is a leading cause of homicide—and the least studied, it is, like all emotions, born of necessity, with roots deep in our evolutionary past. Its purpose: to help maintain intimate relationships.”
This explains why men have always placed a premium on sexual inexperience when selecting for long-term mating. American men, in selecting among 67 desirable traits, ranked sexual faithfulness and loyalty #1. According to The Evolution of Desire (Buss, 1994):
“Studies demonstrate that women’s preferences for short-term mates include availability as a marriage partner. They strongly resemble their preferences for a husband: kind, romantic, understanding, exciting, stable, healthy, humorous, and generous with resources. In other words, women have high standards for both short-term and long-term relationships, or at least that’s how we’ve evolved thus far.
Conversely, men select for very different traits when seeking short-term sexual partners. Compared with their long-term preferences, men don’t want casual partners who are prudish, conservative or have a low sex drive. In contrast to standards for committed relationships, for short-term sex they want: sexual experience, including promiscuity, and a high sex drive.”
These evolved differences mean that historically, men have not been shamed for having many sexual partners, and indeed they benefit from social proof when women observe their success in attracting other women. In recent years, as the ratio of casual sex/relationship sex has increased dramatically on college campuses, there has been a backlash of sorts, with women indicating that they find extremely promiscuous males unattractive and unworthy. The study is explained more fully in my post It’s About Time: The New Reverse Double Standard.
Men’s natural preference for sexual faithfulness and loyalty in women means that many will reject women who exhibit behaviors that contraindicate for that. A woman’s sexual history serves as a proxy, or indicator of future behavior. It is not perfect, but men can and do make use of this information when selecting partners. This does not mean that a promiscuous woman cannot find a mate, but it does mean that the pool of men from which she may select has shrunk dramatically. A woman may say, “I would never want a guy who felt that way,” and that’s perfectly legitimate. Still, it’s important that she understand the effectiveness of various sexual strategies in mating so that she may make informed decisions.
It’s also true that a woman who is expending energy seeking and engaging in no-strings sex is not wholly available for a longer-term relationship. Halfwaying it always exacts an opportunity cost and distracts from the long-term objective.
Promiscuity is a poor strategy for women who seek a long-term relationship, or life partner.
Other Negative Characteristics of Sexual Promiscuity
Aside from evolved male preferences, there are other risks associated with promiscuous sexual behavior. Most of these apply to men as well.
1. Increased prevalence of STIs, compromised fertility.
2. Research shows that 20% of men and 41% of women strongly prefer dating to hooking up.
“Women more than men seem to want a relationship. They fear, both in dating and hooking up, that they will become emotionally attached to a partner who is not interested in them.
Men more than women seem to value independence. They fear that even in hooking up relationships, which are supposed to be free of commitments, a woman might seek to establish a relationship.”
When those hopes fail to materialize, there is often some degree of emotional distress. Over time, a repeated pattern of post-hookup avoidance makes young people cynical and jaded about relationships.
3. Research shows that children of divorce are more likely to engage in no-strings sex, and to avoid relationships. They hook up earlier, more frequently, and have sexual intercourse during hookups earlier.
4. Risky sexual behavior may reflect genetic personality traits, including a high degree of risk-seeking, high degree of extraversion, and high degree of neuroticism.
5. The use of copious amounts of alcohol before hooking up is commonplace. Indeed, both women and men indicate that they drink heavily in order to summon the courage to hook up. Alcohol use is also a primary factor in sexual assault.
6. Hookup sex is generally rated as lower in quality by participants than relationship sex, due to lack of intimacy and knowledge of one’s partner. This is more true for women, obviously, as men often express that “The sex wasn’t great, but there was lots of it!”
7. Marital stability is correlated with the number of pre-marital sexual partners:
“Consider the 2003 study of over 10,000 women which found that as the number of non-marital sexual partners went up, the probability of marital stability went down. For example, once a woman has had 5 sexual partners, the probability of pulling off an intact marriage dips under 30%; it is under 20% when the number of sexual partners reaches the upper teens.”
What is the Magic Number?
How many cupcakes can you eat without gaining weight? How many sick coworkers will it take to make you ill with the flu? How many drinks does it take to make an alcoholic?
It depends. It’s not an exact science. It’s not one-size-fits-all.
The right number of sexual partners for a woman will depend on a variety of factors, including:
- age
- personality traits
- family history
- relationship history
- relationship goals
- life goals
Some women feel badly about hitting double digits. Others celebrate with a round of tequila shots. Some women are embarrassed to be virgins, or to have had only 1-2 partners. Others love the dopamine high that comes with impulsive, risky, or even dangerous behavior.
Some men object to 5 partners. Men with a great deal of sexual experience themselves may consider 20 rounding error. Some men will judge sexual history depending on the nature of the relationships. As indicated above, men prefer promiscuous women with a high sex drive for short-term mating. If that’s your goal, you should have no difficulty in getting all the casual sex you can handle. If you hope to marry or cohabit and possibly have children, you should understand the tradeoffs so that you can make an informed decision about which strategy you wish to pursue.
In closing, I will share one last thought. This excerpt from the post Marcotte linked to really pissed her off and led her to call me a liar. It’s #15 of the 20 Reasons You Don’t Have a Boyfriend:
Your number is too high. OK, fine, you don’t want any guy who cares about how many people you’ve slept with. Problem is….that’s most guys. You don’t have to tell anyone your personal data. Just be aware that when you’re making the rounds within a certain community or group of friends, word gets out fast. I don’t think there has ever, ever been a guy who got laid and didn’t tell anyone about it afterwards. If your number is high and that fact is well known, you have every right to find a new pack of males and reinvent yourself.
I’ll stand by this. Your sexual history is your personal business. You are not obligated to share it with anyone. I’ll preempt the guys right here who claim they have a surefire list of “slut tells.” If you’re a woman who has been trolling for sex online, that’s bound to come across in a myriad of ways. But if you’re feeling regrets, or like you may have overindulged, there’s no reason you can’t change your behavior and change your life.
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Asking how man partners makes one a slut is like asking how many ounces are in a yard. It’s not about a number. It’s about the meaning behind the number.
As you know, I’m squarely on the side of sexual freedom for women. But from a psychological perspective, there’s a difference between advocating the legal and cultural freedom to be promiscuous and the emotional advisability of doing so. As with most things, it’s context dependent. For instance, I know women who have been on vacation and hooked up with a hot guy because hell… it was definitely short term, it was uber-romantic, and it had been a long dry spell before then. Good on you.
On the other hand, there are women who jump into bed with the first guy who asks to help them hide their own dissatisfaction with their lives, or their low self esteem, or something like that. That’s bad news.
Is the girl who really wants a relationship but keeps choosing asshole alphas a slut? Probably not, even if she’s had sex with ten or twelve of them. Her intention is to get a relationship out of the deal, and she’s just choosing poorly. Is the girl who makes a habit of banging sports stars just for the street cred a slut? Very possibly. Why is she doing it? Is it part of a strategy of high self-esteem and self-actualization, or is it making up for some perceived deficiency?
This leads us to another question. Is it possible for a woman to have a really high number — say, 50, and have gotten to that number while pursuing positive emotional goals? I think it’s extremely rare if it’s possible. Perhaps within an alternate community, like swingers, or something like that, it’s possible. I don’t know. Never been a swinger. But for the average woman, we have to wonder what kind of self-actualization comes from that many short term encounters.
Thats the real problem I have with the so called liberated and promiscuous woman. They for some reason dont understand that biology warrants that men want to make sure that women arent easy or promiscuous so they have a better chance of passing on genes. They just dont wnat to accept that the opportunity costs for being a hook up is that you may never be seen as a wife.
I wonder if she is capable of understanding that men are different from women.
“Well, that’s a straight up lie. Lots of men fall in love with sluts, especially since sluts don’t have that desperate vibe.”
It’s such a clear case of projection – men DO NOT CARE if the woman has a desperate vibe. In fact, if they want to fuck her, they’d be glad she does. Same goes for confidence. We don’t like clingy women not because they are desperate for sex (whooray!) but because they will suck in all our time and energy. You may be a world class slut and still become clingy if you feel that your men has “long-term potential”. It’s completely unrelated.
Women dislike desperate men because they assume (rightfully) they don’t get laid. Men don’t care if you get laid. A lot of men are put off (not to be confused with “intimidated”!!) by an overly sexual woman, too. Not everybody likes sluts, some men actually want to have a warm/protective/patriarchal feeling towards their women, and being a sexually aggressive slut can be a huge put off.
@Hamby
Is the girl who really wants a relationship but keeps choosing asshole alphas a slut? Probably not, even if she’s had sex with ten or twelve of them. Her intention is to get a relationship out of the deal, and she’s just choosing poorly.
Hamby, I think this is a really important point. Intentions matter. And I do think men know perfectly well than any young woman can be taken in by a cad or two. But for good men who are already on the defensive about cads cleaning up, this becomes problematic very quickly. Many would say that they’d rather hold out for a woman who learned that lesson very quickly. Choosing cads 12 times – that tells me a woman is not learning from her experiences, and that signals decreased LTR fitness, IMO.
@pops
It’s imperative that feminists deny biological differences between the sexes. Without that underpinning, the whole theology tumbles down.
@Susan
I think you hit the nail on the head. A woman who needs to fail 12 or more times to learn something is not the kind of person you can trust in a long-term relationship. I mean, if you touch a stove and it burns you 12 times in a row, you’re just a fool.
This is part of the issue with the promiscuity thing. The other part is just playing the odds. If my girlfriend is good at keeping her legs closed, I know she’s less likely to cheat on me. If she’s not, she’s more likely to do so, purely from a numbers perspective.
Or, as I have said once or twice before, being a slut for a woman is like being unemployed and living in your parents’ basement for a man.
@Reinholt
Good to see you! I have learned a great deal from the men here about their view of female promiscuity. It’s not something one sees covered in the mainstream media, and I believe that many women just have no idea that men will hold it against them when considering an LTR. It’s clear that while men will often try to escalate, if they really like a woman they’re hoping she will hold out. Several guys have said that a woman’s behavior wrt sex early on determines whether she goes into the LTR pile or the fling pile. It’s very difficult for women to comprehend that a man will make moves, while secretly hoping you’ll not allow it.
n=0. Say you have a woman who’s slept with n guys. She finds a guy she likes. She holds out. They start getting serious. She gives in. It’s goes well. Then it doesn’t. They break up. Rinse and repeat: n=n+1.
Even with the best of intentions, eventually some guy is going to start holding your “n” against you. You get depressed. You die alone.
This blog just makes me sad sad sad. Seems like none of us ladies can do it right. Either your number’s too high, or too low, too old, or too young, not pretty enough, too pretty, not smart, too dumb. What do you men want anyway? And how do you explain the droves of people that get married and live happily ever after every gosh darn day?
@Chili
If you read what the men on this site have to say, it’s not all that complicated:
- Be trustworthy and responsible.
- Don’t sleep around or cheat.
- Keep yourself in shape.
- Be pleasant to be around.
That’s not a complicated list.
With regard to some of your other points: men don’t mind women who have had a few partners. Men mind women who have had a lot of partners, or have been irresponsible about it. If you had good reasons and dated for two years, I won’t hold it against you relationship-wise if you slept with someone. If you banged someone you met in a bar last night, I will. It’s not complicated.
Lastly, there are healthy marriages (most of them start young and don’t sleep around first), but the number out there are declining by the day. The younger demographic is simply not marrying as much as they used to, so my advice is start young and get real about who you can marry and what you want to do about it.
Choosing cads 12 times – that tells me a woman is not learning from her experiences, and that signals decreased LTR fitness, IMO.
Yeah. So in function, there’s little difference between a girl who’s been suckered into a “slut number” and a girl who’s slutted her way there. Both are seen as bad risks for guys looking for a LTR. Whenever I’m contemplating a relationship with a girl who’s had lots of partners, I want to know the specific reasons why she’s had so many, and I want to be well convinced that I am not likely to be a stop on the way to wherever she’s wandering. In other words, I need to see that there’s been a wholesale change in her such that she doesn’t need or want to pursue that lifestyle anymore.
Can someone comment about “grudge fucking”? I’ve heard this argument from one of my guy friends. It’s basically an idea from the opposite side of the fence. A guy is interested in a girl, but because she waits too long to give it up (according to him) and makes him “jump through hoops” by taking time to get to know her and spend time with her without being sexually satisfied, he’s no longer really interested in her as a person because he’s annoyed. Now he just wants to screw her and leave her when she finally does have sex with him.
)?
.
How often does this happen? Does it only happen when a guy’s in general not looking for something serious or can it happen during the dating process that a girl gets put into the GF category (grudge fuck, not girlfriend
@Verie: I dunno how much it happens during the hunt for a real GF, but any guy that would do that isn’t good bf material, so it doesn’t matter. It definitely happens in Playerville. In fact, sometimes guys use annoyance as a way to guilt a girl into sex, and then think less of her when she falls for it, which makes them uninterested in more than a one time thing.
Great trick, eh?
Hey Susan
This is my first time commenting on this blog so I hope this isnt too long(I just need to rant). But I’m a sophomore in college and I want to date and hopefully get into a relationship but its soooo hard because it seems nobody wants to be in a relationship. I had sex with two people and regret each of them. Im one of those girls who feels depressed after hooking up if theres no emotional attatchment. But I guess I didnt know that was me until I tried it. I thought I could do it but I really couldnt. And then I started to like them when I didnt even like them that much in the first place. And even though I dont hook up with them or speak to them I still feel a little broken from those experiences. I guess you wrote this blog from girls like me. And then Im also trying to figure out my sexuality. Im struggling between bi and gay and have been for years…before I even had sex. And I would like to date a girl but its soo hard to find girls to date. I dont know whos gay and who isnt. lol. oh well. Yea…I just had to vent about that. Whats a girl like me to do?? But I eventually came to the conclusion that I might just have to kick it solo until I find someone who wants the same things I want. It sucks. But it gives me a piece of mind and I wont be broken.
I’ll stand by this. Your sexual history is your personal business. You are not obligated to share it with anyone.
Agreed (operative word being ***obligated***)……..but the conversation *WILL* probably come up at some point and the guy will probably ask….and then you have 3 options:
1. Tell him it is none of his business which is a de facto admission of a high number or past “slutty” behavior.
2. Tell the truth.
3. Lie.
Frankly, many guys are going to want to know in the context of a potential LTR/marriage. Really, I see nothing sacred about keeping one’s sexual history some sort of secret. For a LTR/marriage, I would want to know the person’s financial history and job history as well (generally speaking slutty spendthrifts with poor credit and a spotty job record probably aren’t the best future wives). If I am going to buy a used car, I want to know everything about it prior to purchase. If I am just going for a test drive, I couldn’t care less.
Generally speaking, I think #2 is the best option, and if it becomes a dealbreaker for the guy…well….then it wasn’t meant to be. But again, this gets back to the one of the messages I think of this post which is if you want marriage and kids with a quality guy who has options you’d better think very carefully about what sexual path you follow in your 20s.
#3 could work tactically, but carries the large risk of the truth eventually getting revealed. Depending on the situation and context, this could be enough for the guy to break it off, and then you’ve wasted alot of time.
I’ve been with my GF now for 4.5 years. We just moved in together last week, and I will most likely marry her at some point (she is wonderful). Very early in our relationship she revealed she had a one night stand (although her overall number is low). This rattled me because it made me question the judgement/assessment I had made of her character. However, she spent her ENTIRE 20s as extremely obese with ZERO male attention, and then lost all the weight in her early 30s (she is a solid 8 now). As she lost the weight, she started to get male attention she never got and made some mistakes. Ultimately, I got past it and it became a non-factor. As a side point, former fatties who lose the weight and turn hot are prime targets for player types. They don’t have bitch shields, and unlike hotties from the teen years aren’t tired of male attention to their beauty. They are particularly responsive to the neg but I digress.
