Straight Dope Dad | A Father's View on Parenting

Summary – Men like to watch porn, look at other women and judge the health of their relationships by the frequency and quality of the sex. This is how things are and it’s not going to change.

If a man had these eight things to do in a day, this is how he would put them in order of importance. And honestly, everything after the time machine is purely optional.

I’m going to paint in broad strokes here. Every man is different but the odds are that most, if not all of these seven points, are fundamentally true for the man your are with right now. This is how your steak and potatoes philistine macho-man husband thinks. This how your artsy-fartsy feminist boyfriend thinks. This is how your brother, father, grandfather and every man you’ve ever come into contact with thinks.

Some women accept these facts of life easily. Some go through a mourning period when they finally realize, that yes, that even their wonderful, sensitive, caring husband is really, deep down inside, a pig.

1. Men Like to Look at Porn.

This is so obvious I’m surprised it needs mentioning. However, judging from Oprah, Dear Abby, and countless magazines and relationship columnists it apparently needs to be mentioned. I’m going to tell you something about men and porn that is so important, so profound, that I’ll write it in all caps, bold it and use italics…oh, and put it in red also:

THE FACT THAT YOUR MAN LOOKS AT PORN HAS NO RELATIONSHIP TO HOW HE FEELS ABOUT YOU, YOUR RELATIONSHIP OR HOW HAPPY OR SEXUALLY SATISFIED HE IS. ZIP. ZILTCH. NADA.

A man could be in the most amazing relationship, with the most beautiful woman in the world, and have mind-blowing sex every day, and he would still look at porn. This is just the way it is. A man looks at porn for two reasons. One, as a masturbatory aid. Masturbation as well as porn has no relationship to how sexually satisfied he is with you. It’s completely separate. Secondly, we enjoy it because it engages our most primitive instincts and lights up our brain. Men get the same charge out of porn as they do from watching YouTube videos of explosions, fights, and guys getting hit in the nuts. It never gets old.

So drop all the female centric opinions about porn and what it means if your man watches it. It means nothing and you can’t stop it anymore than you can stop the tides.

2. Men Look at Other Women and Have Sexual Thoughts About Them.

Again, this so obvious it’s hardly worth mentioning. Men look at other women. We can’t help it. It’s a reflex. We also have sexual thoughts about these women. Not complex thoughts like women do. These are extremely brief, primitive thoughts, lasting only milliseconds. They are rapid fire flashes of dreamlike imagery. We can’t control them or turn them off. The most maddening part is we get sexual thoughts about all women regardless of appropriateness or attraction. Relatives, teachers, and our best friend’s wife are included. Women we are extremely attracted to and ones that we are repulsed by are also included. Women we don’t find attractive are the most frustrating. If a man sees a woman he doesn’t like he’ll have brief flashes of thought about how he wouldn’t like to do her. About how unpleasant it would be to touch her. It is a curse and all men simply learn to disregard these images and thoughts. And you should too. They mean nothing.

3. Men Make Subtle Changes Throughout the Day to Increase Their Chances of Being Around Attractive Women.

Men like to be in the presence of attractive women. We get a kick out of it and it brightens our day. If we are in the grocery store, and there are three checkout lines of equal length, we will choose to wait in the line with the most attractive checker. If one of the checkers is especially attractive, but has the longest line, we will probably take it anyway if we don’t look too creepy doing it.

We don’t do this because we have allusions to getting lucky. We don’t expect it to go anywhere. We just get a kick out of being in the company of beautiful women. The more the better.

This means that we are attracted to most of our female friends. There are lots of women that would make suitable friends. However you can’t be friends with all them. Why not put your effort towards the ones you find most attractive? Initial sexual attraction has probably forged the majority of male/female friendships. It’s the extra push that get’s you engaged beyond the causal nod stage. There is nothing wrong with this and it’s totally innocent.

So if you are a female with lots of males friends, you probably have a lot of men who, under different circumstances, would most definitely like to have sex with you.

4. Men are Always Ready for Sex.

Is it OK to wake your man up to have sex? Always. Is it OK to initiate sex while he’s trying to eat lunch? You bet. How about when he’s lying in a hospital bed dieing from cancer. Yes, then too. Especially then because it’s nasty. Nasty is good. Forbidden is good. Unexpected is good. Sex is good anytime and always appreciated.

For women this sounds weird. They need to be “in the mood”. The conditions have to be just right. There’s a time and a place for everything. Getting to orgasm is like walking a tightrope.

Men are NOT like women. If they were, the human race would have died out a long time ago. On the most primitive and animalistic level it is our job to make sure the human race continues, at all cost. We are hard-wired to pursue and initiate. We get erections ridiculously easy and we come quickly. We don’t get distracted. In the modern world that means yes, we’re ready to go anytime, anywhere. So take advantage of it.

5. Your Man Thinks You’re Hot.

Do women ever feel they are attractive enough? You may be hard on yourself but your man isn’t. He’s into you big time. He likes to watch you dress and undress. He likes your lips, your body, your eyes and the way you smell. He will never tire of feeling your breasts, caressing your ass and watching you bend over. For a man, it’s like the first time, every time. However, deep down inside men are still amazed that anyone would want to have sex with them. And it’s not because we have low self-esteem. It’s because when straight men look at other men, all we see are awkward, lumbering goofs with bad manners and hairy bodies. Our first thought is “there’s no way anyone woman in their right mind, with any standards or pride, would have sex with that”. We simply just don’t get why you like us. And if we had to be born female, we’d prefer to be a lesbian. That’s just a given.

6. Men View Sex as a Relationship Requirement.

One of the main driving forces for a man to settle down is to secure access to frequent and reliable sex. Chasing sex is exhausting. By pairing up with a woman who can provide sex on a frequent basis, we’ve eliminated one of life’s biggest distractions and sources of frustration. Having access to frequent, and reliable sex allows us to focus on other things in life like getting a job or developing a hobby.

7. Men See Sexual Frequency as the Major Indicator as to How Well the Relationship is Going.

To a man, if the sex is good, the relationship is good. Period. Unfortunately, women are the opposite. They view good sex as an indicator that the relationship is good. It’s a result of a close, safe, caring bond with their man. It’s a by-product, and not a test of the relationship’s value. This is a subtle but profound difference. To a man, sex is the relationship. If there is no sex, there is no relationship. So if you expect your male partner to take the relationship seriously you better be having frequent sex.

Frequency varies from couple to couple and is usually a compromise between two competing desires, so there’s no point in defining here what constitutes “frequent”. That’s up to each couple. Since for men, sex is the relationship, you should have your relationship talks after having sex. He will be very responsive. This is because by having sex you just demonstrated to him that you have a relationship to begin with. To put it in caveman terms he’s thinking “she had sex with me, that mean she love me, me happy, me feel good, me now ready to talk.” Because for a man, if you’re not having sex, then there is no “relationship” to talk about.

Conclusion

This is not about good or bad, or right and wrong. This is about what is. You can choose to accept it or choose to fight it. Men have no problem accepting that women are different. That’s the whole point really. We don’t want you to be like a guy. Sure, we complain, but I have yet to talk to man who had any idea, no matter how fleeting, that he could change the woman in his life. It’s impossible. All men know this. It’s time for women to accept the same futility. You’ll be much happier, I promise.

If you think this is just a bunch of nonsense designed to put all the responsibility on women, that I’m letting men off the hook, then read my other article about what men need to accept and do if they expect to have a good sexual relationship.

That’s it for now.

File Under: What Women Should Know About Sex and Men – How Men Think About Sex – How a Man Feels About Sex and Relationships