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How to Lose a Man
By Raymond Bechard @ The Good Men Project
I was talking to a guy installing carpet in a friend’s home the other day. For some reason, he asked my advice on whether or not he should have a surprise birthday party for his girlfriend. As he showed me her picture, he said the five best words I have ever heard to describe a relationship that is working – at least from a man’s perspective, “She makes every day better.”
In all honesty, that is what every man wants. If he is fortunate enough to find a lady who understands that concept and loves him enough to stand by him – as he does with her – to make every day better, then he should move heaven and earth to spend the rest of his life with her and prove himself worthy.
Ladies, in order to stay current here are some guaranteed tips for losing a guy forever. By the way, these can be used by men as well (see How to Lose a Woman…Forever).
#1 – Don’t learn what emotional intimacy is.
Forget what psychologist Malini Shah says, “Emotional intimacy is a feeling of close personal association and belonging. It’s a familiar connect formed through shared knowledge of each other and experience.” That would mean taking the time to find a man with whom you can build trust and be yourself. Worst of all it would mean not just accepting him for who he is, but celebrating who he is.
#2 – Don’t respect him.
Even if he deserves your respect, do not, under any circumstances show him the kind of respect you want and need. Don’t value him. Don’t listen. Don’t consider his priorities or concerns. Make sure he feels your life would be much better if he weren’t in it. On the other hand, if he truly doesn’t deserve your respect, leave him. Leave him now. And if he doesn’t respect you then he doesn’t deserve yours. Again, leave.
#3 – Don’t like him.
Sure, you love him, but do you like him? Never forget he’s probably closer to you than anyone else in his life so it’s your responsibility to make sure he doesn’t get out of line. If you want to make sure he’s unhappy and dwindling away inside, show him you don’t like him.
#4 – Complain about him.
Believe it or not (and lots of men will get mad at me for revealing this to you) most of us look to the women in our lives, or the woman closest to us, to determine how we feel about ourselves. Make sure he knows you are keeping score against him by openly expecting him to screw up. Tell all your friends what a loser he is and never, ever genuinely praise him.
#5 – Judge him.
If you want him to stop being open and honest, or if you just want him to start hiding things from you, make sure you judge him negatively every chance you get. If you can’t find anything negative that is even remotely valid, just make something up. Do anything to keep him on the defensive. Remember, every day brings new opportunities to find new faults in him.
#6 – Don’t trust him.
He’s a guy – don’t trust him – no matter how trustworthy, honest, reliable or loyal he actually proves himself to be. Of course, if he truly can’t or shouldn’t be trusted, leave the jerk. No excuses. You will never have emotional intimacy if there is no chance of mutual trust.
#7 – Blame him.
If you’re divorced, blame him. If your last boyfriend treated you badly, blame him. If you’re children aren’t behaving, blame him. Take all your anger, frustration, fears and insecurities and place them squarely on the doorstep of his life. Whatever negative feelings or experiences you are having, he should be punished for it.
#8 – Stay angry.
He’s a guy. He must have done something wrong. Even if you don’t know what it is, it still pisses you off. You don’t need to know exactly when or what he did whatever it is, he definitely did it. Save time and get angry now. Then, stay angry . . . because there’s no end to the ways he’s messed up with . . . something.
#9 – Don’t be reliable.
Make sure he knows that you are not there for him no matter how badly he may need you. That way he will know never to rely on you for anything. If you are the one person he wants to call when something really bad, or really good, happens don’t be available or interested.
#10 – Don’t get help.
You’ve been through a lot, a lot of pain, a lot that isn’t fair, a lot of horrible stuff that has wounded you. Sometimes you feel broken. Whatever you do, don’t try to effectively heal your wounds in any way. Don’t go to therapy. Don’t apply what you’ve learned in self-help books. Don’t explore faith our spirituality. Don’t ever look back at the injustices done to you or the wrong choices you’ve made and deal with them. Do whatever you can to simply mask the pain or push it down.
#11 – Don’t take responsibility.
Never apologize. Never ever admit that something you have done may have hurt him. Just live as though you are incapable of hurting him, no matter how badly you do. Don’t forget, this relationship is about you and healing your pain. His is irrelevant.
#12 – Don’t take him seriously.
You are the only one who has a right to emotions, troubles, challenges, and heartache. If he exhibits any of these it just means he is weak. You don’t have time to deal with your problems and his. He’s there for you, after all. Not the other way around.
#13 – Don’t support him.
Leave him alone, isolated, and adrift. He’s a man and should be able to handle whatever comes his way by himself. You don’t have time for a man who needs your help. If he needs support, an ally, an advocate, or you as a true friend – maybe even his best friend – then he’s not worth it.