What’s my point? I think telling the truth is better, and maybe some explanation will make the guy understand the behavior. Again, this only matters if you actually think this is a guy you could be with very long-term and desire a LTR/marriage with.
Well, that’s a straight up lie. Lots of men fall in love with sluts, especially since sluts don’t have that desperate vibe.
Read this, then read it again, then read it again, then read it again. Amazing stuff here because you have a feminist essentially admitting the Gamers have it EXACTLY RIGHT.
This is clearly classic female projection. She is projecting what she finds attractive onto men of course being absolutely clueless to men’s brains and biological instincts…but this sentence could essentially be rewritten:
“Lots of women fall in love with players, especially since players don’t have that desperate vibe”.
BAM. Right there is the most important thing for any guy to internalize. You can’t come across as desperate which unfortunately many betas/omegas reek of. A guy told me many years ago when I was first learning this stuff “THE HUNGRY DO NOT GET FED”.
Of course, men could care less about whether a woman is desperate or not for a short-term sexual interaction. Shit, if you could find a hot women who was desperate (most likely impossible) that would be the ideal for a guy who just wants to get laid.
It’s clear that while men will often try to escalate, if they really like a woman they’re hoping she will hold out.
This is so spot on. I think I mentioned this before but I think you could think of this as the male equivalent of a “shit test”. You want to see what kind of resistance the girl puts up when the sexual pressure is applied.
I was skimming the Game the other day, and I think you’ve read it. There is that story early on where Style is hanging out with the one guy and they get the girlfriend of the guy to come back to the place and the guy with Style basically just sticks his dick into this girl with a boyfriend with basically no resistance.
I think women are biologically wired to sexually submit to a male they perceive as high or higher status. I’m thinking about conversations I’ve had, and I am thinking back to a grad school situation where looking back I have ZERO doubt I could have fucked this girl the same night I met her (my conscience activated as I was in a relationship at the time and once we got to a certain point I was like I can’t do this). Interestingly, she specifically mentioned she had seen me in the gym all the time so I already had status before that night. About a week later, I ran into her and she called me out for trying to play her like a “slut”. Funny thing is I am close to certain she is NOT yet I have no doubt I could have fucked her that night. And I attribute that entirely to the perceived value differential (she had a pretty face but was chunky and when I was in grad school I was in the best shape of my life, probably only time I was a 9).
What’s my point? I think guys have to have some confidence that if they are in a LTR/marriage that they can trust that if their partner encounters a super high value male with really tight game, that she isn’t just going to spread em. I think testing how “easy” a girl is gives some indication of that.
Can someone comment about “grudge fucking”? I’ve heard this argument from one of my guy friends. It’s basically an idea from the opposite side of the fence. A guy is interested in a girl, but because she waits too long to give it up (according to him) and makes him “jump through hoops” by taking time to get to know her and spend time with her without being sexually satisfied, he’s no longer really interested in her as a person because he’s annoyed. Now he just wants to screw her and leave her when she finally does have sex with him.
.
How often does this happen?
I think this is a rarity because honestly only borderline sociopathic guys would engage in this type of thing. I think the vast majority of guys even player types have some basic level of respect for a girl who is being authentically chaste (only sexual partners in a LTR). I think it was you in fact that mentioned that some of your player friends were actually very respectful and protective of you and your choices.
I think where this “grudge fuck” might come into play is with a “reformed slut”. In other words, you’ve got a girl who has engaged in a ton of casual sex, banging the guy on date 1, 2, or 3, and then all of a sudden she is going to make guy A wait 3 months, 6 months for the same thing she previously was handing out right away. This will piss a guy off for sure, and make him feel like she is trying to play him. In this situation, I’d probably be inclined to the “grudge fuck” myself. It’s like you go to a store and you see 10 people buy something for .05 and then you go to purchase and the price has changed to $100. You are going to feel like you are getting ripped off. Maybe you just walk away, and maybe you try to pull something on the store.
The thing that gets me about certain sex pos feminists who keep insisting that reckless casual sex is good for women is that they consistently refuse to listen to the male viewpoint. Men commenting in this blog, and men I have encountered in real life have consistently said that they value a woman with a lower number of sexual partners for LTRs. And yet it would seem these sex pos feminists think if they repeat their mantra about reckless and rampant sleeping around not being damaging to women amongst themselves often enough, it will come true.
@Chili
I understand your frustration. The truth is, the sociosexual environment is pretty harsh. Women (and some men) are frustrated in their inability to find healthy and committed relationships, at least during college and in the years immediately following. This blog is an attempt to tease apart the social influences that make it so difficult and offer concrete suggestions for improving your chances of getting what you want. It’s also meant to inform – sometimes there is no easy solution, but we’re always better off with more information rather than less, in my view.
For women, that means fully understanding what men seek, which pretty much amounts to cues indicating fertility. It’s also important to understand what women seek, which heavily emphasizes social dominance – this can and does get many women derailed, as they prioritize social dominance and minimize the importance of a man’s character.
I believe that when things aren’t going well, we have no way of improving our lives unless we understand where we’re running into trouble, or shooting ourselves in the foot. So it’s natural that many of my posts will identify and address those trouble spots. It is a bit depressing, but at least it gives you a way of exerting some control over your own life. You don’t have to do anything – but if you’re not proactive, then you’re bound to be an unwitting victim of the culture.
Re all the marriages happening, I agree that’s real. It is true that the marriage rate is declining, but the truth is that most Americans will still marry, though the rates are closely tied to socioeconomic status. I spent yesterday at the Science Museum with my brother’s children, and it was packed with young families. Thousands of parents and children. There is no reason a woman can’t have that if she wants it. She just needs to not waste her youth and beauty on cads. She should also seek out men who are approaching the age when they might consider commitment, 25+. Obviously, that’s impossible in college, but not forever.
Undoubtedly, some of these couplings turn into relationships, and eventually marriage. I always wonder how the woman will feel about the way the relationship started. It’s not exactly courtly behavior. Once a guy invited me over for a first date – swimming and bbq’ing at his apt. After dinner, he grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him toward his bedroom, very confident and knowing. I balked. There was no way. He wound up angrily driving me home, acting petulant and sulky the whole way. A few days later he called to apologize profusely and ask for another chance. I did go out with him a few more times, but I would never have considered him for an LTR.
@Chrissy
Thanks so much for sharing your story. It is very hard, and it must be exponentially more complicated if you’re figuring out your sexuality. However, you’ve already figured out what doesn’t work for you, and that is critical. I love how you say you won’t be broken – that shows strength and determination. You’re in it for the long haul – just remain true to yourself and your needs while you figure things out. As for finding gay women, that’s bound to be tough in any given class, but there are always active LGBT groups on campus. College is the probably the easiest place to meet gay women, so check it out. Student Health Services or Counseling should be able to direct you, but I think most schools have that information easily accessible online.
@Mike
I keep thinking about that guy who wrote in to the Boston Globe, having recently learned that his very serious girlfriend had a number of 36. He was devastated by this information, and clearly seriously considering ending the relationship. They’d been together for a couple of years before the subject came up. Nearly all of her partners had been in college, and she is now 26. She explained that she is “reformed” but he was having a lot of trouble getting past it.
I’ll be honest here. If I were her, I would not have told the truth. If I’d achieved real understanding of what promiscuity had meant for me, and changed my behavior 4-5 years ago, I might know that I was a good LTR bet. If that history is enough to derail the relationship, then perhaps truth is just going to make them both miserable.
There is always the risk of discovery – I’m reminded here of the movie Best in Show where an old boyfriend asks Katherine O’Hara (in front of her husband) if she can still do that crazy thing with her legs, and reminds her of the time they had sex on a roller coaster.
There’s also the burden of keeping the secret for a lifetime – I would find this very difficult, so that must be weighed as well.
This is why women should NOT EVER flirt with other guys when they’re trying to lock it down. Indicating the desire or need for male attention, despite that fact that you’re getting it from one guy already, is a clear disqualifier for men. I think women often want to keep proving to the guy they like that he would be lucky to get them into a relationship – “Look how many guys find me attractive!”
In reality, she’s telegraphing that she is a woman likely to induce constant feelings of jealousy, at least for a guy who isn’t a player. I’ve read that men will dump women who make them feel jealousy – even if they really like her. It’s just the worst feeling imaginable for men.
@ATS
If feminists admit that there are biological differences or preferences between the sexes, the whole theology falls apart. If we have sex differently, that means our brains are not identical, and if that’s true, then I’m worried you’re going to claim women are no good at science or math. Etc. However, there is so much solid science on this now that hanging on tenaciously to these views is just digging them deeper and deeper into a hole. There’s already some defecting going on in that camp, and I believe it will get worse. This will require them to become even more strident – eventually winding up in a Munch Scream.
@Mike
Interesting. I took this to mean that men will avoid women who signal any desire for a committed relationship. They don’t want a “Stage 5 clinger” so they happily have sex with women who appear not to care. Pity them if they do fall in love with such a woman – it’s exactly the same as women falling for players. However, research shows that players hook up primarily with promiscuous women – in which case, no one is falling in love. Marcotte’s claim makes no sense.
Whether it was a one night stand or serious relationship, the number still counts the same. The only difference is whether it detracts from a girl’s ability to bond to a man or signals her propensity to cheat.
5 is my absolute max for a serious girlfriend.
@Verie44
Grudge fucking doesn’t happen that often, because well it requires a grudge. And grudges are hard to generate, but it still happens. I have done it personally and felt really shitty about it afterward. From that experience, I learned that it’s generally better to be vocal than passive aggressive… and it is a passive aggressive move. You can generally achieve the same “revenge” affect with words sans the guilty feelings.
Guys don’t begrudge a woman for “too long”. That’s a myth. We might complain or look elsewhere, but we won’t go into grudge fuck mode. We begrudge a woman who sets bad sexual expectations and makes us feel used/manipulated and strung along. The recipe for a grudge fuck is as follows: A woman sends lots of mixed signals… over time… regarding her sexual availability to a guy and then doesn’t follow through. In my case, in college I had a woman make very overt sexual comments towards me that were both direct and indirect. She took her towel off in front of me, commented on my “nice” legs, and made suggestive remarks about a couple of drawings that I had made for art class. Anyway to make a long story short, I visited her (9 hour drive) during a spring break a couple of weeks later and for whatever reason she didn’t want to seal the deal. So fast forward 7 months and she calls me and we hookup in DC. I definitely made sure the experience was frustrating, yet at the same time very memorable. I didn’t call her afterward, so of course a few days later she called me. I didn’t answer. She made more calls and left a couple of voice mails, but I ignored them all. I saw her at a friend’s wedding last year and we apologized to each other non verbally with a big hug.
Here’s a few helpful suggestions to keep you from being a target.
1.Do not make a bunch of erotic remarks around a man with whom you spend a lot of one on one time… unless you are gonna go to bed with him. You can be bawdy in a group, but not during coupling.
2. If you like to wait weeks/ months/ years before having sex, then always go Dutch.
3. If you like to have NSA sex with folks from craigslist DO NOT tell your male friends about it.
@Chrissy
You’re not broken. Experiencing negative experiences is how we learn.
@SusanWalsh
You know I dislike it when you use quotes as “evidence”, particularly from blog entries that don’t even include citations to the studies they quote as backup to their assertions.
@Average Joe
Interesting that you call grudge fucking a “myth” and then explain how you did it yourself.
It’s so strange that Amanda Marcotte puts such a high status on quantifying a “slut”, and pinning it to an exact number whereby if you are one below you’re fine, but one above you’re labeled. This is the problem I have with a lot of feminists I see in the media – they seem to have forgotten some core essential points about feminism. They’ve lost sight of the value of finding freedom to be who you are and be authentic and instead are hell bent on setting up paradigms and ideals and insisting everyone MUST be this way to be “properly liberated”, thus undermining their own liberation.
She seems to be entirely missing your point (or at least what I believe to be your point) that who-gives-a-crap-about-”slut”, what matters is how YOU feel. If you feel good about yourself and feel in your heart you’re doing the right thing, then that’s fabulous. Go for it. If what you’re doing makes you feel badly about yourself, then STOP. It’s not about a number, it’s about the reasons behind an action and whether you can feel proud of yourself the next day. It’s not about what anyone else thinks about you; it’s about how you think about yourself. You’re not “freaking out about women having sex”; you’re watching out for the ones who do it for the wrong reasons and end up hating themselves after. [Meanwhile they seem to be saying "Ignore how you feel" or "you're not feeling the right way about this" - not a very girl-positive or sex-positive position.]
The part I found so utterly sad about the Jaclyn Friedman piece was that she said she was using sex to fill an emotional hole in herself – except it sounded like she thought that was a positive thing (I did just skim the thing, so I might have missed something). Well, that’s clearly unhealthy and tells me at least how utterly lost she is. Not because she used sex. But because she was using sex to fill a hole. You can take out sex and fill it with anything: food, alcohol, shopping…it’s still unhealthy. And it still fails to fill that hole. That’s because sex is NOT the answer. If it were, that hole would be filled. I think she mentioned there was some early trauma in her life. What she needs to do is start there and start being honest.
I think the reason Marcotte (and others like her) get so upset about that is the same reason some religious fanatics get so upset at any disagreement about their worldview – that somewhere, deep down, they know something about it is bunk. If you’re truly secure in your beliefs, it won’t matter to you what others think or say. But instead, they seek conformity for a sense of validation.
About LTRs and your number, I think the key issue at root is if you feel you’ve made good choices for you (or if you haven’t, you’ve at least learned from them). The key point is whether you’re comfortable with yourself. I think, most probably, the number is just a symptom, a signpost, that people use to determine the risk of a relationship (one among many factors). If everything else in the relationship is solid and there’s true love, a high number is not something you can’t get past, after some truthful and open conversation (including your reasons and lessons learned, if any). In any case, if you’re going to start a LTR/marriage with a lie about this, it doesn’t bode well for your ability to get through major problems later with honesty. Part of the point in marriage is that you know the truth about each other, and even faced with the truth, you’re willing and ready to commit.
@Aldonza, Average Joe didn’t say it was a myth, just that “waiting to long” as a cause for it was a myth.
@ Ellen
Thank you.
@ Aldonza
please go to what Ellen said.
It’s not a number. It’s not even exactly how you ‘feel’ or how he/she makes you ‘feel’, precisely. Sure that certainly helps. Everything & everyone. But that part of the neurological & limbic system is our most very basic. It can be and has been easily fooled in the past. Witness the ‘make-up’ & beauty industry empires. Why do they exist? Because some of this stuff does work. And even on the margins, that’s seen as somehow ‘significant’.
It’s all about your ability to make choices in your life & how well you’ve done this in the past. A woman or man who’s constantly & forever ‘unlucky in love’ has several handicaps perhaps. The most benign might be a streak of ‘bad luck’. Among the least benign are those who continually happen to choose to be or are inevitably attracted to dangerously abusive and/or uncaring partners, again & again. If you as a woman are inedibly drawn to those ‘bad boys’ or had a decade or so of ‘playing around’ with them to sow your wild oats (or whatever other rationale there exists for same)? That says something about your maturity & your readiness for adult life. Sorry about that. Ditto for the cads slutting it up on their end. Sure as socially constructed the guys are not going to be as sanctioned for this behavior as are the females. But there’s plenty of good sound biological reasons for that too, and BTW? If you’re looking for the Dads & Not the cads? Their numbers are accordingly fractional by way of comparison.
