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Many guys just blame their partner or fate for their sexless marriages, but this is intellectually lazy. The men who end up in better relationships, whether this means transforming their current marriage or leaving and finding something more fulfilling, tend to be better at looking back more objectively and seeing which of their own behaviors landed them in this sexual desert. This article helps you move from a place of blame to a place of more self-awareness and understanding, and gives you concrete tools to ensure you don’t wind up in the same type of relationship moving forward!
Overall, as I discuss frequently, you need to think about your own contribution to marital issues if you want to grow as a person and change your dynamics with others in the future. One way that I see men self-sabotage in dating is by affecting a “nice guy” persona, which is really not a nice or kind man at all, but more of what I will call a Gentleman Eunuch (GE). What are the differences between a nice guy and a GE?
Nice men are actually nice, in the dictionary definition meaning pleasant or agreeable. Agreeableness is actually one of the Big 5 personality traits and is linked to self-reports of happier marriages. As I discuss here, women love REAL nice guys! Genuinely nice guys go with the flow, instead of always making a problem and being critical and demanding. They are morally upstanding and ethical. They are kind and generous. These are all positive traits in friends, coworkers, husbands, wives, or anyone else.
However, these characteristics are unfortunately NOT what guys are trying to be like when they put on the cloak of a “nice” guy. Instead, they turn into the GE, a man with preoccupied attachment who is so insecure about his girlfriend leaving him that he tries to never “bother” her for anything at all, including sex. This persona starts in the earliest dating encounters, and lasts through marriage. Then, the GE is resentful towards his spouse for having been exactly who she always was and who he was trying to attract!
Many people meet nowadays on dating apps, so let’s examine what the GE acts like when messaging on these apps prior to even setting up a date. He is so anxious about turning a woman off that he acts unfailingly positive and even a little like Joe from You. He combs through the woman’s profile for any details about her likes and dislikes and carefully constructs his conversation around showing that he has the same ones, and he NEVER says anything remotely “offensive.” He creates a persona that is slightly different for every woman and his goal is to get someone to like him back. Because he is so scared to be offensive, he is careful not to ever say anything sexual, which includes anything about physical affection, or anything that the woman’s own grandmother wouldn’t say about her physical appearance.
On the first date, the GE wants to be liked and accepted so much that he focuses on being totally sexless, and at the end, if he does try to kiss the woman, he is likely to be shot down because the kiss feels awkward to the woman, coming after multiple text conversations centered primarily on her hobbies and a whole date that had zero sexual tension. This is exactly the kind of guy that the woman’s friends will tell her to go on another date with to see if chemistry “grows,” because he is “such a nice guy.” If she does this, eventually she will end up sleeping with him (he will be sure not to “push” this so it will take weeks or months based on their age) and of course he will be so focused on pleasing her that it is kind of awkward for her.
There are two kinds of women who will marry a GE: ones who are not very sexual and are relieved and happy to find a man who doesn’t “push” them in this way, or women who are not very physically attracted to the GE but love him as a person and are okay with not having sex as a big part of their marriage. Often, women with a sexual abuse history find and marry a GE because he seems very safe and caring, and the opposite of a selfish and sexually-motivated abuser.
When the GE finally gets married, or even many years into his marriage when his confidence grows, he may try to finally express his more sexual side, which previously he may have used porn to manage. This sea change blindsides his wife, who assumed he just wasn’t that sexual and was happy about that. The GE is now trying to change the terms of his marital contract, which he created in the first place. In courtship, he implicitly or explicitly stated: “I will do anything to make you happy and ensure you love me, and I don’t value sex like those other creepy guys do.” Now, when he says he wants more or different sex, his wife is understandably shocked and upset.
How do GE’s develop? They are usually men with preoccupied attachment who were raised in an environment where sex was thought to be “bad.” Often, they have mothers who experienced sexual trauma and therefore raised their sons to be the polar opposite of a sexual predator, a man who never prioritizes sex and who is ashamed of his own desire for it. This can be productively addressed in therapy, where you can understand the origin of your own deep shame about being a sexual entity, and learn to own it and even be proud of your sexuality. Therapy can also help address all of the other self-esteem issues that you struggle with, which make you think that women will only like you if you are 100% perfect and make their lives demonstrably easier with your workhorse mentality and your income.
If you want to attract women who are sexually open, you need to start as you mean to go on during dating. This means that you want to set the precedent early on of being a sexual being (again, it may take therapy and deep reflection to feel internally confident that you are a sexual being), which means that you compliment a woman’s looks early on, and flirt with her openly. This looks like, “Wow, you’re beautiful,” or “You look amazing in that dress.” It looks like open conversations about what you want, and even including in your dating profile that you love to be physically close with your partner.
Some men think that making comments about a woman’s looks is “creepy,” but this is something to work on in therapy. If you are too “gentlemanly” to express your attraction to a woman, she will lose interest if she is a sexually-motivated person… but be happy and relieved if she is uncomfortable and anxious around sex and bodies herself. This is a textbook example of how being a GE attracts only women who aren’t sexual… or who aren’t sexual WITH YOU.
On a date, being sexually self-confident looks like going for the kiss at the end of the night and not ever stopping kissing before the woman does. It looks like asking the woman to come back to your place by at least the second date if there is sexual chemistry, knowing that you might as well shoot your shot and she doesn’t have to say yes! It also looks like understanding that if you want a woman who is sexually open, too many “no’s” and/or pulling away from kisses (or even you putting your arm around her) means that she is not that attracted to you and/or does not prioritize sex in the way that you do.
Am I saying that a woman should always have sex on the second date? Of course not. But if a woman is turned off by you WANTING to have sex or commenting favorably on her looks or body, this is a sign that she is not very sexually open OR that she isn’t that attracted to you. In some cases it also means that she is ambivalent about relationships and has trust issues. None of these are likely to make you happy in the long run. If you deeply value sexual openness and mutual attraction as core aspects of your next long term relationship, a woman’s lack of enthusiasm about sexual contact (including: when to first kiss, when to first have sex, and how adventurous to get when you start having sex) is a sign to move on.
Incidentally, many GE’s with very low self esteem are only trying to attract the most conventionally attractive or “classy” woman they can get, because they have a fantasy of making other men jealous of them when they walk into a room, or of their highschool tormenters being shocked by what a high quality woman they have. This means that the GE ignores all red flags that a woman isn’t sexually open even if he notices them, because she is attractive enough and/or has the right resume (great job, lots of friends, whatever signifies to him that she is “high quality” and would be impressive to others). Therapy can help a man recognize that a beautiful woman who hates sleeping with you is no prize, and if you are dating in order to get a trophy, then you are both unethical and unlikely to be happy long term.
Note that there is usually no such thing as a woman (beyond a very very young one) who hated sex with all others before you but will turn into a wildcat with you. This is like a woman marrying a man who drank to excess with all prior partners but she hopes he will shape up and stop drinking when he marries her. It is a foolish bet and one which comes from an idealistic and naive worldview, another thing that you can focus on in therapy.
If this post resonated with you, therapy or coaching can help you with owning your sexuality and moving forward with confidence into your next relationship. You can turn from a Gentleman Eunuch into a Nice And Sexual Guy, which is a transformation that can land you a woman who deeply enjoys and values the physical component of your relationship. Even more importantly, with work, you can free yourself of deep rooted shame about sexuality and excise your anxiety about female acceptance and approval. And till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Says, Your Value To A Woman Should Never Be How Cool You Are About Not Having (Good) Sex.