Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
the solution is that a few men have more sex than the average woman because men are more likely to take advantage of more of the opportunities available to them than women are but most men have much less because their opportunities are so much fewer than the average women. Glad you are a lawyer and not an economist. Well maybe you could be a supply sider.
Most guys have a strong preference for chaste women when they are ready to settle down. This is not because they have sexual hang-ups, but because statistically speaking women who treat sex casually are more likely to cheat on them. Maybe it's not true in every single case, but having a bunch of old flings walking around just creates opportunities for infidelity. Not to mention that most people don't change their patterns of behavior just because they get married.
Does that mean that having a double standard makes sense? Well, yes. Because infidelity in a female partner carries much more serious consequences. It can mean raising some other guys kids. Of course for most men all of these calculations happen on an instinctual level that is nearly impossible to override with mere logic.
So it's not surprising that many sexually liberated women should hit a few extra stumbling blocks on the road to the altar.
the solution is that a few men have more sex than the average woman because men are more likely to take advantage of more of the opportunities available to them than women are
but most men have much less because their opportunities are so much fewer than the average women. Glad you are a lawyer and not an economist. Well maybe you could be a supply sider.
-- anon
I understand what you're saying, but your explanation doesn't add up.
You're saying that a small minority of men ("a few men") pretty much take away from the rest of men a lot of the sexual opportunities men have. My point is that for this minority of men to take away so much opportunities from the rest of men that the average man would have less sex than the average woman, this tiny minority of men would have to be having sex with different women ALL THE TIME.
It doesn't make any sense, and what it sounds like is you making excuses for your own lack of success. It's not your fault, you see, it's those movie and rock stars that have taken away all the women.
Furthermore, i googled this question, and it seems that in EVERY SURVEY, men say they have had more sex partners than women. You could say that this is because men overstate to prove their sexual prowess, and women understate to prove their chastity, but i find it hard to believe that every single survey would come out the same because of this.
PS Are you an economist?
But not for the reason you may think. I'm not like the prudes calling this girl (and Cary Tennis) a perv; I'm a you-go-girl-boy-girl-boy-ad-infinitum sort of guy; if everyone's happy, then I'm reasonably so (see below). I'm not even particularly jealous; my wife dated other guys before me, and that's fine; we are both friends with one of her exes.
I am, however, very envious. (look up 'jealousy vs envy' on google for a good explanation of the difference)
I have, through my life, become convinced that EVERY ONE is having, or has had, WAY MORE FUN THAN ME. I have the constant feeling that everyone else got some sort of instruction book that I utterly missed out on.
I had the greatest of difficulties managing to get one sexual partner; she seems to really like me and everything (full disclosure, she's that wife I mentioned). If you asked me how to go about getting a threesome going, I would be utterly lost.
This bugs me. Not every day. No even every week. But every once in a great while, I just think 'man, I have it pretty good, but somebody right this second is having MORE FUN THAN I'VE EVER HAD' And it irks me.
But then I think about something else.
and 3/4 of women can sleep with any may they want, using these numbers which are approximately correct things can and do work out like I say they do. 1 in 100 or 1 in 20 is a lot of people and men can have a lot of sex. Look at the stats on how much gay men do, or have done, if you want some enlightenment on this score.
Especially about the therapists, I enjoyed that. Took my daughter to therapists for years, talk therapy, medications, not really a help. Huge amount of time and desire to change things and make them better on my part, with no real results. The guy is a nut, and it pisses me off to hear this woman begging for his love and forgiveness when he has none to give. When you have no compassion for others, you ultimately will receive none yourself. When you give of yourself and feel ashamed of yourself for no real reason other than that the person you love thinks you suck, it all becomes disgustingly twisted, and you will end up with nothing. Go, and stop loving him.
You should not be giving relationship advice. LW, do not listen to this woman!
LW does not rule out that 3-some was FFF. That wouyld add another dimension.
Woah. I sent this in hoping for a response, and I appreciate that Cary took the time to respond to my letter. I was a bit taken aback to see it on the page today, and particularly that there were 20+ pages of responses to it. I've read most of the letters here (and was anticipating being called a slut by some of you).
Some things I'd like to respond to:
He did actually end up coming to the couples therapy appointment with me. Things went ok in the appointment, but I'm not sure that things can be salvaged at this point. I think he has a lot of growing to do, and I was hoping that he could do that within this relationship, but I'm not sure that's possible. I've tried my best to make him secure in this relationship, to compliment him on the things I love about him (sexually and otherwise). It's easy to make him into a bad guy, and often times I see him that way, but at the heart of it, these are problems that most couples go through to varying degrees.
For those of you who have mentioned paternity - that is not a problem in this relationship. He knows that I would never cheat on him. That I have done some "slutty" things in the past does not change the fact that I am loyal and caring and, as this relationship has proven, forgiving to those that I love. But I guess there is only so much you can forgive before you have to give up. I have made clear to him that there is a big difference for me between casual sex and sex with someone that I love. The casual sex that I have had - some has been with people I don't know well at all, some (the threesome, for example) has been with friends that I care about in non-romantic ways. Sex with my boyfriend, who I cared about romantically from the get-go, is a whole different thing. It IS sacred to me, and I would rather have sex with him than anyone else that I've been with. I guess to me, as opposed to my boyfriend, the fact that I chose to have sex with him isn't what should make him feel special - but the fact that I love and care about him and that the sex means a lot to me should make him feel special.
And for the people who have brought it up, the threesome I had was MMF. I'm sure that this justifies his reaction to a lot of you, but knowing him like I do, I'm not sure that it would have made too much of a difference. He's been with about half the amount of people that I have, and my number really is not nearly as high as you all have probably assumed. He's had oral sex with about as many people as I've had sex with, and I've had oral sex with about the same number of people he's had sex with. For me, oral sex is something I only share with people I'm in a relationship with. We all have our rules about what's ok. I guess I thought (mistakenly) he would respect mine, even if he disagreed with them.
Someone brought up that I should have known how he would have reacted to my answer, and that I didn't know him well enough. His reaction to the fact that his friend had a threesome (MFF) wasn't positive, and I didn't think he'd like my answer. But he straightforwardly asked me a question, and I did not want to lie. I figured he would be annoyed, but I did not forsee the shitstorm ahead. Maybe that was really naive of me. I thought it would bother him, he'd get over it, we'd move on. Apparently I am dating the one man I have ever met who has had no fantasies whatsoever about threesomes, MFF or otherwise. He's not even into girl-on-girl. I can't get someone to understand having a threesome if they can't even understand why someone would fantasize about having a threesome.
I made the choices that I made because I had physical needs. I had broken up with a boyfriend of four years, and it took my heart a bit longer to get used to the idea of being with someone emotionally than my libido would have liked. Individually, I regret the decisions I made, but I like the person who came out of it. I'm not really interested in casual sex or threesomes anymore, and I had hoped my boyfriend would judge me for the person that I was when we started seeing each other.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