So again no hard numbers. And feelings can ever be elusive guides to life & ‘character’ even. But what are your choices saying about YOU? Can you explain all what has gone on to Granny/Uncle/Momma at the family picnic? (Not that anyone actually asks anymore in most families!) Can you rationalize it to yourself w/o using silly excuses? (But he/she looked so damn hot/cute/’doable’, that was a ‘one off for the month/year/week, but he/she was a banker/broker?!) That’s what it’s all about. Are your choices healthy for you. Not for the moment, but in the context of the rest of your life? Slutting it up? Sure it’s fun for everyone. But long term? The only advantage that might accrue to anyone is the slight pick up in temporary self esteem & orgiastic release perhaps. There’s little possibly upside here other than fodder for racy adverts & the ever occasional yes, ‘inconvenient’ but fatherless child. Which BTW? Can also be a blessing for many, strangely enough. Not that I’m recommending it for anyone. Cheers, ‘VJ’
I find it really hard to believe that people like Amanda Marcotte don’t understand short-term mating drive vs. long-term reproductive investment. Just because you get a boner for a girl you know is promiscuous doesn’t mean you want to be with her on a long-term basis.
I’ve noticed a greater tendency to conflate the sexual drives with regards to other topics as well. I recently read an article on the cuckoldry/hotwife niche—some third rate scientist said that because some men get aroused after after hearing their wives have cheated on them, they should ignore their anger and mental anguish and welcome being cuckolded because ‘Hey! It obviously turns them on, right?!?!?’. Apparently, the notion of engaging in “sperm wars” as a strictly short-term strategy to mitigate the wife’s infidelity completely eluded her. It’s really the same with the whole apparent taste for sluts some men display.
As for those men who fall in love with and marry sluts, I have no doubt that a minority of these men are really fine with it. But most of these men have bought wholesale into their feminist social conditioning, and have become so brainwashed and so lacking in self-awareness they are confusing their short-term drive for these women with suitability for a long-term investment. And the facts bear this out, as study after study show that more promiscuous people (of both sexes) are much less likely to be faithful. For a wife, that means your husband will probably banging other women…but for a husband, that means he will be investing in and rearing children that are not his own without knowing it. The stakes are just so much higher for men.
Statements like, “Lots of men fall in love with sluts, especially since sluts don’t have that desperate vibe” really just make it clear that a significant men have been conditioned away from knowing what is in their best interests and are now confusing their short-term preferences for their long-term desires. Which has been the point all along.
About grudge-fucking—it’s really only reserved for women who are known to give it up easily, but hold out for some reason. I know a few guys who have done this—they were with a girl they heard was easy and for some reason she made him wait a few weeks or months….when he finally got in there, he just hit it & quit.
So, yes, it does happen.
Eh, I don’t think so highly of this. If he asks her point blank, then he is entitled to an answer. Maybe the answer is, “I don’t want to tell you”—-which is what I hope you’re suggesting she say as opposed to giving him lower, fake number.
It really isn’t for you to decide whether or not you are “a good LTR bet”, that’s for your potential partner to decide. This is true for men & women, btw.
@Aldonza
Huh? Are you talking about quotes from Buss’ Evolution of Desire? I cited that in the post. His bibliography is chock full of sources. Or are you talking about places where I said “research shows…”? In those cases, the link to the source is in red type. I don’t believe there are any “quotes” here that are unsubstantiated. If so, I would be happy to provide the source.
@Jade
I agree. Jaclyn Friedman did feel badly – in fact, she described feeling physically ill after her encounter. Instead of sitting with that admittedly bad feeling, she sought a way to soothe herself as fast as possible, without any introspection. Her goal is to make the bad feeling go away, rather than investigate what choices might result in good feelings. This is bad enough when doing it to oneself, but I believe that many women emply the “misery loves company” strategy. If they can all be in it together, no one needs to acknowledge what a disaster it all is. They can just keep saying “We’re awesome!” to one another in a big circle.
@VJ
This is actually an excellent approach, in my view. Are the people who love you most going to be on board with your choices? The feminists like to say that “oldies” like myself just don’t have a clue about sex and relationships. They also are convinced that there’s a conspiracy among us to ruin the fun for women still fertile and beautiful. I was accused of jealousy by quite a few commenters over at Pandagon.
The truth is that sexual dynamics have not really changed in 10,000 years. Yes, the sexual marketplace has changed, but the things that motivate men and women to interact and mate haven’t. Young people are trying hard to figure out what the other sex wants, and the older people in their lives usually have quite a bit of insight into this. They will certainly have a sense of when something is “off” or not in the best interests of their loved one.
@dragnet
I’m not familiar with the term grudge fuck, but it seems to me it’s any sex where you feel an active dislike or antipathy toward the other person. It can be done to exact revenge for someone else – the whole karma’s a bitch thing. I remember the story you told about hooking up with a woman who had been really rude about another guy, and enjoying blowing her off after that.
There’s also hate sex with an ex – if you were the dumpee, and the dumper comes back looking to hook up, you could go for it to show them what they threw away, etc. The common theme seems to be the desire to teach a woman a lesson.
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Re my admission that I would have lied about my number to keep a guy, I share your disapproval of the tactic. That’s why I admitted it as a confession. In thinking about what I would have done in her place, I think I probably would have tried to gloss over it in some way. Of course, this is nothing new. Everyone knows (especially sex researchers) that women exaggerate their numbers downwards and men upwards. It then becomes a question of degree, and we’re back to the same question. What number is reasonable? Can you fudge it by two partners? 32? It’s very difficult to know where to draw the line.
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Honestly, I don’t even understand the fixation on a specific number. This was never a question 20 years ago. I have never been asked this question, even by my husband. Nor do I know or wonder about his number. It seems to me that that conversation is almost never useful.
@dragnet
This is a stretch. AM is clearly a highly intelligent woman, and all I can figure out is that her hamster wheel is spinning at 200 mph. Also, she’s in a self-selected group of people all saying this, and all believing that men and women have sex in exactly the same way. This results in an especially noxious form of pluralistic ignorance.
Yes, that could definitely be classified as a ‘grudge-fuck’ now that I think about it. I find it weird you remember that waaaaaay back detail of my sex life, but I guess that’s what I get for posting on the Internets
Yeah—which is why you shouldn’t fudge it. It’s selfish and counterproductive. The best response is really just to say you don’t want to tell them and that it’s not important, or that you made some mistakes and you’ve done a turnaround and that you feel like this relationship is it for you blah blah blah. But fudging really shouldn’t be among the list options if you feel like the other person is LTR material—they’re entitled to a truthful answer if you want to be with them: either the real number or the fact that you aren’t interested in discussing it.
Once again, this strikes me as extremely self-serving, and I’m sure you’re aware of this. The usefulness of the information about promiscuity is really for the other person to decide—it’s wrong to make that decision for them. If you don’t want to answer, then don’t.
And it’s easy not to care or wonder about your hubby’s number after you’ve been successfully married and blissfully happy for decades. When you’re about to take the plunge though, this really is indispensable information for a lot of guys, and I really don’t blame them. The “number” has become more important as women have become increasingly willing to available themselves of all the escape hatches and opportunities for infidelity that abound in our society. These days a guy needs to know exactly what he is getting. The good news is that a savvy guy (a guy with Game) can eventually suss out what kind of girl she is without asking the “number”. The bad news is that most guys don’t have Game.
First of all, I have a memory like a steel trap. My kids have found this extremely inconvenient. Second, that was the first comment I ever read by you. It was on Obs’ blog, and I was quite struck by how strongly you had felt about that woman’s behavior. I remember Obs accused me of having a problem with you, and I realized that I didn’t. I thought your treatment of her was reasonable. That was a significant step in my understanding of the way that men employ Game.
This is really the answer to my question, and it makes total sense. Back in the 80s, people did have casual sex, but promiscuity was not as rampant or widespread in the female population.
It’s not entirely self-serving – if you believe that women are profoundly damaged by each and every casual sexual encounter, then total accuracy is important. While I think that a habit of hooking up casually does take its toll on many women, I am not convinced that a ONS here and there makes much of a difference. Obviously, I’m aware that many men feel otherwise, and that’s the whole point. Women need to understand how men perceive the issue, because perception is reality in this case. However, I do think many women are able to assess their own experiences in terms of long-term effect. Yes, a man has every right to decide a woman is not a good bet, but a woman who has some casual sex and doesn’t feel permanently damaged shouldn’t be told that she is.
In my own experience, worth .02 and nothing more, the casual sex I did have was mostly bad and empty, but it didn’t mess with my head. It just wasn’t worth the trouble.
My advice to a guy would be to take into account his own proven ability to attract causal sex. Given that hook up partners are chosen more on the basis of raw, unprocessed gina-tingles than anything else. If he has often been chosen and dragged to bed by reasonably hot partners a womans higher number should be of much less concern to him than if he rarely were so blessed. When her number is much higher than his the picture suggests that she is looking for something other than hot sex with the guy and that if she were more open about what she was really after the guy would run.
Like, if the mind reading device came up with,”He looks like he always work hard, so I can quit my boring job when I feel like it. And I bet he will stick around even when I can no longer pretend to want to have sex with him.”
@Rum
Though the literature I cited here doesn’t state it specifically, I’ve wondered if part of the problem is that men cannot stand the thought of being with a woman who has more sexual experience than they do. I think this is understandable for a whole host of reasons listed in the post, but also because the guy may have some performance anxiety.
As I’ve said elsewhere I think the Carousel Rider Seeks Beta Provider meme is grossly exaggerated. I think it’s got to be a tiny minority of women who might engage in the cynical reasoning you offer here.
Susan
I think the whole question of the importance or value or impact of “sexual experience” is grossly over-rated. At least when compared to the matter of “sexual desirability”.
If a woman is not attractive while naked to the guy she is with it makes very little difference what skills she might deploy. It might get things over with a bit more quickly but he will still not be more eager to come back for more because of it. Likewise, a shy, needy guy who happens to come equipped with a porn-star package (horse-dick, can go for hours) is likely to completely ignored by the hotties.
Performance anxiety is a complicated subject. I mean, if the woman is not really fuckable, the guy is much better off saying, “Oh, look. I guess my dick has performance anxiety” than “You look like you are carrying a 30 lb cellulite-fetus.” Doing the later could easily get him injured since women are not wired to deal with that kind of rejection.
It has been my experience that about 97% of a woman response to a cock is her interpretation of the rank and value of its owner rather than what it happens to be doing to her at any given time..
@Rum
I would amend that to her feelings about its owner, while acknowledging that said feelings may be directly affected by her perception of the rank and value of its owner. Love of the cock follows from love of the man, never the other way around.
Susan
OK, “Love of the cock follows from love of the man…” Sure, we knew that. But you yourself brought up the subject of the actual performance of the cock itself – I mean, “performance” anxiety says what it says.
I had this girlfriend, once, who would collapse at her knees with orgasmic paralysis whenever I twisted her nipples hard enough. Especially in the toilet rooms of skanky bars.
Rum,
Well, just to clarify, when I said performance anxiety I really meant just a general sense of not being experienced enough, not having all the moves, etc. One young guy told me that after his friends hook up, they’re always talking about how they made the girl scream like crazy and beg for more. He worried because no girl had ever done that with him. Your nipple-sensitive ex notwithstanding, most women won’t put on that kind of a show. I suspect that guys borrow liberally from porn when describing their exploits.
‘If you are female and have a high partner count, you should not mention this fact to your potential LTR male partner, while knowing that this is of extremely high importance to that person.’
I’m not sure if that’s such great advice Susan. Although I do realise that your advice is pitched toward women manily.
Picture yourself as a 35 year old female using her dwindling powers of attraction to find an LTR. Even if the subject never comes up, males are acutely aware of the subject, any man with half a brain will ‘know’ eventually what kind of lady this is. There’s just too many ‘tells’ most of which males pick up without it even registering conciously.
So eventually he’ll know and decide. The possibilities are :
A/ Doesn’t care, has a high partner count himself. Probably the best you could hope for, although her ability to get this guy is somewhat reduced. Unlikely to happen…
B/ Doesn’t care, just wants a woman. The next best you could hope for? IMO it would take a hell of a man to successfully sublimate this most powerful of male imperatives, it would likely manifest itself as recurring jealousy, disrespect and argumentativeness. Coupled with the fact that the female will feel that she is settling somewhat, and having a general lack of respect for that male, it’s a rocky road all round. Despite your words to the contrary, this is an increasingly common occurrence.
C/ Does care, goodbye. Really the girl just wasted that time, nows she’s older, more bitter, and less likely to find what she wants. She should have just said so right at the beginning, knowing, as women do, what a deal breaker this usually is.
I don’t know if B or C are more common in society, but combined, they are the two options most likely IMO to present themselves to the female who, in more than one sense of the word, feels that it’s time to retire.
One last, with modern legal systems practically guaranteeing huge accompanying financial risk for the average male who marries, and in some places the male who cohabits, men are more than ever looking for some show of good faith from the female they are getting to know.
Misleading him about an essential part of your past probably won’t qualify as such.
@Verie, Susan, et. al.
Re: the Grudge Fuck,
I don’t think it happens too often, but it does happen. Some anecdotal evidence:
In high school, a cute girl whom I really liked played me pretty hard, acting interested, but never granting affection nor kindness. She also dated most of the football team. Granted I acted very beta back then, for the most part.
Fast forward about 8 years, I had been working out, and had much success with women in college. I ran into this girl, she looked like life had not been kind to her. But she was sweet and seemed to want to make amends from HS, and wanted another shot. She gave many clear signals of attraction–if I wanted to grudgefuck her, that would have been the time. But I chose instead to just walk away. Better choice than risking an STD or accidental pregnancy.
On the other side, I had just started seeing a woman & had only consummated sexual intimacy a few times, and we went out to a club. There, she proceeded to flirt & grind on a bunch of guys. I already suspected she was a bit of a slut, but her actions & demeanor proved it beyond a doubt. I pulled her out of the club, took her back to her house, we had very vigorous intercourse, and I never called her again. That time, it was about dominance–a refusal to be played in the moment. A GF? Maybe.
My advice for men & women alike in choosing sexual partners: Would you have a child with this person? Because that is the biological imperative of sex, and a natural consequence. If you’re not prepared to have a child with a person, you probably have no business banging that person. Period. This is a tough maxim to follow, but it has kept me out of trouble. FYI, I’m a natural alpha (with recovering beta-pedestalization tendencies in LTR), and my notch count could be WAAAY higher had I capitalized on all of the opportunities I let pass by in following the maxim above. But my notch count would be drastically lower, had I followed that rule all the time. I do what I can do, what can I say.
I hear you. I really struck a nerve with this admission. Here’s the thing. I understand and believe that this information is of paramount importance to men. In that case, men should reflect their use of this statistic as a disqualifier by asking for it early on. In that case, there may be disappointment, but neither party is terribly invested yet. If either one has dealbreakers in mind, the sooner they can be discarded the better. If a man asked me for this information early on, I would probably not hesitate to give it, or if I had a high number, I might refuse to say. However, in the case I referred to, the guy in question had the number talk after two years, prior to getting engaged. I’m not sure how a couple goes two years with no sense of sexual histories, but so be it. It seems a shame, when their relationship was wonderful in every way, that he was ready to end it over her number. To be fair, I wrote a post about it called The Sex Risk for Women That No One Likes to Talk About because many women are unaware how important this is to men. For women seeking an LTR, this is critical information.
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Oh, and welcome, tspoon!
@susan
i always think truth is the way forward. i could never condone people lying about their sexual history.
apart from the fact the truth will probably come out, lying is wrong anyway surely?
@jade
i agree on the idea of choice. however its often difficult to distill true feelings from indoctrination. some women report feeling awful after a one night stand and then develop a real taste for it. shaming is still a part of our society. males sometimes suffer severe guilt over masturbation becuase they were taught it was dirty. AM et al are asking us to throw out old notions and look at life anew. if you only want to have traditional relationships then good for you- if not, also good for you.
ps i 100% agree with your point about arguments and temper loss
@rum
you are not totally right about the ‘hotties’. if a guy gets a good reputation about his bedroom skills he gets to pick the girls. looks are an advantage of course but good press makes you a LOT more attractive. (it works the other way around too- if a good looking guy gets bad ‘press’ with girls his attractivness plummetts)
however with men, looks are paramount- I have seldom heard of a girl being known to be great in bed other than ‘being a bit freaky’. im not sure girls even want to be known to be good in bed gnerally speaking.