#14 – Don’t forgive him.
Okay, he will eventually screw up for real. We all do. When he does make a mistake use it to validate all the terrible things you’ve been thinking and saying about him. Forgiving him will only teach him that he can just get away with it again. Instead, identify him by his mistakes. And being constantly told what a terrible man he is will certainly make him a better one.
#15 – Don’t learn anything.
After the relationship ends – and if you follow these guidelines, it will – don’t take away anything from it. Simply lay the blame openly on him and move forward into your next relationship by doing exactly the same thing.
However, if you are not someone who follows the latest trends then just do the opposite of all this. Find a man who wants to make your every day better and do the same for him.
You can see a longer version of this piece at The Good Men Project, where it was originally posted.
You might also like: How to Lose a Woman…Forever
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Saying “No” in 520 Languages
How often do I hear my brain screaming NO as I smile and say yes? These random words are all “NO” in different languages. So I am learning to say no in 520 languages, most importantly mine, NO.
Artist, Karen Gutfreund, works with unconventional materials: roof tar, bone, red food coloring, wax… As she moves against standards and customs, is she saying NO even as she works as an artist?
She has good reason to go against the flow. We all do.
Her work strikes a chord with a piece I once read entitled, “Betrayed by the Angel”:
I’m 25 years old. I’m alone in my apartment. I hear a knock. I open the door and see a face I don’t know. The man scares me, I don’t know why. My first impulse is to shut the door. But I stop myself: You can’t do something like that. It’s rude… He is inside. He slams the door shut himself and pushes me against the wall… Since he is being rude, it is okay for me to be rude back.
Despite the young woman’s revelation that rudeness can be good, it was too late. She was raped.
Some feel queasy at self-defense seminars when told to gouge out an attacker’s eyes. “Could I do something less gruesome?” someone asks. Advice from the expert: “He’s bigger than you. If you try something weaker he’ll overtake you and you’ll be raped or dead.”
I had it easier. But not really easy. He was a guy from church, and we were dating. At church we didn’t have double standards. Men and women were both told to stay pure. I was so inexperienced and naïve that when he touched me outside my clothes, but at “third base,” I froze in shock. Was he really doing that? I didn’t want to be rude. In guarding his feelings I paid a price, smacked with the label, “loose.”
Virginia Woolf speaks of the Angel in the House. Some scattered lines:
You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her – you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House… She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish… She sacrificed herself daily… She preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others…
I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her she would have killed me.
This piece was originally shown at “CONTROL,” an exhibition of California women artists presented by The Women’s Caucus for Art at New York’s Ceres Gallery, February 1 – February 26th, 2011.
For more on Karen Gutfreund’s work go to her website.
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Sex Drive: How Men, Women Match Up
Data overwhelmingly show that men typically have a higher sex drive than women, says UNLV psychology professor, Marta Meana. At least as measured by the frequency of fantasy, masturbation and sexual activity.
WebMD concurs, noting that study after study shows men with the stronger drive: “Men want sex more often than women at the start of a relationship, in the middle of it, and after many years of it,” according to Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist at Florida State.
Most men under 60 think about sex at least once a day, but only one-quarter of women do. Older men fantasize less, but still twice as often as their female counterparts. Men say they want more sex partners in their lifetime, they are more interested in casual sex, and they are much more likely than women to buy sex.
Norah Vincent passed as a man in an attempt to get inside the male psyche. After living as a “man” among men for a year and a half, she described the male sex drive as “relentless,” an “obsession with f’ing.” Male reviewers of Self-Made Man found her insights credible.
Of course, the male sex drive exists along a continuum, but it’s hard to imagine a woman making this comment about her unrelenting thoughts of sex with men.
Someone needs to invent a drug which has no hormonal imbalance side-effects but is able to erase a man’s sex drive and attraction to women. It would increase productivity rates to incredible heights. I’d be free and happy. I’d feel complete. I’d be able to concentrate on my biochemistry studying.
Some women want more sex than their partners, but in general the pattern goes the other way.
Given their lower drive, it’s not surprising that women are also choosier. Most men find most women at least somewhat sexually attractive, whereas most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all, according to the University of Texas, Austin researchers who wrote Why Women Have Sex.
And, women are pickier about both “who” and “how.” They tend to want more connection and romance. Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, says that women’s desire “is more contextual, more subjective, more layered on a lattice of emotion.” She says, “For women there is a need for a plot — hence the romance novel. It is more about the anticipation, how you get there; it is the longing that is the fuel for desire.”
Life can be difficult with such a large gap between the sexes.
