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 »
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…
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 »
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.
I am definetely in a similar situation as Yiab, though right now my biggest regret is not seeking professional pyschotherapy sooner. I ask people out extremely rarely, and this is undoubtedly the cause for a never been kissed status. In high school, a woman approaching me (i.e. a het male) caused panic. Coincidently (or the opposite of coincidently) I’m also aspie. If one is dealing with a psychological problem, it’s hard to imagine it making sex or any other interpersonal relationship easier. Really this is something that requires it’s own seperate discussion. Ozy’s discussion isn’t really about people like me… Read more »
If one is dealing with a psychological problem, it’s hard to imagine it making sex or any other interpersonal relationship easier. Really this is something that requires it’s own seperate discussion. Yep, yep, yep. I know exactly where you’re coming from here* and it’s just so important to stress this point in these types of discussions about “not getting laid”. I spent a year being celibate due to a lot of capital-I Issues. As sexually frustrated as I was, and as much as I idolized the idea of getting into a new relationship, I knew that I wasn’t ready or… Read more »
“This is not to ignore the pain that can come from a lack of sexual opportunities, but it would be nice if people wouldn’t conflate this with the struggles of mental illness.” Quite true, but don’t mistake the relevance of mental illness to the discussion for conflation. What caused me to raise the issue was the fact that it appeared that the possibility of mental illness as the cause of a “dry spell” for someone hadn’t even been considered. If someone struggling with mental illness takes to heart this kind of broad idea, it can make them more willing to… Read more »
My experience is that therapy is useless. (This impression has been formed from my parents sending me to therapy because I didn’t do what people were demanding or expecting me to do. Such as get up earlier than I wanted to so I could get to school on time.)
Therapy can be effective and useful only when one decides HE wants to change.
Until that moment, no therapy, help or advice is going to do any good.
Nobody can change you (not even by force), until YOU decide to change.
And nobody changes for the sake of others; we only change when we have a strong enough personal motivation.
This dynamic is easily seen in Alcoholic Anonymous groups (or similar contexts).
Sometimes strong enough motivation comes from our wishes about others, though. I listen to a podcast in which one of the co-creators only stepped back from the brink of suicide because of his love for his daughter. Call that personal motivation if you like, but it’s motivation gained through devotion to another, and if that’s not changing for the sake of another I don’t know what is.
I don’t know really. My hunch is that having a casual sexual encounter with someone is fairly easy and straightforward for an overwhelming majority of people. Of course, I don’t really know since I’ve never tried to have one myself. On the other hand, my experience tells me that ending up in a relationship is next to impossible, if you don’t belong to a community where there are other people seeking relationships. And such communities don’t exist for people like me. I could take up a hobby but I already fill all my spare time with hobbies, and I’m generally… Read more »
Ozy, There are a lot of feel good. love yourself jive in your essay, and I guess that’s groovy. but it is going to ring false to a lot of the guys reading this instead of sleeping with a woman. Your list of “Things that not having had sex in a while, or even ever, does not mean:” all may be true to a given individual. But when you compare this individual to other guys, who are after all out there in the world too, some fellows will find that these Things have some basis in the reality of their… Read more »
Dunno. I’d like nothing more than a long-term romantic relationship with a woman, but it rarely happens and never seems to work, and not for lack of trying. Finding a woman for casual sex is such an exercise in frustration and futility that I gave up on that long ago. Finding a man for casual sex – If I really wanted to, I can have a guy within an hour. (Don’t usually work quite that fast, though.) Never figured out what’s up with that, but at least I’m not suffering or anything. Too concerned about the STD risk to make… Read more »
You’ve done several posts like this, and with every single one I try very hard to understand the plight of the person that wants sex so desperately to the point of depression if they cannot get it. Intellectually I can? Sort of like how intellectually I can understand dedicating your life to base jumping, but I cannot in the marrow of my bones understand that within the context of my reality. This is coming from someone who gets sex from her husband twice a year (LDR) and hates masturbating. So, trying. Very very hard. Maybe someday I’ll be able to… Read more »
Try going nearly 40 years with nothing – a tiny fraction of intimate contact and a lot of fantasies built up. Combine that with a culture that associates your basic value as your gender with “success” in that matter, plus the notion that if you fail in that area, it’s your own lack of confidence, plus the belief that just “being yourself” is enough, plus the belief that the gender you’re attracted to is not superficial so you can’t chalk it up to your looks…. Sorry, I’m rambling because I just got dumped again, was told it didn’t really have… Read more »
Yo! dude she hit you with the nice guy rap? ahw man.. My condolences.
