If there is one topic that gets the average man to swallow his pride and seek out relationship advice, it’s sex.
And the reason is simple: for the vast majority of men, the longer they are in their relationship, the less sex they have.
The “honeymoon phase,” where a man and his woman sleep together not simply every day, but sometimes multiple times per day… ends up declining to multiple times per week or even month if they are “lucky.” Often the situation is worse, with sex being on the table a few times a year or even less.
And it’s not just an issue of quantity, but quality.
Women who in the beginning were enthusiastic partners, visibly engaged — sometimes even ravenous — temper their attitude and become more distant. While they were initially ready to try nearly anything, now they aren’t even willing to change position.
Sex is something to be finished, not savored. It’s vanilla and disconnected, rather than exciting and passionate.
Yet despite the woman being fully committed, she can’t help it. Something is blocked within her.
Fantasy fades into reality. And she stops wanting to have sex with him.
Sexual Dissonance and Society
Women themselves don’t often know why this happens. And contrary to what many men might think, it is not usually out of malice or duplicity. Many good women are actually self-critical; they don’t understand what’s “wrong” with themselves. They love their men, and feel guilty they cannot give them what they want.
And indeed, what they want. Because usually they want to have more sex too.
So why can’t they? Why the sexual dissonance?
There are a few reasons for this. And we’ll cover all the main ones in this piece.
But before we address the more psychological aspects, we’d be remiss to miss the structural one. Because to understand why women have complicated emotions within sex and marriage today, you must first grasp female nature at its lowest resolution — and how society has manipulated it.
And this requisite truth is that on a basic, primal level — women follow authority.
In the past, this authority was overt and visible. And it was given to men. A husband had domain over his wife. Girls were raised to understand this by their fathers and mothers, and they actively looked forward to married life. In exchange for this authority, men had responsibility, and were told to cherish and protect their women.
Consequently, in a marriage, a wife had sex when her husband wanted. Which because of the dynamics, became when she wanted. “Marital rape” was not really a concept. He initiated, she received.
This is of course not to paint an unduly rosy picture. Not all marriages were perfect. And while society may have put men in an authoritative position, not all men embodied it in personality. Some women despised their husbands, others were simply unsatisfied by them. Happiness has never been a universal; it isn’t now, it wasn’t then.
But it seems for the most part couples didn’t have major issues when it came to sex. And if there were problems, social pressures forced couples to deal with them. Divorce was extremely difficult — especially for women — and even when successful, almost guaranteed a woman would be left not only without property but her children. The incentives were towards working things out privately, not running away.
Obviously all of this has changed. In the modern era, a husband does not have a “right” to his wife’s body; he has no authority over her whatsoever. Divorce is easy — you don’t even need an explanation — and in the aftermath, it’s usually the woman who ends up with the house and kids.
These changes have of course been promoted as signs of “equality and progress.” But despite feminist rhetoric, this “liberation of women” is little more than a crafty illusion. Women remain as subservient to the “patriarchy” as they were generations ago. The difference is simply now they serve a more distant and indifferent master than before.
Rather than be a queen under her own king, modern woman has become a concubine in the harem of an amorphous corporate-state syndicate. These women continue to follow authority as they always have, but it is now company policy or the current political consensus they submit to — not their husbands. With mass media “the man” is now abstracted and impersonal, controlling them without any awareness on their part. And it tricks them into believing their serfdom is their choice.
This authority seduces these women by calling them strong, beautiful, and empowered, while in practice abusing and exhausting them. It encourages them to be sexual while warning them against emotionally surrendering. And it programs men to be house-cats, so women won’t be tempted to break the trace. Men who shirk this mandate and act assertive are condemned as having “toxic masculinity;” women who follow them are mocked.
All in all it’s quite a brilliant divide and conquer strategy. The men are socially and legally proscribed from behavior that triggers a sexual response in women, and denied authority in relationships even when they have earned it. And your average woman supports it, even as she wonders where the “real men” are.
No wonder you have the dissonance of all these women who claim they want their men to lead, yet bristle when they actually do. Their natural instinct has been pitted against their programming. So long as the latter has the upper hand, these women won’t recognize their man’s authority no matter what he does.
And so they will struggle to give their men sex, and be sexually satisfied themselves.
