Playing For Keeps

Ponyboy said in an earlier comment:  I think the double standard here isn’t that it’s OK for a guy to bang a lot of chicks, but not OK for a woman. To me, it’s that the other day on Athol’s site all these married guys were complaining that their wives don’t have sex enough. They were talking about leaving them, cheating etc… Now we have a girl who obviously likes sex, but she is getting taken out to the wood shed and deemed not marriage material – which is it?

Athol:  The quick and dirty answer is to say that both are extremes to be avoided. My viewpoint is that a very low partner count is best, but you should establish you have sexual compatibility before getting married. I’m generally advocating a modified virgin strategy.

The longer answer is that I think we’re confusing two separate issues here. There isn’t a frigid vs slut sliding scale at work where on one end are sexually dead women and on the other sexually exciting women.

The sexually dead women that the husbands were complaining about on earlier posts have a very low Female Alpha Trait level and likely a decent Female Beta Trait level. So they aren’t at all sexual, but they are basically reliable stable women who aren’t going to blow up the relationship at any point.

The lady in her late twenties with 20+ lifetime partners seems to enjoy having sex and doesn’t have any trouble attracting new partners, so she has a high Female Alpha Trait level, but she’s displayed a persistent pattern of relationship failure at on average the six month mark. To be blunt, twenty different men either didn’t meet her standards or weren’t comfortable being in a relationship with her. As such her Female Beta Trait level appears quite low. Marrying her would be creating a serious risk for a quick divorce.

So these are two quite different relationship stresses. If these were men we were talking about they would translate fairly directly into a Nice Guy Beta Orbiter who can’t get laid, and a PUA player that is a constant moving target incapable of a long term relationship. Would anyone recommend to a woman to marry a known player? Would anyone recommend to a woman to marry an insipid chump for anything other than his money? If not, why the double standard that men should pony up for it?

Just like men need to balance their Alpha and Beta Traits, so do women. If a woman is a sexually dead cold fish in the sack, she shouldn’t be shocked if her husband develops a wandering eye for pussy anymore than a Betaized Nice Guy husband should be if his wife hooks up with her old boyfriend on Facebook. If a woman can’t hold up her end of an emotional relationship without it blowing up within six months, she shouldn’t be shocked if her boyfriend dumps her for someone less pretty that can cook and likes kids. At least no more than an eternally absent Alpha professional husband should be shocked if his wife bonds to one of the dads picking up his own kids from her kids’ school.

Marriage is an incredibly serious decision to make. In terms of the way family court plays out right now, it’s more serious for the man than the woman to get married. If you’re a male, your default setting should be that you shouldn’t get married at all. What you need to get married is an exceptional woman who has some of both Alpha and Beta Traits working for her.

There’s NO requirement to marry anyone at all. If anyone tries to guilt trip you into being committed to a woman by marriage, it’s because they have her interests at heart and not yours. Any time you hear the phrase “man up” you should hear “be a chump.”

If you do decide to get married, my most serious advice is that you do your due diligence and evaluate her most practically. You want to know her medical history, you want to know her criminal history, you want to know her credit history, you want to know her family history and you sure as hell want to know her sexual history too. Nothing in particular need be a deal breaker, for no one is perfect, but you need to advance into the most serious relationship of your life with open eyes and full disclosure.

In a general sense I advise both the man and the woman to have as limited of a sexual history as possible. I believe that’s been a massive benefit to Jennifer and myself and our happiness. However I also advise very strongly that you need to be assured that you have a good sexual chemistry together before you get married. I can tell you dozens of horror stories of those that have deeply regretted waiting until the wedding to experience sex with their spouse.

Look, let’s be serious about this. Marriage is hard. Monogamy is hard. And it’s a really long time to be together. If you’re going to walk this road, you want a common sense woman who likes to fuck and is going to stick it out with you. Even then you have to work at it together. The upside is you have a family, you have a legacy and you have a constant friend and companion with a shared history together.

I mean seriously, try and shut your eyes and imagine me without Jennifer. Who the hell would I even be?

Monogamous marriage is a life strategy. I 100% seriously do not give a rats ass whether or not you choose to do it yourself. MMSL is not a moral crusade. There are other strategies you can choose to play, and I wish you well in the playing of them. I’m completely serious on that account, I really don’t care what you do – I have poly friends, I have single friends hunting for hook-ups, I have gay friends, I have married lesbian friends, I have friends on their second marriages and player friends too.

I’m just here to explain how to play the monogamous marriage strategy to your best advantage.

So anyway, just to make my “I don’t give a crap” point, here’s a fabulous drag queen with a great message that married guys can use… I think.