I suspect mine isn’t the majority view but the banter->sex “pipeline” is a misnomer. The point is the banter! For the usual reasons of making friends, having fun, breaking ice, as you say in another comment. And then as a side effect, if there’s sexual compatibility, I might realize that Im not just-attracted to this person but actually want to go be physically intimate with them. (As I know you know since you’ve written about it elsewhere: there’s a big difference between attraction and the prediction that hooking up will be fun.)
Again this may be idiosyncratic but IMO thinking of it as a pipeline at all is a major thing that screws guys up and makes women (and men) frustrated. Banter in the sense of this post is not for seduction! (Verbal dirty-dancing does seem like a fine sex pipeline but doesn’t seem like the “banter” thing.) So I see a bunch of inept guys activate the “let’s have fun and be friends and break the ice” banter game with women (who accept the false invitation,) and then embarrass/frustrate everyone when they reveal one way or another that their primary (or sole) intent was sex.
Banter “works” in the sense that if you really get along with a person, you both might find it easy to imagine it being fun to have sex with each other, and mutually believing that probably makes actual seduction attempts go way better.
I suspect mine isn’t the majority view but the banter->sex “pipeline” is a misnomer. The point is the banter! For the usual reasons of making friends, having fun, breaking ice, as you say in another comment. And then as a side effect, if there’s sexual compatibility, I might realize that Im not just-attracted to this person but actually want to go be physically intimate with them. (As I know you know since you’ve written about it elsewhere: there’s a big difference between attraction and the prediction that hooking up will be fun.)
Again this may be idiosyncratic but IMO thinking of it as a pipeline at all is a major thing that screws guys up and makes women (and men) frustrated. Banter in the sense of this post is not for seduction! (Verbal dirty-dancing does seem like a fine sex pipeline but doesn’t seem like the “banter” thing.) So I see a bunch of inept guys activate the “let’s have fun and be friends and break the ice” banter game with women (who accept the false invitation,) and then embarrass/frustrate everyone when they reveal one way or another that their primary (or sole) intent was sex.
Banter “works” in the sense that if you really get along with a person, you both might find it easy to imagine it being fun to have sex with each other, and mutually believing that probably makes actual seduction attempts go way better.