1821. Sex Difference Redux—Part 69: Identify His Devotion

The sexes are alike in that selfish is a natural trait. It’s the tiny part of self-interest that insists we get our way at particular decision-making moments. We learn during childhood to either restrict or hide it in order to get along with others. An independent, one-person instinctive habit, we carry selfish for life.

Regarding devotion, the sexes are very different. The ability is natural to devote ourselves to someone or some idea, concept, or task. Women primarily devote themselves to persons of extreme interest. Men primarily devote themselves to concepts and things they want to achieve and secondarily to persons for whom they have inordinately high respect, trust, and esteem.

For the remainder of this subject, let’s set aside mothers’ devotion to children and the males’ tendency to prioritize achievement over relationships. Surprisingly women and men devote themselves in similar fashion. A woman seeks a brighter future and devotes herself to the man perceived as having great promise to provide it. A man seeks a brighter present-day life and devotes himself to the woman with unquestionably the greatest promise to provide it. Men screen far more deliberately and thoroughly than women. Women perceive promise in someone much more easily than men, unfortunately often prompted by eagerness more than adroitness.

Whichever behavior dominates the relationship moment smothers the other. When acts of selfishness emerge, devotion hides. Mutual devotion tends to minimize selfish interference in relationship affairs.

Women are naturally attuned to distinguish selfish acts from devoted ones. They see this; more selfishness means less devotion and vice versa. Even though both sexes understand how one excludes the other, women are reluctant to use it. Men on the prowl aren’t. They know that flashes of selfishness can obstruct their path to both the bed and altar. Husbands aren’t; they trust wife’s devotion to forgive explosions of selfishness.

Their natures are well-matched for compatibility as male-female couples. A woman easily devotes herself to the man of her choice. A man easily devotes himself to his job or accomplishing things. He has to be taught to devote himself to a woman. Frequent flashes of his selfishness raise questions about his devotion, however well he proclaims it.

1803. Sex Difference Redux—Part 53: Whore in the Bedroom? III

A reader commented. “I can’t tell you how many married men visit prostitutes because of something kinky that his wife won’t do.” Don’t read what follows as justification for anything, it’s just the way things are with their natures.

This will make you scream, but taking on the kinky with prostitutes leaves respect intact for wife. Morally vacuous he may be, disrespectful and unfaithful he is, but domestic aftershocks may be absent and marital trembling unknown if the wife doesn’t know. Men don’t identify their wife’s faults by comparing them with whores; they visit prostitutes to keep from admitting or disclosing faults they find with the woman they live with. Truth be known, it’s a marriage-saving maneuver more than marital complaint.

Visiting prostitutes is far superior to viewing porn. Prostitutes release sexual energy and leave little behind except perhaps a man’s guilt—and men are naturally endowed with a spongy guilt-memory bank. Men don’t bond as women do with sex partners, and so men don’t emotionally connect with prostitutes. It’s physical cheating of course but not emotional infidelity. Thus, sex with prostitutes doesn’t disturb a man’s allegiance to wife. Whores aren’t marriage material to the male nature.

Porn releases no sexual energy, even though sated temporarily by masturbation. Views and scenes linger in a man’s imagination, make emotional connections, energize his curiosity for more and better, and divide his allegiance between what he has (wife) and wants to have (who knows what?). Porn is emotional infidelity.

After visiting a prostitute, the male’s mind may lose self-respect, and guilt may set in. But he can learn to live with it and the family can survive more easily than if husband’s respect for wife declines. Marriage is not about perfection; it’s all about tolerating the imperfections, surviving the put downs, and recovering from the negative influences. (OTOH, women can’t do extra-marital sex as men do and keep their marriage harmonized as before. Women who cheat bond too easily with sex partners, which encourages them to see and condemn previously undiscovered and tolerated faults in their husband.)

Husbands appreciate a high-class wife in the bedroom. It confirms a husband’s conviction of wife’s classiness outside the bedroom. Whorish behavior does not convey that. Whorish ‘entertainment’ shifts bedroom intimacy over to sex, which ignites husband’s adventurous imagination about more and elsewhere. He imagines what else she will do and comes to expect it. Her whorishness also generates some measure of disrespect for her that undermines his devotion. Consequently, if wives seek to be husband’s whore, they can expect to end up with a shortage of his respect, devotion, and love although it may not build to separation or end married life with him. (Only God and the Shadow know the part it plays in present-day divorces.)

OTOH, the absence of wife’s whorish behavior endorses husband’s leadership in bed. When he fulfills his responsibility under the guidance of her unique modesty, indirect influence, and feminine determination to build reliable compatibility, his success breeds habits that eventually satisfy her. Out of his successful habits, her sexual gratification strengthens his character, enlarges marital goals, fine tunes his personal responsibility, and encourages her living up to his expectations. All of which the female nature longs for, and so the promise of it enlarges her common sense and natural patience for shaping their future together. When a couple’s sex takes that high road, it restricts their urges to the simplest forms of sexual satisfaction. Out of that, mutual devotion harmonizes to produce domestic tranquility.

1798. Sex Difference Redux—Part 49: Art of Love vs. Lovemaking

Her Highness An Avid Follower and a Lady asked at 1797 for details about enhancing the art of love within a man. She commented in woman-think. I close the gap with man-think.

Loving is a basic and critical component of the female nature. Both love and the art of love originate within individual females. A girl’s mind dreams of love. As a woman, her mind conceives the art of love, and her heart detects failures, measures successes, and judges men according to her expectations.

