Baggage Reclaim » Sex

Why Using Casual Relationships As a Back Door Route to a Relationship is a Deeply Flawed Plan

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:40:52 +0000

A male friend of ours has been going through a really difficult time. When we hung out last week, he emphasised to the boyf and I, how he’s steering clear of relationships and focusing on getting his life together. My ears pricked up though when he ‘casually’ mentioned a female friend who he was hanging out with. A bit of probing quickly revealed that she’d also recently experienced a breakup.

“So you’re just friends?” I asked and paused for a few seconds waiting for what I suspected was to come. He insisted yes and then said “OK, well actually she stayed over last weekend but seriously, it was strictly as friends.” He then admitted they’d slept in the same bed and that nothing had happened. I waited a few more seconds. He then admitted they’d had a kiss and a cuddle. Hi-la-ri-ous!

Now let’s be real – you know how this story goes, possibly because you’ve been in this very situation yourself.

He’s told her what’s been going on his life and has (so he claims) emphatically stated that he doesn’t want a relationship and absolutely can’t do one. She’s out of something pretty bad too and claims to be in full agreement. However proving yet again that there’s no such thing as a casual relationship (an oxymoron in itself), it was less than a week later before she was trying to make plans and angling to stay over at his. Like a girlfriend.

Even funnier – there’s another couple of women he’s ‘texting’ with. When I asked him why he can’t just be by himself, sort himself out, find things to do, see friends etc, he told me that he couldn’t ‘manage’ without female attention and these interactions break up the routine.

His rationale is that he’s told her everything that’s being going on his life and how he doesn’t want a relationship so he thinks that she understands the ‘terms’ and that he clearly isn’t in a position to be anything other than casual. What he hasn’t realised is that while he may have been upfront, at the same time his actions can be perceived as ‘mixed messages’. Many people still think that people who don’t want relationships either shag you and then shag off, or remain alone – this is completely untrue.

The ‘passenger’ in casual relationships participates to use it as ‘backdoor’ entry to a committed relationship at a later date. For many people, having needs, expectations, and even standards from the outset is something they’re scared to risk even though it’s pure lunacy because to try to be involved with someone without these, is like turning up dressed as a doormat.

Acting casually wards off the threat of rejection and stretching yourself. There’s now such a fear of the vulnerability that comes with dating that it’s been watered down to the nothingness of a casual relationship. The hidden agenda is that you’ll ‘embed’ yourself and upgrade later. It’s like “I’m going to be a willing ear, easy going, indispensable, a great lay etc that they’ll want me around all the time.”

The ‘driver’ in casual relationships is all out for themselves using ‘honesty’ to downgrade the other persons expectations and standards. Casual relationships are about having all of the fringe benefits of a relationship without the relationship. Some would argue why they wouldn’t just have one night stands instead of, in some instances treating people like unpaid hookers, armchair psychologists, on board entertainment, and beards, but getting so much for so little, feels so much better than what may feel like the soulless experience of being with someone who doesn’t care about you and has no interest.

This is ridiculous when you think about it: Some of us need people to give a sh*t about us even when we don’t about them.

9 out of 10 people when told they’re a user will deny it but when someone exploits others to get their needs met, ‘using’, even if they’ve been ‘honest’, is actually what it is.

What we all need to do is be responsible for our emotional health and standards because the fact is, there are people out there that are only too willing to hold you to a lower standard in the name of ‘fun’ and ‘keeping things light’. You have to hold yourself to a higher standard than what they have in mind for you because the hidden agenda of being casual about your needs and then upgrading later is a painful, deluded plan because if someone can get everything out of you for little or no emotional and relationship contribution from them, the tone has been set and they’re cruising on easy street.

Fact is, you have better things to be doing than breaking up the monotony of someone’s day or being the on demand entertainment.

It’s not about them meaning you any harm but they’re so focused on what they want that it doesn’t occur to them that some of their contradictory behaviour is misleading and the truth is that some people overestimate their capability to cope with a casual relationship.

My friend admitted that there are clear indicators that his ‘friend’ has more than casual feelings for him and is indeed trying the back door route to a relationship. He should be walking away instead of dropping more hints or giving reminders while getting an ego stroke and a ‘cuddle’. Yes she’d probably feel a bit miffed in the short-term but it’ll be far less painful than in a few months down the road when he starts dodging her calls and texts or saying shite like “You knew my situation when we met.”

That’s not to take away from her responsibility to take care of herself, but you know what? Part of the reason why I refer to there being a ‘driver’ and a ‘passenger’ is because there’s someone driving things on their terms that knows the score and even when they become aware that the ‘passenger’ is feeling and wants more, they’re too busy stuffing themselves at the all-you-can-eat-buffet to walk away.

If someone shows that they clearly have more feelings for you, then it’s obvious that you’ve not only failed to do as good a job of explaining, but that you’ve definitely overstayed your welcome and it’s time to move on.

It begs the question of: “If you know they want more and that you can’t give more, why haven’t you left?” The answer: “There’s plenty in it for you to enjoy in the meantime.”

Don’t allow someone to use you as a plaything because you’ve got your own agenda of selling them in on a lower price option now and upgrading them later. Dating is the route to a relationship – stop taking shortcuts that sell you short.

Your thoughts?

Great posts on this subject by others this week: So You Don’t Fall In Love: A Thesis For Emotionally Unavailable Men and Letting Go of Mr Nice

Check out my ebooks the No Contact Rule and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl and more in my bookshop.

Casual Relationships: All The Fringe Benefits of a Relationship…Without The Actual Relationship

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:19:25 +0000

Several years back, in what turned out to be my ‘epiphany relationship’ that completely changed me, I was involved with someone that:

1) Pursued me and when we finally got together, he said he’d fancied me ever since we’d been introduced several months before (when he was in a relationship by the way…)

2) Said I was a ‘great girl’ and how he loved spending time with me

3) I slept with on a number of occasions and he stayed over

4) We hung out sometimes with each others respective friends

5) I did a lot of ego stroking

6) I listened to his moans and gripes about work and even his ex

7) We went out to dinner and the movies

8. Called, emailed and texted me

9) I made myself available for him to make plans with

I believed we were in a relationship. I’ll admit I didn’t go so far as to call him my boyfriend but I thought we had something decent going on and that we were moving towards a committed relationship. Aside from 2-3 weeks of intensity, the remainder of our five month ‘relationship’ was hot and cold, where both the frequency of seeing each other and the level of contact went downhill and I just didn’t know what to expect or what the hell was going on. It was only when I started to fully acknowledge my discomfort and play the ‘relationship’ back that I realised it was a barely there relationship or as many refer to it, a casual relationship.

Knowing just how hot and cold and inconsistent our ‘relationship’ was, you would be forgiven for wondering how the hell I didn’t realise?

It’s because I was ‘thrown’ off the scent of a casual relationship due to what I saw as the ‘hallmarks’ of a relationship.

It really isn’t too great a leap to believe, that because someone seems to enjoy your company so much, you’re sleeping with them over a period of time, giving them an ego stroke, a shoulder to lean on, being introduced to friends and even family, and are even having references to the future slipped in, that you’re in a relationship.

However it’s best to stop taking that leap and recognise that just because someone does want to contact you, sleep with you, and look for emotional sustenance from you over a period of time, it doesn’t mean you’re in a relationship because without landmarks of a healthy, loving (or on the way to loving) relationship such as commitment, intimacy and progression, your relationship is all shirt, no trousers, ham, no burger, bread, no butter.

Don’t believe how misguided I was? When we finally had The Conversation and I told him that it was obvious that it wasn’t working out, he admitted that he didn’t want a relationship – when we’d got together, he’d broken up with his ex a couple of months before. He then proceeded to remind me that I was gorgeous, fun, intelligent, great to spend time with and yada yada yada.

I was his Fallback Girl and I gave him a soft landing out of his old life and helped him avoid whatever feelings he had about his previous relationship.

Even though our attitude to relationships and what we consider casual has changed over time and includes foolishness like Friends With Benefits, Booty Calls (read: Dial A Lay) and the ‘option’ to boomerang in and out of an exes life at will, most of us still have this idea that someone who doesn’t want a relationship or just wants you for sex, will shag you once, or even a few times and then disappear, or just won’t bother to be with you.

Most of us are conditioned to think that when someone wants to ‘use’ you in a casual way, it’s for ‘sex’. In fact, I in particular get men telling me again and again that it’s for sex and that we [women] should know this. The being used for sex thing is bullshit though, because there’s no need to mock up a pseudo relationship to get laid. The barriers to entry for sex have been well and truly broken down.

No, these ambiguous, confusing, often painful situations arise because the driver of the casual relationship (there is always one that wants it more than the other) is in for whatever they can get with minimal emotional contribution. Their ego isn’t content with ‘just sex’ and they need attention or even a human reminder that they don’t have the problems that they actually do have.

Doing all this other stuff makes their actions and intentions palatable. Just shagging around might say something else about them.

Ultimately, to be ‘alone’ would require them to deal with feelings that they’ve got very good at avoiding by always having a ‘passenger’.

The ‘passenger’, either doesn’t know they’re going on a casual journey and through a lack of boundaries, not paying attention to red flags, and being caught up in latching on to the ‘hallmarks’, ends up along for the ride, or…they do know which journey they’re taking but they think that they can cope with it/that it suits them or, they hope to change the driver’s mind along the way so that they change direction.

And remember: Often when the ‘passenger’ knows that it’s casual, they don’t expect to have relationship type ‘stuff’ expected or even demanded from them.

Experiencing what feel like the ‘hallmarks’ of a relationship, then encourages us to believe that our feelings are growing and that the possibility of a relationship exists.

Of course, it’s like a slap in the face when it becomes clear that nothing more than what is happening is on offer.