See this post in which biological and cultural factors that create the gap are discussed, along with how we might even things out.
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Guys, Girls Swap Roles at a Bar
Men ordering Raspberry Kamikazes at a bar as women make passes — and get shut down? This bit of videoed role swapping has gone viral.
The reel holds stereotypes but even they can contain kernels of truth. And anything that moves us out of our taken-for-granted ways sheds light.
Outside the video real women can order any sort of drink they want, but guys had better keep to manly brews or risk scorn. So in that way women have a bit more freedom.
But a freedom that is gained by ranking men over women. If women order manly drinks they aren’t lowering themselves, but when men order girly drinks they are. (Even the terms “manly” and “girly” are charged.)
Meanwhile, both sexes seem to think the other has more power. Probably because we get frustrated when we don’t have it.
Men have the power to assert themselves. They needn’t wait around to be asked. And if they want sex, well, that’s expected. But women must wait to be asked. And they may worry about reputations, leaving them more shamed and less sexually expressed. Repression lowers sex drive, too, lending women the passive power to care less. And whoever cares less has more power. But here, only with a sacrifice of sexual pleasure.
In the video all is topsy-turvy. Girls try to cut in and dance with guys who are dancing with each other — and get shafted. They intrude into private conversations and get spurned. Polite men utter, “Not now please.” Others are less civil.
The message can come across: “You’re not good enough.” It can be tough on a gal.
But it’s tough for guys too. An annoying girl moans, “Those are amazing jeans. They’d look so much better on my bedroom floor.”
A girl spies a guy in an unbuttoned button-down and beckons, “Hey, I like your necklace. Is that the key to your heart? … Don’t button it up! Oh, come on!”
Male objectification may be paired with assault as women grab men’s butts or pressure them to drink shots to lower their resistance.
Guys who want sex must face the repercussions of, “good guys don’t.” The next morning a young man fumbles for his clothes as the woman he has slept with cool-confidently asks if she should call him a cab. Embarrassed, he sneaks away in shame.
As Joanna Schroeder over at The Good Men Project observes, it all “seems so much more rude, more intrusive, more exclusive, more violent, sillier or more intimidating” when the tables are turned.
But with this new slant, maybe we can all gain a bit more understanding and empathy.
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The Brain on Love vs Lust
Scientists compared the brains of those who looked at erotica or at their significant other. Turns out love and lust are connected, but show up differently in the brain.
The brain on lust lights up the striatum region that is aroused by pleasures like “food, orgasms, or getting stoned, eating a whole bag of Funyuns, and sprinkling crumbs all over the couch just to mess with your OCD roommate,” as Doug Barry, at Jezebel put it.
Love also shows up in the striatum, but triggers the section that associates things with pleasure or reward. As the beloved continually gives pleasure she becomes the reward, herself. In this way, feelings of sexual desire turn into love.
The lover actually becomes an addictive habit. In fact, love lights up the same part of the brain as drug addiction as we become hooked on our lover.
Rutgers anthropologist, Helen Fisher, calls romantic love a stronger craving than sex, pointing out that people who don’t get sex don’t kill themselves. She says love is “a motivation system, it’s a drive, it’s part of the reward system of the brain,” a need that compels us toward a specific partner in pursuit of “life’s greatest prize.”
Habits and addictions both get bad raps, and often should. But here they’re not so bad as love is the bonding mechanism of relationship. Love activates the need to defend the interests of our children or lover, says study researcher Jim Pfaus. In a complex society like ours, this creates greater family and social stability.
Luckily, these habits of the heart are a good thing.
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“All men cheat.” “He can’t keep it in his pants.” “Men only talk about beer, sex and sports.”
That’s Lisa Hickey over at The Good Men Project reciting stereotypes about the supposed sex-craved male. But stereotypes aren’t reality, she says. And she’s got backup from Wake Forest psychology professor, Andrew P. Smiler who recently wrote a book called, “Challenging Casanova: Beyond the Stereotype of the Promiscuous Young Male.”
Smiler says it’s no wonder we think men are all about casual sex. Stereotypes abound and play out in pop culture. Walking through TV history we’ve got: Read the rest of this entry
Twilight vs. Porn
Women often worry that porn raises men’s expectations about what their bodies should look like and what they should do in bed. And why does he want to have virtual sex with those other women, anyway? So women can end up feeling like they’re not enough or not good enough.
Men may worry that Twilight raises women’s expectations for a “one true love” that is deep and intense with a man who only has eyes for her. Who can meet to such standards?!
Men craving sex with lots of women and women wanting sex with one true love. Funny how the visions are so often at odds with each other.