Sex and Power
The good news is that women are beginning to learn they’ve been sold a bill of goods. There is a real pushback among women who are either seeking a return to a more traditional dynamic, or are creating a new “integrated” kind of relationship where the woman selectively embraces different roles at different times, depending on the domain of her life.
But the programming at this point is generations deep, and it’s been sealed with a healthy dose of trauma. Even if the logic of “you’ve been lied to” is persuasive, it requires some degree of ego death for women to simply acknowledge it — let alone break free.
Yet the facts are becoming harder and harder to deny.
For all the talk of “female empowerment,” women are emotionally worse off than they’ve ever been. Over 25% of women under 40 in the United States are on some form of anti-depressant. They might make more money, but they are not simply lonely, they’re depleted, and their life lacks meaning.
But perhaps worst of all, they feel powerless.
Which creates a very interesting issue when it comes to sex.
Boss stressing you out at work? Too much going on with the kids? Always dealing with other people’s needs, and never your own? Here is one thing you can deny that is being asked of you: sex with your man.
In other words, even though the woman may want sex in theory, because she is overwhelmed by the rest of life it becomes yet another obligation.
And since in a monogamous relationship it is the one area of her life where she does have power, there’s a strong unconscious inclination to exercise it. It gives her a sense of control — of value and validation — even though it also makes her feel guilty, and leaves her without the intimacy she craves.
Unsurprisingly, your standard woman in this category is a “good girl” who struggles with self-esteem — she doesn’t speak up for what she wants in life, and she lacks agency. Stymieing sex is a form of passive-resistance against persistent duty.
But to men this feels personal, and appears as an issue of leverage. He is at the bottom of the totem-pole; she takes him for granted. The only way to fix this is to fix the power dynamic. And since physical force is out of the question, the only weapon available is to trigger a woman’s competitive instinct and fear of loss.
Or in other words, dread game.
The concept of dread is simple. When a woman is afraid other women might steal you away, she works harder to keep you. Which means not only better behavior in general, but more sex.
But there are different types of “dread game,” and some work better than others.
“Passive dread” — improving your physique, finances, social status, etc. — is always a good policy. Objective results of this aside, simply shifting more focus to yourself is half the battle. It makes you more attractive, and most women are very pleased and respond accordingly; those who grumble and remain stagnant naturally get left behind.
When it comes to “active dread game,” however, the results are much more mixed.
In some relationships, an element of “active dread” — engaging flirtatiously (or more) with other women — can be helpful; it might spark your woman out of complacency.
But in many relationships, active dread actually makes things worse. And the reason is a misdiagnosis of the relationship’s problem.
If your sex life is bad because of a lack of desire — your woman doesn’t notice or really care much about you — some deliberate dread might make her reconsider her indifference. I have approved of this as “shock therapy” on occasion, in specific contexts.
But if the issue with your woman is a lack of comfort — and in relationships this is more common than “red pill” men realize — dread game will only damage trust and will likely destroy the relationship.
(Read: What Do Women Really Want From Men?)
Effectiveness of “active dread” aside, however, there is a deeper question men must consider.
Dread triggers a woman’s abandonment-issues — it makes her jealous, anxious, and lowers her perception of herself. Which means you are effectively abusing her when you press on these wounds to get her to have sex.
Now you might reply: “isn’t she complicit in this if she’s the one responding sexually to abuse?” or “isn’t she abusing me if we’re committed, yet she regularly deprives me of sex?”
The answer to both of these is yes. But you’re the man. You direct the relationship. What kind of relationship do you want?
Do you want to be in a relationship based on power and manipulation, or mutual respect?
Do you want to be with a woman who associates attraction with abuse, or with love?
These are serious and personal questions — I cannot answer them for you. I can simply offer that despite what you’ve been told in the manosphere, not all women wish to be trapped in their trauma. Fantasy and fear are not the only paths to arousal. There is another way.
But it requires you to fix that trauma rather that take advantage of it.
In other words, if a woman feels powerless in most areas of her life, rather than flip the dynamic so that she is also powerless against you — you must instead help empower her.
Rather than diminish her self-worth further, you encourage her to deal with her baggage. You get her to take more time to herself — to be more in her feminine, and luxuriate and play. You challenge her on her bullshit, while comforting her in her pain. You help her to be stronger and more confident.