The concept of someone fundamentally knowing (whether they admit or not) that they really don’t want to extend themselves beyond getting their needs met and that they don’t ‘see’ you in that [relationship] way is hard for most to grasp.

This is why so many people stick around in unavailable partnerings trying to prove themselves so that they can get validation that they’re not just ‘casually’ regarded.

Fact is, most people can’t handle casual and the words ‘casual’ and ‘relationship’ in the romantic sense, just don’t go together too well, especially since some of these so-called ‘casual’ relationships can go on for a very long time if the ‘driver’ is very good at ‘passing time’, paying lip service to the idea of a relationship, but never actually delivering.

See the definitions of ‘casual’ (pictured above) including ‘relaxed and casual’ and ‘done or acting without sufficient care or thoroughness’ – none of these things say ‘relationship’. To expect someone to treat you with love, care, trust, and respect while in a casual relationship, makes it a relationship because your expectations are not casual – they’re meaningful.

Most of us want to mean something and we want that meaning to extend beyond ‘Good for giving me all the fringe benefits of a relationship without me having to actually even feel very much for them or put in much work’.

Much like when we get caught out by common interests because we don’t realise the importance of shared values, it’s equally important that we get wise to the superficiality that is so prevalent these days and recognise that we now live in a time where people can get so much more, for less.

In a time of instant access, instant communication, instant results, instant array of people to choose from on dating sites, instant sex, and a disposition to avoid feeling our feelings, society seems to have managed down our expectations of relationships and we have managed down our expectations of relationships because it suits where we are at emotionally. We have however, become too casual about ourselves and this is how we open ourselves up to having our boundaries busted and keep ourselves very far from the reality of a healthy, loving relationship.

Being ‘casual’ is so attractive to the emotionally unavailable – You appear to get way more for less without having to get vulnerable and be truly intimate, and which is exactly what you want to avoid. But while some have an active, vested interest in avoiding commitment and healthy relationships, there are lot of people who are unavailable as a result of a variety of factors and habits that just don’t even know what healthy looks like, but who don’t want to be treated in such a casual manner and who as a result of their own beliefs, self-esteem and habits are not always aware of the red herrings that are the ‘hallmarks’ without the ‘landmarks’ of a relationship.

This is why so many people get caught out – because it ‘looks’ like a relationship and may even ‘quack’ like a relationship, but without intimacy, progression, commitment, consistency, balance and a mutual care, trust, and respect, and then eventual love, it doesn’t have the meat or the equipment to walk like a relationship.

You’re not going to turn a pig’s ear casual relationship into a silk purse full on relationship, especially because by having stayed, the other person becomes trained to expect that it’s what they get. If they can get a relationship without putting in the emotional and action effort, there is zero impetus to change and if they felt more consequences and didn’t get what they want for less, they might re-evaluate their actions.

At the end of the day, you’re free to do whatever you like and that includes relationship insanity and trying to get people to make you the exception to their rule, but if you genuinely want to be in a mutually fulfilling, healthy, loving relationship that can actually go the distance, don’t sell yourself short, and as soon as you become aware that your ‘relationship’ is all shirt, no trousers, you opt out. You can’t force substance.

Your thoughts?

Check out my ebooks the No Contact Rule and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl and more in my bookshop.

More On Sexual Values: Questions To Ask Yourself Before Embarking On Sex

Natalie (NML) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:20:48 +0000

Over the past few days I’ve been talking about sexual values to help you avoid sexual pitfalls, such as having sexual insanity by repeating the same actions but expecting different results, and trying to teach old dogs new tricks. Recently I wrote about questions that you should be able to answer about your relationship and I’ve adapted them so that you can ensure that when you do have sex, you’re doing it because you want to, are comfortable, and you’re keeping your feet in reality.

It’s not about trying to guarantee an outcome, but if you are trying to break a pattern and discover or instil sexual values, these questions will empower you to be confident about your actions. Remember, while we can ask other people, often we hold most if not all of the answers and really, if you can understand how you feel and your sexual values and values, you will recognise when you’re in a good, healthy relationship.

Do we share common sexual values?

This is stuff like the level of respect about sex. Is sex just a fringe benefit that they’re very casual about or are they the type of person who prefers to have sex with people that they genuinely feel there is a potential for a relationship with.

What are your values?

Do you think that sex is something that happens between two people who care about each other? This means you need to know that the care is there. Not pretend care, but actual care that you could only know about through actions.

Do you think sex is something that you only want to happen if you’re in a ‘proper relationship’? If so, make sure you are in a proper relationship rather than assuming that ipso facto you had sex so you’re in a proper relationship.

You don’t need to interrogate them but through casual conversation you can find out a lot about how people tick…if you’re listening. Especially in the early days, many people miss key red flags because they’re in the first flushes with rose tinted glasses and don’t want to piece their fun. Unfortunately the very things they do ignore are the very things that will cause major problems and provide huge clues as to the true character of the person.

When there has been any sexual talk, how have you felt? What were their mannerisms like? Did they try to sleep with you on the first night? Have they been sexually explicit even before you’ve met, say for instance, on email or in text messages? Do you think they’re forward? If you’ve declined sex before, how did you feel afterwards? Was there any tension and if so, why? This gives a big clue into how much sexual emphasis there is in the relationship but also how things may turn when there is conflict or things don’t go as they expect.

If I do have sex am I doing it because I’m acting in line with my own values and boundaries?

Or am I having sex because I think it’s what they or the situation need? This also includes:

Are my boundaries intact so far in my interaction with this person? This means being aware of what your boundaries are and whether you have experienced any red flags. If you have had your boundaries crossed, have you addressed the situation and do you now feel comfortable both within yourself or that they are now respecting your boundaries?

Am I likely to feel bad about myself, or question myself and the relationship after I am sexually intimate? If the answer is yes, avoid getting sexually intimate until you are more confident.

Remember – if there are grey areas about your relationship, sex is not going to resolve them unless you’re using sex to smoke them out…

Am I actually being myself? If you’re not being yourself, you’re not acting with love, care, trust, or respect towards yourself or living in line with your own values, so how can you feel safe in getting sexually intimate?

Even if we are not ‘in love’ or have not said the ‘L word’, is there mutual care, trust, and respect?

Trust me, even though you may care about, trust, and respect them, are they to be cared, trusted, and respected, and do they care about, trust, and respect you? If not, or there is an element of them being on a pedestal, sex will only create more problems and distort the balance.

Sex confuses things – if these things are not present when you have it, you may assume they exist when they don’t.

If you are looking for a relationship, until you do feel those things, do not have sex.

Have I learned information about this person that has me hoping he will change?

Whether you’ve already laid out a Florence Nightingale masterplan or are betting on potential, it is key that you are being real about someone and accepting them in their real light as opposed to the false one created by projecting your ideals and fixing, healing, helping.

You can’t make real decisions about a real relationship or real sex if you are not being real about the person.

If you have funny ideas about sex tied in with a desire to change, that expectation of change will increase if you have sex with the view to change him already in your mind. You’ll correlate the fact that you have had sex with the reward of change and believe they should step up and comply – be careful of the hidden agenda.

Don’t have sex if you are rejecting ‘aspects’ of a person because you’re still not accepting the person which makes a dubious ground for sex and a relationship.

Do I like how he/she treats others?

If they treat others badly, they’re likely to treat you badly so be careful of having sex when you already know that they are not that nice because you will build up misguided expectations that because you have slept with them and the act is special to you, that they should make an exception to their rule of behaving badly. If they’ve shared dubious stories of how they’ve treated others sexually – be careful – you may be next in line. If you don’t think you are, ask yourself why you’re different and what evidence you have to support that perception?

Is what I want from this relationship what this person is actually capable of giving, not based on who I think they are, or who I’d like them to be, but based on who they consistently are now?

Again, having sex isn’t going to fix or change anything if you already have ‘grey areas’ about the person. If you are not being real about the person and have expectations of what the relationship will be based on illusions, you’re wasting your own time and energy.

Do I feel safe with this person?

Unless not feeling safe is how you get your kicks, having sex with someone who you feel uneasy around is going to, well, make you feel even more uneasy. Feeling personally secure but also feeling that you are around someone who isn’t detracting from you or acting selfishly in their own interests at your expense are very key. If you feel uneasy, don’t start a sexual relationship or get invested in a relationship until you do, if ever, feel safe.

There’s also the question of feeling sexually safe.

Have they been tested for STD’s?

Do they come across shady? Shady people have shady sex. Make sure you know where you stand.

Have they been pushing for unprotected sex even though you’re not comfortable with it?

Do you feel that they’re honest? Anyone can say they’re honest but if they’ve already told some lies, been disappearing, or had you caught up in drama that they haven’t explained properly, I’d proceed with caution.

Why do I want to be with this person/in this relationship?

If you can’t answer this beyond some superficial stuff, you probably don’t know enough about the person or enough about yourself and your own needs, which will have you flying by the seat of your pants and waking up in a relationship or situation that you may or may not want to be in.

Your thoughts?

Learn more about values and common interests with my special ebook bundle. You can also check out my ebooks including The No Contact Rule, a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you, and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl, a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them, in my bookshop. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.

Getting To Grips With Sexual Values – Stop Trying To Revolutionise The Wheel, Chasing The Feeling + more

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:58:24 +0000

Following on from part one yesterday and my previous post on sexual pitfalls, here are more of my thoughts on sexual values….

6. Stop trying to teach old dogs new tricks. Trust me, you haven’t got time to revolutionise the wheel.

No matter which way you look at it, everything finds its way back to boundaries and values and part of getting to a better place in life both on a personal basis with your self-esteem and also in your relationships, is learning to accept people and their values for what they are so that you can work out if this is something that’s worthwhile continuing to spend energy on. Even when someone’s values are shady and you know better, this doesn’t give you the right to expect them to take on your values. You need to know your limits, be able to recognise when you feel good or bad, and don’t coast on other peoples values or try to enforce change.

