Sex advice 201

The odds are good, but the goods are odd

Advice is disproportionately written by defective people. Healthy people perform naturally and effortlessly.
…
If you want good advice about how to walk, ask someone with cerebral palsy

Scott Alexander

I originally set out to write an article of sex advice, then realised that it was all weirdly specific stuff. So I wrote an article of basics.

But now we’re back for the good stuff. The weird stuff.

Where we are at

Much dating advice seems terrible to me. Here is advice I see when I look around:

• Become very stoic

• Be hard to get

• Don't be a feminist

Much advice for men seems to be able the status of the speaker. I am resilient, I am valuable, I am not a sheep. And to the extent you are buying a lifestyle, fair enough. But if you actually want satisfying sex, you might want advice that is focused on that.

That’s why I wrote the last blog about general advice. I really do think most people will benefit from obvious-sounding stuff like “ask your friends” and “avoid things that have hurt people in the past”.

But also, when people ask for sex advice, concepts swirl inside of me. And I would like to release them into the world. This is ranty, perhaps wrong, advice. Much of it cuts against what I hear in every day dating discourse. Perhaps that’s because I’m an autsy, charismatic man, but perhaps because that advice is bad.

Here is mine:

• Play easy to get

• Date somewhere that rewards virtue

• Have a script, then improvise it

• Like women

• Learn what women don’t know

Play easy to get

You've heard it said "play hard to get" but I say unto you "play easy to get".

Jesus, probably.

Few things annoy me so much as bad, blanket advice.

“Play hard to get” is such advice. It works if you are desirable, because it enhances that desirability. But if you are asking for sex advice, assuming you are already desirable seems silly. If few people want your product, playing hard to get ensures you close fewer deals not more.

I try to entertain women. I tell women they are attractive. I try to understand what they care about.

Oh so you are a simp?

Yes. But I get more pussy than the people who call me a simp, so fuck ‘em.

I really don’t understand this part of male cultural self-sabotage. If we tell women they are beautiful and valuable they might expect more from us. Well yes, but have you seen women? They are beautiful and valuable. I am not gassing them up for effect, I am reporting my actual observations. Any time I get to spend time with a woman romantically I think about their curves, the strength of their limbs, the glint in their eyes¹. I am humbled that she would want to spend time with a creature like me.

Play. Easy. To. Get.

I try to put out vibes that I am an easy, fun date. If you want to hang out with me for an evening, I'll give you my attention, have some fun chat and then, if you want, we'll have sex, moderately focused on you². I'll be enthusiastic, clear and non-judgemental. And for me, that works. It's not that unusual for women to ask me for hookups, to send me nudes or to express that they want to have sex with me. Now sure, maybe this is deeply alien to you (worth remembering that I didn't have sex until I was 25, so it was pretty alien to me too) and yes I am clever and tall. But still, "be easy to get" seems underrated advice - don't tax your own product! Don't make it harder for people to date you.

And if you are a man reading this feeling resentful that my hard work makes it harder for you, note that there are many single women in the world. Even in San Francisco with it’s famously skewed sex ratio, I have female friends looking for a safe, good time. I think many women would take more casual sex if it was safe and fun. This isn’t zero sum!

Date somewhere that rewards virtue

Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it...

he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

Adam Smith.

Beware the invisible hand of the dating apps. It may lead you where you don’t want to go.

If you live in community you can’t lie about your height. People will know and they will laugh at you.

But if you cross paths with 100 people a day, who you’ll never see again, you can easily create a false persona. Men lie about their height and their political opinions. Women don’t respond, because male attention is so cheap and unreliable anyway. Dating apps can make people cold.

I have spent a long time on apps, without loads of success. And I can feel it’s pull towards me being a person I like less. Creating a persona more like other people’s, responding in an excited, progressive way to every woman, then ditching them if someone better comes along.

I imagine if I went down this path, it would lead through the bedroom. I might tell women I wanted something long term, hook up with them and then ghost them. I might push for sex that was mainly focused on me. Over time, I think women would notice.

My female friends tell me about experiences like this and while I think this behaviour is bad, I think it is also incentivised by an atomised dating culture.

I prefer dating in places that reward me for being me and for being kind. Perhaps friends of friends, meeting people at sex parties.

But more than that I want to feel the incentives on me. If I were endlessly swiping the apps becoming resentful of the people I saw, I hope I’d stop. This isn’t helping me in the long term.

And I know that kindness can be expensive. Like a homeless person asking the one person who has stopped to talk with them for cigarettes, if sex is infrequent, it can be tempting to take it for all it’s got. But then I will never break out of the cycle.

Have a script, then improvise

I dance³. Partner dancing is about learning a set of moves then learning to talk using them.