The concept of love is foreign to the male nature. Men must be taught to value it. Women expect to see the ‘art of love’ flow out of men as if men know how and what to do. However, men know only what they have learned from family, buddies, and previous females in their lives, that is:

1. Mothers indoctrinate, fathers exemplify, and sisters encourage boys to love and show affection to females. As one might expect, dysfunctional families produce lousy lovers by female expectations.
2. From teen and adult buddies, boys and men pick up successful tactics aimed at gaining access to more sex. As one might expect, males learn almost exclusively about the art of lovemaking centered on intercourse. The art of love centered on devotion is rarely mentioned.
3. Teen girls tame boys and young men. They teach males to display loving and loveable gestures in order to earn the favor of females. As one might expect, cheap and easy teen sex produces this in adulthood: selfish and high performance oriented lovers in males and inadequate devotion of males for females.
4. Adult women condition men to show affection and figure out how to please a woman’s desire to be loved and to provide it. As one might expect, women either upholds standards that teach men the art of love, or they bow to the masculine art of lovemaking.

Out of those experiences, a man stabilizes his version of the art of love based on his personal version of lovemaking. It becomes habitual and difficult to change. Embellishments to please a particular woman come only after she gently coaches him to be more artful in her eyes.

The sexes differ greatly. Women dream of the art of love centered on devotion. Men dream of the art of lovemaking centered on intercourse. Only females can change the masculine focus, but it requires that girls and women generate mutual devotion before yielding to intercourse.

981. Virgin Bridegroom—Part II

Seal the Deal. The bride dreams of sealing mutual devotion on her wedding night and honeymoon that follows. She anticipates Acts I, II, and III aka Foreplay, Intercourse, and Intimacy. However, the wedding night especially haunts the virgin bridegroom. He’s loaded with potential to disappoint and even shame himself.

They reach honeymoon bed with different missions. Abstinence generates his high expectations for satisfying results aka performance, which means Act II has to be great. Abstinence generates her high expectations for gratifying results aka pleasurable closeness, which means Acts I and III have to be great. She can handle an iffy Act II. (Unmatched objectives, but that’s a common story among sexual encounters.)

Max Hurt. Few things, if any, shame a man more than a female witness to his sexual failure. I repeat: Few things, if any, shame a man more than a female witness to his sexual failure.

The very nature of bridegroom virginity sets men up with the threat of failure. The threat feeds on itself, because it compounds fear, anxiety, and loss of self-confidence. All are functions of his mind to which bride during courtship has few hints, little influence, and few preventives.

Thus, the virgin groom arrives at the honeymoon bed poorly equipped to PROUDLY fulfill his husbandly duty. Recovery may come but only time and an understanding, proudly dedicated, encouraging, and perhaps long suffering bride can provide it.

Tomorrow’s post explores the hormone-laden emotional burdens put into action by virginal grooms.

769. Beware Red Flags — Part 5

Many more red flags may wave before your eyes, but the following complete this series. Again, thanks to Her Highness Sara for prompting it at post 756.

·        AMBITION: Is he working toward higher goals to improve himself? Ask where he got his work ethic. The flag should turn super red and wigwag in your face, if he’s not even familiar with the term.

·        POLITICS: Do your political beliefs or ideologies differ? You have probably thought through what you’ll do about different religious beliefs. However, assume different political ideologies as contradictory beliefs, and emotion enters the picture to become a big red flag. It takes above average mutual respect to match them compatibly. Religious principles guide us; ideologies drive us to persuade others.

·        CHURCH: He doesn’t go to church? Believe in God? Born again? Does he believe in anything outside himself up to which he lives? Do his actions confirm it? The absence of living up to something higher than oneself fosters self-centeredness, and that destabilizes a marriage.

·        OTHERS: How does he treat people obligated to him when things go wrong, such as servers, sales people, paid helpers, employees? Respectfully or not? Temper flare ups? You should probably expect the same, when you displease him after conquest or marriage or both.

·        DRIVE: What motivates him to rise above the ordinary? Ambition? Fun? Entertainment? Hunger for success? Fear of failure? Work ethic? Fear of disappointing you, mom, or someone else?

·        SEX: If he won’t respectfully honor your desire for chastity, after conquest he won’t honor your other desires and judgments as you expect it from a mate. Few if any red flags are more important.

A flag means caution when you see red. You’re both judge and jury about what makes you cautious. Choices have consequences, so start slow, go slow, commit slower, and marry based on mutual devotion.

224. Newlywed Bonding #1 —Intro

Marriages deteriorate more easily and become temporary, than they solidify and become permanent. Deterioration requires little else than inattention, sloppiness, carelessness.  

Solidifying a marriage requires a lot of shared goals and planning to sustain mutual respect. Making the process habitual in the early years produces desired results later. (Grace and I didn’t get the shortcomings of our early marriage straightened out until our third decade together.)

First impressions last, and early marriage sets the stage for whatever follows. Jointly built successes bond a couple. Failures, weaknesses, and even good intentions do not bond and can smother love to death.

Consequently, newlywed success depends on preventing relationship harm. That’s where forming good habits comes in. It requires mutual devotion—not just commitment—to build new habits that stamp out premarital bad habits that lead to deterioration.

This Newlywed Bonding series covers four beneficial habits that chase bad habits away:

1.     Virtue as relationship glue

2.     Money as relationship slave

3.     Separate but equal as teamwork

4.     Custom as dispute avoidance

The first good habit will appear in a few days. The Table of Contents at the top lists many subjects pertaining to living successfully with someone of the opposite sex.

NOTE: A nice and classy young lady, Tricia, inspired this series of posts. I pray her pending marriage matches her public pleasantness, charm, and sense of responsibility.