If you have to school them on how not to behave like a dog in heat and treat you with respect, you’re setting yourself up for pain. It’s important to stop trying to squeeze a peg into a round hole.

When you’re with a guy that values getting laid as often as possible by as many different people as possible, why embark on Mission Impossible and seek the ultimate validation of trying to get him to only sleep with you?

Is a man more special and of greater value because he used to want to shag around with a lot of people but eventually with a lot of persuasion, he’s agreed to change his ways?

When you’re with someone who says ‘Yes, I want to be with you but I believe in open relationships or regular threesomes’ – if you don’t believe in it and it goes against your value system, why stay?

When you’re with someone who treats you like an inanimate object, dry humping you without thought for your sexual needs, touching you without care, riding you like a pony that they don’t care about, or using you as someone to practice their sexual dark side with, they’re telling you a lot about how they feel about you, especially when you factor it into the context of how poorly the relationship is working or how bad you feel about yourself.

As women we have to stop playing the teacher, the fixer/healer/helper and recognise that when we have to teach someone basic skills to value us and treat us with care sexually, it’s a rocky foundation to set the relationship on as you start out on the premise of being devalued and have to seek validation.

If someone consistently treats you like a piece of meat and contextually, when you factor the sex into the bigger picture of the relationship, your needs are failing to be met and your living outside of your values, you’re wasting time that you don’t have.

7. You have to stop chasing the ‘feeling’ created by sex and stop living in the moment or clinging to ‘moments’.

I get it, sex feels good and even when someone isn’t up too much in other departments, it’s easy to convince ourselves that because we feel so good during sex that you just need to extend that feeling for longer periods of time and across your relationship.

Unfortunately the very premise of things being focused on sex is very short term thinking.

When you’re with a guy who enjoys ‘hooking up’ with you, he’s thinking about now and getting his needs met, and not living beyond that moment. He assumes that because his needs are met, he’s living in the moment and he’s showing you who he is irrespective of anything coming out of his mouth that not only are you living in the moment too, but that you know the deal and you’re OK with it.

He’s very ‘of the moment’ reaping the short-term benefits but leaving you with at best, a medium-term hangover. He doesn’t think about the consequences and to be fair, neither do you. It’s time to pause for thought and think beyond the now or the short-term because one of you has to and you are the only person responsible for you and living out your values.

It’s not thinking beyond these ‘feelings’ and the ‘moment’ that is a sexual pitfall for you and these guys are relying on this thinking, your libido, and your confusion about emotions and sex and reaping the benefits – they exploit the opportunity.

There will always be sexually opportunistic people but you do not have to provide the opportunity.

If only some of you really thought about things, put aside the sexual feelings, put your feet in reality, removed the fur coat of denial, and the rose tinted glasses, you’d think ‘Woah…hold on a flipping second! Haven’t we been here before? I know the pattern – no good will come of this. I feel good now and crap later.’

For the average woman that loves a Mr Unavailable or an assclown or keeps going back to the scene of the crime, a lot of it is about recreating a feeling no matter how long ago that feeling was experienced or how much pain is experienced in between.Sex does and can feel good but the way sex makes you feel is not something that’s sustainable all day, week, month, year long.

Remember sexual communication is not emotional communication and it’s important to distinguish the two because if you don’t, you’ll continuously disappoint yourself trying to translate sex into emotions.

Be careful of dangerous optimism where you cloud out the reality and entirety of the person because you’re opting to focus on the feeling or the nostalgia you feel for the ‘moments’.

There is a difference between feeling good sexually and feeling good emotionally and it is easy to kid yourself with your vagina and your over active imagination that the feelings created by sex or the supposed attraction and chemistry you feel, can correlate to the rest of the relationship. Trust me, in fact, trust yourself and your past experience – they can’t.

8. You decide your value, not ‘them’, so if you don’t want sex to be the focus, don’t allow it to be the focus.

I hear from women who don’t understand why they are involved with insubstantial men who are only interested in getting laid, the size of their breasts, weight, age etc. A bit of digging and more often than not, these same women really place a high value on appearance and their sexuality and it’s what they lead with and look for in other people. If you want to be valued for more than sex, you must value more than sex and value your own qualities, characteristics, and values that add the real substance to a relationship.

You will come across conflicted if you’re sex focused yet complaining about not being respected or valued for your more substantial qualities. You’re also double standarding…yourself.

If you spend most of your time having sex with someone or talking about it or arranging it, trust me when I say that they’re in no danger of finding out very much about you and the character you want them to value so much. If sex dominates, let’s say 90% of your interaction, it’s safe to say it’s sexually based.

You’re not having sex in isolation – you’re contributing to it too so there’s no point steering the ship into the sex seas and then wondering why it’s still floating there instead of in relationship waters.

If you trade on your looks and sex appeal you communicate that these are the two prime things that you value and you will inadvertently (and at times consciously) draw in superficial people. Much like how we correlate common interests to the whole person and assume things about them, we assume that someone that possesses the appearance and sexual qualities that we value in ourselves will be a person that we love and will love us back, but that’s giving too much credit to two things that don’t determine compatibility.

On the flipside, just because someone does seem to only value the sex or the sexuality, this doesn’t mean that this is what your value is. This is why it’s important for you to know your value rather than you effectively going up and down in the ‘value markets’ depending on who you’re involved with and how they treat you.

If that someone’s mindset is sexually focused, it’s what they value and until they shift that perspective, you could substitute you with another woman, and it’s still what they’d value. Yes it’s personal but the best way not to let yourself take it too personal is not to stick around trying to make them value you in a different way.

If you value substance and they value superficial stuff, then you know already that you do not share a similar value system. This is OK – it leaves you free to move on.

9. Do not justify, do not explain.

One of the last guys I dated had the displeasure of hearing me say ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to explain or justify myself as to why I don’t want to sleep with you’. Saying ‘NO’ is more than enough.

Any decent guy, even if he’s got a hard-on big enough to poke your eye out, will respect your position without creating an expectation of an explanation.

Society seems to have taught us that we have to be near apologetic when we don’t want to get down on the first date or sleep with someone just because they want to even if we don’t. We feel sorry that we’re not ready, that we feel uneasy, or we just don’t bloody well feel like it, and then we go against that feeling to ‘please them’ and devalue ourselves in the process.

Stop explaining why you don’t want to have sex – who are you trying to convince? Them, or you. Get behind your own convictions and sexual values.

You’ve got to stop feeling like not wanting to shag somebody you hardly know warrants a major explanation because by explaining, you are potentially opening up a dialogue, when you could decline, move on, and have your boundary set. If you keep explaining and discussing, you have Women Who Talk and Think Too Much.

10. Make sure how you see sex is how they see sex – shared sexual values.

If you see sex as an intimate act between two people in a relationship or moving towards a relationship, do not assume that the other person shares the same beliefs without sanity checking yourself. Why do I suggest that you check with yourself?

Anybody can say anything that they want to but if you listen to yourself and are aware of their actions and how you feel, you can take some first steps to recognising whether you’re with someone who you share common sexual values with.

How do they talk about you? How do they talk about women? Their exes? Are they making sexual comments about stuff that if it happened you’d be uncomfortable with? How comfortable are you?

The biggest test: If you have a pattern of being involved in casual relationships or with assclowns and Mr Unavailables – how much of what you are feeling is familiar?

Whatever feels familiar, examine it and take it as a warning signal that you may be inadvertently slipping into your regular pattern.

How you think, feel, and act is not how they think, feel, and act, and when you make blind assumptions without assessing the true situation and the true person. You cannot do this if you’re assuming and correlating stuff based on how you think and see things.

Once you’ve checked with yourself, also don’t be afraid to ask the questions that you need to in order for you to feel comfortable about whether you are genuinely sharing common sexual ground.

Your thoughts?

Getting To Grips With Sexual Values – Avoiding Sexual Insanity, Rewarding and Gratitude and more

Natalie (NML) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:37:06 +0000

Reading the comments on my post yesterday about sexual pitfalls was a startling reminder of how as women, while we can often devalue ourselves inadvertently through our actions, that some of the men we’re involved with are only too eager to devalue us also, even when we want to ‘do the right’ thing by ourselves. While we can burn up a lot of energy trying to get them to change and see our value, what many of you will already realise is that it’s a waste of time and energy because the power to change our experiences comes from us. We are the only common denominator in our relationships, so rather than continue on our not so merry way, we can empower ourselves. This means for anyone who is involved with us, they either need to step up and play by the rules…or step. Here in part one are some of my thoughts about sexual values to help you on your way…

1. Stop engaging in the sexual insanity.

Relationship insanity is doing the same things, going out with same guy (or woman) different package, carrying the same beliefs, baggage, attitudes, and expecting different results.

If you’ve dated twenty men and slept with them on the first date or fairly early in the relationship, it is sexual insanity to repeat the same behaviour and go for number 21 and beyond!

Sex is not everything but trust me when I say that if you’re struggling to forge a relationship but you’ve had a lot of sexual activity, I’d cut the sex and opt for substance so you can open your eyes.

If it didn’t feel good when you have slept with people earlier than you would prefer to or out of a situation that you were uncomfortable with on the previous twenty occasions; trust me when I say it won’t get anymore comfortable or better on the next occasion.

2. Know yourself and examine your own sexual values.

In my recent post about values I explain that

“Values are about what you need in order to live your life authentically so that you can be happy and feel good. These are about your firmly held beliefs about what makes you a person of value and also what you see as valuable in others.” so in turn your sexual values are about you understanding what you need to feel good (I’m not talking about technique!) via the experience surrounding your sexual interaction. It’s also understanding your firmly held beliefs because if you don’t understand why you act as you do, you will live life unconsciously unwittingly engaging in stuff that undermines your own professed desires.