In fact, the appeal of Twilight for young girls may be the opposite of porn. Porn is all about getting sex. But as Edward yearns for Bella — yet avoids intimacy for fear of killing her in vampire bloodlust — Twilight is more like abstinence porn. Sex without sex. As a writer for Psychology Today put it:
Let’s get back to the sex, or lack of it, which is what hooks girls on the first volume: female readers love that Edward sleeps beside Bella and apparently only wants to kiss her neck.
So in Twilight girls can imagine safe crushes on boys who love them, while avoiding all the complex, confusing and scary adult realities of sex.
But it’s not just naïve girls who fall for Twilight. So do their older sisters and moms. But while their male partners are turned on by hard-core porn’s over-the-top fireworks, Twilight is all about the subtlest sex. Here’s how a blogger at Huffington Post described it. Twilight is all about the:
building of sexual tension. So much so that when Edward brushes Bella’s arm, you can almost feel him brushing yours… They get to really know each other, their passion is allowed to build, we revel in the innocence, the time it used to take to truly build a relationship. Do you remember how amazing your first true kiss was?
A Salon blogger continues:
Instead of relying on tight shots of penetration, these books get their sexual spark from extreme emotional close-ups. The ‘money shot’ in these novels typically isn’t a geyser of bodily fluids but rather a declaration of love, or a man on bended knee.
I was struck by the male/female difference when I heard Meryl Streep and director, David Frankel discuss their movie “Hope Springs.” Frankel said the movie’s themes were universal because, “Who thinks they’re having enough sex?” But Meryl Streep suggested the nuances behind the desire:
If my team were here – women – they’d say it’s not necessarily sex, it’s what sex pulls from you… brings you to. It’s connectedness, it’s intimacy, it’s being known, it’s being seen, it’s being felt, it’s being wanted. The whole thing… But yes, you can reduce it to that part.
For many women, a guy can do the exact same moves and it can feel like nothing if you don’t feel emotionally connected to him, and it can be off the charts amazing when you do.
I suspect the female/male difference is due more to nurture than nature, but it’s a pretty strong pattern. Fortunately, not all men and women fit these molds. Some girls do just wanna have the fun of porn sex and some guys do seek consummate love. Or, what’s wanted may change with context.
But too often, like star-crossed lovers whose pairing is “thwarted by a malign star,” it’s an unfortunate trick of nature – or society — that men and women so often sexually connect at cross purposes.
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What Women Want: Twilight
A lot of men take my women’s psych course because they want to know what women want.
Maybe they should watch Twilight instead.
A woman I know of named Tracie Lamb was surprised that her daughters were more engrossed in Twilight than in their Hawaiian vacation. She knew the book series had soldover 100 million copies and that the films have made about a billion dollars. Curious, she started reading and became absorbed, herself. Wondering about the book’s allure, she made a record of what made her “tingle” and amassed a cornucopia of “invaluable information for the opposite sex.”
Here are her musings from a piece called, “Wanna Know What Women Want?”
Women want to captivate the men they love as Edward is captivated by Bella. He gazes at her. He watches her sleep. A sexy waitress flirts with him, but he only has eyes for his love:
She smiled at him again. “You have a nice evening.” He didn’t look away from me as he thanked her.
Later he tells her, “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever known. You fascinate me.”
Edward also listens to Bella, and he wants to know everything about her.
He seemed engrossed in our conversation… He says, “I want to know what you’re thinking – everything.”
Edward is completely devoted, telling Bella that, “You are my life now… I will always want you forever… You’re like my own personal brand of heroin.” (Well, love has been described as being like a drug.)
And instead of being on a quest to satisfy his sexual hunger he seeks to control it because he wants to protect Bella. (He fears he will drain her blood with his vampire instinct unless he controls himself.) That may make him sexy-safe for girls who are just discovering their sexuality, but his desire to protect, generally, is itself a strong draw. He’s not just strong, but his strength is directed at aiding his love. He’s always there for her. And she is more important than his own self and his own wants.
Now mind you, women may want to take care of themselves and their men, but they also like a man who takes care of them and who makes them feel safe and secure. So it goes both ways.
Edward’s brand of love may not appeal to every woman, but it sure appeals to a lot of them.
Tracie concludes with these words:
When a man looks at a woman, he sees the woman. When a woman looks at a man, she sees herself reflected in his eyes. What’s important is not how you look to her, but how you look at her and how you look out for her. It’s how you make her feel: fascinating, cherished, protected.
Next week: Twilight vs. Porn
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Does porn raise men’s expectations of how women should perform in bed? I believe it depends entirely on the man’s ability to distinguish between real life and fantasy.
