I have also received negative views on sex during childhood. I wasn’t even sure if women do derive any pleasure from sex, or whether they merely do it to achieve something else (e.g. to have children, to have a relationship, to conform to social pressure, etc.). Of course if you can’t model the other person even approximately, then it is difficult to propose win/win solutions in situations when there is a social taboo to debate things openly. And as a nice guy (unlike how the sociopathic online warriors define the term, I simply mean a person who genuinely cares about how other people feel), I wouldn’t propose anyone a deal I wouldn’t believe they would like. -- But the truth is, many people do enjoy sex a lot, both men and women. Whatever the sex-negative people say, it may describe a fraction of population they belong to, or maybe they just say it because it is their idea of how to conform to their political or religious views; I never had the courage to ask.
I was perhaps lucky that one day I was in a situation where all other men in the group were even more “omega” than me, so the environment selected me for the role of the “local alpha”, and I happened to date the only girl in the group. And we had enough time and patience to experiment. She was curious too. -- But when the relationship was over, despite the lack of tension about sex, I still didn’t have the proper seduction skills. That I only learned a few years later, reading some online stuff (during the beginning of the “seduction industry”, when people were still trying to provide useful advice to their online friends, instead of trying to win more customers by doing something even more outrageous than all their competitors). Yes, social skills can be learned from textbooks, if you are willing to try it in real life later. And an imperfect textbook is better than no textbook at all.
Your strategy seems reasonable to me. Just wanted to warn you that “not feeling tension about sex” is only a part of the seduction skills. But if you can rid of the tension this easily, then why not.
I think you overestimate the impact on the “male hierarchy”. Seriously, how can anyone know how much sexual experience did you have? Do you tell them? I guess many of them lie, or at least exaggerate, why couldn’t you? (The rule of thumb is that men usually multiply the number by two, women divide it by two.) If you can’t invent plausible details, then simply don’t mention any details.
My advice: If you have an opportunity, learn to dance. In my experience, usually women are more interested in dancing than men, and men with good dancing skills are rare. So if you learn to dance decently (nothing too complicated, you are not trying to win competitions, only to have and provide fun when the music plays; give it one afternoon every week, and in a few months you are ready), you will get enormous opportunity to make a positive impression on women in socially acceptable situations. Even in politically correct societies, it is still acceptable for men to lead during the dance. In dance, everything is “plausibly deniable”, and yet it is almost a demo version of sex. When people feel good dancing together, they will probably feel good having sex together, and they both know it. Dancing jumps over many awkward steps from the usual dating scenario: one moment you are complete strangers, the other moment you are spending time together isolated from the rest of the group, touching each other and enjoying it. -- I guess now I sound like a dancing club advertisement, but this stuff really helped me a lot. And you could combine it with your strategy.
Where? How? I’m interested, but lack knowledge so very thoroughly that I don’t know what to Google or how to judge the results of a best-guess Google search beyond “bellydancing is not for me… probably.”
You need Waltz for 3⁄4 music (Viennese Waltz for quick music), and the rest of them can be used for 2⁄4 or 4⁄4 music. Quickstep, Jive, and Cha-cha are rather flexible for both quicker and slower music. Ten lessons and you are ready to go. Salsa is the most difficult of these, but is seems very popular.
If it is popular in your area, Polka is also a good choice. But this advice probably only applies to central Europe. There may be other cultural differences I am not aware of.
My advice: If you have an opportunity, learn to dance.
You know how in some sort of therapies they gradually increase exposure rather than all at once? It just occurred to me that learning to dance before learning to attract women is probably a good idea for the same reason why those therapies use gradual exposure.
I’ve heard the advice learning to dance will make women more interested in you, but I never made the inference that learning to dance also has the benefit of allowing you to make gradual progress.
Just thinking: what would be even more gradual approach? I know a guy who is already scared by the idea of dancing.
Probably something where you have to move your body, alone. Preferably not repeating the same simple two or three moves all the time, but something more varying, in the best case something where you could get skill and then you become proud of having that body skill. Yoga? Parkour? Volleyball? Anything like this is probably better than nothing.