What you believe manifests itself in your actions. If you believe that the way someone shows you that you’re loved is through sex, or believe that your value is based on sexual currency, lo and behold, sex is what you’ll lead with and what you’ll value when you’re in the relationship.

Whatever sexual activity you’re engaging in, make sure it’s in line with what you do.

We have to stop holding on to outdated bollox like ‘It’s what girls do’ – Forget that! What do you do?

Much like your general values, it doesn’t matter what society, your family, the old lady down the street or your best friend do because if they are not your values, then they’re not your values and if you try to take on other people’s values, you will be out of sync with yourself.

‘Betty’ may have no problem sleeping with guys on the first date or before she knows they’re ‘exclusive’ but that doesn’t mean that you have to do it too. Let me assure you – there are many ‘Betty’s’ in the world, having sex, going to ‘first’ ‘second’ and ‘third base’ who actually on reflection really don’t want to.

If you want an idea of what you’re uncomfortable with, look back at your relationship pattern. Where were you uncomfortable? Where did you feel devalued and like crap? Stop repeating these situations and actions – it’s never going to feel good!

Ask yourself what your core 3-5 beliefs are about sex. Don’t think about it too much – just write down the first things that come to mind. What you read back to yourself is likely playing huge part in your sexual interactions.

3. Don’t use sex as a currency – it is not an equal exchange of goods!

Sex shouldn’t be used to barter, reward, control, or manipulate people. If you place a large emphasis on sex but are in reality looking to have your emotional needs met and be in a mutually fulfilling relationship, you will find that you will be at conflict with yourself and undermining your own efforts if you reward with sex. You’ve also got to stop feeling like you must have sex with someone or that it’s expected.

You don’t owe anyone a shag because they called you, took you out for dinner, brought you a drink, or finally dignified you with showing up and holding a conversation with you. Even if they’re nice, kind, caring, thoughtful, whatever, you still don’t ‘owe’ them sex.

Sex is part of an overall relationship equation and when you have a foundation to your relationship, sex helps to bond you further, extend intimacy, and is another way of demonstrating affection but should not be the only way. It is not just men who are guilty of trying to communicate via sex – women do too. It’s important to recognise that there are other ways to show your interest that don’t involve dropping your knickers or an exchange of bodily fluids.

We need to believe they’ll be around long enough to enjoy sex with us at a later stage and we also need to believe we are worthy of being treated decently instead of feeling surprised and in turn feeling motivated to sleep with them.

We need to stop feeling so grateful for getting the bare basics of being treated decently – we’re supposed to be! It’s like ‘Oh he’s still here and he’s called a few times and taken me out. Tom, Dick, and Harry, wouldn’t have done that! Oh I know – I’ll have sex with him to show him how I appreciate it and how interested I am’.

Even if your relationship is early days, when someone wants to be with you and you have boundaries, shared values, and the care, trust, and respect, you are far better placed for love to follow and to feel safe and secure in the relationship.

You should be having sex within the confines of your values and where you feel comfortable. There shouldn’t be an undertone to things, it shouldn’t be based on fear, coercion, or some intrinsic message that you owe someone a piece because they’re with you – you don’t need to be grateful for anyone’s interest. You deserve to be loved and cared about.

This is why it is important to have a relationship with boundaries, values and mutual love, care, trust, and respect because you’re both on a two way street and sex is part of the overflow of good feelings within your relationship as opposed to this sideline thing that’s ambiguous and messing with your mind.

4. It can be the greatest sex on earth but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t have a relationship to back it up!

If you’re two people having the greatest sex on earth or of your entire lives and it’s a casual arrangement due to finish up soon with no emotions mixed in etc, that’s a different situation. But if the best thing about your relationship is the sex because everything else is sh*t, your relationship cannot and will not survive – you’re just two people having great sex who can’t make their relationship work in a healthy manner.

Vaginas and penises don’t share common values and they can’t ‘communicate’, make decisions, or act with love, care, trust, or respect. Do not give your vagina responsibility it cannot handle – it’s like absolving yourself of your own duty of care.

Just like when I say that you need to keep your feet in reality and be careful of creating illusions and obsessing and letting your imagination overrun; be careful of linking up your vagina, libido, and your imagination because they are very comfortable companions.

Men have often been accused of being led by their penises – don’t let your vagina lead you astray. If you are allowing it to determine decisions about who you love and stay with, I suggest you put yourself on lockdown and work through your beliefs about sex and get a clear head. When you do have sex, force yourself to extend the amount of time you would normally have sex.

Trust me when I say that it’s a lot harder to turn sex on it’s own into a great relationship than it is to turn two people with common core values, love, care, trust, and respect into two people having great sex. If you don’t believe me, just ask all the women who have been booty calls, friends with benefits etc…

5. Take the focus off him and bring it back to you. Be Yourself.

Part of the problem with relationships that deplete and detract from us that from the outset or at some point, we are not being our authentic selves – we are being whoever and whatever we think that person wants us to be.

From the moment you start sexually engaging with someone and it’s not in line with your values, you are setting an unhealthy tone for the relationship.

If you sleep with him, not because you actually want to sleep with him, are ready, and comfortable but because you fear that if you don’t sleep with him you’ll lose him, that you’ll look a certain way etc, you are linking sex, your value, your ability to hold onto them, and your perception of him and the relationship, to sex.

It’s not just about him – Attend to you own needs. If you do stuff based on always meeting someone else’s needs, you will neglect to meet your own needs, especially if you are not in a mutually fulfilling relationship.

Where this is particularly dangerous is with sexual values – it is time to start asking ourselves why we are engaging in stuff that we are not comfortable with and that isn’t congruent with our own personal core values nevermind our sexual values.

Your thoughts? Back in part two! Image credit SXC Ignacioleo

Learn more about values and common interests with my special ebook bundle. You can also check out my ebooks including The No Contact Rule, a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you, and Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl, a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men and the women that love them, in my bookshop. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.

Using Sexual Atraction as a Judge of Character & Other Sexual Pitfalls

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:00:20 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about sex (on the blog that is) but yesterday when I wrote about our boundaries and how they’re our personal electric fence, some of the comments and emails reminded me of how as women, we have really got to draw some very firm lines, especially with ourselves and address our ideas and beliefs about sex.

Trust me, if you have little or no boundaries and some dubious ideas about sexual interaction with men, you will find yourself placing too much emphasis on sex, mistaking sexual attraction for love and emotional intimacy, and based on how your libido reacts, you may use sex as a ‘tool’ for assessing whether you should ‘love’ and stay. Below are just some of the sexual pitfalls (ideas, actions, and beliefs) that affect women dating everywhere – from big cities, to teenie, tiny villages.

1. The fact that you find someone attractive, feel a chemistry with them, your libido goes crazy, or you swing from the chandeliers while having orgasms is not indicative of 1) their character or 2) your love for them.

Just like the issue of common interests, we assume that when we find someone attractive or they make us go crazy in the sack, that this correlates to the rest of their character.

We assume that someone who we find attractive or have a great sexual ‘connection’ with is someone who possesses similar values and an ideal love partner.

The ‘attraction’ ‘chemistry’ and ‘libido’ response is more often than not, totally unlinked to the actual character of the person, especially if you 1) don’t actually know them yet or 2) are in denial about who they are.

2. Do not use your libido, orgasms etc as a judge of character or you will be love blind and a slave to your hormones.

You are giving yourself too much credit for your powers of judgement and using the wrong ‘skills’ to gauge the suitability of partners. If you focus on the feeling created by sex, you will end up like a crack fiend looking for their next fix. You’ll lose sight of yourself, who they really are and what your relationship actually is or isn’t and believe that the sex, which you also think is your ‘love’ will fix everything – it won’t.

3. Sex is just sex. It’s not love, it’s not emotion, and it’s not a demonstration of how much someone feels for you or what you feel for them.

Combined with love, care, trust, and respect, sex is a key way of being intimate with your partner, but without love, care, trust, and respect, it is important to realise that on its own it is a physical act. Having great sex doesn’t mean that you love them or that they love you. Not so great people can be really good in bed – in time you will recognise the hollowness and the real lack of intimacy between you both. If the ‘intimacy’ can’t translate beyond sex, your relationship is limited.

4. Any guy who literally ‘cannot wait’ to have you and ‘must’ sleep with you tonight, should probably wait. Especially if the length of time you have known him is seconds, minutes, hours, or even days…

Eagerness to sleep with you is not the same as having a high level of genuine interest.

Think back to the guys who have been eager to sleep with you, whether they’ve badgered you for sex or littered the conversation with sexual references, or given you ‘that look’ that lets you know exactly what they want – where are they?

5. Decent guys don’t get mean, sarcastic, petulant or anything negative with you when you say that you don’t want to have sex.

In fact, you may not even need to have the conversation.

6. Whatever it is that you think you’re going to find out or be able to do as a result of having sex, I’d move on to plan B.

Shagging someone isn’t going to bring you closer if you don’t have the foundations of a relationship in the first place. You cannot keep a man based on sex alone so if you’re trying to shag him into loving you, you’re wasting your time and energy. You may not be able to prove yourself to him because you’ve had sex, given him a blowjob, or done whatever it is you think he loves best because you may be communicating the wrong message.

E.g. Last year, a reader told me about how the only way she could maintain any contact and feel like she had any power over her situation or the guy was to work her magic on him. She’d practically be begging him to let her give him oral sex. Apparently she was the best at it but the fact remained that whether she was top of the tree or number 25, or whether she had the power to win him over for a few minutes, all he knew was that he still didn’t want a relationship, but at least he knew where he could get his rocks off…

7. You cannot expect sexual exclusivity while knowing that the person isn’t actually exclusive with you.

This means either be exclusive, or don’t have sex. Or…play Russian roulette, be very casual, or find yourself in a super ambiguous zone….