@all
i really must call time on this assertion that feminists deny biology. its nonsense.
many feminists have for decades decried the effect of a ceetian male chmeical on socirty- testosterone. the diferences between males and females is a corner stone of feminist theory.
evidence such as 99% of sex crimes being doen by men and 90% of violent crimes done by men is hard to argue with.
orgasms are diffferent for both sexes sure but there are plenty of similarites and arise from identical tissues. And anthropogists are suggesting that females are naturally more promiscuious than males!! go look it up….. so i think that needs to be understood better by the posters here
” It’s very difficult for women to comprehend that a man will make moves, while secretly hoping you’ll not allow it.”
I think you hit on something here. It’s also very difficult for men to comprehend that a woman will pretend to “not allow it”, while secretly hoping that he keeps on pushing the envelope, eventually overwhelming and seducing her into a wild passion, so swept away that she could not resist.
So we have to look at the subconcious motivators behind the odd behaviour of both.
It seems men make moves hoping women will resist, and then stop when they do, because they are subconsciously hoping she is “the one”.
While it seems women resist, secretly hoping he’ll persist, because they are subconsciously hoping to live out fantasies of wild, no strings attached sex.
So actually both of the sexes subconsciously want what the other is supposed to CONSCIOUSLY want.
Weird world we live in!
@Susan
I actually totally agree with you regarding the lie about your number thing. Try to understand it from the girl’s pov, guys. If you have a colorful past, but have been in a stable relationship with someone you really really care about for a significant period of time, why would you throw all that away just because some people have trouble handling the truth? I get that it’s important to guys that a woman “not be a slut,” but if you’ve been seeing a girl for years, obviously you’ve deemed her worthy of LTR material and don’t view her as a slut. So how is asking this question actually going to help anything? It’s a lose-lose situation; a surefire way to start a fight.
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I remember talking to a close (very alpha) guy friend about this subject and this is what he told me: “Basically, if I’ve never fucked a girl and I don’t know anyone who has, then she’s a virgin as far as I’m concerned.” Guys are just not comfortable with numbers. Any number bigger than 0 is another dick they feel they have to compete with, so I do think that the “performance anxiety” you were talking about kicks in.
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And I totally agree that if you’re a guy to whom the numbers question is important, I suggest you ask it as early as possible. That’s the only real way it helps either of you.
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And for the record, when a guy asks me for my number, he always strikes me as really insecure. I’ve never been asked this kind of question by anyone that seemed at all confident in himself. It’s a surefire sign of immaturity to me.
Chili
So, you are walking, talking pump and dump.
Rum, you really don’t know anything of my past.
Ha Ha
The Hamster is about to fall down from over-exertion.
The hard, cruel truth of the matter is that human females are not sentient in regard to their sexuality. They are all drifting along in a sort of coma. If a guy pushes the right buttums, a womams thighs will automatically spread, her pussy will lube up, and she will grind her pelvis hard against the penetrating cock more or less on auto-pilot. She will orgasm; and the next day present the notion that she was not even there. “It just happened” Or, have him arrested. I feel FEEL, like I wus raped.
I assume doing the virgin thing gets harder as you get older–both because of mounting desires and because of an increasingly low pool of men who are used to this. (I’m only 19).
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The only thing that really helps me deal with my guilt is finding some friends to talk about it with and who don’t judge me. My most promiscuous friend is actually the least judgmental, so it doesn’t have to be other virgins. (I live in NYC too, and, really, I don’t know any others). The worst part of virgin guilt is you feel like no one really gets it, but trust me there are people out there who do.
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I’m confused as to why you don’t ask for exclusivity (or at least make it known that that is what you want). You’ll never reach your goal of getting married if you do that, right? Or am I missing something? The guys that did choose to become exclusive with you are not, I repeat, are not, suffering. They chose to do it knowing what they were getting into. Has anyone ever actually broken up with you because you wouldn’t have sex with them? Seriously, you, and I, have nothing to feel guilty about. People have different values and interests, and the key to love is finding someone who shares yours. You may think people having sex have it easier, but they don’t–that’s why this blog even exists.
@Verie44
You just gotta find the right men, but understandingly I suppose those aren’t the ones you want.
Just drop this idea of the man “suffering” if he’s not having sex. Go be in a relationship, but make your limits clear.
I’m sort of stuck on the same boat. I don’t really want a bunch of relationships that I know aren’t going to last, I just want to find the right person for marriage. But in my case, that’ll probably be nearly impossible and I’ll just end up with an arranged marriage.
I’m confused, Susan. My comments get moderated but rum can compare me to a rodent and it’s all good? :p
@Verie,
(1) I think your concern shows a slight misunderstanding of male sexuality. While the sex drive in a man is significantly higher than in a woman, not having sex doesn’t reduce us to convulsions on the floor, burning skin, and screams of pain when you’re not looking–so the word “suffer” is a little dramatic and unhelpful. You’re well within your rights to say when appropriate “I am member of X religion; this is what I think marriage is; this is what I think dating is. If you’re not okay with that, sorry.” If he is, indeed, not okay with that–if he’s the sort of man who would shame or use cheap, passive-aggressive tricks to get an honest woman to compromise her values–why on earth would you want to date him? To answer this question honestly, you must do so with no reference to your “feelings.” Second and third points are more philosophic food for thought. Don’t take them seriously. Although raised in a largely unobservant home, I have–through friends–had a long flirtation with the Christian religion and philosophy of religion is an enduring interest of mine.
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(2) You use words like “need” and “suffer” to describe your forcing these men to be chaste. Apparently, the division in your mind is between your convictions and their needs, without which they suffer. Now, is having sex before marriage wrong because God commands it or does God command it because it is wrong? While God’s command–if he exists (but you believe he does so we’ll just leave it at that)–presumably is sufficient to make something moral or immoral, the question I’m asking raises the further question: why does God command it? In your version of things, God commands it because he commands it. I would urge that the more cogent view is to argue that God commands chastity because his Law is written in nature. Therefore, his commands correspond to what everyman in reality needs. When you force someone to live chastely, therefore, you force him to live in accordance with his needs and, actually, relieve the suffering caused by his vicious manner of life–according to the Christian view, at least.
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(3) There’s a certain tribalism in all religions, and the Christian religion is no different. Check out 2 Corinthians 6:14-18.
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Just my 2 cents. Take it as you wish.
@chili
Sorry, the filter caught you after I’d crashed for the night, but I’ve whitelisted your IP address, so it shouldn’t happen again. As for how the filter works, I have no idea. The most benign comments get held for moderation, while some pretty nasty ones sail on through.
@jess
I think we would all agree that lying is wrong. However, this is not a black and white issue. For example, most mental health professionals who counsel people consumed with guilt over an affair do not automatically condone confession. There are a myriad of factors to be considered. Asking a woman to go through life feeling compelled to offer her number in order to be qualified for an LTR does not strike me as fair or reasonable, in part because of its limited use as a measurement of mental health or character, which is what guys are claiming they need the information for. It’s a fair proxy, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. For example, a woman may have spent 10 years with one abusive partner and be a basket case. The teenage daughter who was kept in her cage and raped by her father for many years only had one partner. On the other hand, a young woman in college may have sex with four guys her freshman year, and learn from that experience that she wants to live her life very differently. She’s not leaving the trade of prostitution, she’s had four casual hookups, just as many of her classmates have, and she’s decided to stop. Is she now required to walk through life broadcasting the indiscretions of her 18th year? One may honestly debate this issue, but if we were all compelled to go through life mandated to confess our indiscretions to anyone who asked, every one of us would be miserable.
@Citizen Gatorade
Welcome!
I won’t deny the rape fantasy – there’s ample evidence that it’s real, and I’ve written a post about it:
http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2009/11/20/hookinguprealities/are-women-hot-for-edward-cullen-psssssst/
However, women fantasize about being taken by force only by men they are already attracted to. Also, most women prefer to keep this as a fantasy. We may enjoy role playing the rape scene, or rough sex, but most women will not actually say no in hopes of being raped. It’s very tricky, the fine line between fear and arousal, and women do not want to forfeit the right to consent.
@Rum
This is so offensive I can’t even begin to comprehend why you think this comment would be welcome here. Save it for Roissy, where you can get all the validation you want for such statements. Ugh.
LOL! That’s good to know! So many women have been made to feel guilty for making a guy endure blue balls! Now we don’t have to worry about it, he really will be OK until he gets home, at which time he can rub one out and be none the worse for it.
@Citizen Gatorade
OMGOMGOMGOMG I love your blog. It is beyond hilarious. Everyone run right over there and read it.
http://citizenlemonade.wordpress.com/
While it pains me to stand athwart this stalwart thread yelling, “Stop! Stop it, I say!” I find that I must.
@ Susan, Chili:
A interesting bit of strawmanship. If you read my posts above, I never intimated that a woman had to offer her number when it was asked, only that she was obligated to be truthful. One way of being truthful is to offer her real number, and the other way I suggested to be truthful was to say that she didn’t think it was relevant and didn’t want to discuss it. Both of those are honest answers, but only one of them reveals her number. I’m sorry to crush your rationalization hamster underfoot, but there is never any justification for giving a false number.
And I, apparently, cannot say this enough: it’s not your call to decide whether something is good enough information for a man to make a decision about an LTR—the decision is his entirely. No, your “number” doesn’t tell the whole story—but if you’ve been seeing a guy for awhile, then he has lot of other information to go on in addition to your “number” so of course he won’t only be considering that. Nonetheless, his information is incomplete without an honest accounting of your sexual history. The “number” in and of itself is not sufficient, but it is necessary. Honesty, not the number, is your obligation.
Once again, this is presumptuous and self-serving in the extreme. The bf has formed an opinion of your LTR worthiness based on incomplete information. If he asks for this additional information, you are obligated to be honest with him. Telling a false number is not honest. Lying to him is not an act of love—it’s an act of selfishness and fear and no LTR should be built on that shaky foundation.
I’ll end by saying that I recognize that this a woman’s site dispensing advice to women, by a woman. As such I understand that these questions are approached from the viewpoint of women. I have no problems with this and am happy to be a guest. But the delusional thinking, presumptuousness and empty rationalizations here were just too glaring for me not to protest so strongly.
“Another question: what would people’s advice be for me as a virgin who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage?”
Verie44,
You get better advice from better detail. Help us help you.
What do you mean by “sex”? Masturbation, 1st base, 2nd base etc? And by “sex before marriage” are you using the strict definition or the Catholic rule?
For my recommendation I am going to assume you insist on nothing but kissing… because any advice that works for just kissing, will surely work for more liberal limits. I also deduce from your comment that the groom’s virginity is not required.
From what I can tell about you so far you won’t need to struggle that much more than any other woman looking to get married. You have the right attitude about being fair & considerate… which especially in the early stages of a relationship will get you lots of points from men.
In essence your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a situation that makes ” it” worth the wait. You can do this several ways.
1. Make the wait short. Don’t expect that a 3 year span between 1st kiss and wedding night is gonna fly. Pick a time frame that males can deal with. Find out how long soldiers deployed are away from their fiancés, find out how long expectant/new dads typically go without some. Select a window based on good research.
2. Make decent picks. Date guys who are in general, extremely patient and hard working. A guy who can rack up 8 years in student loans, before he ever sees 1 dime as a doctor may be a good fit. A guy who just started his own business knowing that he’ll won’t hit it big for 5 years may also be worth a chance. Ultimately you are looking for a guy who knows how to delay gratification in other aspects of his life outside of sex. Date older men. I don’t know how old you are but I would think you are more Verie24 than Verie44. Tina fey’s husband was 34 and 10 years her senior when they wed . She was virgin. Use the age gap to your benefit. Older guys appreciate having a younger woman, and also the novelty of being with a virgin so many years after high school …which makes them more willing to wait.
3. Make his cost low. Go dutch on dates and buy him things. They should be small and personal things. A bottle of good tequila… minor league baseball game tickets. A man will not sign up for 6 months of footing all the bills with nothing but a promise and hope to show for it along the way. It’s much too economically risky. So do what you can to lower his risk of sticking it out with you.
4. Make the journey fun. Satisfaction outside the bedroom is key! When I first started dating my lady, I didn’t mind waiting 3 months for her… because those 3 months flew. She was very successful at making sure I would rather spend time with her than with anyone else on the planet…even without the sex. She’s still just as awesome to me and so I always love tell her friends that I would never leave her because I would need three women to replace her… a comedian, a chef, and a porn star.
5. Make the sex promising…and pace. One of the biggest feminist lies is that a woman must have lots of partners to be good at sex. Well that’s extremely untrue. Some of the best sex I have ever had was with women who all had 3 or fewer partners. Good musicians practice 8 hours a day solo before they even attempt to play with someone else. To be good at sex requires that you put effort into being good as sex. It does not require that you put effort into drinking yourself into a new guy every Friday night.
And it is very import that you show him you are a virgin, not a prude… because that’s the stereotype you will be fighting against. And that will cause doubts. In the beginning talk to him in a very general way about sex in marriage. Highlight the good stuff. If you think a married couple should try to have sex daily, then by all means share that. He will be ecstatic.
If you think he’s a keeper, make him drop you off at belly dance class. Once things get more serious go the beach and let him see you in a bikini. Once you guys are in love (make sure he has said it more than once), have him help you pick out a bunch of new VS panty and bra sets. When he does propose spend as much time with him planning the wedding night as you do the wedding day.
And by all means be sexually prepared for the honeymoon. Figure out if you can orgasm via just penetration or if your body position matters. If you don’t know how to give a good blow job, then get a banana, a instructional video and practice deep some throating. Figure out now if you wanna spit or swallow. Don’t wait till the moment and make it awkward. In short bring your A game to bed, you’ll be married now and so don’t have any reasons not to go all in. The last thing you want to happen is for your groom to have second thoughts about waiting to bed you.
@Average Joe
Good stuff, appreciated. I’m confused about this though: “Make the wait short. Don’t expect that a 3 year span between 1st kiss and wedding night is gonna fly. Pick a time frame that males can deal with.”
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Girls can’t really make a guy propose at any specific time frame, so what do you mean by this?
“[...]I’ve wondered if part of the problem is that men cannot stand the thought of being with a woman who has more sexual experience than they do.”
I’ve found this incredibly true, especially within the Game community. A good deal of the hostility floating around seems to originate from this insecurity, rationalized through evo-psych theory. It’s almost becomes such an inability to deal with the idea on a case-by-case basis, instead becomes a blanket theory.
As for the slut number, while I don’t agree with a good deal of this post, I do believe there is certainly not a universal number that suddenly tips a woman into sluthood. I’ve known girls with a whopping partner-count of five that are more slutty than women I know in the 20s, much less myself in the mid-70s.
I believes this slut idea comes from external expectations internalized, a sort of internal conflict where a woman allows herself to be defined by behavior and stereotypes, rather than who she is and who she wants to be. This is, I think, made even worse by the value emphasis placed on beauty and chastity as being LTR-worthy “selling points” (see above comments made by a few male posters for reference), as opposed to the ideas of honor and intelligence that are supposed to be so valued in very masculine males.
But that’s just my experience.
@ POF
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Also, Reinholt:
“- Be trustworthy and responsible.
- Don’t sleep around or cheat.
- Keep yourself in shape.
- Be pleasant to be around.”
I like how #2-4 is “be pretty, be pleasant, sleep only with me” and #1 is ambiguous on levels of trust and responsibility. Responsible enough to do your laundry? Responsible enough to care for your children? Responsible enough to not overspend at Nordstrom? I’m assuming the trust just goes back to “sleep only with me”.
If I was a straight man looking for an LTR, I would be more concerned with integrity, respect, personal responsibility, and honesty before I was concerned if she hit the gym three times a week and was “pleasant”.