Just thinking: what would be even more gradual approach? I know a guy who is already scared by the idea of dancing.
I was scared of dancing before I started Salsa dancing. It wasn’t easy at the beginning as someone who didn’t do any sport beforehand but I managed with time.
As far as non-dancing physical activity goes there martial arts which is scary for other reasons.
I would recommend Western body work systems like Feldenkrais and Alexanders Method over Yoga. Yoga isn’t bad as such as such, but there a lot of unquestioned dogma involved. Things are done in a certain way because they are thought to have been done that way 1000 years ago in India.
If he’s scared of dancing for social reasons, I would think that the underlying causes of that would have to be addressed. Off the top of my head, this might be a good gradual behavioral approach (but wouldn’t address any of the underlying cognitive causes):
Pen pal.
Do something that involves cooperation in person, but not socializing.
Go to a meetup that is like semi-professional and semi-social.
Initiate small talk in acceptable situations (with the barber, taxi driver, contextual comments to the person sitting next to you).
Initiate in a more random way. Ex. Hey, I like your glasses, where’d you get them? Something tells me that you’re a fan—did you see the game last night?
If his fear is more specific to physical activity, then I agree with you about starting off with something like Yoga. Some other ideas: Racquetball, Running, Ping Pong.
Unless it is a health problem that cannot be fixed, this seems like another good place to start. And it’s totally uncontroversial. You could start by visiting a physiotherapist and asking them: “uhm, I’m generally uncoordinated, and I was wondering if it can be fixed”. They are people who study this stuff all their lives; if they can help a victim of some horrible accident, they can probably help you too. And even partial results may be worth it.
And when your coordination improves, people are likely to notice that “something is different” about you, although they will have no idea why. There is no reason to tell them truth, because this will provide beautiful “evidence” for any story you might decide to tell them instead. (Or just blush and say “sorry guys, this is private”. And if they start torturing you, admit that you are fucking a married woman, so you must be 100% discrete.)
Thanks for the openness.
I have also received negative views on sex during childhood. I wasn’t even sure if women do derive any pleasure from sex, or whether they merely do it to achieve something else (e.g. to have children, to have a relationship, to conform to social pressure, etc.). Of course if you can’t model the other person even approximately, then it is difficult to propose win/win solutions in situations when there is a social taboo to debate things openly. And as a nice guy (unlike how the sociopathic online warriors define the term, I simply mean a person who genuinely cares about how other people feel), I wouldn’t propose anyone a deal I wouldn’t believe they would like. -- But the truth is, many people do enjoy sex a lot, both men and women. Whatever the sex-negative people say, it may describe a fraction of population they belong to, or maybe they just say it because it is their idea of how to conform to their political or religious views; I never had the courage to ask.
I was perhaps lucky that one day I was in a situation where all other men in the group were even more “omega” than me, so the environment selected me for the role of the “local alpha”, and I happened to date the only girl in the group. And we had enough time and patience to experiment. She was curious too. -- But when the relationship was over, despite the lack of tension about sex, I still didn’t have the proper seduction skills. That I only learned a few years later, reading some online stuff (during the beginning of the “seduction industry”, when people were still trying to provide useful advice to their online friends, instead of trying to win more customers by doing something even more outrageous than all their competitors). Yes, social skills can be learned from textbooks, if you are willing to try it in real life later. And an imperfect textbook is better than no textbook at all.
Your strategy seems reasonable to me. Just wanted to warn you that “not feeling tension about sex” is only a part of the seduction skills. But if you can rid of the tension this easily, then why not.
I think you overestimate the impact on the “male hierarchy”. Seriously, how can anyone know how much sexual experience did you have? Do you tell them? I guess many of them lie, or at least exaggerate, why couldn’t you? (The rule of thumb is that men usually multiply the number by two, women divide it by two.) If you can’t invent plausible details, then simply don’t mention any details.