The expectation of sexual exclusivity without relationship exclusivity is a half hearted boundary and an attempt to seek validation by having the ‘main title’.

Both men and women like ‘titles’ and knowing where they are in the pecking order, but if you are in a pecking order in a relationship, it is already start of a very slippery slide down a very painful slope.

By expecting sexual exclusivity without relationship exclusivity, you’re requiring high trust levels from yourself and being very half-hearted because at the end of the day, the person knows that you’re likely to be there even if they’re involved with several people and even if you’re not actually sure they’re being ‘faithful’. You’re almost setting yourself up to fail and getting ready to take up a position where you ‘prove’ your worthiness so that he’ll drop all others.

8. Sexual communication is not the same as emotional communication.

Expressing how much you like sex or how much you love the sexuality of the other person, their amazing bum, or whatever, is not the same as expressing yourself emotionally or communicating how you feel about that person emotionally. Period.

9. If what you love and emphasise most about him is how great he was in the sack/the sexual connection/how horny you feel when you see him and yada yada yada, consider yourself ‘in love’ with a walking, talking penis. Really.

You’re certainly not in love with the person or taking into account their character. Next time you’re feeling nostalgic or selling yourself the idea of going back for more, replace your mental image of him with a giant penis.

If you’re still tempted, see what ‘substance’ (as in characteristics, qualities, values etc) that you can add to the penis to make it a ‘whole person’.

10. If someone is telling you how much they’re going to miss sleeping/screwing/effing you this is not the same as telling you how much they’re going to miss you.

Don’t get things twisted and add meaning where there is no meaning or where it means something entirely different and certainly don’t make excuses for him and say ‘Oh it’s just his style. He doesn’t know how to express himself. I know what he means!’ No you don’t because what he means is what he means – you’re attempting to make a silk purse out a pigs ear. When someone misses you they tell you that they miss you. This is just like when someone says ‘I really miss you being there for me’ which really means ‘I really miss you being that steady, reliable, too trusting person who let me get away with everything…until you put your foot down.’

11. If when you hear from a guy is linked to sex, it’s because they’re getting in touch with you for sex.

They might put some chit chat in, buy you a drink, dinner, flowers, or even say nice things but if when you hear from them is largely based around arranging to hook up, it’s because you’re hooking up. If there’s not much going on in between, it’s not because he’s ‘busy’, it’s because you are involved in a sexual relationship.

12. If your pattern is to have sex with guys on the first date or early in the relationship, or where you ‘make an exception’ and your relationships are not working out, stop having sex on the first date or early in the relationship and stop making an exception to rules that you don’t actually enforce.

Sex is confusing things in your interactions. To ensure that you don’t love or trust blindly, or take a quick hop, skip and a jump to The Justifying Zone, that special place we go to where we look for reasons to justify our initial emotional or sexual investment, it is best to open your eyes, put your feet in reality, and get to know the person without being blinded by your ill judging libido.

No, not having sex is not a guarantee of the relationship working out, but odds are that if you don’t have the distraction of whatever ideas and perceptions you have about him based on the sex, you will either opt out of a dubious situation far sooner, or recognise a an opportunity for a healthy relationship.

Your thoughts? Do you have any questions about sex or your sexual pitfalls? Do you overvalue sex?

Reader Question: Do the sexual preferences & activities of Mr Unavailables indicate their feelings?

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:00:04 +0000

Well after about what feels like one hundred and fifty bleepin’ takes, I have finally uploaded my first video post. For some odd reason, You Tube seems have selected a frame that makes me look like I’m swearing…but anyway…
In my first video post, Jenny asks:

Does sexual preference or sexual activities between two people provide an indication of how Mr. unavailable cares for you or loves you? I dont wanna get into graphic or explicit details, but my Mr Unavailable likes to slap me, tie me, choke me…etc does that mean he does not see me as a person that he cares enough for or loves, to not wanna do that? If I were his girlfriend or wife, then he would never wanna do that to me right? And if I don’t mind him doing that to me, does it mean that i have some underlying issues i need to deal with? I kinda enjoy the pain a bit and i never stop him.

Check out the video for my reply…

I can’t emphasise enough, everything is contextual in relationships. It’s very easy to get trapped in the detail in the quest for answers, validation, and reasons to blame yourself and justify your continuing behaviour. Whilst the finer detail of being slapped, choked, and tied up is certainly important, the ‘relationship’ you get is indicative of how someone feels – actions always speak louder than words.

Booty calls are not relationships – they are casual sex arrangements and people don’t tend to make these with people who they have any great regard for. In fact, the less someone cares, the easier it is to have a booty call.

This situation highlights how someone can end up being used in a very extreme way and you really need to learn how to say no. In fact, you just need to stop responding when he gets in touch. Personally, I know that if someone I was in a booty call situation with started slapping, choking, and tying me up, I’d be seriously caught off guard and be very afraid. It’s best to only engage in these situations with someone who you trust and you should certainly only be engaging in this type of sexual activity if it’s what you actually want to do. Safety in casual sex situations is of paramount importance and all the more so if you’re going to allow someone to slap, tie, and choke you.

Booty calls should also only be the domain of two people who have the same thing on the agenda. If one party feels more, it’s no longer a booty call – it’s someone setting themselves up for a major fall and if you stay in spite of wanting more, unfortunately the buck will stop with you.

Don’t allow yourself to coast along into situations – be conscious and pay attention because only you are responsible for you.

When someone only wants you for sex and you want more than that, a huge imbalance is created. You’ll always be on the backfoot, they have far too much power, and you’ll feel used and worthless when someone treats you like an object that they can shag and treat with utter disregard.

You’re worth more than being treated like this – an object for him to rough up when the mood takes him.

This man is taking advantage of what he perceives to be her lack of self-respect which works out quite handily for his aggressive sex situation….

If you are involved with someone who you are not able to ask questions and get clarity about what the situation is or you feel afraid to say ‘NO’, whether that is because they have conveyed that ‘no’ will be met with conflict or because you are the type of person that has little or no boundaries and is afraid to say no, it means you are in a bad situation, not just because of them, but also because of yourself.

If what you want is to be loved and cared about, let this guy go and get his kicks with someone who is totally fine with this type of arrangement – this is not you. From the moment that you start wondering about feelings in a booty call situation, it’s a major sign to halt. Even if you didn’t know that what you were getting into was a booty call situation, if you’re looking for a relationship, getting too far down the road into a sexual situation and then asking questions about the ‘meaning’, is like closing the door after the horse has bolted.

The overall behaviour of Mr Unavailable shows how much he cares – it’s limited. If you imagine you’re getting crumbs, you’re now also getting crumbs with aggressive sex. Be very careful that you don’t end up with a depleted self-esteem and engaging in a pattern of being treated in this way.
Take the focus off this man and switch it back to you. Ask yourself why you have ended up in this situation and what you are feeling about yourself right now that you would feel OK with being treated like this. You don’t need to be ‘punished’ and don’t let this man convince you that you’re someone not worthy of love and care, because you are – you just need to start acting like it and getting it as a basic from any relationship that you’re involved in.

Your thoughts?

My ebook The No Contact Rule is now available to buy and provides a dedicated guide to getting over someone by cutting contact and injecting some boundaries into your life so that you can move on to a happier you. For a no holds barred guide to emotionally unavailable men, including separated guys that flip flap in indecision, and the women that love them, you can also get Mr Unavailable & The Fallback Girl. For personal advice or analysis of your relationship/situation, check out my consultation service.

Sex advice: Is it me? Or does he just not want to have sex?

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 14 May 2008 16:49:42 +0000

Leila asks “I read your site often enough to know that you have some pretty strong views on men that take more than they put out which is why I’m writing to you.

I’ve been with my guy for a couple of years. In the beginning, man he could not get enough of me. He chased and chased me and the sex was off the chains for the first few months.

And then he kinda went a bit cold on me…or should I say ‘limp’ and since about five or six months into the relationship, I am lucky if we have sex more than once a month and when we do, there is a lack of effort or feeling from him. I don’t know where the man I met has gone to but he’s not with me when we have sex because it’s pretty bad. Initially I thought maybe I had done something wrong or he’d gotten too used to me so I pulled out the stops with the lingerie, massage oil, and I even stepped out of my zone and put on some porn. Zip. He hardly touches me and he NEVER reciprocates oral sex! If I try to talk to him about it he just clamps up or tells me to ‘leave things be’.

Thing is, I do love him but I don’t know how much longer I can do this for and I don’t know if he’ll ever be the man I met again. He won’t go for counselling, he won’t discuss it, he won’t do anything. I’m sure he’s avoiding me because we don’t go out as much anymore (we don’t live together) and I’ve even wondered if he’s cheating???? He doesn’t even say he loves me anymore!

I don’t know if it’s me or if he’s just not that into sex. What do I do?

This is one of those situations that makes me feel veeeery awkward! There’s so much stuff going on here, I’m going limp! But in all seriousness…

Women attach a lot of importance to the idea that men attach a lot of importance to sex. Hence when they don’t put out or hound you for sex, we tend to feel a tad confused and wonder what is wrong with us. But…and it kills me to say it….not every guy wants to shag your brains out all the time. And it’s not always about you.

Sex can be an indicator of what is going on in the relationship but it’s what other things accompany the lack of action or how he treats you in the bedroom that make the difference. If the relationship is great in all other areas, then you can normally find a way to handle the situation. If it’s not so great in other areas…you have some other potentially bigger fish to fry…

I think that there is more to this than low libido.