I only bring this up because this goes back to my previous comment, and that if there is an enforcement and expectation of mostly superficial and ambigious values for a little over half of the world population, then we are socially crippling ourselves. Placing value and dateability on a woman’s partner count is reducing her value to her quantified sexual experience and causing commenters like Chrissy to question herself and her own value, causing self-doubt and unneeded internal conflict, after sleeping with two men.
@dragnet
Hold on, your witty originality is causing me to realize that all these years I’ve been lying to myself and have no value or personality aside from being a cock-sheath. Oh, the horror.
Please get out more. Expand your social horizons. Read a book that isn’t mired in your own world philosophy so you become at least somewhat well-rounded instead of living in that bizarre world of MRA-induced paranoia. You’re a smart man, or so you seem thus far. I have faith in your ability to learn and grow.
Ms. Walsh,
your hatred of Roissy is becoming tedious. It really is. I know you morally object to much of what he writes, but come on. You find a guy who makes a lame attempt at parodying him and trolls his own site under false names (because nobody actually reads it) and you think it’s beyond hilarious and everyone should check it out. Oh please.
@Hollenhund
1. I don’t believe I’ve ever expressed hatred for Roissy. That would require some level of emotional investment. I disrespect his views. I respect his intelligence and writing ability.
2. If you find me tedious, I give you permission to stop reading me. No hard feelings.
3. I did not find Citizen Gatorade. He found me, and I checked out his blog. I thought it was funny – it’s actually quite well done, IMO. I have no clue as to his traffic, but it looks as if he has just started blogging within the last month or so. Surely Roissy should be flattered!
@Poetry
Cute strawman argument, but there is a reason I put trustworthiness and responsibility first, not last, and not in the middle. Ignore that as you see fit, of course, but from what I’ve read of you and your blog, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot barge pole, so my opinion is probably not the most relevant for you at this point, no?
Either way, the point is this: everyone has subjective levels for trust and responsibility that they believe are important; you have to understand what yours are, what those of your partner are, and then live up to them. You also need to know what areas matter the most with regard to trust. Failing to do so will torpedo any LTR that you are in. I’m not going to tell people how to make decisions or live their lives; I am trying to provide them with perspective on what I have seen work and what I have seen fail. Everyone, naturally, is welcome to experiment as they wish.
Also, nothing I have said is an unreasonable expectation. You can disagree with them all you like, but that won’t change my mind. It just means I screen you out. Which, in the end, is part of the point and why I wrote this comment: your decisions and your priorities mean that you always make trade-offs. For the peanut gallery, Poetry is an example of a woman who wouldn’t get a second look from me with regard to a relationship, and you can draw your own conclusions from that.
@Chili
I think, if I read it correctly, what Joe is saying is this: neither extreme is good. You cannot be a wild slut, but you also can’t be an ice queen. The trick is to find someone who you genuinely like, evaluate them within a reasonable timeframe as to what real long-term potential they have, and then decide to stay with them or not. A key variable here is if they see long term potential with you as well, because (as you stated) you cannot force someone to marry you or have a relationship with you. Be realistic, be grounded, and be neither grindingly slow nor startlingly fast, and you should be fine. Moderation and reasonableness are key.
You sound like you actually want to listen and figure it out, though. A good start, at least.
“Girls can’t really make a guy propose at any specific time frame, so what do you mean by this” – Chili
Thank you. I’m glad it will be of use. Reinholt’s advice is helpful as well.
Nope you can’t make a guy propose, but the time spend dating (pre proposal) is only part of the total period that he will be without sex. The other part is the engagement (post proposal). And a girl can make that whatever she wants it be. The average engagement is 14 months and that amounts to another year plus without sex. I would recommend no longer than a 3 month wait between the engagement party and a wedding. Doing so will save a whole year. And that’s a lot of time.
In addition, though you can’t make a guy fall in love, a girl does control the incentives to expedite a proposal. And if you have been paying attention then you should be ahead of the game because…
1. You have made him aware that on the other side of the proposal is a lifetime of frequent, mind blowing sex. That’s a great catalyst.
2. You haven’t made this relationship about money. No man welcomes the idea of more debt. The average wedding is 25K, the average ring is 6K. That’s a lot of bacon in a bad economy. If your parents have promised to pay for your wedding, then let him know that at the next one you attend. He’ll feel financial relief. If the two of you must foot the bill, say nice things about people who have small, inexpensive weddings.
3. You have shared your dreams.. in a non pushy way. A man naturally wants to fix, solve and provide. If he knows you want to get married before 30, he’ll pop the question before you turn 29. If you like the Yankees, expect to see a proposal on the Jumbotron during a game seven. Just as well timed pause at the door welcomes a 1st date kiss, a little female proactivity can elicit a proposal. I promise you that if a girl is willing to set up an opportunity to be asked, a man that really loves her will not disappoint.
Just one niggling point that does not detract from some wonderful advice and may just be a personal pet peeve of mine. Going Dutch is tacky and charmless. Dating shouldn’t be 50/50; it should be 100/0 AND 0/100. I invite; you invite. If sex is a part of an LTR it should not free a woman from doing her fair share of the inviting. Presumably, she isn’t having sex to get taken out once a week or so. That would be a euphemistic form of prostitution.
…
And I quote the impeccable Miss Manners, who gives very, very good advice.
Dear Miss Manners,
I am an independent 24-year-old woman. I own my own home and have a career I love. Don’t get me wrong, I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I do well enough to get by. I don’t mind that I usually make more money than the men I date, but it often bothers them.
I have been dating a guy for about six weeks. He is kind and considerate. In all the times we have been together he always pays when we go out, except once that I insisted I pay. I know for a fact I make more money than him, but he won’t let me pay for myself. We usually go on very modest dates to stay in his budget, which I don’t mind. When the check comes, I still reach for my purse, but he never lets me pay. I always say thank you and tell him I had a wonderful time.
Is it appropriate that he continues to pay for our dates? Should I continue to say thank you and leave it at that? Do I insist on paying once in a while? At what point in a relationship do the dating expenses become 50/50? I don’t want to push too hard to pay and I don’t want to hurt his ego, but I also don’t want him to think I expect him to pay all the time.
Gentle Reader,
Sharing starts on the second or third date, but not in the way you frame it. It should be more like 100/0 followed by 0/100.
While Miss Manners appreciates and agrees with your desire to do your share, you are taking a business like approach. And this is a social situation.
Even back when gentlemen were expected to pay all the dating bills, ladies were supposed to reciprocate. They did it by inviting the gentlemen to home-cooked meals and through subterfuge — pretending that they had been given theater tickets, for example. While it is good to have this out in the open, you are attempting to do so by co-opting his privileges as a host and then offering to pay only for yourself.
Splitting things on alternate dates would be 75/25, but in any case is not courtship behavior. “Yes, I had dessert and you didn’t, but your drinks cost more” is not a charming negotiation.
What you should be doing is reciprocating the gentleman’s invitations. This means inviting him for outings that you plan and pay for entirely. The only relevance of your income is you would naturally plan something you could afford. A lady who made less would choose something more modest. The point is not the cost, but the graciousness of offering hospitality. Miss Manners’ guess is that the other gentlemen you mention are not so much bothered by your large income as by your small attitude toward entertaining.
” It still feels really unfair to me that they should have to suffer.”
As others have said…The dreaded “Rules” and the dreaded John Gray would say that they are not suffering at all. The right guy (for you) is loving every minute of it. At first I didn’t agree with this, but John Gray is of the opinion that a man enjoys the challenge, quest, or what have you, of wooing and trying to win the woman who isn’t easy. His frustration may be somewhat more enjoyable to him than he lets on. If it’s not, and he leaves, his loss and he knows it. After all, you, too, want a marriage partner who can keep it in his pants as much as he wants a woman who can keep her pants on.
The Rules says that a little bit of male frustration about waiting is a good sign because it indicates interest. The Rules community also says don’t engage in long makeout sessions or put yourself in a position that a long makeout session begins. That is VERY hard to stick to.
There’s a scene in a stupid book I read, and I’ve heard of other scenes like this, (the one I am thinking of was something like Meg Tilly in a Swing or Something Like That by the author of Watership Down or something like that.) I am mixed up because it was a movie too. By the way the woman turned out to be evil but sorry to spoil it. Anyway she has decided to wait till the wedding night and they start to make out and she says “We have to stop because if we go on I won’t be able to stop.” You can indicate you have a sex drive without pulling out the banana and showing what you are planning to do to a banana on your wedding night.
I agree with the other commenter…be the one he’d rather be with than anyone else on the planet, sex or no sex. Always tell him “I had fun!” John Gray (Vomit, I know) says a man feels like a victor when you tell him you had fun. He feels like he personally wrote, directed, and produced the movie (HURL) Thankfully, my boyfriend really DOES bring the fun so I don’t have to remind myself to say “I had fun.” It’s the #1 thing I appreciate about him. I think women today are so stressed that one of the best things about guys is balancing women out (hopefully while being willing to do the no-fun work of keeping life going too.)
What Average Joe suggests doesn’t quite work that way. Average Joe suggests the virgin be sensually awakened enough to express rrrrowr! she’s looking foward to their wedding night etc. I grew up like this and while there were some who were like that, they were kind of the aggressive ones with bossy personalities. If that’s your thing fine. The demure ones who were a little shy and blushed and giggled at lingerie parties just happened to be the more forgiving, easygoing, friendly, loyal to their friends, you get the idea. Here’s what my ooooold fashioned mother said… “A man deserves to be the one to wake up his princess.” But I personally would not want to live with one of the bossy ones brought up in evangelical sects. There are no shortage of those and they grow up to be the church busybody. Beware! The bossy ones were the very ones who had enough boldness to act like Average Joe said during the courtship.
There might be a few raised like that who are confident to be bold about that stuff at that age, but in my experience, they tended to be the bossy ones who were not agreeable and all that other good stuff.
RE: About “suffering”…
You are correct to conclude that sexual frustration is “suffering”. If you recall it was my own “suffering” that led me to seek a grudge fuck. How did I get back at the “tease”? I gave her lots and lots of stimulation, but no finish. And then I frustrated her even more, by not answering her calls.
“Blue balls” and “Blue bush” both exist and while they won’t kill anyone, arousal without release is really not fun. I had two booty call companions, junior year in college, and one of the main reasons the relationships lasted for 12 months longer than the average college booty call was because I never left either with “blue bush” . And both ladies were very quick to let me know that appreciated it.
Booty calls are great for both men and women … when done properly (they keep her partner count down for starters), but because of condoms, lube, alcohol, and stupid feminist programming a woman’s orgasm is a coin flip. These artificial elements really mess up the sexual process, because they urge students to cut corners without understanding the basics of sex, sex difference and pleasure. It’s like spell check for small kids. It’s bad for them because they never learn how to spell on their own.
With that said, the point of my advice about how to make “it “worth your future husband’s wait is this… just because a man is not having sex with you doesn’t mean he is going to be sexually frustrated. Yes, sexual frustration is “suffering”. But all the hints I gave you previously should allow you to make sure he won’t get sexually frustrated in the first place. So don’t ever feel guilty about not having sex with someone, because his celibacy does not automatically mean he is suffering.
Reinholt,
I’ll easily admit that I focused on the three qualities I consider superficial, but even though you put it first in your list, 75% of what you find desirable falls under the Stepford category. Also, if we’re going in order to establish value, you’re putting their looks above their social company. Which is great for you, I’m glad it works and you’ve possibly found the relationship/marriage/woman of your dreams by those standards, or at least you’ve had enough experience within relationships to determine what works for you. And I’m sure that, if you haven’t already, you’ll find it eventually. It’s wonderful that you’re so open about other people having other value systems and respecting those values, even though they are not your own.
Out of curiousity, though, what four qualities, in order of value, do you look for with your good male friends? The men you look up to or model yourself after? Personally, I find that the qualities I expect from my friends, both male and female, are the same as what I expect from my LTR partners. Are we alike in that regard?
Interesting. I took this to mean that men will avoid women who signal any desire for a committed relationship. They don’t want a “Stage 5 clinger” so they happily have sex with women who appear not to care.
@Susan,
Like most things in this area, I think it is a bit more nuanced. I do NOT think men instinctively avoid women who signal any desire for a committed relationship. Firstly, you’ve got two types of guys (for the most part). Guys who are ONLY interested in casual sex, and guys who are interested in BOTH casual sex AND a committed relationship if the “Right women” comes along. I think want any guy wants to avoid, at least any guy with some sense, wisdom, experience, is to avoid the type that simply wants motherhood and children and is simply looking for ANY guy to play the role of daddy and provider. If you want the Bachelor, there was a girl a few years ago who fit this bill perfectly.
I’ve often thought there was a segment of women, hopefully very small, who on their wedding day, you could substitute a different guy for the groom and they would barely notice. It is NOT about the guy and starting a life together. It is about the event, the fairy tale, the “being princess” for a day.
Going back to the “clingy” type, this is usually the type with little self-esteem and sense of self. They define themselves by their relationships. No smart guy wants to be someone’s savior. Ultimately, that is a recipe for doom.
I hear you. I really struck a nerve with this admission. Here’s the thing. I understand and believe that this information is of paramount importance to men. In that case, men should reflect their use of this statistic as a disqualifier by asking for it early on. In that case, there may be disappointment, but neither party is terribly invested yet.
You are probably right on the ethics/morality of asking this early, but tactically/strategically this is a mistake for the guy to make. The guy is trying to ascertain whether the girl is “fuckbuddy”/sex rotation material or LTR/marriage prospect. Rule #1 for a guy trying to have sex with a promiscuous girl quickly is to NOT give any indication whatsoever of being judgemental. Asking this question too early is the “tell” that you are in fact looking to judge her, and thus you disqualify yourself from getting sex. If the guy waits longer, he can get the sex and then try to figure out if she is in fact LTR material or not.
Not saying this is right but this is the game theory at play.
@Susan,
Though the literature I cited here doesn’t state it specifically, I’ve wondered if part of the problem is that men cannot stand the thought of being with a woman who has more sexual experience than they do.
Speaking for myself and guys I know, no they cannot. I think though it has to be a huge difference, not a few partners. A guy with 8 isn’t going to be torn up over a girl with 10.
As I’ve said elsewhere I think the Carousel Rider Seeks Beta Provider meme is grossly exaggerated. I think it’s got to be a tiny minority of women who might engage in the cynical reasoning you offer here.
Just curious, out of the population of women who are 30+, never married and no kids, what percentage do you think fall into this group. I don’t know, but I’d bet a huge sum it is more then 1-2%.
@Susan
It’s not entirely self-serving – if you believe that women are profoundly damaged by each and every casual sexual encounter, then total accuracy is important. While I think that a habit of hooking up casually does take its toll on many women, I am not convinced that a ONS here and there makes much of a difference.
I think this does NOT get to the crux of the issue. The primary issue with a large number of casual sexual encounters doesn’t have to do with whether the women is “damaged” or not although that is important. The ABSOLUTELY PRIME IMPERATIVE is to make a determination of how likely the women is to commit adultery once married. Statistics show that female adultery IS JUST AS HIGH IF NOT HIGHER then male adultery now. It strains credulity to not realize that is correlated with the increased frequency of casual sex by women.
Susan, and women readers, and men readers, I would say spend some time over here:
http://www.womensinfidelity.com/
There is a message board out there too where cheating women post their situations and thoughts. A few years back I spent a good deal of time reading there. It was disgusting and terrifying. Fact. Guys have alot at stake in Marriage 2.0. You marry and have kids, and then your wife gets bored and cheats and decides to get a divorce, and now you are financially fucked. The risk is MASSIVE. You absolutely have to try to determine what type of woman you are getting.
I don’t know that the study has been done, but I would literally bet $1 million dollars that higher levels of casual sex show a strong correlation with eventually cheating, and possibly even cuckoldry. That is the main issue at play here, not whether the woman is damaged.