I should point out that she didn’t use those exact words, and she definitely did NOT mean Nice GuyTM. It was more along the lines of “don’t take this personally” or “can we still be friends?”
She is a genuinely cool person, which makes me more bummed.
“Try going nearly 40 years with nothing –”
UNCLEAN! UNCLEEEEAN!
lol
What a let down. I can’t imagine what that kind of rejection over such a long time does to a person. I’ve had some sexual partners and some dry spells, and I still fear sexual exclusion when so many seem to find it natural and seem to have healthy confidence in finding new sexual partners. In writing that I notice how shamefully quick I am to distance myself from men who become completely excluded, as though it were a contagion. Like most men I’ve gown up faced with that same specter of exclusion. That possibility of crushed hope, shame and… Read more »
I dunno, ppl are just wired differently. But maybe “husband” is the magic word here.
Men face a scarcity issue regarding intimate contact that many women literally cannot comprehend. They can sympathize, but they have no equivalent life experience to draw on.
So the nice straight lady I know who is in her late twenties and has never had a kiss, much less a boyfriend, doesn’t face a scarcity issue? So all of the adult female virgins who write in to Captain Awkward don’t face a scarcity issue? I’m just saying, barring a whole bunch of mono-female-poly-male relationships, every time there’s a man who can’t get laid, there’s a woman who can’t get laid either. This really fucking annoys me, personally, because I was female-assigned, and I have been fairly sexually successful. There are also times I’ve spent days without leaving the… Read more »
I feel your pain, Ozy. There was a time when I was a teenager when all I would ever get is homeless men leering at me and nothing from guys my age. It made me feel crying, and if anyone says “well at least you got something”, I’m going to throw a tantrum.
Claiming that straight women on average have it easier to get into a sexual relationships doesn’t invalidate the experience of individual women who are struggling with this. When it comes to other gendered issues we make this distinction too. Though, I agree that it’s important to avoid vast generalizations.
Quite right, there certainly are women (and female assigned people) who have a scarcity of opportunity when it comes to sexuality. Also quite correct that there are many forms of loneliness and many different ways of experiencing that loneliness – person A may feel perfectly satisfied in one situation while person B would be unbearably lonely in the same situation. “every time there’s a man who can’t get laid, there’s a woman who can’t get laid either. ” This assumes that frequency of sexual desire balances out between the genders in aggregate, which is something I don’t think we can… Read more »
“So the nice straight lady I know who is in her late twenties and has never had a kiss, much less a boyfriend, doesn’t face a scarcity issue? ”
No, she really doesn’t. She can get intimacy any time she wants it, simply by lowering her standards and making her availability public. She won’t get the sex she _wants_, but she will get some sex. There is no equivalent option for men.
As I said in another comment here, context always matters. There are places where a straight woman can have a very difficult time finding a partner, if we assume that the limitation to male partners is a standard for which we won’t fault her. For example, she might be attending a women-only college in an isolated location, or she could be part of a subculture/community which most people outside that subculture/community won’t appreciate in a romantic context and which has an unbalanced gender ratio (like nerds are with respect to men), or she could have a mental illness which prevents… Read more »
I completely agree, no sex is better than bad sex. I went through long periods of celibacy in my life. I have never been a “hottie,” I’m an introvert and I’ve always struggled with my weight. I knew I was not particularly attractive to men, even when Iwas in my 20’s, and in my 30’s it just got worse. Sometimes I felt so sexually frustrated I thought I’d go insane. So, could I have gone into a bar and walked up to random guys and found someone willing to have sex with me? Probably yes. But would it have been… Read more »
I think this is part of the difference – for at least some men, bad sex is better than no sex, they see at least a few women who complain about the difficulty of finding a partner for sex while turning down opportunities for bad sex, and see that as having too high standards. This is why I like to point out that standards and desires differ between the sexes, and experience doesn’t necessarily translate. This is also part of why I dislike when a member of one sex tells people of the other sex (setting aside non-binary individuals for… Read more »
Addendum: I deliberately phrased the last two sentences neutrally with respect to gender, as I recognize there are people of all genders who have experienced each of these, though I think there is a strong statistical bias in each case.