For the majority of the relationship, you have been sexually frustrated. You have spent the bulk of the time in ambiguity land over what the hell is going on with the sexy-time (said in best Borat voice).

I would never tell someone to break up with someone for not getting oral sex….however…that is a big hell no! Why keep pulling out all the stops showering him with BJ’s, lingerie, and God only knows what else when he’s not responding??? Hell, if I gave 20 BJ’s and got nothing back, you can be damn sure that’d be the last one he got!

He doesn’t touch you???? As I said to a reader in one of my consultations recently, go down to your local copying place and have a cardboard cut out of you made up so that you can send it in and save yourself the trouble of being handled in such a demeaning way in the bedroom.

Bad sex, nothing reciprocated, AND he doesn’t want to touch you? It makes me wonder what is so enchanting about this guy who also doesn’t seem to want to spend time around you.

It’s not that the guy isn’t capable of being a good lay – he used to be; either that or OK sex had gone up in your estimations because you get so little of it…

Nevermind the sex, if you guys can’t communicate or find a way to communicate, your relationship will flounder even more than his penis… It is difficult for me to say exactly what this guy is up to but it does sound like a man who is not in the relationship with both feet. In fact, he’s barely in his side of the bed!

I can’t say if he’s cheating…but it wouldn’t surprise me. Some men find it quite easy to lead double lives and some men find it quite easy to string along a woman for a long period of time, throwing her bone occasionally, but contributing very little. The latter is unlikely to view the ‘relationship’ in the same light and may even rationalise his behaviour by saying that the reason why he behaves as he does is because he hopes that she will get sick of him and finish it.

Whichever relationship you are in, I strongly advise that you get out. If by some sheer chance his behaviour is a result of avoiding sex, this situation isn’t going to resolve itself and if he wants to be in this relationship and make you feel loved, cherished, and valued, he needs to be in it and he needs to be making every effort to positively improve your relationship and if that means going to a sex counsellor, so be it.

Over to you, readers. Your thoughts? What do you advise?

If you’d like to get in touch about a relationship, sex, or dating problem, get in touch.

If you want to find out more about why we make some our relationship choices and get to understand Mr Unavailable’s you should be reading my ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. Find out more and buy and download.

When Sex is Just Sex: It is what it is but how about the guys speak up!

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:25:00 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about The Justifying Zone, that slippery slope that women can find themselves on when they stick with a guy so that they can justify their emotional or sexual investment, even if they recognise that that the relationship is doomed. A couple of male commenters raised the point that sometimes a guy just wants sex, which of course made me want to revisit this subject.

Ladies, we like to see shades of grey, read between the lines, and see gold (or even platinum) where there is in fact copper, but sometimes sex, really is just that; SEX. It’s not the beginning of a grand love affair, it’s not an indicator of greater things to come, and it’s not a great idea to base a relationship solely off how good a guys strokes are.

The trouble is, are guys honest enough to say that sex is just sex?

Guys, we are not frickin’ mind readers. We don’t find out things by osmosis and there are many men out there that do not own a pair of brass balls to be upfront and honest about their intentions, or should I say, sexual intentions. Instead, because they don’t want to be perceived as a total bastard and of course they don’t actually want to endanger the possibility of actually getting laid, they bring on all the hearts, flowers, charm, and hints of more to come, only to have to backtrack and make a rapid disappearance afterwards.

This is all a double edged penis sword. Yes we should both be adult enough to screw like rabbits and walk away but we are humans. Casual sex is rarely just ‘casual’ and it’s only casual sex if BOTH parties know that they’re having casual sex in the first place!

As far as I’m concerned, it is just sex if:

One or both of you actually say it is
You meet and screw in the same night (one night stand)
The only thing that exists between you both irrespective of how long you have known each other is sex

Anything else is open to misinterpretation and it is alarming how many women will still see it as more even if it is one of the above situations.

‘Yeah but we talk a lot’ one woman said to me recently. Moaning, groaning, asking when you can meet up, and making small talk to facilitate you both having sex and appearing polite is NOT talking a lot!

Whilst I do think that we can be guilty of building sandcastles in the sky on occasion, I have to say here that much of the ambiguity that surrounds sex and women feeling the need to justify the fact that they slept with the guy by investing themselves further is caused by ambiguous, hard to read men who blow hot and cold and leave everything ‘literally’ wide open to interpretation. So guys, if it’s just sex, maybe you should start by saying it is, or avoid going for women who clearly want more than you’re actually able to give!

But…ladies, ladies, ladies, heed the signs. If it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, and flaps its pretty little wings like a duck, it’s a duck. Pause for a moment the next time you’re in this situation and strip away all of the rationalising, reasoning, and justifying, and ask yourself if you have anything left besides a walking, talking…penis.
My new ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more.

The Justifying Zone: when a woman needs to justify her emotional or sexual investment

Natalie (NML) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:28:29 +0000

The Justifying Zone is that slippery slope that a lot of women find themselves in, especially after they have sexual contact with a guy. Many of us feel that we need to justify our emotional and sexual investment and this justification is effectively attempting to close the door after the horse has bolted.

The Justifying Zone will always appear when a man fails to live up to the initial promise that he first exhibited or does something inappropriate or that raises a major red flag that could potentially scupper the possibility of the relationship. If for instance, he’s a Mr Unavailable and the ambiguity increases along with all of his other core behaviours, the potential to stay in the zone and cling to it for dear life becomes even bigger.

As women, we tend to look for the smallest of things to make ourselves feel better about sleeping with our guys or just plain ‘ole liking/loving them, and this often causes us to spend more time on a relationship than is necessary. We see gold when in actual fact it’s brass, or even rusty ‘ole copper, and often we use the Justifying Zone as the launch pad for betting on potential and basically hoping that a cockroach will turn into a frog, and then eventually into a prince.

Why? Well to be fair, who wants to feel like they’ve had Yet Another Dubious Dating Experience? But women who habitually live in The Justifying Zone do so because they tend to already have unhealthy relationship habits and measure the value of themselves based on their interaction with their men. They don’t want to have another Here We Go Again Moment and they like to bet on the potential, even if he never shows an ounce of decency ever again.

Sex of course, is the biggest booby trap. You will definitely find yourself in this zone if you sleep with him too soon, or sleep with him and things don’t prosper and develop as expected. Many women still equate sex with someone as a signal of a bigger, deeper connection and if we’re left feeling empty, unfulfilled, confused, and a whole host of other negative feelings, we’ll remind ourselves that there must be a strong potential if we slept with him in the first place. We don’t want to feel devalued by the experience even though the subsequent lack of return on investment that we experience by being in The Justifying Zone, actually only serves to deplete our self-esteem anyway.

The reality is that The Justifying Zone is an excuse and if you find yourself there, it means that there is something wrong with the relationship. We spend a lot of time agonising over what is behind a man’s behaviour – He didn’t turn up/He spoke to you inappropriately/He doesn’t show affection can easily turn into He’s got a lot going on/He’s deep and complicated/I need to not be so needy so that he’ll be more comfortable.

If you feel the need to start rationalising and justifying his behaviour, you need to step back and examine your investment into the relationship because after a while, a justification for staying with the wrong type of guy eventually becomes you believing that you’re madly in love with him and you measuring your self-worth based on how successful (or unsuccessful) you are at getting a return on your investment.

You deserve to be in a relationship that doesn’t need a justification for you being there.

Your thoughts? Have you ever spent time in The Justifying Zone?

Also read: Return On Investment In Relationships

My new ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more.

Advice: Why is he having sex with me if he doesn’t want me and knows how I feel about him?

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:01:42 +0000

I met a man who is the cousin of a good friend in June of 2007 and have been on an emotional rollercoaster ever since. I have totally fallen for him to the point of obsessing.

In the beginning, he was so attentive and sweet; shortly after the relationship became sexual, he changed, although he kept on saying the ‘right’ things; “I’m tired of being a boy toy, I want to be in a commited relationship, I’m tired of being single; I’m tired of ‘playing games”.

From the outset of us meeting, he mentioned his ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be the mother of his first child. (He has two children by two different women.) He told me that he has been single for nine years; that is when he and his ex-girlfriend broke up. As I got to know him more, I noticed that whenever he would drink (he also has a drinking problem), he would always mention his ex. He says that she kicked him out of the apartment, (he had been cheating on her), and when she broke up with him, she broke his heart and he hasn’t been the same since.

He says since then, he has never been in another relationship, and he has never loved anyone else. (He does not recognise the situation with the mother of his second child as a valid relationship; he says he was just ‘having fun’ with her.) He tells me these things about his ex (and family issues), mostly when he has been drinking, then he has sex with me and tells me how we will be a couple, to just ‘give him more time’, because he has a ‘lot of issues’.

If I don’t call him, I don’t hear from him. Once in a blue moon, he will call me, usually after he has been drinking. Whenever he wants to see me, I can never tell him no; it’s as if I am addicted to his emotional unavailability. I feel like if I could just be with him ‘one more time’, he will have some sort of epiphany and realise that I am the one for him. Every time we connect sexually, or spend any type of time together, I feel like we are growing closer, but as soon as he leaves me, it’s like out of sight, or of mind. I never hear from him for weeks, until I break down and reach out to him, and the cycle starts all over again.

I have told him how I feel over and over again. I have been very clear in terms of what I want from him; a real relationship, inclusion in his ‘world’, quality time, attention, and most importantly, his love. I have tried so many times to leave him alone. I have written him the ‘dear John’ letter. I have texted him and told him both in person and over the phone that I need and deserve more; and I can’t keep doing this with him anymore.

