Recently, the inimitable Captain Awkward provided advice to a gentleman who was flirted with somewhat avidly but didn’t end up having sex with the lady in question, and feels somewhat wrong about all of this. I’d just like to signal-boost this bit right here:
Fallacy #1: ”Young heterosexual dudes are up for sex all the time, and if a hot girl even smiles at them they are ready, willing, and able. If you’re not, something must be wrong with you. Are you sure you’re not gay, dude?”
Yeah, nothing is wrong with you if you don’t want to have sex with someone even if they maybe want to have sex with you. When you are young and not-so-experienced, it’s easy for every encounter or possible encounter to feel like a referendum on Masculinity or Prowess or Who You Are And Will Be Forever. When you are older and more experienced, you might still get that feeling sometimes and it’s usually a sign that something is off – when there is pressure to “perform” in a certain way everything is less fun for everyone. Relax. You’ll get a lot of chances at this.
Yep. There is no requirement to have sex.
Things that not having had sex in a while, or even ever, does not mean:
- You’re unattractive.
- You’re not masculine enough.
- No one wants to have sex with you.
- You’re a loser.
- You’re a failure.
- You’re going to be alone and sexless forever.
- You’re going to be alone and sexless next week.
Things that not having had sex in a while means:
- You haven’t had sex in a while, or even ever.
Look. Not having sex sucks. I get it. I’m going through a bit of semi-voluntary celibacy at the moment, and it’s getting so I want to fuck vegetables and/or inappropriate people and/or inappropriate vegetables. And even worse than the physical aspect is the psychological aspect. You don’t feel loved or wanted or desired. For men, in particular, a lot of being a Real Man is tied up in being able to get sex with hot ladies more-or-less on demand, and you feel like if you can’t do that you’re a failure.
But all of that crud… it’s your brain. It’s not objective reality. It is your mind telling you things that are probably not true.
There are lots of reasons why people don’t get laid much. A general dislike of leaving the house or meeting new people, prioritizing different things in their lives, not being willing to ask people out, only being attracted to a small percentage of people, and so on and so forth. You’ll notice that none of those reasons are “they are terrible, ugly people.” That’s because none of the people I have met who are incredibly unsuccessful at dating are terrible, ugly people. In fact, some of them are the kindest, smartest, most interesting, and prettiest people I’ve met.
And what if your celibacy is voluntary or semi-voluntary? Holy shit, man. Men are supposed to love casual sex! And if you have an opportunity for casual sex and you turn it down, because you don’t like casual sex or you weren’t really attracted to that lady or you just didn’t want to, it is time to REVOKE ALL THE MAN CARDS FOREVER. I have slept with quite a few dudes who didn’t actually like or want casual sex, but felt like they should.
That is not a good plan. Sex you don’t really want is sex you won’t really enjoy. “Well, at least I’ll lose my virginity/break my dry spell/get laid” is a terrible mindset to enter a sexual relationship with. I mean, it’s not going to ruin your sex life forever, but the chance is that you’re going to find it unsatisfying. “Holy shit! Sex! This is awesome!” is much better. And if you’re not ready for sex, or still not over your ex, or only desirous of sex in intimate relationships, or whatever, it is perfectly okay to say no. There will be other opportunities to have sex. I promise.
A final note: whenever I find people incessantly complaining about how little sex they’re having, my first impulse is to say “I can correct that problem!” I wish that were generally considered a polite reaction…
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It’s all over and long gone for me, I have nothing left. When I look deep inside to find where I’ve been, I’m frozen out of time. All women have gone out of their way to make sure I am alone forever. Rejected to the nth degree. I see nothing left but a dismal wasteland of desperate and lonely men with nowhere to go, and no will to live. I was the first to get pushed and shoved away by the female gender in whole, and I am emotionally void and empty of humanity. All I can do is look… Read more »
Suicide?
My problem is not that I’m “not willing to ask people [women] out” – it’s that I cannot ask women out no matter what. I’m 38 and have never been able to force myself to ask a woman out – even though there have been lots that I’ve had huge crushes on and been ridiculously attracted to. Some of us are beyond hope – and involuntarily live our lives alone.
Yep, i hear you… ive worked out i dont like being told no, to the point i wont put myself in that position, so i wont approach anyone. Problem with the above is its avoiding the real situation, ive paid for adverts on ALL dating sites, i sent about 150 messages one night (all after reading there profiles) and after they viewed mine, not one response. You cant tell me theirs no problem with me. Theres a reason i wont speak to women, i already see its a no before, and i have proof from the above profile setups. Ive… Read more »
I am a 20 year old virgin, and a lot of what was said on here really speaks to me. It always feels like the girl or guy I try to get with is looking for more so I feel like I could completely mess it up. I always get the “thanks bud” response when I compliment some one while my friends (who are jerks) get laid every night. Its just all so daunting and quite frankly I dont even know where to begin.