I’ve asked my husband about this. He’s also of the ‘bad sex is better than no sex’ variety, but when I amended the question to ‘would you rather not have sex or sex that’s a mixture of scary, boring, painful and annoying, does NOTHING to get you remotely horny while someone jostles your body and gets annoyed when you try to make it fun for you, too, and leaves you with no chance of an orgasm?’ the answer was ‘ah, when you put it like THAT…’ I’ve had bad sex like that, and it just left me depressed and in… Read more »
I’m a bit puzzled by the focus on orgasm (not that this focus excludes any other ugly facets of bad sex), because I really wonder how important getting to have an orgasm is for involuntary celibate men (or even women and other people who aren’t men). I’d be interested to hear the opinions of other people who very rarely have an opportunity for sex, having an orgasm is the one thing about sex I don’t need a partner for. (I would also like to know if those horrible-sounding bad sex encounters where the man apparently didn’t care about the woman’s… Read more »
@elementary, I agree overall there is a lot more to sex than orgasm. But in a casual encounter, that’s the primary reward (in my view). In my relationship, sex is also about affection and intimacy. Sometimes I don’t get an orgasm, it is still satisfying. But in a casual encounter, there’s no emotional intimacy and not much affection since you hardly know this person. With no orgasm, for the woman involved, the whole experience can end up feeling like some awkward rapid humping with no payoff. At least that’s been my experience. And it’s not that the guys in question… Read more »
As a het man in mid-20’s who’s never had sex or a relationship and is upset about that, it’s not about the sex for me at all. It’s about being loved and cared about, having someone to talk to and do stuff with, having somebody who wants me to be a key piece of their life. Sex would probably be a part of that, and that would be cool, but it’d probably still be cool if it weren’t a big part of that. And to be honest, I think not having sex as an emphasis might be part of the… Read more »
@Sarah: Just to be sure: Are you coming from the perspective of someone who is (or has been at one point) celibate for a far longer time than she wanted? As that was who I was talking about.
I’m not questioning you because your view goes against my expectations, but rather because you state being in a relationship and talked about your experiences with casual sex, which many involuntary celibate people don’t have.
Addendum @Sarah:
For me, the primary reward of casual sex would be feeling like a fully sexual being, and someone (female) being okay with this (preferrably, someone female being thrilled out of her pants about it).
You’ve got your view, I’ve got mine, they are different, but none is more or less valid than the other.
@elementary, for me it’s the other way around than for Sarah. I can orgasm in 30 seconds from a cold start and don’t even need to feel any arousal to get there. Orgasm is easier to achieve than arousal for me (my greatest sex organ is definitely between my ears, and that takes some time to learn how to work with), so I’m being UNdemanding when I say that’s the least I want to get out of it. At least an orgasm would give me 2 or 3 enjoyable seconds in an otherwise pretty awful experience. (Of course, I do… Read more »
@elementary, actually I have been through periods in my life where I was involuntarily celibate. During several years in my 30’s, I only had sex a couple times total. I probably could have found more opportunities for casual sex, even though I was not in a healthy place mentally or physically, but I found that casual sex isnt physically OR emotionally fulfilling for me. If I wanted just sexual satisfaction, i.e. orgasm, a casual encounter doesn’t work for me. And it definitely doesn’t meet any emotional needs. At least that was my experience. YMMV 🙂
@Sarah: Thanks for the reply 🙂
I have a question to you and all the other men who think this: will you ever change your mind on this? Because God knows how many times I and other female-bodied persons have tried to prove how offensively painful “any woman can get any sex she wants” is.