Yet, whenever I run into him (which I sometimes do because I am close friends with his cousins and friendly with his family), he always finds a way to squire me away and we always end up having sex. Or, sometimes, I breakdown and call him, and figure out a way to see him, and we end up having sex. And, as always, it ends up the same way; he tells me how much he cares for me, how special I am, and how I have a pure heart, and he doesn’t want to hurt me. I don’t understand how he still sleeps with me knowing he cannot give me what I want.

In his defense, he has told me that he does not want a committed relationship; he has a lot of emotional baggage, a lot of which has to do with the mother of his first child, who I believe he still loves nine years later ( He vehemently denies this). He tells me that the reason why he does not call me is because I am not like the other girls he sees. I want more, and he is not ready to give me more, so he stays away. Yet on New Year’s eve, I saw him ( I brought in the new year with his cousins). He told me that he was taking me home, as I was drinking and he did not want me to drive. We ended up having sex in his truck.

If he cares about me, and does not want to hurt me, then why would he keep sleeping with me knowing how I feel about him? I feel so helpless, like he is some sort of drug I can’t say no to and I find myself sobbing unexpectedly sometimes when I think about him and this whole situation because I know that we will never be. I feel like I am slowly going crazy. I want this to stop. I want to be over him once and for all, but I don’t know how to stay away.

NML says: The reason why he keeps having sex with you is because he can and because you let him. You don’t need a conscience to have sex and if you had the opportunity to have your cake and eat it too, you’d help yourself to a big slice of cake. As far as he is concerned, he has told you what he wants and doesn’t want, and he has shown you that he is very poor relationship material and very clearly still emotionally tied to his ex.

It’s not about whether he loves his ex; it’s about the fact that he uses the fact that she is his ex to distance himself from the possibility of a relationship with anyone else and to absolve himself of any responsibility. He may not even want her but many emotionally unavailable men do the ‘This One Time In Band Camp’ act which is trotting out the same lame story about something or someone that has hurt them and how they prevent them from feeling and engaging in relationships properly. Sometimes it’s true, often it’s not, but the point is that from the moment that a man conveys this type of information to you, it is game over, no credits.

You are wasting your time and you’re putting the onus on him to walk away from you because you’re addicted to the drama and ambiguity of being with him. You feel helpless because you are absolving yourself of the responsibility for your relationship choices and you also feel helpless because of this addictive feeling. YOU are very clearly emotionally unavailable and your sense of self worth must be really low if you are prepared to let this man use you and drop you at will whilst he witters on about some other woman and talks about ‘others’.

You don’t want a committed relationship and to be a part of his world because if you did, you wouldn’t flog this very dead horse. But I understand how you can find yourself in this position because I and many other women have been here, and many will come after you. You are validating yourself on the basis of how he treats you, hence in your mind, if you can successfully attain him, bingo, you’re worth it. But obviously, this relationship is doomed and you’re going to come out of this wondering what the hell is wrong with you and why he couldn’t choose you. For him, it’s not about you, it’s all about him. You just make it easy for him to continue his poor behaviour. On the flip side because you keep chasing him and sleeping with him despite what he knows he’s told you and shown you, he also recognises that you can’t possibly want more and that you can’t feel too good about yourself if you’re prepared to be with him.

Stop waiting for his epiphany moment because you may be old, grey, and dried up and STILL he won’t have it. Wanting more from this guy after the way he has behaved is like closing the door after the horse has bolted. Actions speak far louder than words and he has shown you what you’re going to get from him. Stop betting on potential, stop trying to change him, and start focusing on yourself.

Right now, this hanging with his cousins mallarky is intrinsically tied with your relationship with him and until you can get some distance and objectivity from him, I suggest that you do a bit of cold turkey, have a break, and attempt to get to the bottom of why you would choose to be with a man who so very clearly doesn’t care about you.

Never, ever, mistake sex for an indication of how much someone wants to be with you. You might think he is addicted to you because he’s not leaving you alone and he keeps coming back, but sex is just sex. You’re committed to his penis and that’s about it…. It confuses things, it disarms you, and some men use it as a weapon to keep you emotionally tied in. Put yourself on lockdown, tape your hands to your side, and stop contacting this man because you’re throwing yourself at a man that doesn’t deserve you. You must take responsibility for your part in this and accept that if you want better, you want out, and you want to feel good about yourself, it is down to you and only you to extricate yourself out of this madness. Stop feeling helpless, toughen up, and tell this guy to beat it. In fact, you might not even need to tell him, just cut the contact! You know it’s never going to work so you need to accept this, it’ll hurt in the short term but you’d be surprised how much better you feel when you tell these men to BEAT IT!

Recommended reading
Boomerang Relationships and The Yo You Girl

The 10 Commandments of Breaking Up

The No Contact Rule

The Sex Break

The Mr Unavailable Guide

A selection of posts

When should a woman have sex with a man?

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:52:11 +0000

Over at Advice from a Single Dating Expert, Evan tackles the age-old issue of when it’s the right time to have sex, and surmises this grey area very well.

As a woman, your job is not to come up with an arbitrary number of dates, like the U.S. coming up with a pull out date for our soldiers in Iraq. Your sole responsibility before having sex is to figure out if he’s interested in YOU or in SEX.

I repeat: Your sole responsibility before having sex is to figure out if he’s interested in YOU or in SEX.

If you don’t know the answer, don’t have sex. If you think you know the answer, then have sex. And if you can’t handle the emotional consequences of making an occasional mistake, you probably shouldn’t sleep with anyone until you’re in a committed relationship.

The difficulty that many women find themselves in is not only do they follow their libido, but also they think that having sex will help them to leapfrog to a more cemented relationship.

In my forthcoming book about emotionally unavailable men (yet to be titled) I explain the dilemma of sleeping with a guy too soon. “There is an egotistical conflict going on with men (the whore and the Madonna conundrum) but it doesn’t stop them from having sex with women and essentially setting them up in a trap. At the end of the day, if you’re not going to respect a woman and you think that there is a strong likelihood that you won’t want to pursue anything with her, why bother to sleep with her? Because they can.

Sex and women are becoming more and more dispensable so if one woman ‘slips up’ and gives it to him ‘too easily’, there are a plenty more where she came from. He doesn’t allow for the fact that he has actually led her to think that he is OK with it, after all it takes two to tango, and he certainly doesn’t consider the fact that he’s just as much a party to creating the illusion of a false connection. In many cases, these men are chancing their arm to see how women react to their advances, and the reality is that with men like this, you just can’t win. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. Sleep with them and they relegate you to the easy bin and treat you like a casual sex companion even if they allow you to think that you’re more; or don’t sleep with them and you get consigned to the hard work bin. Even if you do ‘hold back’, there are some men egotistical and twisted enough to keep pursuing you till they get what they want, only for him to move you to the easy bin afterwards.”

In addition to Evan’s suggestion, I suggest that you: Don’t mix the business of understanding a man’s intentions with the pleasure that comes with sex.

Whether a guy is interested in you and whether a guy is interested in shagging you are two different things. One guy wants to get to know you as a person – the other is looking for a quick route to checking out your va-jay-jay. Deep down you know what type of guy you’re with so exercise judgment.

My new eBook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl is now available to buy as an instant download. Find out more

Study suggests women less cautious about bareback sex with men they meet online

Natalie (NML) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:34:39 +0000

A new study by The University of Texas School of Public Health suggests that women who meet with men that they met online are a lot friskier for bare-back sex… Whilst the study found that women are extra cautious about meeting face-to-face with men from dating sites, it seems that once they have met these men, they are prepared to make far riskier choices.

740 women were surveyed about their sexual and safety habits over a five month period and of these, a whopping 6oo of them met face-to-face with men they had met online. 30% of these women had sex on the first date and what is very telling is that more than three quarters of these women did not use a condom… Previous data from the Center of U.S. Disease Control suggested that almost 50% of women under the age of 30 use a condom on the first date, which is deemed to be in complete contrast…

Now call me picky, but neither of these statistics is great….

For a start, I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it many times again, dating sites are the homes of liars, cheats, and the great pretenders. Considering all of the stories that we hear about people being conned and people pretending to be someone they are not, it is shocking that one meeting with someone that could have been spinning a yarn and a half, doesn’t only yield sex, but condomless sex! Only 25% of those that had sex used a condom which only reinforces what I already believe about online dating – it seems to be great for leapfrogging the formalities and leapfrogging into the sack… Trust me, all you have to do is say hello to a guy online and he’s sending a shot of his penis…

But the latter figure of ‘almost’ 50% of women under 30 using a condom on the first date is just as shocking. No matter what people think that they know about someone on the first date, do they really know enough to warrant putting themselves at risk from a STD?

Ladies, we are all adults and it’s not for me to give you a sex education class that you had back when you were 12. You all know the score and it’s not just good enough to be cautious about meeting someone but you also need to be cautious about who you share your vagina with! Considering all of the tales of woe of men that mistreat, it is a shame that we are quick to mistreat ourselves by putting bareback pleasure above good judgment, our sensibilities, and most importantly, our health.

It doesn’t matter how long it is since the last time you got laid or how lonely you’re feeling, how much tension you need to release, or how much chemistry you think you feel – No glove, no love!

Read via About.com:Dating

Advice: How do I get ‘better’ at sex?

Natalie (NML) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:30:56 +0000

I’m 35 and have not had a sexual relationship for 6 years. Prior to that I had only had a few sexual partners, though one in my early twenties had been my partner of 3 years. In my mid twenties I explored my sexuality and had relationships with women. Since my late twenties I have ‘come back’ to heterosexuality, though it has always seemed more theoretical than anything else having not had a relationship nor sex for 6 years. A bad break up kept me out of the game for a long time but since I’ve moved on from that I just haven’t met anyone I’ve fancied and wanted to pursue a sexual relationship with. As a result, my self-esteem has taken a dive in recent years. (I know – it perpetuates the situation) I have had people interested in me during this time but I haven’t felt the same. However, I met someone 2 weeks ago, It was never going to be a serious relationship, he is much younger (27) and we have very little in common but we fancied each other, so why not have some fun.

