On keeping the legs crossed

I posted a quote advising women who wish marriage "with good men" to not sleep with a man until he is in love with her. This triggered a powerful response from one reader, wishing that men would keep such opinions to themselves. I wanted to respond.

1) I do not claim to be able to read the mind of the guy who wrote this--so any interpretations of the position must be my own. That said, note that the quote doesn't suggest that women who sleep with men on the first date are sluts, bad or wrong. He DOES suggest that it is a non-optimal strategy for a woman whose intent is marriage. In other words, he is teaching you how to manipulate men. Is his position correct? Generations of parents all over the world offer pretty much the same advise. Are they all wrong? Perhaps.

2) If they are right, that men are less likely to consider marriage with a woman who has sex with them immediately, then it makes BIG sense to make this opinion known. In that way, if a woman decides to have sex sooner, she won't be surprised if she doesn't get the result of a man offering a ring. So long as our actions are in alignment with our beliefs and lead to our goals...life is pretty cool. What is sad is when someone operates on the assumption that human beings are infinitely malleable, that because it seems "fair" for men or women to be able to behave any way they want and remain equally attractive...well, let's just say that wishing doesn't make it so.

3) Remember that you are talking about affecting an UNCONSCIOUS behavior (falling in love) with a CONSCIOUS behavior (withholding sex until the guy is in love.) Why not simply encourage guys to fall in love regardless of when sex begins? Well, because it doesn't work, that's why. You can't just tell someone to change their unconscious wiring.

4) Men will stop trying to influence women's behavior when women stop trying to influence men's behavior. Bring a lunch.

5) Note that this advise is hardly to a man's advantage: men want easy access to sex. Advising a woman AGAINST this is not really to our advantage now, is it? Unless, of course, the intent is to actually help women who don't understand this principle to understand it. They are then, of course, free to make whatever choices they choose. But they can't say no one ever told 'em.

6) Men definitely find sexually aggressive women less interesting. I don't, personally. I mean, the very first time a woman came on to me really hard, I was nonplussed. After that, well, woof. Great! But that's me. The tendency seems to exist in the animal kingdom, and isn't just a male social thing. I remember in "Ordeal" Linda Lovelace wrote about how her husband wanted her to have sex with a dog. (Jesus. What a sick shit he was.) Anyway, she didn't want to do it, and also didn't want to defy him. So she checked with an animal trainer, who told her that if she was sexually aggressive, the dog would be confused and unable to perform. So that's what she did.

What does this mean about human psychology in this arena? Not sure. But it is best to understand rules and tendencies before you break or bend them.

7) I didn't consciously decide to become celibate before marriage or love. What happened is that I hit a point where I was attracting any woman I wanted, and realized I wasn't willing to play the games that made it possible. Specifically, I had a little conversation with God in which I said I wanted a life partner, a friend, someone I could really be myself with, and was willing to wait forever to find such a person, if necessary. I don't know how that would have shaken out--because the next morning I met T! Now, on her end, she'd gotten quite tired of sleeping with guys who didn't really care about her, and made a vow not to do that again. I suspect that my vow would have led to celibacy, but I really hadn't thought it through that far.

8) There is no escaping the fact that trying to create the same rules for men and women in the arena of sex will be difficult. There may be a few sub-stratas of societies somewhere where such rules are functionally identical. But there are NONE to my knowledge in which women have MORE sexual freedom than men (except to be with their own sex. Women definitely have an edge there.) When I point out that there are some basic behaviors that cause a "DING!" response in men or women (the whole beauty/power thing) I always get responses suggesting I am a troglodyte. But I'm not saying I would design the world this way. I'm just saying that certain things are observable realities. If you want to build a space ship or airplane, you had better the hell understand gravity.

If the "gravity" of human sexual relationships means that, for instance:

1) Men are judged more for power. Women judged more for beauty.

2) Men reach their greatest power over forty. Women between the ages of 17-35.

3) Almost all societies expect men to be more sexually experienced and aggressive than women. "Men are the gas, women are the brakes" as the saying goes...and this relates directly to the fact that women get pregnant and men don't.

These things are pretty simple, observable realities. Some are changing in the 21st Century. NONE are reversing. It would make an hysterical comedy-fantasy to write about a world in which you DID reverse these things. Now...that said, we are clearly moving toward a world in which these things are less important in the mating game. But I think everyone should make up their own mind whether they agree that these are the "default settings." And then you should decide if you want to play that game. If you choose not to,

1) I wish you luck. And you may well have it--more and more people are playing by different rules than our ancestors embraced.

2) If you don't get the results you want, be certain that you really think it's worth it to buck the odds.

Personally, as far back as Jr. High I realized that the prettiest girls liked the most powerful boys. That meant dating high school guys. In high school, junior girls wanted senior guys. Or college guys. In college, they wanted guys who had already graduated and had jobs, cars and apartments.

I could have pitched a bitch about that, and raved about how unfair, manipulative, shallow, etc. it all is. And felt very self-righteous in my lonely bed. I decided to become powerful, and to find a segment of society that considered my particular type of power sexy. Can you say Science Fiction conventions? Let's just say I had a LOT of fun, and leave it at that. And I eventually grew out of that, and moved on.

But it is no more reasonable to expect young men to ignore their deep programming than it is for women to do so. Men and women manipulate each other with fear and guilt, and always have. I suggest laughing at the whole thing. Consider those who play these games to be children, perhaps. And commit to being aware and adult enough to attract an awake, aware, adult partner. And in my estimation, although women mature a little faster, overall, there are about equal percentages of decent, mature, aware, adult human beings on both sides of the gender aisle.