Over time, I think less and less about the moves themselves. At first thinking about each movement, then thinking about the names of large motions, then thinking about the name of the move. Finally I am sort of gesturing at the move with my mind.

At the same time, I am able to pay more attention to my partner. I can feel the flow of us dancing together. Feel the rhythm. Sometimes I sense that she would like to move in a certain direction. Sometimes I see the joy on her face, my body talking to her like an old friend.

One has to learn the moves first. Then learn to forget them.

People talk about “keeping things exciting in the bedroom” but I think it’s better to think of learning a set of moves. Learn short patterns that can later be executed without thinking.

Note that has to be built on top one of the foundations I spoke about last time “reduce the downside”. Some of these are kinkier than others and until women can say “no” to me, I would not want to ask them if they like being choked. And I really mean that.

So are some examples of moves:

• Different sex positions

  • Having the bottom’s legs over the top’s shoulders

  • Doggy style

• Groping or grinding with clothes on

• Using sex toys

• Talking about their fantasies

• Talking dirty

• Fingering, with and without penetration

• Lying around chatting naked

And some more advanced stuff that I only recommend once one has mastered asking for consent:

• Spanking

• Choking

• Insults

• Roleplay

If I can move in and out of a number of these fluidly I can create an interesting sexual experience for many different people. And then I can forget that the moves exist and feel options as I move through the sexual dance. And sometimes it’s pretty spectacular.

Like women

Were I more woke, I’d have put this at the top. But I can understand why some men don’t like women, or find sex transactional.

They say that women fear being killed while men fear being laughed at. In the UK, male suicide kills 4000 men a year, while men kill 300 women, so being unhappy seems pretty bad. It can be hard to want someone’s approval and not get it. And worse get their repulsion and high mindedness. Women’s concerns are taken seriously. And many are serious concerns. The concerns of loveless men, not so much. I can see how one could resent women their status as “worthy of concern”.

But I really do recommend trying to see the beauty and humanity in women. They aren’t just things to fuck, they are people. They have thoughts in every moment. They want things.

So much harm in sex comes from losing sight of the fact that one is engaging in an experience with another conscious being.

When I have sex with a woman, she is spending some of her finite life with me. Shouldn’t that be a good time for her? Even if this is our only time together, don’t I want to leave her better off?

Again. In our prisoners dilemma dating system, it’s very easy to choose defect in every dating encounter, thrusting and ghosting ones way to the maximum payoff⁴. And perhaps that works for a short time. But in the long term, women know what that smells like.

So first, I think that sex without liking women leads to a transaction. And a transactional mindset without successful transactions can lead to resentment. And resentment can be smelled a mile away.

I think I’d understand this if these men were just confused - “why is this happening to me”. But it doesn’t make much sense to be simultaneously aggrieved and trying to play a game where being aggrieved is a large negative signal.

If we live in a zero-sum game, then women are optimising for that too. And some do live in that world and they are focusing on personal safety and not being stuck with deadbeats. So resentfulness is a bad sign. And often male advice seems to suggest further deception to outsmart women on dating apps. I see little evidence of male dominance here. Andrew Tate seems to be a sex trafficker, and a clever charismatic one. If you tried his strategy women would probably see it a mile away and you’d probably get arrested. It’s bad advice. My advice is not “more deception”, it is “stop digging”.

Alongside this, I think this transactional approach to dating often leads to just straight up bad behaviour. Often there are heartbreaking moments in sex where a woman tells me that aspects of our sex are unusual to her - “you spend a lot of time on what I want” “you ask me if I like things”. I don’t consider myself a pro in the bedroom, but increasingly I find what I consider table stakes are actually quite a high bar.

Or friends tell me of guys who lie to them or film them without their permission. I assume these people are so far away from my morality that they can’t see it, but does it even work under their own morality? Or do the lies eventually catch up to them. I don’t know many people in long happy relationships who would consider acting like this.

And so I recommend liking women. Because women are cool. But also because it will help guide your actions more than anything else. If anything makes you think “it feels like I don’t like this woman” then be very careful and probably talk to friends and then her about it. Everything else is commentary.

Learn what women don’t know

While I like women, I do not always trust them to know what they want.

Oh so you presume to know what women want?

Yes. I’ve had sex with a lot more women than they have.

But before we get into this, another word of warning. I think one can only push back on women's self-knowledge safely if one actually likes women. Many things are good as a location, but not as an equilibrium. I recommend liking and trusting women in general, so that on the specific occasions that they are wrong I can talk about it. I do not in general think that women are stupid or misled about their situation. That seems unlikely. And that poise seems deeply unhealthy.