I’m early 40’s, only had sex about 5 times (i was used for everyone of them, some resulting in 10 years of problems after, i wont go in to here)… the advice “dont look for it”, not sure who made this up, i assume someone who would get women thrown at them.
This world is cruel and women are the cruelest thing on the planet. Our current shift toward liberalism has ruined the family structure in the nation and any real hope for 90% of us ever finding the true love we dreamed of as children. I for one have been disillusioned for 7 years now. The only thing to look forward to in life if there is no partner to walk with me is the crushing despair and meaningless existence where I wake up daily go to work and come home to an empty house. My life has become circular I… Read more »
Amen, brother.
Awesome website you have here but I was wanting
to know if you knew of any discussion boards that cover
the same topics discussed here? I’d really like to be a part of community where I can get opinions from other knowledgeable
people that share the same interest. If you have any recommendations, please let me know.
Bless you!
First off I do not mean to be mean but some people really have A body odor problem and to me that is one thing that turns me off from people so good Hygiene is A must! second off I have recently had A dry spell which has been going on for too long now 4 and A half years and not only that but I have A bunch of weirdos making it worse by bringing it up over and over again. I really wish that they would stop trying to mess with me mentally just to make it impossible… Read more »
wait until you get to 10+ years (about 20 years for me), i no longer even bother anymore… frankly i have no idea what to do, ive deleted all my sex related parts of my brain to make room for stuff i use, even if its only once every 10 years as thats more frequent.
I haven’t had sex in ages. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
So, we are stuck with porn for the rest of eternity until our species become extinct to the ‘users’ getting laid every chance they get all for the sake of a better more ‘money understanding’ way of lifestyle for ‘there’ future are we? THEN LET IT BE!
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In our society I think sex has too much significance in terms of relationships, and not enough in terms of building simple human connection. There is too much emphasis placed on having monogamy, a long-term relationship or marriage as the ultimate goal, so when anyone is engaged in pursuits of a sexual nature it is expected that their goal is to find 1 person to be with forever. For some people, I think this causes the starvation described where you lack physical connection with people. It is because of the emphasis placed on simple touching that invokes implications bigger and… Read more »
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[…] This is a comment by It’s the Touch on the post “Can’t Get Laid“. […]
I found this site & have literally been devouring it and everyones’ conversations here as if it were a tall glass of water in the desert. I am a 40-year-old woman trying to be a better human being. I am confused and desperately trying to understand men better. I am grateful, and would like to thank everyone here for their braveness to openly write about their pain, frustration, and confusion regarding sex. So far, this is the longest thread I’ve been tracking. I have read every comment. I believe the more we continue to argue who has it worse, men… Read more »
Bravo!
What a deep and profound understanding of the human condition.
Thank you so much.
Bravo. I am fortunate to live in a world with human beings such as yourself. I am too moved to stay in this mental spot. I must move on now. Thank you.
Thank you, this was very beautiful and thoughtful. This “starvation” is what I see all the time, but I never knew how to describe it or what knew what truly influenced it. You’ve provided me a little more clarity, thank you for writing this.
A heartfelt post. Nonetheless, it still reeks of trendy feminism and has me put off on multiple points. According to you, you once had a beach body and got a surplus of attention. Yet, you found yourself becoming despondent, letting go of your physical appearance, and starving for love. Wow! I had no part in your life, but unless some man (or woman, since I don’t know what you like) beat you and treated you terribly, one has to wonder if you are the problem. Women have a simpler time finding the touch. They can get the “touch” (sex) much… Read more »
Good points. I suspect the OP, whilst having a beach body, also ignored the guys being discussed here. I see this quite often, where a woman gets plenty of attention but then is dealt a major blow that affects her desirability. Welcome to the club…
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[…] This is a comment by Danny on the post “Can’t Get Laid“. […]
As far as the scarcity thing is concerned. I think what is happening is that some guys who have little to no fortune in the realm of sex and relationships are treating the apparent way that women seem to have an easier time finding sex as having an easier time finding meaningful sex. Kinda like, “You have more opportunities than I do, so you must be getting more positive results.” While this can hold true on a case to case basis, it’s a stretch to flatly declare that is does hold true overall. Of course increased opportunity doesn’t necessarily equal… Read more »
[…] This is a comment by Hot-tall-intelligent-mature-HWP-blonde-blue-eyed-woman on the post “Can’t Get Laid“. […]
I lost my virginity when I was 22 years old. What I did was lose weight and learn from books. Now it didn’t take long for me to get laid once I put my mind to it. It helped that I could read people very well. as I see it the gaping holes of ignorance is mostly where our cruelty rests. Just look at medicine. The less we knew during our history. The more we shunned the sick and the ones that tried to threat them. I feel that we do the same thing with sex. We don’t know that… Read more »