I don’t know. I think it stems from how much being in denied sex / intimacy can hurt, people sorta seem to feel like it’s so horrible that they should at least get some kind of recognition for how “uniquely unfair” life has been to them. It sucks, but at least it gives them a way of being special….. When truthfully, dating and sex is a process that craps on everyone. It does it in many different ways, and some of those ways are probably gendered in how they play out (owing to how tied up gender roles are in… Read more »
Of course bad sex is better than no sex at all! And I can see why that core difference prevents many men and women from understanding each other’s perspectives and experiences. Compare it to food: I don’t eat a dry, stale moldy roll sitting in my trash can because I know I can always go to the kitchen (or a restaurant, or the store) and get something better. But then, I’m not starving to death in a desert with no other options. If I were, I’d gobble that roll up in a heartbeat and be glad of the opportunity. That’s… Read more »
“even that just seems like so much “masturbating with another person”” Yeah. To some people, that’s still better than masturbating without another person. “Compare it to food…” That’s a good analogy, but it’s not universal. I’m arguing that when a woman (or a man or whoever) turns down bad sex, it’s likely that the entire analogy does not apply to them. But people for whom this analogy does not apply also need to realize that there are people for whom this analogy actually does apply. “cause if you are that hungry, something has gone really wrong” Yeah, it has. That… Read more »
“Cause if that person is mostly just a moldy scrap of trash bread…” I don’t know if this is the way CopyLeft was thinking about it, but I was thinking about the moldy scrap of trash bread as being analogous to the sex, not to the other person. The other person definitely is a person (and quite possibly a wonderful one in their own right), but the physical activity of sex is not a person, and an act two people undertake together does not need to define how either one of them feels about the other, even if they never… Read more »
Moldy bread isn’t a good analogy . A person who is literally starving will die without food. The choice between moldy bread and death is easy . But no one is ever literally going to die from lack of sex.
Also, if I’m desperately horny, I can masturbate. I don’t need the “moldy bread” to release my sexual tension. I can deal with my frustration, hoping something more appetizing and satisfying than moldy bread presents itself.
Orgasm is not the same as intimate contact. It’s the scarcity of intimate contact that men are facing, and it’s simply not one that women have to deal with–at least, not in the same way.
The feeling that someone is genuinely willing to touch you is one that many, many men will never experience even once in their lives, no matter how hard they work or what they try. And it crushes men.
That is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever read. Ever. I want to apologize, but I don’t know what for.
“The feeling that someone is genuinely willing to touch you”
And allow or even want you to touch them.
Well put.
Copyleft, what do you mean? do you mean touch of any kind? Are you thinking that women are never touch deprived by men they find attractive? Or just in sex? What and why do you think this problem occurs? I’d really really like to have this conversation with you, so if you don’t want to do it here, will you email me? julie @ goodmenproject .com
That is very sad. I have a lot of geeky guy friends and I see how some of them suffer. They can’t figure out how to connect with women at all, and I don’t know how to help them.
Let’s say Sam and Jamie really want to get laid on a given weekend. Sam finds five people who are willing to sleep with zir. Jamie finds ten people who are willing to sleep with zir. Would you rather want to be Sam or Jamie? I certainly would want to be Jamie because among the ten people I can choose the one I have the most chemistry with. When we talk about scarcity it’s not so much about sex itself. It’s about the opportunity to have sex. This was the whole starting point of the discussion. The letter writer from… Read more »
“… why have sex if it is totally unsatisfying and with someone you don’t even like/aren’t even mildly attracted to? That’s not intimacy, that’s…not even masturbation (which I’d suspect would be more fun). …” At the risk of loosing my man card I (cis-het-man) have to agree. Maybe I’m just exceptionally primitive and unsophisticated, but in my case masturbation is actually quite effective in alleviating the primal urge for raw sex. What I really crave when I’m single is intimacy and companionship. And I can’t get that from a random woman whose whole qualification is “female, alive, consenting.” So yes… Read more »
