I want to do a little experiment. I will go into a bar and ask all the single ladies this question. I want to see how many times I have to ask before a woman agrees.

What is the best way to frame this question?

1. "I want to have sex with you now"

2. "Do you want to have sex with me now?"

3. "Can we have sex?"

I feel left out now. Do my words frighten you?

Seriously -- you bring out all your writers to discuss Michelle Obama's butt, or to give your reaction to an SNL sketch, so why not this?

What do YOU think, Tracy Clark-Flory? Sarah Hepola? Rebecca Traister? Catherine Price? Everybody else...

You're all for equality of the sexes, you're all for feminism, equal pay for equal work, and all that good stuff (which I assume the rest of us are all for too).

So.... On a date, do you find it tacky if the man does not pay? Or at least curious? Questionable? Worrisome? Irksome?

Doors opened for you: A good thing? A requirement? Notable if not done?

Phone calls and plans: Who makes them? Is a man less attractive if he lets you call more of the shots? Do you prefer the man to be the aggressor/pursuer? Do you prefer to send out cues and signals and let the men chase you, rather than doing the chasing?

Marriage: A worthy goal? A goal at all? Kids, family, a cohesive monogamous long-term setup? (I chose the word "setup" because at first I was going to say "unit," but decided it would sound too phallic, so then I was going to say "package," and that made it worse...)

Do you want to be treated like a princess? (I had a girlfriend say that to me before: "Treat me like a princess!")

What is the correct, modern, feminist girl/boy way? (I sure as heck don't know.)

This is jumping a bit off-the-subject, but it's related: What's your view of alimony, especially in the absence of children, or after children have turned 18? Eradicate alimony laws? Make them equal? Make them dependent on income? Or what?

646 had said he became successful in his career so he woudln't be stuck with fat girls with good personalities.

That's what I was referring to.

Brightstar- you're insane. I don't have to do anything to attract guys? Yah, just look like a barbie doll and be a brainless sex machine. I refuse to change myself to be the fake, unreal, unhuman (because men like you can't deal with reality) blow-up doll guys like you want. Well, like all guys want.

Women are under all the pressure to be attractive, and men feel entitled to only the physicaly most beautiful ones (that was the discussion of another thread). Girls who don't fit that norm don't have access to guys they would be interested in as human beings- they're too busy with hot, superficial girls.

When I want to have sex with a guy I can't? I empathize and realize he has access to any hot girl he wants, and would have no reason to want me. I realize there would be something wrong with him if he wanted me, like all the guys who have wanted me (they're insecure for having psychiatric or major physical problems, so they settle for screwing a fatty, having the same mentality as 646, just frustrated). So I continue loving the guy and being the best friend I can be and helping his interests, and swallow the rest as my OWN problem, which it is.

Unlike MEN, if a man doesn't fall at my feet for virtue of me being a woman, I don't say it's his fault for not GRANTING me sex!

I think this ongoing Broadsheet argument is mostly BS anyway.

I agree women think it is BS, because it does not really affect women.

It is a problem ONLY men have to deal with. Never mind that damn EQUALITY, women do not reciprocate and help men, unlike the other way around.

Only men are forever in some fucked up ETERNAL debt, owing women some godforsaken right to make AND MAINTAIN them in a cushier state that is better off than even the men themselves.

Really, I am getting my dander up now...

Just so you know, men also claim to want a sweet woman who will treat them well and then go crawling after women who treat them like dirt. I have seen it many times. That's why there's a book out there called "Why Men Love Bitches".

What people say they want, rationally, is not always what their irrational emotions actually want in reality.

This is not a male or female thing. People of *both* genders often pathetically follow around the ones who treat them like crap. And it's just because of the challenge and the ego-driven question "how can he/she possibly not like me??" Nothing more, nothing less. Me, I don't go for that and never have - I like guys who seem to adore me. And plenty of people really do like nice people. But I've seen many friends of both genders degrade themselves for someone who continually treated them poorly.

A certain subset of men talk about being attracted to confidence as if it is:

a) confined to heterosexual women

b) somehow evil, or at the very least, unfair/illogical.

Anecdote: at one point, I looked over a male friend's dating site profile. He is, in fact, a nice guy - in the best way possible. But what the profile said to me was that he was unhappy, not self-confident, and not much fun to be around. The first two are somewhat true right now; the third is definitely not. I spent a long time explaining to him that he needed to fix his profile because the job of his profile was to get people he wanted to talk to interested enough to want to know more, and that the way he needed to do this was by coming off as interesting, happy, confident, and a good time, while also revealing something about his personality/interests. I told him he shouldn't say anything in his profile that he wouldn't tell a pretty young woman he met at a party within the first two minutes of speaking to her, because when we're looking at online profiles, we generally know within even less time then that whether we want to get to know someone better.

If you wanted, you could say I was telling him to lie, or argue this fits into the narrative of "women only want assholes, not nice guys." But, really? I'd have given that advice to anyone of any gender trying to meet anyone of any other gender. The Rules tells women to appear as if they have busy social calendars, even if they don't, because that will make them more attractive to men. All human beings like the idea of getting someone confident and sought-after more than getting someone who isn't. Not a gender thing: a human thing. And I think most adult women and men have learned that "be yourself" is lousy dating advice, and not because other people are bad or shallow. We have parts of our personalities that are more or less attractive to the people we want to meet. The people we are attracted to do not owe us their sexual interest or love. For those of us who are somewhat nerdy, there may be social skills that come naturally to others but that we must practice to get good at. This doesn't mean other people are shallow for wanting us more post-learning these things.

Is this totally gender-neutral? Of course not: men on average want casual sex more than women do. But I think it's a lot more gender-neutral than this conversation makes it out to be. And the confidence thing is both a signaling issue and a legitimate thing to be interested in - most of the people I've met who came back to the "nice guys don't get women" issue (as well as most of the nice women I've known who were having trouble finding someone) needed to learn some basic skills and accept that prospective partners are not like your parents: they are not supposed to start out giving you unconditional love and acceptance. You have to find out what they want and how they work, and how you fit into that. I think most people work it out and become decent human beings and partners.