@dragnet
I fully understand the point you are trying to make, and I don’t disagree with it. I want to make it clear that I am in no way condoning lying about one’s sexual history. For a lot of reasons, including protecting oneself and one’s partner from disease. I also agree that it’s fair for both men and women to judge for themselves whether they want to invest in a person who has a specific kind of sexual history. Really, the point I was trying to make is that if we brand every college girl who’s had casual sex with a scarlet letter, and expect her to recite her stats along with her preference for white vs. red wine, we’re setting up a lot of people for disappointment, both men and women.
I did say that I would not tell the truth if my fiance asked my number after two years, and I knew he would freak out about 36. Not having been in the position of either having had 36 partners, or been asked about it, it’s hard to say exactly how I would have responded. I think I would have probably explained that I had a phase where I was indiscreet (which she did), but would have neglected to share the precise number. After that, the chips would just fall wherever. As I stated above, going through life with the secret that you married someone having told them you’d been with 6 men, when the reality is 6 times that, would be a tremendous burden for anyone with a conscience. I would not want to enter a marriage with that dishonesty between us.
While I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I understand the male preference for chastity in a woman, I will also say that I’d be much more sympathetic to a man whose number was low, than one who had had 30-something partners himself. (Yup, steel trap memory.)
@Average Joe
Just want to say thank you for your excellent advice to the women here – it’s both strategic and empathic.
@PJL
I couldn’t agree more. I believe that women have no right to expect men to be chivalrous or provide for them. They should always offer to pay their share, but personally, I think it’s classy when a guy declines. In that case, the woman should pay for the second date, second round, whatever. She should give as much as she takes, cooking dinner, surprising him with tickets, etc. In my experience, when both people are generous, they wind up sharing the expenses and no one feels taken advantage of.
@Mike
As I’ve said elsewhere I think the Carousel Rider Seeks Beta Provider meme is grossly exaggerated. I think it’s got to be a tiny minority of women who might engage in the cynical reasoning you offer here.
Just curious, out of the population of women who are 30+, never married and no kids, what percentage do you think fall into this group. I don’t know, but I’d bet a huge sum it is more then 1-2%.
SW: I think a reasonably large percentage is saying to themselves, “OK, you’ve made some bad choices, time to get serious. Maybe it doesn’t matter so much if he has a thick head of hair, or six-pack abs.” They’re aware of the need to let go of certain requirements, and be more open minded. However, most of them will not be able to do this. They will continue to follow the tingle, and to constantly disqualify guys after one date because there is “no spark.” So yeah, I think that’s a large group. I think a much smaller group, but still perhaps 10% or more, will actually concoct a strategy to snag a beta guy. While they might not feel attracted initially, the hamster will serve them well in this instance, and they will present a picture of bliss that last through the wedding and at least a couple of kids. After that, watch out.
@Mike
I would literally bet $1 million dollars that higher levels of casual sex show a strong correlation with eventually cheating, and possibly even cuckoldry.
I don’t doubt this is true, and that’s why men really have a right to judge women based on their sexual histories. But I think the key here is the frequency or pattern. Basically, I’m trying to argue the point that not every young woman who gets through college with a few hookups is totally f*cked for an LTR. Are there guys who will refuse to have anything to do with a woman who had sex with a few alphas in college? Yes, and some of them comment here. But I think it’s a disservice to my readers, both male and female to describe that as the middle of the bell curve. Lots of people are hooking up in college. Lots of people. Not just alphas and sluts. The notion that all the guys are good to go, and all the girls are tainted forever just doesn’t make sense. Plus, it pisses me off, regardless of whether it can be explained by evo psych.
“Just want to say thank you for your excellent advice to the women here – it’s both strategic and empathic”.
@Susan
Thank you for the website. Similar advice when shared on the feminist blogs too often got me digitally lynched. I have noticed things are different here and that as a whole the community is open minded, wants to grow, and has their collective hearts in the right place. I think that is just awesome. It is truly a pleasure to feel I am helping.
Susan@9:07:
I just want to say that I agree. I can’t speak for all men, obviously, but to me it’s the pattern of her hookups (more so than how many) and how she treats the men in her life (an excellent piece of advice for both men and women is to ask how does the one you are infatuated with treat the members of your sex in his or her life? How do they treat weaker people?)that I judge a woman on. Given certain circumstances I could see going for a woman who has two or three times my “number” , given other circumstances, I might turn down someone who has only had one sex partner if I smell trouble ahead. Men are, as you’ve noted concerned with cheating and cuckoldry, moreso than probably anything else except maybe a false accusation.
So, I do feel confident stating this:
Though men vary in their desires, MOST men (except very religious on average) will judge more on background than number, but of course a good background is bound to keep the number rather low for the most part, say 20 or less for a 30 year old barring exceptional circumstances. other men may think it’s 10 or less, please remember its not the number, its what is behind it and many men will disagree as to what number one needs to “worry” the woman about. Men who are looking for LTR DO worry about “bonding” and most of do worry that the larger the number of her lovers the more chance we’ll bore her and come up short in some way. In other words, either she’ll be content to marry us, but after the kids pop out no sex, or she’ll cheat on us. After all, while I can lose weight and bulk up, I can’t become 6 foot 4 with eyes of brightest azure and a beautiful Spanish accent. And of course STD’s etc, that everyone with basic sex ed knows about.
So, it seems that “sex-positive feminism” is just some of the promiscuous women wanting all the benefits of being promiscuous AND all the benefits of not being promiscuous, without the costs of either.
…
@Clarence:
“…rather low for the most part, say 20 or less for a 30 year old barring exceptional circumstances. other men may think it’s 10 or less, please remember its not the number”
Whoa, you think 20 is rather low? I think “most” men will have a problem with the woman’s number being anything in the double digits. And yes the absolute number matters, not just how she FEELS ABOUT it.
@Susan,
“I couldn’t agree more. I believe that women have no right to expect men to be chivalrous or provide for them. They should always offer to pay their share, but personally, I think it’s classy when a guy declines. In that case, the woman should pay for the second date, second round, whatever. She should give as much as she takes, cooking dinner, surprising him with tickets, etc. In my experience, when both people are generous, they wind up sharing the expenses and no one feels taken advantage of.”
.
Feeling taken advantage of is probably the no.1 reason I began searching the internet for advice on handling women. If you scratch that one hard enough, you’ll even discover smoldering resentment that I’m sincerely trying to smother. I’m not half as generous an entertainer with single women as I am with men & their wives/girlfriends for this very reason. The latter get home-made meals and desserts (I cook better than most); the former get tea if they’re lucky. This is a new policy. In response to years of flaking and BS, I’d finally decided that I’d had enough with that shit–if you’ll pardon my language–and man’d up. My next love interest will faint when I make her a grilled cheese sandwich. My pals get the three course meal. Unfortunately, this is how jerks are made.
JOT,
No, in my opinon UNDER a certain number (which varies by man but is hardly ever over 20 for a 30 year old and is often less) most men just need to know she had decent reasons for it. Unless you are a secular nutcase who thinks every woman you meet should be a virgin, or very religious the SMART man will consider things in context. It’s easy for a woman to rack up 5 or even ten notches in the 4 college y ears for example. In my example that would be HALF her life time sexual partners in 4 years. The other eleven “active years” (say from 15 or 16 up to 30) she would then be averaging LESS than one per year. That’s hardly the behaviour of some girl who goes out every weekend and skanks it up, plus it allows some room for some decently long monogamous relationships.
Men can disagree about this of course, but most men aren’t banging 30 year old virgins. Almost everyone older than the mid 20′s these days is approaching double digits if not there already in terms of partners and I do not consider the wishes or standards of religious men to be applicable to the larger hookup culture.
@PJL
I see nothing jerky about this. Your friends love you unconditionally, and attraction is irrelevant. A woman who is interested in you will want to work to earn your affection. If you do all the work, she will perceive that you are insecure and need to perform to earn her affection.
@ Susan,
Yeah, you’re right that perception is reality. One strikes up friendships in various ways; and I typically just invite people over for food. It’s somewhat pragmatic: it’s cheaper and easier to cook my own food in bulk. But this often means that leftovers spoil before I can get to them. Ergo, food becomes my social medium of choice. I’ve sense learned that one must be less “generous” when trying to romance than when trying to make friends. I suppose what is perceived as generous when courting friends is perceived as needy when courting romance. Counter-intuitive but it makes sense. Heheh, unfortunately the dog metaphor used by some gaming sites is a very helpful one, because I am an amateur dog trainer: rewards, including affection, comes after good behavior.
@ POF
I’ve known girls with a whopping partner-count of five that are more slutty than women I know in the 20s, much less myself in the mid-70s.
OK. Let’s go with this. This should be interesting. You are saying that a woman with a count of five could be more “slutty” then someone with a count of 75. OK. Obviously, your perception of what constitutes “slutty” must have more to it then just count. So what specific quantitative metrics, indicators, behavior patterns beyond just count do you use to assess “sluttiness” or is this just some random fuzzy completely subjective judgement.
If I was a straight man looking for an LTR, I would be more concerned with integrity, respect, personal responsibility, and honesty before I was concerned if she hit the gym three times a week and was “pleasant”.
Haha. I love this. This is hilarious. And if I were a straight female looking for an LTR, I would be more concerned with intelligence, reliability, loyalty, character before I was concerned if he was tall and buff, and the dominant guy.
But guess what. We guys don’t get to change what you women respond to nor the other way around. So yeah, “pleasant” matters for a LTR. Whether you like that or not doesn’t matter.
A slut is clearly a woman who is promiscuous and the danger, from a male perspective, is that a slut is not good wife material.
Whilst we may debate the pros and cons of sluthood statistically as a woman who as a result of her past sexual history has a significantly higher risk of marital instability.
“THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF EARLY SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND MULTIPLE SEXUAL PARTNERS AMONG WOMEN:A BOOK OF CHARTS” by Rector et al, 2003 published by the Heritage Institute makes for rather sobering reading. Chart 17 is really an eye opener!
A woman who has never slept with anyone apart from her marriage partner has an 80% chance of having a stable marriage in her 30′s, if a woman has had one partner then the rate drops to 53%. Basically marrying a woman one sexual partner outside of marriage exposes a man to a 50% chance of divorce. With two partners a man has is more likely to fail in his marriage than succeed. Therefore the actuarial definition of a slut is a woman who has had more than one partner outside of marriage.
Dyslexia at play again
Whilst we may debate the pros and cons of sluthood statistically as a woman who as a result of her past sexual history has a significantly higher risk of marital instability.
should read.
Whilst we may debate the pros and cons of sluthood, statistically, a slut is a woman who–as a result of her past sexual history–has a significantly higher risk of marital instability.
@ Susan,
My posts under the VR sex topic keep disappearing.
JOT:
Bingo. And that involves punishing, or pressuring the selective women, which has been pretty effective to date.
Susan Walsh—
I disagree in the strongest terms with this. This bit of logic is entirely female biased and is utterly unfair the prospective husband. The prospective fiancé or living together LTR partner has a right to know the outlines of his partner’s sexual past. You’ve just spent a post arguing that a slutty past DOES in most if not all cases predict the likelihood of “marital instability”, aka divorce. Getting married is the biggest investment of money as well as time that most men will ever make in their lives – especially if it ends in divorce, which it does in apparently 70% of the cases where the woman had more than 5 pre marital sex partners and 80% of the cases where she had in the high teens number of same, according to a study of 10,000 women referred to in a Psychology Today article. Particularly with feminist 2.0 divorce laws and family courts so incredibly tilted against men, your advice to women is immensely unfair to men. Damn right it’s his business. And if she doesn’t think so: NEXT.
I think a man should probe this extremely carefully and skillfully. He should perhaps even hire a private detective to investigate her reputation among her former circle of friends, if the guy can’t get a good feel himself.
Susan Walsh–
Yes this is true. There’s a slut avalanche in college now. A large proportion of college girls are sluts on graduation now it seems. (Girls with high numbers are prone to not tell the truth about them to anyone, even in surveys promising anonymity – they often lie to themselves or “forget” lots of episodes, or consider that they “don’t count”.) I think this bodes very ill for future rates of marital cheating and divorce.
With the divorce 2.0 laws and family courts / divorce industry which so rape men these days as a result of feminist lobbying, this really suggests men shouldn’t marry but rather cohabit when they get to that point of commitment, for legal reasons. Or at the least if they want kids imminently, to require a prenup that mimics living together in the event of a divorce. It can’t affect the child support=also stealth alimony sky high rates of after tax income in high tax states that feminists pushed through in the late 80s and early 90s, which don’t genuinely take into account the ex wife’s earnings or ability to earn if she got serious about it, at all.
Susan Walsh–
Maybe so in terms of she numbers. But players and semi players (lesser alphas) often turn former good girls who’s convictions were so strong and who listen to the feminist messages, into sorta good girls and then often pretty slutty ones.
Btw these same players or semi players, though they can really enjoy one night stands and flings or hookups with sluts, when they themselves want a LTR are usually gonna want an at least sorta good girl most often, and can often get her. One who is highly sexual but was brought up to be a good girl and only have sex with relationships she thought would last and maybe even turn into something permanent — with a slip up or two.
Alphas probably to tend to be more emotionally at ease with a somewhat higher number but they are also in a position to be a lot choosier than betas or mate/dad types who are a bit low on the sexual pull side.
The real problem with sluts is that 1) they tend not to consider having sex with someone else if they’re feeling the urge to do it a big deal, and so are much more likely to cheat – and cheating in women tends to break their pair bonded feelings with their husband completely, at least as a lover if not as a friend or companion necessarily; and 2) they tend to not fall nearly as deeply in love in the first place.
How many 30 you former sluts in a relationship that will soon turn into a marriage, truly honestly are in adoring deep love with their fiances? No, the great majority of them will be in a “more mature, partnership sort of loving relationship”. I.e. mutual affection rather than deep passion. So the deep bonding never comes for most sluts, with the one they finally decided to settle down with and vice versa that is. It’s a very real sort of settling to have kids. Which greatly increases the chances of American feminist created divorce theft 2.0 for the man.
There’s a slut avalanche in college now. A large proportion of college girls are sluts on graduation now it seems. (Girls with high numbers are prone to not tell the truth about them to anyone, even in surveys promising anonymity – they often lie to themselves or “forget” lots of episodes, or consider that they “don’t count”.)
Studies show that about 15% of women are virgins at graduation. The mean number of sexual partners at graduation for college women is <1.5. You claim that women lie in surveys – fair enough. In that case, may I ask where you get your data? How do you know that women lie to themselves, "forget" episodes, or claim that sex doesn't count?
I ask because in my own limited experience blogging here women have been quite open about their sexual histories and experiences. Or is the "it seems" the loophole that allows you to make such a claim?
That’s unfortunate, because they don’t deserve her. I encourage women to disqualify manwhores from their consideration. Some men just have way too much social proof.
This is a popular meme on men’s blogs, but I have not seen any scientific evidence for this. Oxytocin is not a non-renewable source, so I don’t see why a woman who stops being promiscuous should be unable to fall in love. She may have a proclivity for adultery, but that’s another topic.
I’m on record as saying I don’t condone lying about this. However, this conversation is between the two affected individuals. If you choose to hire a PI to check out your girlfriend, that’s entirely your legal right. And if you tell her that’s what you’ve done, she may have some feelings about marrying a man who had her investigated. If you want to know a woman’s number and you say no marriage if she doesn’t fess up, she has a choice to make. She is clearly in her rights to deny you that information, and you would be within your rights to call off the relationship.
As I’ve said before, the notion that a woman’s number is some sort of vital stat that a man is automatically entitled to is unacceptable. However, I think the vast majority of couples, if they have this conversation, will be open and work through it. The number of women with 36, marrying guys with 6, is going to increase, as guys who were not getting laid in college come into their own and find that they can date women who are quite attractive. Some of those women will have been promiscuous in college. For this reason, many of the men who comment here urge women to eschew casual sex – beta guys who are in the market for marriage want a sizable pool of chaste women to choose from, ideally.