We had sex for the first time on Fri and it was a disaster. I had not prepared myself (nor him!) for the fact that I would be so out of practice, inexperienced and not very good at all! It was embarrassing and a bit of a shock to me but I’ve since tried to get my head around it – of course I’m not going to be the great lover I imagined with so little practice under my belt! However, I’m now struggling self esteem wise again; When I embark on the next relationship, not only am I going to be thinking about the usual – am I interesting? Am I funny etc? But now – what happens when he discovers I’m crap in bed and totally inexperienced? Obviously the way to get better at something is to practice but I’ve never slept around, picked up in bars etc. The only sexual relationships I’ve had have been with people I care deeply about. During sex last Friday, the main problem for me was keeping the rhythm going so that we were moving together, I’d suddenly lose the pace or rhythm. Neither of us came and it was all a bit embarrassing. So, this may seem a ridiculous question but how can I get better at it without having to put myself through this embarrassment time after time. Is there anything I can practice on my own or do with the person I’m in bed with to help me? (He held my hips to help me move with him but it still didn’t work). A loving and understanding partner to help me, would obviously be the ideal solution, but in the absence of that is there anything I could do practically while I’m not in a relationship – other than sleeping around – or anything I can read that will help me? I’m open to any help and suggestions. Many Thanks.

NML says: OK, first of all, there is nothing wrong with not having had many sexual partners. There are many women who wouldn’t mind erasing their sexual past

For a start, put all thoughts about being crap in bed out the window and be realistic. You have only known this guy for two weeks and if you are the type of person (like many) that needs to get to know someone properly and feel connected, before you sexually connect, two weeks is unlikely to be enough time. Combine this with the apprehension you must have felt after not being in the saddle for a while and it’s no wonder that you wound up in your uncomfortable situation.

Rhythm is not always an automatic thing and in order to have rhythm, you both need to find a rhythm that works…together. If he ploughs on with his own rhythm instead of falling into one with you, of course you will become mismatched as you try to catch up. Connected, comfortable, passionate, sex requires patience, due care, feeling at ease, and of course attraction.

Do you understand what you like during sex? Whilst you may not have had much experience, it doesn’t stop you from knowing what turns you on? Think about what you enjoyed when you have had sex in the past? Do you masturbate? Do you understand your body?

Many women don’t orgasm from straight sex. Often foreplay of some sort whether it’s through finger stimulation or oral sex is what sets off a lot of women, or these combined with sex can get a woman going. However, you do need to let yourself go and be comfortable – being tense will normally make it difficult to orgasm, even with a skilled lover.

OK, in terms of making yourself ‘better’, I wouldn’t look at it as getting ‘better’; I’d look at it as an opportunity to understand your sexual needs more.

Masturbation does help you to familiarise yourself with what your body enjoys. This can be done manually (your hands and fingers) or with a vibrator. Vibrators are very popular and can open up a whole new pleasurable dimension for you. In your situation, it may help you to loosen up so that you don’t feel tense about sex. Just because you’re not out shagging around doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself! Explore your body and find out what you like because it means that when you are with someone, you can always point them in the right direction.

When it comes to being with someone, I suggest -

- Take your time before you have sex. You appear to be the type of person that needs to have sex with someone she knows and feels at ease with.

- You can always tell the sexual partner that it’s been a while and to take their time. They’ll probably find it to be a turn on!

- Foreplay, foreplay, foreplay..and then some more foreplay. Whilst jumping straight to sex is great for a hot, passionate, I can’t wait a minute longer quickie, it’s not great for sex with someone you don’t know that well or if you need a bit of revving up before you get to the main attraction. Kiss for a while, explore mouth, face, neck, body with tongues. Stimulate each other with your hands – this is not only a turn on but you find a rhythm together.

- Be relaxed – tension does not for great sex make!

- People lose the rhythm when they’ve been together for ten years. Take your time, change position, tell him to slow down, or even revert to foreplay to kickstart things again. If you don’t like their pace, it’s quite a sexy move if you ask him to be still and you create the rhythm – this will be best achieved if you go on top.

- And yes, a loving, understanding, patient partner helps. You’re unlikely to have this after two weeks!

It sounds like you have experience a lot relationship wise despite a six year break. You seem a little ambiguous about what you really want. Are you trying heterosexual sex because you want it or just because you want to get back in the saddle and this guy is handy and there? Your comfort will be a struggle if you are not comfortable with who and what you’re doing. People are able to have enjoyable sex without the greatest of self-esteem (although it’s not the ideal…) but when your self-esteem issues are tied up in what you perceive as your sexual abilities, you’re in a no-win situation. Clearly the reasons why you didn’t have sex for a long time (recovery from the break-up etc) mean that the time lapse does stem from a negative place but it doesn’t have to be like that. If you are over your past relationships, set yourself free, have your closure and move on. This will give you the freedom to enjoy yourself, sex or no sex!

Don’t beat yourself up and don’t knock your confidence. Relax and enjoy yourself.

He’s Just Not That Into Booty Calls?

Natalie (NML) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:13:56 +0000

“It’s hard to have casual sex without getting emotionally involved,”

Normally I would attribute these words to a woman, but on this occasion, it is to Ben, someone who claims to be amongst a growing number of men who just aren’t into booty calls. Say what?

‘He’s Just Not That Into It’ in Details Magazine examines this sudden change in the wind as men decide that they don’t just get hard and have actually got more emotional capacity than a stone when it comes to indulging in casual sex.

Millions of women have found themselves being unsuspecting one night stands or booty calls because many men don’t have balls big enough to admit that it’s all that they want. Instead, they let these women get sucked into the illusion that they are embarking on the beginning of something beautiful, when in fact, it will meet a very sharp end the moment that they roll off them.

“Isaac says he won’t have sex with someone he’s not emotionally attached to. He once walked away from a no-brainer when a ‘gorgeous’ former student ‘told me she sucks really good dick’ because he felt he couldn’t be giving, as he was emerging from a bad break-up.”

Well it’s nice to know that there are examples of men turning down sexual opportunities that are handed to them on a silver platter, after all, Isaac could easily have had some ‘medicine’ to make himself feel better. I have no doubt that he felt very uncomfortable about slipping her the mickey, but this situation also represents something else – when it’s the woman that’s effectively in control or being blatant about her sexuality or desire for casual sex, it’s just not that exciting.

For many men that habitually engage in casual sex, they like to think that the woman has brought into the idea of being with them and may even be falling in love. I have had many a woman complain of being mistreated by guys because they have been upfront about the fact that they just want the guy for sex. The men on the receiving end of their candidness wasted no time in trying to take chunks out of their character or even trying to reel them in emotionally just so that they could prove a point.

I don’t think it’s fair for women to assume that all guys want sex but unfortunately the type of man that we have often been confronted with out in the dating world isn’t doing very much to dispel this generalisation. These men may be declaring themselves off booty calls but I don’t think they represent the great majority that sleep around.

The article goes on to discuss women believing that all guys want is sex and one man tells of how his sexuality was challenged and how he was badgered for sex all night by one persistent woman; the type of behaviour that if a guy was doing it would have him being called a “monster”. We’re accused of having further double standards when “Guys can be made to feel like dicks for withholding theirs” and that women take sexual rejection very personally.

What we have here is years of misguided social conditioning rearing its ugly head. There are years of repeated behavior coming back to bite men in the ass. By constantly helping to reinforce the idea that women should be up for casual shagging, many women have effectively jumped onto the bandwagon. The words ‘Be careful what you wish for’ have never been more apt!

Now that some women want it just as much as men, it’s just not that much fun anymore. In fact, these men are realising just how damn crass it can be. This is one of those situations where we are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. When we are more resistant to casual sex, we’re seen as uptight, needy, or even frigid, but when we’re up for it, and even demanding it, it’s suddenly a case of these guys going ‘It’s my ball and I don’t want to play anymore.’

No does mean no regardless of whether it is a man or a woman that’s saying it and the inability to recognise when the chips are effectively down represents a disrespect of that persons wishes. It is wrong that a woman would choose to challenge a guys sexuality and badger him for sex when he’s declined the invitation. In trying to compete in what we think is a man;s world, some women try to think and act ‘like men’ and in this case, it’s not a good act.

Men have been socially conditioned to believe that they are supposed to run out there and sow their wild oats and on the flipside, many women believe that confronted with an easy sex opportunity, no guy will turn it down. It’s a vicious circle. The guys in this article are in tune enough with themselves to recognise the soulless life of constant meaningless sex but unfortunately the women who find themselves in these situations misguidedly think that sex equals intimacy and that the ability to get a man to sleep with you validates them as a person. Hence ‘He doesn’t want to screw me’ now equals ‘There is something wrong with me’ because after all, every guy wants sex don’t they?

To be fair to these guys, I believe them when they say that they really aren’t interested in casual sex or dialling a screw, but I don’t think that we’re about to have a sexual revolution here. I mean really: Wouldn’t all of our Christmas’ come together in one go if there weren’t so many emotionally unavailable men who were just after one thing and they suddenly started seeking committed relationships? Wouldn’t it be great to say goodbye to those annoying guys in our lives that only surface when it’s dark and call us late at night for a shag? Wouldn’t it be great to not have to hang our sexuality out there like a mascot in an effort to fit in with what we think society demands of us out there in the dating world? Wouldn’t it just but I don’t think we’re about to experience the death of the booty call or casual sex in general. Instead, rub your hands together in glee that there are a few more men in the available pool that actually want a committed relationship. Now, now no fighting ladies!

Read all about these guys over at Details Magazine

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