I firmly believe that no matter who you are, somebody out there would consider you attractive. See to me this just comes off sounding like a cop out. Like some somebody does exist but the person giving the advice is hiding them behind numerical impossibility for the sake of trying to prove wrong the person that has drawn the conclusion that there is no one out there for them. I think this may for some people turn out to have results that range from giving false hope to blinding them from reality. But to expend a bit: It’s gotten to… Read more »
“See to me this just comes off sounding like a cop out.” If I were saying it to give hope, it would be. The rest of the paragraph is there to say that my belief about attraction isn’t there to give you or anyone else hope for the future, rather it is there to try and boost an internal sense of attractiveness (or rather, reduce an internal sense of unattractiveness). Of course you are quite right that some people never do find someone, and I too think that giving false hope is a bad idea. I just think that realizing… Read more »
But all of that crud… it’s your brain. It’s not objective reality. It is your mind telling you things that are probably not true. How so? When you have nothing but a long trail of failure to your name in the realms dating/relationships/sex how can that be seen as anything else other than reality? Sure you can say that it’s a matter of “you haven’t met the right one yet” but that seems to depend on the numerical impossibility of crossing paths with every single person on the planet that matches your orientation. So it comes off sounding like “It’s… Read more »
“And I’m not sure said thoughts are necessarily wrong.” Unfortunately yes, there are groups of people where the number of people attracted to them is much smaller than the size of the group itself. I firmly believe that no matter who you are, somebody out there would consider you attractive. Of course you may not be attracted to them, or you may may never meet them, or you may be merely one among thousands of available people they find attractive, or they may be an utterly horrible person for an unconnected reason, or they may have a prior commitment they… Read more »
Just so I don’t leave nothing but a trail of sadness here I’ll share this bit. A week or so ago I had a friend call me up asking what I thought about blind dates. Well I went all into what I thought about blind dates and how she should try them because “you only live once”. Then she told me she was asking because she was thinking of introducing someone to me. Yeah I totally walked into that one I know. Anyway I wasn’t comfortable with first contact being a phone conversation (this friend wanted to give her friend… Read more »
Danny, there is a chance that the women who call you attractive when drunk genuinely do find you attractive Women are taught that men *should* make the first move (as wrong as that is). When they’re really drunk, many people forget about what you *should* do and stop giving a fuck. It’s very possible that they genuinely found you attractive, but whether due to cowardice or societal conditioning, weren’t able to make those feelings known. It’s also easier to be less embarrassed when you’re drunk. Rejection sucks, we all know this. And for a woman to get rejected sexually, there… Read more »
Maybe you have a point about the liquid courage Aya but unfortunately it’s not like you can ever really know the truth. This was a random woman I crossed paths with at a bar in a medium sized city and more than likely will never cross paths with her again. And honestly if I did I’m not sure I could handle dealing with her again. That night REALLY fucked me up. I tried to focus on the good parts of that night (in fact Male Acts of Goodness #46 (or #45): The Caretaker is actually my attempt at trying to… Read more »
I’m going to quickly respond to the part about the female friends you talked to about this and be honest…hopefully not too politically incorrect or generalizing here. These are just my experiences and observations. For a woman to be a good friend to a man, she cheers him on in his sexual endeavors and you hold your tongue. It’s embedded in the cultural stereotypes. If you tell him that he should not/should not have engage/d in a sexual act: You’re jealous. You’re a prude. You’re a bitch, possibly crazy. You secretly want him. You’ve caught feelings and you’re trying to… Read more »
FWIW, I’m happy at this turn of events for you.
“For me personally this is no longer a matter of doing something to be considered a “real man” (but thanks for acknowledging that this can be a part of it for some of us). It’s gotten to the point where I’m left wondering if I’m even a person anymore. When you go decades and have no relationships, no dates, and extremely little sex it’s not that hard for the mind to wonder about such things. And I’m not sure said thoughts are necessarily wrong.” That’s my feeling exactly Danny. I’m not the most socially flexible individual, and people like me… Read more »
I lost my virginity very very late into my adulthood. I don’t regret this because I knew that as a man I wasn’t ready. I’ve refused the advances of my cousins best friend who wanted to “teach me”, I’ve left drunk/high women in hotel rooms with a kiss on the cheek, I spent my entire military career sexless and to me, prostitution is spiritual suicide although I have given a small fortune to strip clubs. (hell, I’ve put more women through college then the NAACP) Men have to know that sex is a form of self exultation. It’s a gift… Read more »
Calling prostitution spiritual suicide is degrading to sex workers and our clients. It might not be okay for you – it might be spiritual suicide for YOU individually – and that’s fine. But we deserve respect.
Your line of work feeds on vulnerable men, Don’t lecture me about respect especially when your selling false validation.
