For many men, the symbol, signification, and meaningfulness of sex is much more than the sum of its parts.
The amount of sex and the number of partners appears to be one way a man might define success along with money and power. When a man arrives at a point when sex becomes normalized — a point where sex is either plentiful or accessible enough to overcome the fear of scarcity or lack, whether real or imagined — then something changes.
I have seen this with money and power. Men with boundless money and power — often older and arrived — are often amazingly generous and calm while men who are in hot pursuit of money and power — often younger and called emerging leaders — are competitive and aggressive.
Being in possession of money and power does not the calm, generous man make as sometimes there is no such thing as enough. A bottomless pit of want. In that case, it is not the money or power.
And in the case of sexual insatiability, that indiscriminate hunger is neither about sex nor is it about conquest, it is about a lack that culture has defined for us men. While women, culturally, have their, “you can never be too rich, too thin, or too young,” men have our, “you can never be too rich, too powerful, or have too much sex.” If you desire to have wealth, power and sex, then fine. Our culture’s fuel is wealth, power, and sex.
If you need to have these things, the lack of any or all of which will define you as less than I man, I need to tell you that a real man — a man’s man — should not need.
Needing is never passionate, is never kind, it is never generous, it is never calm, and it is never loving. And sex without passion, kindness, generosity, calmness, and love is desperate. And the first rule about women is that women can smell desperation.
And the only word I can find to describe the state of passion, kindness, generosity, calmness, and love is the same word that every other man and mentor has told me that women — and people and culture — find endlessly appealing: confidence.
Yeah, yeah, you have heard it all before. But it is true. What I have heard women tell me again and again about a man they find compelling oftentimes comes down to “he was a safe harbor” or “I felt safe with him” or “he was so calm and made me feel secure.” This is all confidence. Please don’t confuse confidence with cockiness or arrogance. They are corruptions…
Here are several definitions of confidence:
assurance: freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities; “his assurance in his superiority did not make him popular”; “after that failure he lost his confidence”; “she spoke with authority”
a feeling of trust (in someone or something); “I have confidence in our team”; “confidence is always borrowed, never owned”
a state of confident hopefulness that events will be favorable; “public confidence in the economy”
a trustful relationship; “he took me into his confidence”; “he betrayed their trust”
a secret that is confided or entrusted to another; “everyone trusted him with their confidences”; “the priest could not reveal her confidences”
is the mental attitude of trusting in or relying on a person or thing; firm trust, reliance, faith, assurance, boldness, fearlessness, arising from reliance (on oneself, on circumstances, on divine support, etc.), and is synonymous with trust, which is firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing. “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. My God, in him I will trust.”
assurance felt by a customer (or other stakeholder), a feeling that has a positive effect on the birth, strengthening, and endurance of a relationship. Conformity, meeting requirements.
Measure of probability by which a statistical score, such as a sampling result, may be considered reliable.
So, to boil it down, I might say that confidence can be defined by these traits: ability, assurance, authority, boldness, capability, character, dependability, endurance, faith, fearlessness, hopefulness, integrity, relationship, reliability, relying, stability, strength, trust.
And when one is whole in oneself — when one is confident — one will most likely stop needing, stop gorging, be more discriminating, less opportunistic, less chaotic, more calm, and less likely to make a one-to-one association between how much sex, money, and power one has and how much of a man he is.
What are the things that you lack, what are the things you need, and what are the things that you honestly want?
NOTE: I am, of course, using the definition of need in this post to mean the feeling of “a state of extreme poverty or destitution” in men who are indeed neither poor nor destitute. And, within this definition — the bottomless pit of want — “Needs refer to things that people “must” have. They are often contrasted with wants, which are more discretionary,” according to Wikipedia. I am not referrig to the bare essentials such as food, water, shelter, friends, community, health care, and a retirement plan. These, everyone needs.
Comments (13)
Interesting post, though extremely broad. I’ll try to address two salient issues you address.
Firstly, I agree with your generalizations regarding society’s perception of measuring one’s manhood. Not the veracity of the pervasive sentiment, but rather its ubiquitous presence in our culture.
However, I would argue that there are certain men among you who are able to engage in sex “without passion, kindness, generosity, calmness, and love” and NOT have it come across as “desperate.” In fact, the men who are able to pull off this magic trick seem incapable of incorporating such human emotion with the sexual act. These are the so-called “bad boys,” and it’s precisely because they are able to pull this rabbit out of the hat that makes them oh-so-attractive to so many women.
More’s the pity for these men and their reptilian existence, but this makes me wonder what *they* need, what *they* want, what *they* are looking for. To seemingly not be in pursuit of such a connection–or worse, to actively discourage it in ways both passive (selection of partners) and active (rejecting offers of companionship from those who might fulfill them in ways other than the physical)–seems to indicate they are something less than human. Any enlightenment on this phenomena would be, well, enlightening. I’m curious about this not in a personal way but in a “studying-them-under-a-microscope” sense. (I’ve tried my own field studies and they have yet to yield anything more than confusion, alas.)
To your list of basic human needs, I would add those of touching (and being touched), and loving (and being loved). These represent the most important first line of healthcare, after all.
You argue that “when a man arrives at a point when sex becomes normalized — a point where sex is either plentiful or accessible enough to overcome the fear of scarcity or lack, whether real or imagined — then something changes.” What does this mean in the context of marriage? I imagine you’d say, then, that any man who cheats is not a real man (and I’d tend to agree). But why still the fantasy, the all-too-tangible temptations? The feeling of complacency when with a partner for years, decades? I suppose that’s part of the human condition, as well, and not exactly limited to the male half of the species. Perhaps, then, one of our human needs is also change.
