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[edited 05/30/2014 at 10:30]

How do the sexes interact when it comes to mating?  What are shit tests?  Why do men and women have different approaches to sex?  Why does a man need to see a woman as a sexual object?  Why is a man’s dominance important for sex?

Why do people mate?  Men are looking to have sex with an attractive woman–one who creates desire in him simply by looking at her.  For a man, sex is about mating with a desirable woman.  For a man, sex is not ultimately about pleasure, for he could get pleasure simply by masturbating.  A man wants orgasm within the context of physical engagement with a desirable woman.  For a man, sex is about desire for an attractive woman and about physically engaging her.

A woman is looking to be desired by an attractive man; being desired by an attractive man is an emotional high for a woman and having sex with him is confirmation of her attractiveness and her sexuality.  For a woman, sex is not primarily about her orgasm.  Rather, for a woman, sex is about being desired by an attractive man and about physically engaging him.  This ties in to the man’s desire for the woman–it’s really all about the man’s desire.  If a man doesn’t see a woman as a sexual object, he won’t desire her.  If he doesn’t desire her, she will not get aroused since her sexual aim is to be desired by an attractive man.  Of course, when it comes to a woman’s desire for an orgasm, your mileage may vary.

Now let’s look at how people mate.  I observed squirrels.  One of them detects the other.  If the female, she signals interest in mating and the male approaches.  If a male detects the female first, he approaches the female.  The female runs away, breaking rapport.  The male chases and waits for the female.  She signals interest in mating.  The male squirrel will often pretend disinterest and the female will signal stronger interest.  The male chases and eventually catches the female.  The male identifies the female and the female identifies the male.  Let’s call this phase “the Chase.”

I’ve seen the same dynamics that we see in squirrels in human interactions a lot, too.  A woman signals Indicators of interest (IoI’s) and a man approaches.  The man must risk rejection by approaching, which demonstrates confidence and shows that he has value.  They talk.  The woman signals that she is losing rapport.  The man tries to reestablish rapport.  The woman signals interest.  The man pretends disinterest and perhaps breaks rapport.  The woman signals more interest.  The man demonstrates his conversational skill to the woman.  Etc.  It’s the Chase just like we saw with squirrels, but in a human context.  The man must engage the woman emotionally, socially, and sexually.  Without engagement, the woman will not be aroused because the man will not be able to demonstrate his value, which makes the man more attractive to the woman.  The man engages the woman by communicating with her both verbally and nonverbally.  He indicates interest in her by asking her open-ended questions and questions designed to create rapport.

Typically the man and woman will touch each other and build comfort.  The man will usually sexualize the encounter.  He might try to isolate the woman or kiss her on the cheek or ear or neck.  The man might tell humorous sexual stories or comment about the woman’s legs.  The woman will usually sexualize also if she’s interested in the man.  At some point, the man will instigate for sex.  The woman will identify the man and the man will identify the woman.  The woman will assign a sexual value to the man corresponding to his sexual identity.  This then begins the grappling phase.

Once the male squirrel catches the female, they grapple.  If the female squirrel is willing to submit, mating proceeds to the next phase.  The male squirrel induces the female to submit by displaying his superior skill and strength in grappling.  This phase is Grappling.

In human interactions, the woman initiates grappling by giving the man shit tests.  He proves his superior skill and strength by passing the woman’s shit tests.  The man proves his dominance.  If a woman is very attracted to a man, she will make the shit tests very easy to pass or perhaps even bypass them.  The woman communicates her willingness to submit.  When a woman gives shit tests, she is thinking about the man’s masculinity.  She wonders if he’s attractive enough for sex.  When a man negs, he is giving a woman a shit test and asking her to qualify herself.  Getting butthurt from a shit test is inappropriate.  Shit tests are merely part of mating and shouldn’t be seen negatively(unless they are nuclear–examples of nuclear shit tests are: “Whose panties were in the back seat of the car” or “Who was that man you were talking to at 2 a.m. on your cell?”).  If the man fails the shit test, the woman will likely decide that he’s not interesting sexually and communicate this to the man, perhaps by saying, “Let’s just be friends.”  In this case, the man’s sexual identity will be stigmatized with sexual failure.

If the man passes the shit tests, the Dance phase begins.  The female squirrel will present herself to the male for mating, raising her tail.  For humans, the Dance is a bit different.  The man will escalate, touching the woman’s breasts and inviting her to touch his groin.  She will likely resist initially, depending on how far she wants to go physically at the time and how much she is attracted to the man.  For a woman, going too fast too soon causes her to fear that she will be seen as a slut; resistance due to this fear is called the Anti-Slut Defense (ASD for short).  As the woman becomes aroused, her attraction to the man increases.  Eventually, the last barrier is reached and the woman must confront a host of issues, including parental prohibitions, religious prohibitions, fear of her friends’ opinion, and her fear of death (is she willing to risk death for sex with the man)?  Although pregnancy rarely causes death for a woman, women still retain that history-based fear of sex.  The key question becomes: Is the man attractive enough for sex?  We call this event Last Minute Resistance (LMR for short).  For women who are very religious, LMR will be significant and it is a bit tricky for the man to help the woman navigate her own resistance, unless the woman has married the man.  Arousal can be key to navigating LMR; switching from manual petting to using a vibrator might reduce resistance.  Sometimes switching tactics can be effective.  A woman might be Ok with oral sex and have a lot of resistance to vaginal sex.  In that case, her hamster has removed the obstacle to oral sex.  So the man switches to oral sex.  After oral sex has gone on a bit, her hamster might remove the obstacle to vaginal sex, so the man instigates a switch to vaginal sex.  Quite often a woman will offer shit tests as part of LMR.

So, once people have had sex, is sex always on the menu without going through the Chase and the Grapple?  Of course not.  Women give shit tests all the time.  Men always like the Chase.  The Chase may take different forms.  Perhaps the man wants some new sexual experience and the woman is resistant to it, so they begin a Chase, followed by a Grapple, then the Dance.  Or perhaps they have sex on the third date, but the woman is uncertain about the relationship and offers resistance to sexual instigation on the fourth date, so they go through Chase, Grapple, and Dance again.  Even in marriage, Chase, Grapple, and Dance still occur all the time.

Sometimes sex with the same person becomes stale and new experiences won’t help.  In that case, the best option may be to break rapport and for each to become <I>The Stranger</I> to the other.  We find a cultural example of this in the song “If you like Pina Coladas”.  The lovers in that song have become stale, so the woman publishes a personal ad for a new lover.  The man answers it and both are surprised to discover that the exciting new lover is really the old lover and their romance is renewed.