That said our society tells a lot of bizarre stories to women too. And many don’t seem true to me:

• All sex should be equal, with both partners coming

• Women should be in control of every action

• In most romantic actions, women want to be respected for their minds and souls

In my experience both partners coming is a big ask. And many women dislike the pressure they feel if there is an expectation for them to come. On average it’s a laudable goal, but not necessarily the north star of good sex.

A significant proportion of women find sexual pleasure in not thinking - in having actions chosen for them. Sometimes a woman will express a desire along these lines and then I will take most of the choices. This has tended to go well.

Feminism tells us that what women really desire is political equality, but when women send me nudes, other women tell me that what they really want to hear is that they are hot. As a man, in sex, how should I orient to these conflicting priorities?

I sense there are many areas in which the Discourse is unlike reality. Perhaps that’s because of resentful masculinity or holier-than-thou femininity, or both. I don’t think it’s uncontroversial to say that men don’t always know what is best for them. Neither do women. We can become myopic in our own experience.

And sometimes, good sex requires someone to say “this isn’t gonna be perfect, so you’re gonna have to bear with me the first few times”.

Handle with care

This is sensitive, risky advice. But it is powerful to me. Sex is an exploration. And as important as it is to many people, often they don’t seem to have thought about it in a structured way. If I want to get better at something, I come up with theories and test them. I focus on specific skills and work on them.

It seems likely to me that most people’s sex lives could improve a lot, if they thought they were doing a sport - if they were willing to train a bit, to buy a few things, to read blogs or watch videos, perhaps pay for a coach. And it doesn’t take much of this to actually know a lot about sex. More than the typical man or woman you sleep with.

Sex is a skill. You can get better at it.

If you want to. And most people do not act like they really want to.

But sex is for people. You are a person. The people you have sex with are people. Do not become spectacular at personless sex. What is the point of that?

Game over

As I read back what I’ve written, a big theme is that sex isn’t zero sum. There are people involved and there can be more, or less, happiness at the end.

Perhaps a big issue I have with dating advice for men is that it is framed in a zero sum way - sexual joy is a thing women gatekeep and I have to pay or trick them so I can get it:

• Be stoic so I cannot fall for women and can see them as objects,

• Be hard to get so they value me and so I don’t have to value them

• Don’t be a feminist, because that’s their tricks, women have nothing to teach me

To me this is all so bleak. And yes, conveniently for me, I don’t think it’s true.

Stoicism has it’s place in dealing with hardship, but many simple readings seem to be stoic about joy too. Why would I want to cut myself off from joy and beauty? Sex is a thing to do with other people, not to other people. I swipe on apps so that I can kiss living lips - at some point one must stop the swiping mindset.

Being hard to get only works if you are hard to get. But for many men it’s a cargo cult mindset - creating runways does not make planes appear. Being hard to get doesn’t causally make me desirable. And it may make me less desirable if I ooze resentment about my lack of connection.

Feminism can be annoying. There have been oversteps and feminist can be hectoring. But for the last 100 years, work has been a way to have agency in one’s life. And women have largely been barred from that until recently. And women have a useful and deep perspective on their own lives and of the human experience in general. It is dumb to act as if feminism is some huge conspiracy. Take what is valuable, leave what isn’t. It seems unlikely that the perfect stance is just to do whatever the opposite of feminists want is.

Most sex advice isn’t about sex

But more than this. If you want romantic connection, try and find varied advice that seems to be pushing for that, rather than links to some powerful charismatic man’s social projects. Listen to sex therapists and pastors and substackers and your friends. Notice where similar advice crops up and do that.

My advice here is partly written out of a similar annoyance and backlash. But “be easy to get” and “have a script then improvise” were there before the muse overtook me. They are advice I think about often. And the other piece (below) is just solid, workaday stuff. Sexual success won’t feel like owning the libs or owning Jordan Peterson. It will feel like having more more joyful sex.

And deep down, that is what I want for you, no matter what you believe.

1. Have you seen women?! They are like clever, slightly-less-fuckable horses.

2. If this interests you, DM me.

3. I am a parody of myself. I recommend becoming one.

4. An example of the prisoners dilemma is as follows:

Two prisoners, A and B, separately choose to cooperate (stay silent) or defect (betray the other):

• Both cooperate: each gets 1 year in prison (moderate reward).

• Both defect: each gets 3 years (bad outcome).

• One defects, one cooperates: defector walks free (0 years), cooperator gets 5 years (worst outcome).

Thus, individually rational actions (defecting) lead collectively to a worse outcome than cooperation.

To me, dating can feel a bit like this, where the setup of the game leads to worse and worse behaviour seeming optimal.