Stripping is a branch of sex work, and you said you have spent money at strip clubs. If you think prostitution preys on vulnerable men and sells false validation, uh… how is stripping any different? There’s no need to be pissed off and insist that sex workers deserves no respect. Prostitutes don’t “prey” on customers any more than a dancer does when she smiles and flirts and pretends to be interested in customer so she can sell a lap dance. I can’t yield to your insistence that prostitutes are evil. It sounds personal to you. (And of course it is… Read more »
Dolores, to me sex workers are workers, period. They are selling their services to anybody is interested (and clients are buying by free will, not coercition; so, what’s the problem?). The fact that some kind of prostitution has always been with us, is telling that sex working is no “evil”, but part of human nature (OTOH, pimping is a serious crime and should be prosecuted). If somebody doesn’t like their services, just don’t buy it – it’s that simple. People against sex workers, like anything sex-negative, are projecting their own issues – judgment, shame, guilt… Personally, I’m glad you’re here… Read more »
Prostitutes “prey” on their customers in exactly the same way that charities prey on the privileged, doctors prey on the sick, and supermarkets prey on the hungry. Just because there’s money exchanged doesn’t mean that anybody’s being deceived or lied to (I know that when I give to a charity some of that money will go into administrative costs, but the good it can do outweighs that), it doesn’t mean that there’s no kind of personal connection between the people involved (would you visit a therapist you couldn’t get along with on a personal level?) and it doesn’t mean that… Read more »
No no I think you have the emphasis wrong there. It’s fair to talk about men’s needs as a form of addiction perhaps but that metaphor doesn’t make sex workers into pushers because the need is there quite naturally. I mean what would you have women do? Doesn’t a sex worker have to make a living just the same as anyone else? Does a supermarket feed on our vulnerable need to eat food?
And if you don’t see men’s sexual needs as an unhealthy addiction I have no idea where you are coming from.
Having sex is terrific.
Not having sex when you don’t feel like to, is just as fine. 😎
@Ozy Frantz: “my first impulse is to say “I can correct that problem!” I wish that were generally considered a polite reaction… ”
Hooray to you!!!
Thank you for writing ths (again) . I think there’s a that needs repeating about this However, I take some issue with this part: There are lots of reasons why people don’t get laid much. A general dislike of leaving the house or meeting new people, prioritizing different things in their lives, not being willing to ask people out, only being attracted to a small percentage of people, and so on and so forth. , and also with what Captain Awkward writes about not wanting to have sex. Because it implies that people who are “virgins” or “on a dry… Read more »
I mostly agree with Ozy’s and Captain Akward’s points. There is certainly pressure on men to perform in these situations to give proof of their virility. But there is another point and I apologize in advance for the silly analogy. Let’s say you only get offered cake once a year. If you reject such an offer wouldn’t you regret your decision every time you crave cake in the following months? It’s slightly condescending for someone who gets a lot of offers to say: “Don’t worry, you’ll get a lot of offers for cake. Then you chose the one you really… Read more »
Many men rarely get offers for casual sex. The idea that they better take the offer and take it now because they don’t know when the next comes or if it still stands a day later is not only in their head. It’s their reality, it’s certainly my reality. This was my situation wrt non-casual relationship sex, when I still was in a relationship. I largely agree with your point, most of these “don’t worry if you’ve missed one chance to have sex, you will have many more” advices seem to come from a perspective of plentiness addressing people experience… Read more »
Well, replace “offers” with “opportunities” and with you… 😉
To a certain extent, I think that attitude is a result of non-frustrated people just not wanting to hear about other people’s frustrations, and saying things like that to just shut them up.
This has crossed my mind as well Thomas. If you are concerned about sounding silly I had this thought come to me in a different manner. How about this,
It’s like the one who has “loved and lost” telling the one who has “never loved at all that love (or sex or dating) is that big of a deal.
I picture one person crawling through the barren desert sands, stumbling upon a cell phone, calling for help and being told “Just have a drink of water and calm down. Before I can send help I need to know the address you are calling from.”
Context always matters.
Let me fix that.
“never loved at all“ that love (or sex or dating) is not that big of a deal.
I’m a 30 year old man. I first had sex shortly before my 28th birthday. I decided to seek the services of a sex worker because I realised I was absolutely terrified of initiating physical contact. I live in a place where sex work is decriminalised, I probably would not have done so otherwise. Anyway, I was absolutely terrified, nervous and even shaking. The lady was wonderful and very understanding. I think the experience was quite healing. Something happened to me when I was very young that I think dramatically shaped who I am. Not abuse or even anything that… Read more »
Thank you for this contribution. You’re the type of client I enjoy seeing. I’m only one sex worker, but it is enjoyable and fulfilling to work with someone who knows why he’s seeking my services and what he gets from it, isn’t ashamed of it, and values my work.
Most everyone has to work, but not many people have a job that actually makes a contribution like yours.