My advice: If you have an opportunity, learn to dance. In my experience, usually women are more interested in dancing than men, and men with good dancing skills are rare. So if you learn to dance decently (nothing too complicated, you are not trying to win competitions, only to have and provide fun when the music plays; give it one afternoon every week, and in a few months you are ready), you will get enormous opportunity to make a positive impression on women in socially acceptable situations. Even in politically correct societies, it is still acceptable for men to lead during the dance. In dance, everything is “plausibly deniable”, and yet it is almost a demo version of sex. When people feel good dancing together, they will probably feel good having sex together, and they both know it. Dancing jumps over many awkward steps from the usual dating scenario: one moment you are complete strangers, the other moment you are spending time together isolated from the rest of the group, touching each other and enjoying it. -- I guess now I sound like a dancing club advertisement, but this stuff really helped me a lot. And you could combine it with your strategy.
Where? How? I’m interested, but lack knowledge so very thoroughly that I don’t know what to Google or how to judge the results of a best-guess Google search beyond “bellydancing is not for me… probably.”
I would start googling “dancing lessons” + your city.
My favourite dances: Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot-Quickstep, Jive, Cha-cha, Salsa. If you could find a course that teaches exactly these, I would totally recommend it.
You need Waltz for 3⁄4 music (Viennese Waltz for quick music), and the rest of them can be used for 2⁄4 or 4⁄4 music. Quickstep, Jive, and Cha-cha are rather flexible for both quicker and slower music. Ten lessons and you are ready to go. Salsa is the most difficult of these, but is seems very popular.
If it is popular in your area, Polka is also a good choice. But this advice probably only applies to central Europe. There may be other cultural differences I am not aware of.
You know how in some sort of therapies they gradually increase exposure rather than all at once? It just occurred to me that learning to dance before learning to attract women is probably a good idea for the same reason why those therapies use gradual exposure.
I’ve heard the advice learning to dance will make women more interested in you, but I never made the inference that learning to dance also has the benefit of allowing you to make gradual progress.
Just thinking: what would be even more gradual approach? I know a guy who is already scared by the idea of dancing.
Probably something where you have to move your body, alone. Preferably not repeating the same simple two or three moves all the time, but something more varying, in the best case something where you could get skill and then you become proud of having that body skill. Yoga? Parkour? Volleyball? Anything like this is probably better than nothing.
I was scared of dancing before I started Salsa dancing. It wasn’t easy at the beginning as someone who didn’t do any sport beforehand but I managed with time.
As far as non-dancing physical activity goes there martial arts which is scary for other reasons.
I would recommend Western body work systems like Feldenkrais and Alexanders Method over Yoga. Yoga isn’t bad as such as such, but there a lot of unquestioned dogma involved. Things are done in a certain way because they are thought to have been done that way 1000 years ago in India.
If he’s scared of dancing for social reasons, I would think that the underlying causes of that would have to be addressed. Off the top of my head, this might be a good gradual behavioral approach (but wouldn’t address any of the underlying cognitive causes):
Pen pal.
Do something that involves cooperation in person, but not socializing.
Go to a meetup that is like semi-professional and semi-social.
Go to a social meetup.
Toastmasters.
Learn to dance.
Initiate small talk in acceptable situations (with the barber, taxi driver, contextual comments to the person sitting next to you).
Initiate in a more random way. Ex. Hey, I like your glasses, where’d you get them? Something tells me that you’re a fan—did you see the game last night?
If his fear is more specific to physical activity, then I agree with you about starting off with something like Yoga. Some other ideas: Racquetball, Running, Ping Pong.
When you’ve known the same people for over two decades and you don’t show up to social gatherings with a woman on your arm, they can figure it out.
That would work against me. Not coordinated enough, and I wear size 15 shoes.
Unless it is a health problem that cannot be fixed, this seems like another good place to start. And it’s totally uncontroversial. You could start by visiting a physiotherapist and asking them: “uhm, I’m generally uncoordinated, and I was wondering if it can be fixed”. They are people who study this stuff all their lives; if they can help a victim of some horrible accident, they can probably help you too. And even partial results may be worth it.
And when your coordination improves, people are likely to notice that “something is different” about you, although they will have no idea why. There is no reason to tell them truth, because this will provide beautiful “evidence” for any story you might decide to tell them instead. (Or just blush and say “sorry guys, this is private”. And if they start torturing you, admit that you are fucking a married woman, so you must be 100% discrete.)