You help her heal.
Will every woman accept this gift? No. Some are simply not ready, and you will need to let them go play their games with someone else, and move on.
But for the ones who are, doing this doesn’t make them want you less, but more.
Because you have given her something no other man did: her personal power. She will trust you utterly and completely because of it, and surrender herself to you. Another man’s charm will never be a threat again.
Yet truly solving a relationship’s sexual issues is not just a matter of changing or transcending the power dynamics. There is another reason women — particularly “good girls” — block sexual energy in their relationships.
Because they are afraid of it.
Sexual Shame and Suppression
Feminists take pleasure in noting that the female body — in contrast to a male’s — is capable of multiple sustained, cascading orgasms.
But what they miss is the implication of this: Women were built for sex. They epitomize it. That doesn’t mean they are restricted to it. But any attempt of a woman to build an identity while rejecting her primary design will lead to crisis. It is the foundation. You can ascend beyond your nature, but you cannot bypass it.
And the nature of women is that within every girl is not simply a madonna, but a whore.
Sex is the purview of women in the same way violence is the domain of men. An “asexual woman” is as much an oxymoron as a “harmless man;” both are broken in some fundamental way.
Which is why for a woman to truly heal, she must reclaim her connection to sex. To relinquish her shame, and understand liking sex doesn’t make her a bad woman. To realize the whore is not her enemy, and that she can channel the archetype, rather than suppress it.
The struggle for women is that there are many risks in doing this — particularly if they happen to be connected to the wrong guy.
The plain truth is most guys are as messed up in their own way as women. You want to marry a virgin and have a healthy family, while you’re out banging tinder sluts and prostitutes? Welcome to the manosphere. NGMI. A lot of you need coaching bad, because you don’t understand yourselves or women. You will truly be fucked in a serious relationship.
When you idealize the madonna yet crave the whore, you give a girl a no-win situation. And you deprive yourself of happiness, as neither role she adopts will satisfy you. “Good girls” slut-shame and sluts homewreck not simply because of envy, but because we pin them — these faces of femininity — against each other.
Obviously, the way out of this impasse is to get a girl comfortable with both expressions of womanhood. Girls with game know this intuitively, which is why they play both roles to our fantasy. But chances are you’re being duped by a girl if it feels too intense, comes too quickly, or seems too perfect.
Real growth is frankly less flamboyant. A “good girl” who has integrated her sexual nature won’t try to seduce you with sex, and will be judicious when she consummates it. Yet her sexual energy will flow throughout the relationship, and she will embrace her passion when the time comes.
Most girls these days unfortunately do not wait that long — and do not understand why they should. Modern propaganda has convinced women they “exercise their power” when they have sex casually. But what is missed is with great power comes great responsibility, and shame that comes with its abuse.
Yet a healthy balance evades most women for reason. On the other side of libertine degeneracy is rigid doctrine. Many churches exploit the shame of the slut, telling women their sexual power itself is the problem.
And so round and round we go. Institutions prosper; men and women suffer. While the virgin and the whore continue their endless war.
Sexual Sovereignty and Agency
Men and women both have a role in breaking this pointless vacillation between purity and promiscuity. And it starts by reexamining their relationship to sex.
For men, the most pivotal piece of this is gaining sovereignty over their own sex drive. Which means not simply learning how to handle tension, but decoupling sex from emotional need.
There are many aspects to this process; eliminating porn addictions and regaining a conscious connection to your sexual impulse are chief among them.
But the crux of this shift comes down to taking better care of yourself. What are your needs? Most men do not know the answer to this question, and tend to pretend such needs don’t exist — after all it’s “weak” to have them.
Yet you do have needs, and if you pretend you don’t — and thus don’t meet them — they will control you unconsciously. And the biggest way they emerge with women is with sexual expectations: you need to perform this way or last this long, she must react this way or that, do X or Y, fuck so and so frequently, etc. etc. etc.
Men fall into this trap because sex is the ultimate validation the feminine can bestow upon them. And men crave the feminine because it offers the unconditional love they rarely ever give to themselves.