@Kat:
“But in my case, that’ll probably be nearly impossible and I’ll just end up with an arranged marriage.”
.
Why is this?
Well, this approach certainly avoids the “reluctant boyfriend” syndrome. Of course, sex being off the table would probably prevent that anyway – most women get reluctant boyfriends by giving an ultimatum and get their way because the sex gravy train is better than calling it quits.
Some significant portion of men want to initiate the relationship milestones, including saying “I love you.” Perhaps most. Perhaps all, I don’t know!
No question! Men who feel angry with women in general are toxic when they get Game. That’s a real problem, because often it’s exactly those men who are most motivated to study Game. I don’t really understand it – if you accept the tenets of Game and change your life, you’re basically saying that you were unattractive to women before, but figured out how to change that and now are attractive to women. So why blame the women from before?
“I don’t really understand it – if you accept the tenets of Game and change your life, you’re basically saying that you were unattractive to women before, but figured out how to change that and now are attractive to women. So why blame the women from before?”
.
I think they’re just being irrational & want to believe society’s tripe about how people should like you for who you are inside and resent that they had to rely on something external to their natural state of being to become attractive. It’s like a woman losing a bunch of weight and having a ton of suitors that she now views as too superficial (I spoke with a woman in Sephora who said this is how she looks at men who want to date her because she’s skinny now). That’s why she lost the weight in the first place, to attract more men!
verie44 @7:55 pm:
That’s actually a pretty insightful post there.
It’s often said that when you learn game..when you SEE what women are attracted to, and what SOME women will do at the slightest sexual pass -well, you lose all respect for them.
I think that’s partly true IF..and I say IF..you overpedestalized them in the first place, and/or had ONLY run into honorable ones. For instance my grandmother was a good mother, a faithful wife, a smart as nails book keeper, a farmgirl, and a very christian lady who is very popular and has only ever had in her 88 years fewer enemies than I can count on one hand. I also used to live with grandparents when I was a child for a few years when my parents split and I hardly ever heard them say an unkind word to each other. It happened but it was rare – and they NEVER yelled at each other.
Imagine if that had been my only experience with women or marriage.
Luckily, I had my mom and dads high conflict miserable marriage (included cheating on both ends, and many other things I’d rather not get into) to ground me.
Point is, by the time I started learning game..and since I’ve not done it full time , I’m still at a relative “beginner” level though I’ve probably spent 200 hours on it all told..I had already had some experience with both the MRA world and r/l women to “ground” me.
Not all their sexual behaviors – and one of my friends used to be an instructor for Mystery’s group and once showed me he could take a girl from her boyfriend- caused me the total shock that many men feel when they see this stuff first hand, esp if they grew up with women they loved.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow. Personal change is extremely difficult and painful, but you don’t hear men complain so much about this…it’s all about the before and after, and not the in between.
It requires men accepting that they’ve essentially been living a lie. Acknowledging that as a result of it, they’re NOT good enough. It involves painful realizations about true female nature, unflattering realizations that knock women off the pedestal many men were raised to put them on. The cognitive dissonance involved leads to a total mind-fuck that many guys refuse to accept and even fewer act on.
The resulting bitterness is a response to pain and feelings of betrayal, compounded by incredulity and near-horror at true female sexual preferences. It’s hard not to judge and shame women for that. Women aren’t shielded from the reality of male nature like men are from women’s. If many women can’t even openly accept it, how do you think men feel? The more a man practices Game and reaffirms its tenets, the more he loses sight of the ideal he used to hold women up to. The more he focuses on what is, instead of what should be.
Some men never get out of that bitter pattern. Others come to realize that nature is nature, and it’s amoral. Still, even the most reformed betas and biggest Game success stories still get totally pissed off when they see women denying the obvious and demonstrating a total lack of self-awareness and insulting mens’ intelligence.
These same men see sluts as walking reminders of the painful truths they had to accept and change in order to compete in the SMP today.
EDIT- I see Clarence beat me to it…ah well.
I think they’re just being irrational & want to believe society’s tripe about how people should like you for who you are inside and resent that they had to rely on something external to their natural state of being to become attractive. It’s like a woman losing a bunch of weight and having a ton of suitors that she now views as too superficial (I spoke with a woman in Sephora who said this is how she looks at men who want to date her because she’s skinny now). That’s why she lost the weight in the first place, to attract more men!
You are 100% right. Too many people with the victim mentality, BOTH male and female. One guy poster here exemplifies that attitude, and if I were Susan I probably would ban him from posting. There is a difference between unbridled hostility to women, and offering a candid although perhaps not what women want to hear male perspective. The former serves no purpose here, the latter can be very useful to the young woman willing to do some introspection about her views and behavior.
Being attractive to the opposite sex, acquiring a high status job, gaining financial wealth. All require you to potentially change. People unwilling or resentful of having to change should just grow up or STFU.
The resulting bitterness is a response to pain and feelings of betrayal, compounded by incredulity and near-horror at true female sexual preferences. It’s hard not to judge and shame women for that.
This is where many of the MRA types completely lose me. It is what it is. It is biology/nature. It is stupid to judge someone for what simply is the state of nature. We men are turned on by youthful women with certain body ratios. Should that be shamed/judged? Now the difference becomes to what degree are you a slave to your hindbrain, and to what degree do you use your brain to overrule bad choices? That is the part that can be judged.
Sox,
I responded too quick. Should have read the rest of the post where you acknowledge the amorality of nature. The bitter types need to internalize that fact.
@Verie,
Very helpful posts–thank you. So I guess game, even when you know about it, does hit the biological buttons? I’m fine with finding the need to change so far as my moral scruples will let me. Really, right now my best indicator that there’s a good deal right with “game” is this. For personal reasons, I disqualified certain girls a priori from my pool of potential partners. Strangely, it was precisely those girls, which I had disqualified, that showed me the most interest. My best indicator that there’s a great deal wrong with, at least, the method and the manners of game and its community is stories like yours.
@Verie
You’re probably right…although he may not have employed it correctly. IF a guy’s only focus is getting a girl into bed ASAP, then yea, he’s going to have varying results with different girls depending on their backgrounds. I dated a very religious girl in college who was saving herself for marriage and she came very close to changing her mind with me a few times, ’til she finally asked me my opinion. If I’d wanted, I probably could have slept with her right there. I have a feeling that if I’d been pressuring her for sex or maneuvering to get it, she would’ve resisted and been much more resolutely against it.
Game has guys select for girls who have sex quickly. Not going to sleep with her in 3ish (varies) dates? On to the next one.
Not necessarily…that depends on the guy. LTR Game wouldn’t be about that. My own goals in studying it weren’t about that.
When people first jump into learning about it, they go to the obvious tells that you see in the Mystery Method and all that. That really paints an incomplete picture. It ignores all aspects of Inner Game (which could have plenty of other more conventional terms in its place) and the full scope of how it plays out in relationships past the initial seduction phase. Look at Mystery- he couldn’t even maintain a LTR when he wanted to. Just my opinion, but any healthy man will DLV himself (and maybe this could just be seen as vulnerability Game) and submit to “oneitis” at some point if he truly wants a deep relationship. Game’s more about keeping that and its manifestations in check than making sure it never, ever, ever happens.
Game is designed to generate sexual attraction in the female. Mystery marketed his book as a way to get beautiful women into bed, but that was overpromising, IMO. A woman may be sexually attracted, even tempted to have sex, but perfectly steadfast in her decision not to. Game is not something that breaks down all barriers and turns women into sexbots. Neil Strauss said in The Game that Lisa was neg proof. Game gave him the social skills he needed to attract her, but she wasn’t “glamoured” into having sex with Strauss before she was ready. Another thing to keep in mind is that Mystery wrote his method to be successful with the women he wanted most. He called them “hired guns” – strippers, pole dancers, cocktail waitresses, etc. Obviously, that’s a self-selected group who view sex differently than the average woman.
I just wanted to add that I think it’s a huge mistake for a guy to suggest that say, he won’t consider a LTR with anyone who’s been with more than 5 or even 10 partners. I’ve been no stud and I easily racked up 6 of mine in relationships; I’m in the double digits now.
A story…I met my “one that got away” in college. Prior to dating her I’d slept with 2 people: one in a 3 1/2 year relationship through HS and the other one was a one night stand with a girl in our dorm at the beginning of the semester. That was my first experience with the power of social proof.
Anyway, this girl and I fell hard for each other quickly. As time went on it was obvious how into me she was. When I met her family, they said, “you really swept her off her feet” and “you seem like the first guy she’s ever dated that she’s actually liked”. The latter was a bit of a red flag. Soon after, I found out she’d been with what I considered to be a lot of guys by age 21. I immediately judged her, I told her how I felt about it, and I asked her for details.
Predictably, most happened between her freshman and soph year. She’d tried one ONS and hated it. From her other accounts, she came across as a girl who might’ve been a little slow to learn but in general, she’d always been looking for a connection with the guy and had a lot of bad luck. She was also stuck rooming with two of the biggest sluts on campus who’d already racked up 40+ guys.
Anyway…long story short, I dumped her. I got it in my head that she was “settling down” for me and that I was only attractive to her once her party phase was over. I was ignoring a lot of the facts and projecting my insecurities onto her. She was great to me throughout it all, and to this day is sweetest, most giving girl I’ve been with. She deserved a chance. Once I found out her number (not even by asking, through a drinking game w/friends), I was right in having issue, but it should’ve stopped soon after that, since I knew deep down she wasn’t a slut.
It’s just my advice to guys to be careful using the number as a disqualifier. Only do so if it confirms what you’d already noticed through her personality and whatnot, not as a sole factor in and of itself. Up to a point obviously, every guy has their hard limit- mine’s probably around 25. Girls can easily reform but they need to know that after a certain point they will have definitely alienated at least half of the male population.
Susan:
Re: Mystery
You are remembering incorrectly. Mystery had tremendous problems with women in general so he set about to “crack the code” so to speak. The MM book does NOT teach you how to get “hired guns”, indeed these women -who are used to being hit on all the time- are much harder to “crack” than your average woman and you have to pay Mystery extra to get techniques for them or search the web pretty explicitly. I stumbled across such a post once on how to date strippers. If you want, I’ll quote from it a bit. Basically you can spend hundreds of dollars on a stripper and get absolutely nowhere, so an understanding of their underlying psychology is essential.
And yes, I know such girls are trouble and often not LTR material, and the only reason I even have the info is that they could be fun and by far the most dramatic girls I’ve ever dated should I choose to make use of it. Of course right now I’m happy with my Swedish sweetie, and I actually do kind of hope it develops into Something Serious..so maybe I’ll never date a stripper after all. Oh well, I’m old enough that I don’t value drama for the sake of drama or sex simply because it’s “hot” sex.
Clarence,
I stand corrected – thanks for clarifying. I’m glad that you are relationship oriented! I’m sure strippers need love too, but yikes, it’s not what I’d want for my own son.
As for Mystery, I do recall that his dream was two incredibly hot bisexual women, whom he could live in a perpetual threesome with. I don’t believe he ever found that.
LOL!
Well, even though my friend , as I said, was an instructor for Mystery’s group and traveled with him to the sets of his VH1 show and things, all I know about Mystery’s desire for a 3some comes from The Game. And dang it once or twice he was SOOOOOOOOO close..but no cigar, lol.
Oh well, he seems happy with his kid now
I always wish Mystery the best of luck because even though he’s often been a self-destructive person he’s done alot of good for alot of men.
Hi Susan. First of all I would like to say great blog, you take a really good non extreme but realistic view of dating without yielding too far to the sexually liberal or sexually conservative. I’ll spend the next few hours looking through your archives:-)
I have taken the liberty of coming up with a “promiscuity formula” on my blog (http://kidstrangelove.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/how-many-partners-makes-you-promiscuous-here-is-a-definite-formula/)
It’s the same for men and women, and what one does with that information is up to them.
You are promiscuous if you total number of sexual partners is more than your age in years
@Kid
Welcome, thanks for the feedback. I read your post, so I see that you’ve already discovered many men would not be so liberal in their views. It’s an interesting thought, tho. I find it extremely interesting that there really is no consensus on this question, even among the guys commenting here. Basically, the men are all over the map on this one.
Susan:
Very important: In terms of numbers ,yes. In terms of behaviors, no. And it’s already admitted that a minority of men don’t much care. So there’s hope for committed relationships for women who may have acted “slutty”, but not if they continue the behaviors that led to high promiscuity in the first place.
You want to wait till marriage. That’s good, but you also mention that you feel guilty about this, and so don’t ask for exclusivity from guys. Think about this for a second. Let’s say you do get married. Are you going to be okay with the guy sleeping with other women all the way until the wedding? I don’t need to tell you that’s not a good way to start a marriage. And yet, if that’s not what you want, you’re going to have to deprive the guy of sex for some amount of time prior to the wedding (barring breaking your principles). And he’s not going to be real happy about that.
The fact is, you need to look for guys who are already on the same page with you, and have similar convictions. Otherwise, you’re just front-loading the relationship to be poisoned.
@Deuce:
.
You make good points, and yeah, I didn’t know what I would have done if the two guys I have been exclusive with hadn’t asked me first.
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Re: ny, yes, it’s a bad place for dating. I have a possible job offer to move to washington state, but I’m terrified of the constant rain. Ny is a great fit for me other than the dating marketplace unfortunately, and one of the only places where I can do what I love (beyond this bizarre opportunity). Where would you say would be good places to go?
Geez, long story short? NYC is full of very frustrated virgins. Some of them even (had) blogs too. There’s really few places in the Western world that are ‘good’ for 25 yo virgins. Even for the very religious. Among the places I’d suggest are the more deep Red States of the South or Mid-West. Which despite their obvious near veneration of the virgins:
http://www.alternet.org/books/147399/red_state_families_vs._blue_state_families%3A_the_family-values_divide
Do also happen to contain plenty of other fairly ‘toxic’ (or severely contradictory) attitudes towards ‘modern’ women & working women & modern families especially. Again see the book for the details:
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Families-v-Blue-Polarization/dp/0195372174
Sadly there really needs to be some sort of middle of the road solution here in the 21st Century, right? It’s certainly a Catch-22 and one who’s contradictions only get worse & more complicated & difficult with age too. For many obvious & very good biological reasons, BTW.
There is some sort of middle ground occupied by a plurality of the population at least who are neither ‘sluts’ (by most reasonable definitions), nor actual virgins. And most of them seem to meet, mate & get married seemingly just fine. (Sometimes not in that exact order!)
But this goes to my original thought above. All this is about making better choices. You need not have the capacity for making perfect choices at all times. Indeed it would be quite remarkable (& unusual) to do so, but actually imagining you can or might? Can be just as destructive as a psychological condition or crutch.
There are plenty of pretty lousy bets as partners who might be willing to wait for sex until (or nearish) marriage. It’s really not the ‘be all & end all’ of the necessary conditions for a decent spouse here. It’s probably not even within the realm of a ‘good predictor’ for compatibility either. Or even later ‘faithfulness’, actually. As a General indicator of human behavior? It can and does easily predict those who are sexually inexperienced. And more than likely also inexperienced at intimate personal relationships as well.
That can mean many things to many people. To some it’s a clear sign of a romantic virtue, and it clearly can be. But it’s value, sadly enough, is indeed time dependent. A virgin @ 25 is something different than one @ 35 and again at even 45. At the upper limits here? It’s certainly regarded almost universally as pretty freakish & a sad state of affairs, even by both men & women alike who are thus similarly ‘afflicted’!
So there’s a reason & a purpose here. It’s a deliberate decision, and one that you hold dear. Which is fine & respectable. Always. But perchance anyone comes close to fulfilling what you think you might want or desire in a mate and/or someone you’d want to marry? I’d certainly consider all my options on an open basis. Virtue can be it’s own reward. But not to share this fact with anyone, ever, is still regarded as something of a tragedy. Unless of course you’re really, really great at sublimation and are producing fantastic art or literature instead. Which again in this day & age, seems to be supremely unlikely. But hey, we can be surprised! Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
Susan says…”As I’ve said before, the notion that a woman’s number is some sort of vital stat that a man is automatically entitled to is unacceptable. However, I think the vast majority of couples, if they have this conversation, will be open and work through it”.