Under the “women aren’t allowed to be active” rules (yes, I know, that is thankfully changing, but today it’s still a good approximation of reality) not getting you butt in motion and chatting her up is the the male variant of rejection. Because she has no recourse: your (in)action aborts any possible relationship. Under the “only men are active” parameters that refusal is equivalent with saying “No thanks, but thanks!” If you look at it that way, most guys give out more rejections than most women. Uhm, no? Like, totally no? Unless you live in a culture where a casual… Read more »
“… That’s because a rejection settles the matter (or it should, ideally), while inaction settles nothing, for once. …” If women aren’t allowed to ask for a date and the man is inactive, the matter of the date is settled. It will not happen. It isn’t some kind of Schroedinger’s date in a limbo. It isn’t pining for the fjords. It’s an ex-date. “… For twice, [snip] …” I don’t really understand what is supposed to be analogous to what. Let’s modify your analogy: the boy represents the man, one t-shirt represents the woman, a worn t-shirt represents a date.… Read more »
If women aren’t allowed to ask for a date and the man is inactive, the matter of the date is settled. It will not happen. It isn’t some kind of Schroedinger’s date in a limbo. It isn’t pining for the fjords. It’s an ex-date. The date isn’t “dead”; it hasn’t even been conceived! There isn’t anything there YET to be killed off. It’s like saying a married couple kills some of their children each time a single one of the man’s sperms is hindered from fertilizing one of the woman’s egg cells.* Let’s say there is a woman, let’s call… Read more »
This gets a bit to abstract for me. My point was “I think many men seriously underestimate how picky they really are.” “Women who can’t get laid” can’t get laid because they’re invisible even for the “I want contact with a woman, any woman” crowd. Because there is no conceivable way to think that sex is an incredibly scarce resource for guys while every woman drowns in willing partners without erasing the women who can’t get laid. Because Ozy is right you know: for every man who can’t get laid there is a woman who can’t get laid. Simple math.… Read more »
This post is intended as a response to NaHa. Many ““Women who can’t get laid” can’t get laid because they’re invisible even for the “I want contact with a woman, any woman” crowd. ” Add one word an you’re fine. Without that word it’s an overly broad statement. Some women can’t get laid because their standards are too high, some men can’t get laid because their standards are too high. The statistics are another matter and I feel can’t be resolved without real-world research being cited. “Because Ozy is right you know: for every man who can’t get laid there… Read more »
In a hypothetical culture where women are literally not allowed to initiate things, then no approach is indeed equivalent to a passive “no”. In a culture where it is frowned upon it is making things very difficult for the woman if she wants to initiate, and in a culture where it is merely a rarity it is making things somewhat more uncomfortable for her.
Of course the culture of the modern West certainly does not disallow women from initiating, I would guess that we are in some mixture of “frowned upon” and “rarity”.
I can understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think you can really equate inaction with rejection. Rejection comes when there is a clear understanding of what is being rejected – inaction can occur for a myriad of other reasons which can include such simple causes as plain being oblivious, or not having the self-esteem to believe she could really be flirting with him. I do wonder if there’s a way to make these signals clearer, or a way to teach men who are otherwise ill-equipped to receive them to be more attuned to it. This inaction contains more… Read more »
Untrue. There is NO one-to-one ratio. You are making that erroneous assumption.
Julie, Look at “Date Lab”, a weekly feature in the Washington Post. The staff on the Post’s Magazine pairs up people, gay and straight, all ages, but mostly attractive young professional people. They obviously don’t pair up people randomly. They try to make sure that people are in the same ” league” as far as their looks, age, wealth, and educational attainments. Then they send them to a bistro for a date. Even with this kind of help, how often do the daters make a connection of any kind? Almost never. The He said, She said business is practically unrelated… Read more »
I asked for suggestions on how to close the gap. Do you have any?
Honestly…other than going overseas to meet more women, which is mostly a scam of course, at least when done commercially…no. Have you ever heard of a dating activity or party game like “speed dating”, but where people are randomly paired up by lot, and they have to go go home with each other? Me neither.
I hear “key parties” are enjoying a bit of a renaissance right now, actually.
I would imagine like most other variations of sex parties consent still reigns. Chances are if you got paired with someone that is not interested in you they would be able to say no free of consequence (I hope that it’s in some confidential way so that the person that gets turned down doesn’t have to have it happen to them in front of everyone).
