The essence of femininity
The Summertime Femininity Challenge
Wanting Closure
Winning With a Hard-to-Get Strategy
Giving Hookup Culture a Makeover
Be All the Things You Want In a Partner
Sleeping around
Office Romances Frequently Lead to Marriage

Not to knock this, but this meme of men seeking sex for ‘validation’ is something I see & hear around a lot from women, & it falls so far from the mark it always makes me laugh. It says very little about the inner workings of men but perhaps a little too much about the internal imaginings of women.

I’m writing something right now about the naturally polygamous drives of men, & in looking for well-known examples from amongst moral men of the past my research led me to a site called ‘cheaterville’, & a piece entitled ‘famous adulterers in history’, where we are told:

Einstein went through a number of illicit affairs throughout the years. In a way, we shouldn’t be too surprised. Men as far out of the box as Einstein revel in the act of risk-taking, and what’s a bigger risk than betraying your family with 10 different women?

This utterly misses the basic reality of men. The idea that the appeal for Einstein to want to be with other women was because he liked the risk is hysterical(!). To speak of the naturally promiscuous male desire as being for ‘risk taking’ or ‘validation’ or anything other than the overwhelming, head-splitting, throat-parched need to FUCK is a bit like saying women have the biological urge to bear children because they think they’ll go nicely with their shoes.

It’s something much bigger than us &, in the final analysis, beyond our comprehension. Women aren’t ever going to know what it is like being a man wanting a woman, or rather women, any more than a man is ever going to know what it’s like to bear children. But we can know we don’t know, & there’s no better start than that.

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Susan Walsh says:
November 4, 2011 at 1:36 pm
FWIW, a good rule for women is to never moan when what he’s doing isn’t turning you on, and to always moan or vocalize when it is. That alone will often set guys in the right direction, and then you’re just fine-tuning instead of awkwardly trying to get him to do something completely different.

Of course, it works the other way too. My first boyfriend in college was totally silent. I had to put my ear against his chest and listen for his heartbeat to determine if he had come. Flying blind like that is very, very difficult. We all need positive reinforcement.

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Susan Walsh says:
November 4, 2011 at 1:40 pm
@alexamenos
Point taken about the relative meaning of the term “involuntary.”