This dependence is the shadow of that “burden of performance” so commonly parroted online. Which is why men carrying emotional pain, no matter how “hard” they may seem on the surface, are putty in the hands of a woman who offers relief to these wounds. Your “red pill alpha” is so afraid of commitment because he senses this deep down — he knows from his “blue pill days” just how vulnerable he really is.
Obviously leaving needs like this unmet opens yourself up to manipulation — and that is reason enough to deal with them. But even in an otherwise promising relationship, your lack of self-care pollutes the energy with your woman. She cannot be sexually free herself, because she has too much of a job when it comes to you.
And so for your own sake and hers, you must get to the point where sex is something you want and enjoy — and are not ashamed of — but that you are also not dependent on. It cannot define your worth as a man.
Women for their part must undergo a similar shift in agency, albeit in the opposite direction. While men must address their emotional need for sex, women must address their impulse to withhold it. Sex must become a choice, not an obligation.
It must neither be an asset ceded like a slave, nor a weapon wielded as an oppressor. Sex is part and parcel with who she is — she is a sexual being, and she chooses to have it with her man because she enjoys it, and it makes her feel more connected to him.
Unfortunately, many women do not internalize this sort of sovereignty over their sexuality until they are older — paradoxically when male focus on them has declined. Perhaps diminished validation clears the mind; it becomes easier to consciously choose sex when someone else is not trying to take it from you. Perhaps they simply grow tired of the guilt, and want to finally enjoy sex freely.
But whatever the catalyst, integrating their sexuality is a real challenge for many women. The raw female id is dark; its urges stigmatized. It takes a massive degree of self-acceptance as a woman to acknowledge you want a man to possess you in bed — especially with modern propaganda working overtime to tell women this is weak, and they should never allow it.
And so those few women who do attempt to come to terms with their sexuality tend to end up more confused. They think sexual agency means acting masculine — mechanical acts, “taking control” in a literal sense. These are the results of a generation taught sex from porn; the woman instigates and dominates, not the man.
But leaving aside rare individual tastes, this is not how the energy plays out naturally. The woman receives. Her invitation is subtle — a glance, a gesture. A woman in tune with her sexuality is an encyclopedia of innuendo; she knows and craves to open her heart and body to a man. And when responsible, is selective about the man she offers it up to.
Conclusions: Conscious Eroticism
Whenever you address the malaise of modernity in this community, there is a persistent theme: “we must go back.” Women respond sexually to a man’s authority… OK, so give men authority again. Sinple, really. Problem solved.
But the world has shifted — not simply in its veneer, but in its awareness. Lament as you might, this descent from unconscious masculinity and femininity to its orchestrated inversion is in a larger sense “progress.” We have been experiencing a gradual dark night of soul these past 100 years; as I write this in December 2021 we are near the culmination of it.
And by that I mean, in this collapse all that has been hidden is becoming seen. We are living through the apocalypse — the great revealing. The great awakening. And it is not simply occurring in our society, but in the most intimate parts of our lives.
Which is why you must understand it is not possible to go back. We have changed — not in our basic nature, but in our conscious relationship to it. Women will never submit to a “patriarchal system” that compels their obedience again. And be honest with yourselves — would you really want them to?
In your heart of hearts, most of you would not. You want a woman to surrender to you, but you want her to choose to surrender to you.
Because your consciousness has shifted. You want a woman who is aligned both with her femininity and her sovereignty. You want a woman with a sense of self; one who wants you, not one who needs you. A relationship of consensual polarity and conscious eroticism.
Such a relationship is well within your grasp. In spite of all the programming, suitable women are all around; though many do need guidance — you will need to help forge them. But the main limiting factor is you. Because you can only take a woman as far as you yourself have gone.
And so you must transform. You must do the work of deep introspection, and expose yourself to the women who trigger it. You must risk your pride and your heart utterly. You must get burned. And you must do it again and again, until you discernment becomes a sharp blade, and you are finally comfortable enough with yourself you can never get “burned” again.
I know we are all sick of this upside down world of chaos and division. But we cannot force our way out of it. We can only decide to leave it. The only way to win the game is to refuse to play.
And so as we sit on the edge of the old, with the unfamiliar on the horizon, we walk not into the abyss but out of it. Men and women, together. To a new world.
Great sex is just the beginning.
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To apply to work with me, go here: www.patstedman.com/application
– Pat