The veracity of key parties as a trend is questionable. It’s on Snopes, and a lot of fictional television shows, so draw your own conclusions. I have met some women that were willing to “swing”, but I can’t see any of them acquiescing to something like this unless it was a very limited group of people, all of whom were know in advance.
The scads of reality shows, like “Jersey Shore” and the “Real World” and others to numerous to mention don’t do that? Name a popular movie where sex between unmarried people isn’t at least implied. College hook up culture? I have read about, and have had friends go to resorts like Hedonism where it is basically anything goes. Everyone paying to money to go there knows that. But over half the guys going there without a woman (to share?) get zilch, unless they get hooked up with a ringer that they have to pay, which makes her a… It’s a numbers… Read more »
Making it socially acceptable to settle for less than absolute perfection? That’s crazy talk!
“How about Sex and the City, except that most of the guys are smart, funny, overweight, and bald? Would HBO pick that one up?”
I could switch that around to any TV woman who is meant to be a love interest. But no, the male demographic has to have their eye candy, right?
I though for sure I had replied to this but it’s not here. Oh well. I think a great start would be to stop treating female virginity like its a treasure that must be guarded until marriage and male virginity like is a curse that must be dispelled as soon as possible (and when you think it about in terms of heterosexual sex these two almost contradict each other). But in order for that to change it would call for changing the way sex is regarded at some pretty fundamental ways. Look at the stories that pop up over parents… Read more »
Julie, I’m quite convinced that on average men have to work harder to get sex than women. Usually the man asks out, plans the date, pays for dinner, initiates the first gentle contact, pays for drinks, initiates making-out, pays for the cap ride to his/her place, initiates sex. I’m a little exaggerating, but broadly that’s the idea. Maybe “scarcity” is simply a psychological effect rooted in the fact that men invest more effort to get sex. Some time ago on another blog a commenter named dungone posted a paper about a speed dating experiment (http://people.tamu.edu/~eastwick/RotationPaper.pdf ). The study found that… Read more »
Dunno I’ve done a great deal of approaching and asking in my day and getting laid is not always the easy thing men think. At least if I want to enjoy I’m getting laid with.
This is an interesting aspect of these discussions, that even if woman’s sexuality were fully encouraged, their sexual proclivities wouldn’t fix a scarcity problem. Not that all women are attracted to the same thing, but there is evidence that women are harsher judges. For instance in a NY Times article “New Math on Campus”: “Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and… Read more »
I think a part of the issue is communication. When two people meet there isn’t really any effective way to know what page two people happen to be on about such a controversial topic as casual sex – so there’s no easy way to know whether suggesting it might result in drama. The shame about multiple partners that women suffer also has a secondary effect here, as it means that some women interpret a man expressing this kind of interest as an insult – because if he thinks she might be interested, surely that must mean he has a low… Read more »
Yeah, the whole thing is messed up….
It is messed up, and I don’t think it helps that whenever people try to discuss this sort of thing the discussion rapidly devolves into who has it worse / Oppression Olympics. There are more constructive ways to address this issue. I’m reminded of a conversation I had at a party with a friends girlfriend (now his wife), there were a few of us and the conversation had turned to the seemingly random aspect of female behaviour. She was able to explain for us what might have been going on in the incidents we were describing and it was quite… Read more »
L: This is coming from someone who gets sex from her husband twice a year (LDR) and hates masturbating. So, trying. Very very hard. Maybe someday I’ll be able to understand and sympathize with the plight. This could be a difference in the amount of sexual desire (which varies from person to person) , how close intimacy (just being with someone, nothing sexual) and sex are tied together varying from person to person, etc… Bear in mind that for a lot of people sex and closeness are tied together. Even if you aren’t having sex that often I not that… Read more »
I read some interesting things which kind of made sense to me regarding how men aren’t allowed to show physical affection except through sex. Men hardly ever touch each other. There is minimal tenderness and affection in a man’s life because to do so would be an attack on their masculinity by society. It’s socially acceptable for them to show anger and little else. The only socially acceptable thing for a man to do to be able to experience these much needed emotions, tenderness/affection, is through sex. Women hold hands and and walk arm in arm atc. it’s socially acceptable… Read more »
It’s not so much about genital stimulation as it is about feeling like you’re not worthy of romantic love.