This number is her/his weight when married. Which is a State Secret, and needs only to be guessed at within the realm of ‘Stones’. Other vital stats will be issued to the applicable SU on an ‘as needed basis’. Which in most households, means practically Never. ‘Working though’ such issues means a willingness to walk though a deeply mined landscape in Lebanon. Barefooted & naked. Where they shoot at even the UN Blue helmet ‘observers’ on a regular basis. For sport, mainly too!
And yes, I’m still happily married, why do you ask? Cheers, ‘VJ’
Hey Susan, long time no post!
One thing that makes me wonder is what Amanda said here:
“Well, that’s a straight up lie. Lots of men fall in love with sluts, especially since sluts don’t have that desperate vibe.”
I disagree with 1/2 of this statement. The first part (lots of men fall in love with sluts) I cannot prove, although I have to say in my life yes, I have seen guys fall for girls who have had promiscuous behavior. These relationships, however, are always tumultuous (the classic break up make up couples), and a lot of them haven’t ended well. So from what I’ve seen, they fall in love, but it doesn’t last, or it’s heading down the road that won’t last. Who knows though, there may be some out there who have a happy, strong, relationship, but usually I think when one or both partners had a history of sleeping around, the tendencies are still underlying, but there.
The second is not true. I have seen “sluts” with desperate WAY desperate vibes. In fact, many of the girls who are “sluts” (god I hate using that word, it’s so crass) get the guys they do by being desperate, by acting that way. That’s the thing – they’re not looking for an LTR, or presenting themselves in that way, when they throw themselves over men. So they do it shamelessly. And most men will not hesitate to jump in when a window of sex opens, regardless of how the girl looks (especially with a little alcohol in their systems, that alleviates ~everything in the aftermath…) I distinctly remember my friend telling me about an instance she recalled when a girl who was known to be promiscuous (in fact, she was one of those girls who HAD had a guy fall for her, but they were on one of their “breaks”) literally dragged a boy by his collar into another room to mess around, and as he left, he shot my friend a “help me”, pleading look.
That’s just my two cents so far…I have to finish reading the article now though, so perhaps I’ll have more to say in a moment
I’m also curious for a male opinion out there:
If a girl you were in a LTR had a one night stand once in her life once, but ONLY once, and learned that it wasn’t for her, would this bother you?
Yes, this is promiscuous behavior, but if it was stopped very early on since it was an experimental thing as opposed to, oh, over and over again until the numbers are far past double digits, would you judge her for it?
Just curious
Mani:
Depending on age, and less than five, I wouldn’t care.
Of course I can only speak for myself. I mean here’s what I think alot of guys both religious and chauvanist in the mansophere will say:
Slut! Slut! Slutty McSlut! 25 and a one night stand? Save That For Marriage. Now yourhusbandwontbespecialtoyouandyoullleavehimforthehunkypoolboyfirstchanceyouget. Slutttttttttttttttt.
There, I’ve saved alot of men alot of replies
Sure Verie, There’s no shortage of men now, but when needed/wanted deep into the future? Who knows. But not something to be unduly alarmed about @ 25 certainly. And No Sex & the City? Geez, just start googling and you’ll come up with plenty of surprises. So you’re not alone. And that’s part of the problem actually. This ready & neat bifurcation of the quality of a woman’s virtue has always been more than a little suspect in a modern Western context. It’s not the single best delineation of either the best predictive for being a ‘good wife’ or mother or partner. It’s just the ‘terms of entry’ into the market, and one that most women & men will obviously fail at slightly better than 90% of the time. Depending on their age. Religiosity actually has a rather limited effect here too. But it is what it is. And people have always been fixated on this for one reason or another. But it’s an aspect of control that without relinquishing your own would never need to be employed against anyone. (Within reasons of health & safety, naturally!) But a complicated topic for sure. Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
MANI IS BACK!
I think that what you’ve described here is falling in LUST. That explains the constant conflict, the reluctant boyfriends, the amount of cheating that goes on in these relationships. As for desperate behavior, I agree with you. I believe that many very promiscuous woman are caught in a cycle of seeking short-term sexual validation, then crashing when the interest is withdrawn. Which leads to finding the next hookup, and on it goes.
@Clarence
So true. I think this nearly always exposes a big chip on the shoulder, probably born of sexual inexperience. Either that or the religious angle, but I get very few of those types here.
I think both Susan and Clarence are being a little unfair. If a woman has a one night stand it does say that at one point in her life she didn’t value sex highly–or rather valued it as an itch to be scratched. So it does objectively devalue meaning of sex, at least for you. There’s the desire, in love, to possess the other person entirely and to be possessed by them. Multiple sexual partners comes between that, I think. You can become more mature, yes, which is why this isn’t the number one criteria; but you still are who you make yourself to be. That’s the strongest case a secular man could make. A religious man could make a case involving the woman’s willful act of self-desecration. Still, in the case being described, it would be hard to view it against the girl for both the religious and the secular man, because we all make mistakes. Indeed, the Christian man ought not even masturbate, for it too is an act of self-desecration.
…
Still, on the overall answer I agree. I wouldn’t like the idea of her callously screwing someone just because she wanted to do it. Moreover, if she still viewed sex as some sort of appetite like any other I would probably boot her. But if she had seen she didn’t like it and thought about why that was, then it shows intelligence and maturity. We all make mistakes growing up. Mine just never got me laid.
PJL:
The problem is you assumed her thoughts for her.
“Obviously” if she had a ONS she could not have been mislead and listened to promises of the moon.
She couldn’t have been lonely. Maybe she’s played the old virgin “Virtue” game with many men and they all ended up dumping her.
She coudn’t have been curious.
She couldn’t have been worried that a man she wanted wouldn’t want a virgin.
Nope, obviously she had to have devalued sex and love and all that instead.
By their acts, ye shall know them. Unless she claims to be religious a few ONS (esp the older she gets) give you very limited knowledge into her motivations. Context is key.
As for religion, I’m agnostic and religious concerns and arguments do not sway or concern me, though obviously they are very important to those who hold them. So to me, sex is NEVER a “sin”, and unless one did something terribly unsafe, or behaved in a totally ethically selfish and vacuous manner, there’s never anything to be ashamed of.
verie:
The big cities are the worst. A lot of the success of Roissy and Roosh comes down to where their stomping ground is. You get a lot of these neurotic, highly competitive, feminist career women who are very hung up on their status and not at all family-oriented, and they are absolute ripe pickins’ for the Gamers. I live not far from DC, and I’ve been to New York a couple times, and New York looks to be even worse in being chock-full of that kind of woman. Of course, the guys there are part of the same culture, which means you’re going to primarily have men that go after that kind of woman, and have a view of sex and marriage to match. If I were still single, and looking to go buck wild with hot women that were easy to find and bed, I’d probably go to NY. I would never think to go there if I was looking for a sweet virgin who wanted a family (which is what I was looking for when I was single).
The best place to go, if you’re looking for a guy who’s dominant and confident enough to be attractive, but who will also treat you well and isn’t an amoral asshole, is probably Dixieland, as VJ mentioned. Perhaps whatever kind of work you do prevents you from being able to do what you like there, though.
The second best option, if you need to be somewhere metropolitan for your work, is to find an area where you have easy access to a major city, while actually living in a surrounding area where there are a lot more people with traditional values. My area (central Maryland) isn’t too bad, for instance. It’s actually pretty conservative and even semi-rural in a lot of areas. Lots of people here take the metro into DC, or drive to Baltimore. Both cities are less than an hour away by car. You’d have similar options south of DC, in the Virginia suburbs. Both places are a far cry from, say, Mississippi (where I went to college), but they’re closer to that than they are to a crazy-land like NYC or DC.
Clarence,
Since we agree on the end, let’s not disagree too much. I think intrinsic to a ONS is a lowly view of sex, because it’s having sex with a stranger. All the motivations you give may attenuate the level of callousness with which she treated sex, but they do not rid it entirely. The one I find most convincing is her being mislead and manipulated. Still, each mitigating factor speaks to a different character flaw.
.
As to the devaluation of sex, I was thinking in surprisingly economic terms: scarcity makes something valuable. Once sex becomes less scarce, it ipso facto becomes less valuable.
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“So to me, sex is NEVER a “sin”, and unless one did something terribly unsafe, or behaved in a totally ethically selfish and vacuous manner, there’s never anything to be ashamed of.”
(1) Sex for you couldn’t be a sin, since presumably you don’t believe in sin. There’s nothing to sin against!
(2) you’re begging the question, since the (hypothetical) debate between you and the person who espouses the position that I’m outlining is precisely about what is ethically selfish or not, and because…
(3) It doesn’t follow from being an atheist or agnostic that “sex is never a [misdeed--(see 1)]. For an interesting read, try http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Desire-Philosophical-Roger-Scruton/dp/0826480381/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282117962&sr=8-2
.
BTW, I’m not myself defending any position–except ironically–on this forum, because Susan has said many times that this is a value-neutral place to pragmatically discuss things. It’s, again, not my goal to convince you of XYZ, just to convince you that XYZ could be well argued for, which is very, very different & much more modest. This could just be a case of me taking a lighthearted joke too seriously.
@ PJL: I feel the same way about what you said. I used to be completely opposed to the idea of a ONS, but when I heard this story (from a close friend) it made me think about it a little more, what it meant for her, what it could mean for me in the future. Learning a lesson and then not doing it again is better than not learning a lesson and continuing that kind of behavior. The argument of “if he doesn’t accept me the way I am, I need to find a new guy” I feel at least is still applicable in this scenario because unlike someone who continuously sleeps around, it was stopped early on, and like you said, everyone makes mistakes.
To be honest, I will straighten one thing out – the person in context was not led on. She knew exactly what she was going into and was prepared for (some) of the consequences. And, she did know the person in question, although for a short period of time. In fact, she went to school with him (had a class.) She slept with him, discovered she wasn’t even interested in him as a friend OR FWB and most certainly did not want to date him, and then just completely lost all interest, asked him to just “be friends” (which he was cool about), and resumed her life as normal for the remainder of the class. So, I guess Clarance was right in that she did devalue sex and love, but the assumption that it wasn’t for curiosity is not correct because I think it was. It didn’t go awry or anything, as she was safe and thankfully didn’t get pregnant or contract anything, but she realized after the emotional stress (not attachment, surprisingly, because she felt NO emotional attachment to him afterward, probably from not knowing him long enough) but the emotional stress of worrying how he would react around their mutual friends, etc, bothered her, and the physical stress of an STD and pregnancy scare just was something she decided then and there was the end of all ONSs for her. To have sex irresponsibly, even if you are safe, was just not for her. I am glad she felt this way too.
@ Clarance: You are right, context is key. And the motivations in question were purely out of curiosity, and I guess partially sexual frustration. The best way I could describe it is it being an experiment. We both know a lot of people who sleep around, and after being single for a very, very long time she tried it out to see how she would feel about it (after reading all of these feminist empowering stories about sex and doing what you want, should have sent her to HUS first!) turns out, she absolutely hated it. Obviously I don’t think the guy and her had any chemistry either, because she didn’t keep doing it. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that the sex didn’t turn out wonderful, cause this one experience was enough to turn her off from it for good.
Something to also consider is this girl was a virgin before this happened and single for all of her life. Shakes this up a little bit, huh? She just never ran across the right guy. And I think she also had very twisted and jaded views on sex at that point…not good, but like PJL said, she grew from the experience, A LOT. And her views on sex changed even moreso (I feel for the better) after the whole situation. She knew that she wasn’t going to emotionally attach herself to the guy because in her head, she THOUGHT she knew exactly what she wanted. She felt like the time was right to lose her virginity contextually, he wanted to have sex with her and I doubt much else. So they used each other. I guess it turned out a little bit unbalanced cause he kept asking her out afterward (although always last minute, and at his convenience, in a FWB way…he wouldn’t text her otherwise) but she straightened things out fast before she led him on too far. Does she regret it? I’m not sure. When you hear the story on its on, of course the first thing you want to do is chastise her (what were you thinking?! how could you give it away to someone you didn’t even love?) but I try to be open minded, and I don’t want to judge her for it. A potential mate, however, I don’t know what he would say or think. I just hope that one little blip in her life (and all girls who have been through similar situations) wouldn’t ruin her chances of marriage or a happy LTR for good. The difference between her and other reformed “sluts” I guess, is that she whipped her behavior around instantly. It didn’t take her 10 guys to realize that this wasn’t working. It only took one.
/end novel
And @Clarance: Haha, although that may be true about men in the chauvinistic and (extreme) religious manosphere, I’d like to hope that the men on HUS are a ~little more understanding and intelligent than to be so quick to label a girl that, especially when there’s more to the story
.
Hope being the operative word…
.
(I don’t think any girl would want to date someone in the chauvinistic manosphere anyway)
Mani:
To clarify you misread my post. I am not one of the type to think that all ONS indicate some devaluing of love or coupling. I was responding to PJL and offering various other reasons for the behavior that could mitigate any ill effects of it or aspersions on a woman’s character.
Fact is, time waits for no-one, so if no one is willing to buy your milk at an unlimited price, you have to lower the price or forget the idea of selling it. This advice is esp pertinent to non-religious girls who don’t believe they can count on the reward of an afterlife or something to compensate them for missing out their chances to reproduce while on Earth.
PJL:
Reducing my arguments to strawmen? Or perhaps I didn’t write well enough for you to understand me.
There are certain things that one can do with one’s sexuality which across religions and customs and moral philosophies over the ages and through various cultures have long been considered “wrong” or “sinful” or even certainly not wise
Cheating, for one. Raping for another. Sleeping with a different partner every night and not even getting their name is yet another, though I wouldn’t put it in the same class of shameful approbriem.
Regardless, I disagree with the idea that sex has to inherently be coupled sex. Sex can be a fun and positive experience between strangers or various degree of friends. Coupled sex is often best, and its certainly best if one is looking for a LTR which I believe the majority of men and women are. But not everyone has access to it, because not everyone is paired up. Furthermore, at least some of the time non-coupled sex LEADS to coupled sex, so who has really devalued what?
Now obviously , a large degree of uncoupled stranger sex is very risky -heck I’d say its inherently risky, both in terms of STD’s and also in terms of heartbreak. And I could easily see someone with lots of sexual partners be jaded and think either they’ve seen it all or women and men are all the same in bed. But I am not all that worried about a few single acts, esp since I know humans have a million different reasons for the same behaviors. It’s the reasons I’m worried more about and also how her sexual history reflects wisdom and by the way..if she had any monogamous relationships before me, how did she act within the relationship?
Anyway, that’s my take on things.
“Fact is, time waits for no-one, so if no one is willing to buy your milk at an unlimited price, you have to lower the price or forget the idea of selling it. This advice is esp pertinent to non-religious girls who don’t believe they can count on the reward of an afterlife or something to compensate them for missing out their chances to reproduce while on Earth.”
…
Clarence, 2 points. (1) I don’t want to be pedantic, but you miss the point of the person against whom you’re arguing. Read the classics if you insist on a secular account of what I’m saying. The basic point of the person arguing against you is that virtue makes one happy & that chastity is a virtue. Therefore, you should act chastely. Now, we can get into a debate on what chastity entails (marriage may or may not be part of the story). It definitely doesn’t include a ONS. The premise underlying your argument seems to be a philosophic hedonism. Against this any number of schools of thought, some explicitly atheist, can be arrayed claiming that happiness does not lay down the path of physical pleasure.
—
(2) If no one is buying the milk, the thing to do is to ask yourself why that may be. This is far, far better than having sex with the first person with a part that fits.
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