Which would be really, really depressing.
I would argue that the reptilian stud is in fact terribly desperate and lonely, he would just rather die than show you that. We men are trained to not seem or appear desperate, and some of us can do a pretty good stanislavsky. Just because we can lick our eyes and need to move in and out of the sun to maintain our basal, we are desperately trying to fuck and earn and study our way into a place of full acceptance and true confidence.
Want to know the dirty secret of every powerfully successful power broker and success I have ever met? Every single one of them has been scared, every single one of the has felt doubt, every single one of them has felt like a phoney and wondered when they were in fact going to be found out as non compos mentis.
And these are judges, nobel laureates, celebrities, trial lawyers, diplomats, actors, professors, musicians, as well as the emerging leaders — the pups of the bunch.
And the fucked up thing about enlightenment in any of its guises: you fall off the wagon.
Enlightenment is more like AA than it is college: you can be sober for 30-years but the moment you take a drink, you’re back to square one. Just like enlightenment, the demons pop into your head, “was I settling for Chris? Was he the man I really wanted to be with? I should held out for a man with real potential, with real success, with real muscles!”
Hey, I was just talking from the point of a man in this article: women can be dirty little cheaters and obsessed with sex and touch and fucking as a way to try to fill their bottomless pit of ache and loneliness and hunger as well. That said, I can’t speak for women, only men, and only based on my personal experience and the experience of men I know and have known.
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
–Reinhold Niebuhr
Amen.
“Interesting post, though extremely broad.” I would rather die than post anything on my blog anything less than extremely broad and with plausible deniability. Haven’t you figured that out yet?
So these lizardlike men are really insecure children? Somehow, that’s both incredibly sad and strangely satisfying. That has definitely occurred to me, but some of them are deserving of Oscars for their performance (not necessarily in the bedroom, mind).
While I appreciate your observation of the many uber-successful-and-yet-unconfident people you’ve encountered, I would say that self-doubt–to a certain extent–is part of the human condition. The only people who do not suffer from this affliction are the sociopathic, the narcissists, the deluded. I think it’s impossible for any healthy, well-adjusted person to feel completely confident 100% of the time. This is especially true for overacheivers, given their constant pursuit to better themselves. Perhaps a LACK of confidence contributes to their success–if you take as a given that confidence in one’s ability leads to complacency. It’s important to balance the two.
Certainly, I agree that men do not have the monopoly on using sex to fill a void, be it of loneliness, boredom, dissatisfaction, or self-esteem. But I do wonder which is more common. I think females are more likely to try to fill that hole with things other than sex–perhaps one reason women tend to go for the moneymakers, the powerful, those who can buy the trinkets to make our girlfriends jealous. Is this because we have a problem with sexuality, because society isn’t as accepting of female promiscuity, or another reason?
Enlightenment is a scary thing–you’re right; it only leads to more questions. But the more answers you receive–and more specific questions you end up asking–the closer you get to a meaningful truth. I don’t buy that ignorance is bliss (though it’s definitely more unfettered).
“I would rather die than post anything on my blog anything less than extremely broad.”
Your humor is certainly less than extremely broad. And for that, your readers are grateful.
“I would say that self-doubt–to a certain extent–is part of the human condition”
Yes, but it isn’t so obvious when those other people have mansions and jets and offices and corporations and staff and awards.
It is just harded to assume. It is just easier to say that “The rich are different from you and me.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald. Without remember, “Yes, they have more money.” — Ernest Hemingway.
“Perhaps a LACK of confidence contributes to their success”
You are partially right. But remove the confidence part:
“Perhaps a LACK contributes to their success.”
And round and round we go.
Next stop: full circle!
Nicely done.
Isn’t this an academic discussion? What man ever comes to the point when sex becomes “normalized”, in your words: “a point where sex is either plentiful or accessible enough to overcome the fear of scarcity or lack”?
I mean: sure there are rock stars and similar people who have groupies by the dozen, but you dismissed those as “reptilian studs”. And sure, a man who is married usually can get sex on a regular basis, but that does not mean he won’t fear scarcity and lack, because he is dependent on a single person: his wife.
So what are your talking about? Are there men who really get sex on a regular basis and don’t fear scarcity, presumably because they know they can find any time they want it?
I’ve never met any who was not one of those “reptilian studs” at the same time. Most men I know are either not in a relationship, seeking and not finding or in a relationship and dependent on it.
I think that the manly desire to want to fuck and the desperate desire to need to fuck are entirely different. Reptilian studs, if you will, are oftentimes in a game of feeding the ego, feeding insecurities, and feeding a lack with blond hair, youth, and breast implants.
I didn’t call any of it scarcity, I called it a false scarcity. One day I realized that I could have as much or as little sex as I wanted with as many or as few (or no) women as I cared to, if I put time, attention, intent, and focus into it.
And then I felt sated. Not that I don’t love to fuck! Of course I do! But, on the other hand, my calm and my happiness is connected with my understanding that the desire, the craving, and the hunger is physical and emotional and not just psychological.
Dig?
Dig? I’m not sure. But if you can “have as much or as little sex as I wanted with as many or as few (or no) women as I cared to, if I put time, attention, intent, and focus into it”, write a book on how you do it. It will sell like hot cakes. Seriously.
I am afraid you would be disappointed. It would be more about desirelessness than about how to get laid.
Desirelessness? I thought only the Buddha attained that state…
Which is still my point: there aren’t that many men in that state, so whom are you talking about?