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

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

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 pierce 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.

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

By Reading Time: 7 Minutes

male and female symbolsFollowing 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  square 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.

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

By Reading Time: 7 Minutes

womanReading 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’ might 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 ‘Bettys’ 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.

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

By Reading Time: 6 Minutes

gavelIt’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 is 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.


Terms & Conditions Apply: Reading the Small Print in Dubious Relationships

By Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Last night I was speaking with a reader who has really been given the emotional beatdown by the guy that she’s been involved with. She couldn’t fathom how she’s got to the point where she’s involved with a guy who’s treating her like a casual sex companion who he can disrespect at will and I quipped that these dubious relationships are comparable with when you have a credit card or insurance and they keep changing the terms and conditions on you – next thing you know, what you’re actually getting is really far removed from what you thought you had.

The credit card has a 7.9% APR. A few weeks later you find out that they’ve increased it to 16.6% and by reading the new T&C’s and continuing to keep and use the card, you’re now agreeing to the new set of terms and conditions. You would tell them to take their card back, but you’ve already spent some of the credit and don’t want or don’t feel that you can afford to pay it back. Periodically you keep getting letters with revised rates and T&C’s until you decide enough is enough. Or…you end up paying back your debt with whacking great interest.

You can meet someone and they offer so much promise. You might not be that interested at first, but they pursue you and shower you with so much attention and let you believe that you have a future. You’re spending time together, you’re laughing, joking, shagging your hearts out and you’re dating and moving into relationship territory. Maybe he makes ‘little’ references to meeting his parents, going on holiday, getting married, moving in together. Then next thing you know, he’s not calling so much, substituting calls with text messages and telling you that you’re moving too fast and that he’s not over his ex. Over the subsequent months, he engages in other dubious behaviours and you stay because you remember what it was like at the beginning and surely he can go back to being this way? Surely he wouldn’t continue to contact you and see/sleep with you, if he didn’t want to be with you? You may feel that you’ve emotionally invested too much to back out now. So you stay and hope that things will change or revert to the original ‘agreement’.

Particularly in dubious relationships, we can make some blind assumptions that can get us into a lot of trouble when someone decides that the ‘terms and conditions’ of the relationship are changing.

For example, he tells you that he doesn’t want the type of relationship that you’re asking for and that he wants to be casual. You have a discussion and it becomes clear that he doesn’t want to commit. However, he’s still trying to sleep with you, contacting you, and carrying on as normal after the conversation.

You assume that because he’s still continuing on with you, that he actually wants to be with you but has ‘issues’ that he needs to sort out. However….

He assumes that because you are still there and you are not telling him to take a run and jump, that you are accepting the new terms and conditions of the relationship, fully aware that you haven’t read the small print (the bit where you don’t get what you want, need, or expect), which basically leaves him free to shift the goalposts and make it up as he goes along and keep you as an ‘option’.

They’re like dodgy sales people – they impose a new set of terms and conditions and try to rush you through the conversation so that you don’t see the small print.

Another example of this is when you get someone who is really full-on and intense at the start of a relationship – they do this so you don’t look too closely at who they really are and see red flags, although this behaviour in itself is a red flag.

As he is the person who holds the powerbase in the relationship (the unhealthy dynamic caused by you not having enough boundaries and giving him too much power to dictate the relationship on his terms), he assumes that until you have and live by your boundaries, that he can shake things up and have the brass balls to reap the same benefits – for example an ego stroke, shag, and a shoulder to lean on.

Is it me, or does he just not want to have sex?

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

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 m, 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 don’t hound us 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 BJs, lingerie, and goodness only knows what else, when he’s not responding??? Hell, if I gave 20 BJs 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 cutout 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. It’s either that or what was technically ok-ish sex has 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 want to find out more about why we make some our relationship choices and get to understand Mr Unavailables, you should be reading my ebook Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. Find out more and buy and download.

Bad Relationship AND Bad Sex – Say what?

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

I’m going to start this post by stating the obvious – Sex does not a relationship make. It’s not the be all and end all and all that jazz. OK, moving on swiftly now that we have that established!

But…and there is a big frickin’ massive BUT here…

Bad enough that a guy gives you a bad relationship but if he’s not even giving anything in the sack, I have to wonder why the hell a woman would be sticking around?

In the past I’ve had a lot of emails from women where they tell me the most awful things about their relationship with a guy and they finish it off by saying how they love him and the sex is amazing and yada, yada, and it’s what I’ve previously referred to as Great Dysfunctional Sex – sex powered by lots of negativity normally created by drama and insecurity. Crude as it may sound, you’d be amazed at the number of women that will stick in a bad relationship when a guy has a big dick and/or can sex them like crazy. It’s not an excuse, but I kind of understand a bit how someone can get blinded by the sex.

But I’ve noticed over the last few months that I am getting a lot of emails and comments from readers mentioning bad relationships AND bad sex. What the hell is all of this about?

So let me get this right, some of you are with guys that are:

mean with the relationship

mean with their time

mean with their affections

mean with their investment into the relationship

mean with their emotions

AND mean in the bedroom!!!

Where the hell have we gone so wrong that we would be prepared to take anything that we can get from man just as long as we get a semblance of a relationship?

Attraction: 4 key things that make you attractive…or unattractive…

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

2 autumn leaves beside each otherWhen it comes to dating and relationships, ‘attraction’ can be a word that automatically let’s us off the hook from engaging our brain in any rational thinking. ‘I’m so attracted to him; I just can’t fight it’, she says even though she really should fight ‘it’ because he’s treating her like a booty call even though she thinks he’s her boyfriend. ‘She’s just so damn attractive’ he says about the woman who refuses to even acknowledge his existence. What becomes clear is that ‘attraction’ means different things to different people but I find that four things can certainly affect attraction in the first instance:

Make an effort with your appearance

I would be lying if I claimed that the surface doesn’t come into ‘attraction’. The exterior is what most of us notice first but the reality is that unless you are the shallowest of the shallowest, you will take the whole package – looks, character, and personality – into account which can actually affect your perception of their ‘attractiveness’. At the end of the day there is no point looking like Angelina Jolie if you you’re a nasty person within.

I’m not seeing anybody else.Yes but he’s not actually with you either!

By Reading Time: 3 Minutes

throwing the diceOne of the things I learned about dating is that in order to survive, you need to be able to smell the BS coming from a mile away otherwise assclowns a plenty will suck up your time, reduce your self-esteem, and end up making you believe that dating is for suckers. One of the classic BS lines is when a guy tells you by way of reassurance that he’s not seeing/dating/sleeping with anybody else.

Now this should be good news…or is it?

The only time when this is good news is when he really isn’t with someone else but he is actually in a bonafide committed relationship with you, or is making a concerted effort to date you and move things forward. If either of these things are absent, it is likely that you will take the information, swallow it whole, and live under the misguided assumption that if he’s not with anyone else, then he must be with you.

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

By Reading Time: 3 Minutes

male and female symbolsA 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.

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

By Reading Time: 3 Minutes

end signThe 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.