True, you could try to recreate porn in real life. But then it’s not real. It’s acting. So you’re back to fantasy.
I think porn is great to enjoy. But men must realize what it is.
Unfortunately, a lot of men (and some women in regards to things like Twilight) get fantasy and reality mixed up. And that can harm relationships.
Take my girlfriend’s ex. He’s a nasty piece of work. Barely finished high school, can’t drive, no job. Literally sits at home all day. But because my girlfriend was young when she met him, he became a lot of “firsts.” And he made her think that things that weren’t healthy were.
She didn’t expect to ever get off on real sex, or that her significant other should even try. Early on she told me that she would be “totally down for a threesome” if I saw another girl I found attractive. She later recanted when I told her to never suggest anything that makes her uncomfortable or unhappy.
As we talked on she began blurting out a long list of things her ex did, sexually, that she asked me not to. The worst part was that after she had listed everything, she thought I was angry with her.
I was angry. Not because she had asked me not to do certain things, but because I realized what she had come to expect. I had thought she’d say something like, “I don’t feel comfortable with the lights on,” not, “Please don’t tell me I’m a dirty slut for enjoying your cock.”
I was upset that she had let someone treat her, for lack of better words, like trash. I had to explain that, even without her asking me not to do those things I would not have done them.
I saw that she had come to believe that she must do things she hated for a relationship to “work.”
Obviously we’ve talked about these things and she realizes that, yes, I do watch porn, but that porn is porn. I do not expect her to act like the girls in it, nor should anyone else.
My girlfriend is beautiful. She’s incredibly attractive just the way she is. And she’s most beautiful when she’s enjoying herself, sexually or otherwise.
This was written by one of my students who gave permission to post it under a pseudonym.
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Turning on the Sex Goddess
Naomi Wolf wants women to have better sex lives, and more empowered lives generally. Vagina: A New Biography seeks to light the way.
Wolf began researching this book after she regained her sexual desire, creativity and passion for life — much to her surprise — when her spinal cord was repaired.
I’ll discuss the larger life issues later. For now, let’s look at how her somewhat controversial book might benefit women with low libido, and the partners who love them.
Something she calls “the Goddess Array” consists of “a set of behaviors that activate the autonomic nervous system in women” and turns them on. She describes these as “the-things-that-women-need-that-men-don’t-need,” quoting sex educator Liz Topp, who coined the obese phrase.
So, women need certain things to spark desire that men don’t. And these behaviors actually have biological effects.
As she explained to the Huffington Post, women need to be relaxed and free from bad stress so that heart rate and respiration can increase, engorging what needs to be engorged and lubricating what needs to be lubricated. These processes are heightened when women lie in their lover’s arms and when they are romanced. In fact, dancing is actually seductive, she says.
On the other hand, these arousing physical processes can be interrupted if her lover snaps at her or flirts with someone else.
So foreplay begins way before bed. But we all know that, right?
True, she says, but what’s new is that science actually backs this up.
Plus, she points out that porn — so prevalent today — leads us away from this knowledge. Porn is a sex educator (a poor one) — even if neither men nor pornographers look at it that way. Men go there to get turned on, but then believe what they see: women see a huge penis, quickly get aroused and climax after a very few minutes of friction. Context doesn’t matter.
Even Masters and Johnson can throw us off. Wolf adds,
We’ve got this model from Masters and Johnson that male and female sexual response is kind of the same — there’s arousal, plateau, climax and resolution — and the Cosmo model is that everyone should be racing to the goal together, trying to get there together. This as a model of sexual response (for women) is not true.
And for women and men who do know better, we too often forget or don’t take the time to nurture the good energy that women need for arousal.
This is especially important in long-term relationships. When love is new, “feel-good” oxytocin levels skyrocket. But then they drop. Women also get turned on by feeling chosen, but after being married awhile a woman may feel less like she’s chosen and more like her partner simply has no other choice but her. Wolf continues:
Once you’re in a relationship, you don’t have to woo her, you don’t have to bring her flowers, you don’t have to take her dancing, you don’t have to tell her she’s beautiful, you just cut to the chase. That is a killer for passion for women in long-term relationships, and it’s not a psychological thing, it’s physiological, and a mind-body connection.
Marta Meana, a UNLV psychology professor, would seem to agree. She says women have a lower sex drive (culturally influenced) and need a bigger jolt to spark their libido. As she told a New York Times reporter,
If I don’t love cake as much as you, my cake better be kick-butt to get me excited to eat it.
Turning on the sex goddess, the gospel according to Naomi Wolf. It may be worth a read.
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