I’m Hard, I’m Wet
Women are born, men are made
Women are Born, Men are Made
Vanishingly few men are so attractive they drive a woman wild by virtue of lying there, whereas women elicit male infatuation by just being naked. If you can get what you want by simply being, or if you must perform to access it, your actions will be dramatically different. It isn’t a question of effort, but need.
The sexual leverage is skewed because the desire and lust is; men want it bad, and she wants it a certain way, so she dictates the terms. Your standing in any exchange, be it explicit negotiation or embodied mating ritual, is predicated on your ability to say “no”. The more options you have, the greater your ability to walk away and be picky, and she does not lack sexual options. Women are the gatekeepers of sex and reproduction, men the gatekeepers of commitment and violence; a gatekeeper decides who comes into the garden, and on what grounds.
Sexually, this means men must perform to get what they want, and women select, react, and judge this performance. A judge can “lie there” while the competitor performs. But to see this as passively doing nothing is to tell on yourself.
Male sexual delivery is more measurable. It's composed of things like stamina, rhythm, and whether he knows how to manhandle just right. Her body is the focus, and they both prefer it that way; you like sucking on her breasts, she likes it when you suck on her breasts. You’re infatuated with her ass, she likes it when you do the ass worship thing. You’re making love if having her feel good results in you feeling good; you’re having sex if all you’re doing is playing with nerve endings.
He must perform both to gain access and maintain it. Even in marriage, where the access is all but codified, protracted lackluster displays eventually take their toll. All demand, and access, is elastic over a long enough timeline. Some 70-90% of divorces are initiated by one party…
Due to most men not being physically desirable, women are not necessarily drawn to what we look like, but what we do. It’s how attractive she finds his deeds, less so his looks. Women lionizing success brings out the best in men to strive for it.
Male sexual market value is determined via female hypergamous selection effects; this lady Darwinian pressure cooker acts as a gentleman nobility galvanizer. Male economic performance is often recognized with the right to put on a sexual performance. Women do not find male essence intrinsically valuable, but they greatly respect male accomplishments and abilities. Nature deems that men must perform to be worth anything, and women follow these orders. This is why men are not born, they are made.
Female sexual market value is determined by how cute she is, how feminine and playful her demeanor, her nurturing maternal warmth, how wide her hips and how fat her ass, “when she eats almonds she chews them like a lil’ chipmunk it’s so adorable ugh I love her”. These are all innate characteristics. Temperamental. Physical traits. What she’s more or less born with.
Heterosexual guys don’t give a shit about your credentials or what you make per year. Men do find female essence intrinsically valuable. Women do not possess the same hypercompetitive, achievement-oriented drive since they did not evolve to require it to prosper. Women are valuable simply just because. This is why women are born, not made.
Men are obligated to act to demonstrate their utility and merit, both in the eyes of women as well as other men. Men can never “lie there” in any domain, yet women often can. No one pities a weak man, but a weak woman is another matter. Women are born, men are made.
Lying On Your Back
An athletic display is more objectively quantified. But a theatrical one is a performance all the same.
Female sexual know-how is closer to artful expression. A tastefully slutty experience.
A woman being “good in bed” emerges in dirty talk, animalistic groaning, and light whimpering that turns you to stone. She “performs” by letting you do whatever you want to her, and enjoying every minute of it. It’s hot when she moans loudly, you…. less so. When she gets off, you both get off; the male ego ejaculates alongside her. How you make each other feel pleasure is the crux of your passionate proficiency; to think this manifests the same for men and women is to have your brain dipped into a vat of pure paint-chip flavored genderbender porridge.
When she briefly removes your cock from deep down her throat to beg for it inside of her, that's her being amazing in bed. This is peak female performance, as this is what men treasure, not her form or rhythm. To believe a woman needs to thrust just right to be good in bed is to also think she needs to earn six-figures get any play.
Uninhibited visceral lust is her version of “being 7 inches with great endurance”. Female sexual excellence isn’t so much an action, but an erotic state of mind. It’s how passionately and enthusiastically she consents to and relishes his efforts. Because that's what makes it amazing. It takes two to tango: one leads, one follows. One acts, one reacts. Men must perform, women judge and enjoy the performance. Men are the head, women are the neck, societally and sexually.
She makes him feel good by virtue of allowing him into her garden, and her body and reaction is the prize. It’s why she can “lie there” and not only doesn’t need to put forth the effort of a man, but it’d be unattractive if she did.
If a woman is good in bed, it's fundamentally a lens into your chemistry; if a man is good in bed it's mostly a lens into him understanding his role and being capable at it. She’s good if you’re good.
Women don’t volunteer this consent as their baseline, it’s earned. When she provides it too easily, an indelible mark is placed on her. Body count is a notch on a belt for men, and a notch of wear and tear for women. Men must perform, and women must show constraint. A weak man isn’t pitied, and neither is a loose woman.
The double-edged sword regarding having intrinsic value… is it’s incumbent on you to preserve it. Something is always expected of you; if you are in denial of this, juvenile ideology has led you astray.
Feminism’s Disdain of the Feminine
Presuming women have the same expectations placed on them as men, and should behave as he does to excel, is rooted in an entirely androcentric worldview not far removed from how Third Wave Feminism perceives the feminine. It’s to judge the feminine on the masculine’s terms, and to implicitly hold it in disrepute and lower status. To see male performance metrics as more legible, so they’re all that matter. It’s injecting toxic political dogma into a divine, primal sexual dynamic. Cancerous.
One of the most perverse things about contemporary feminism is its attempts to erode the boundaries between inherently masculine and feminine domains, painting everything with an androgynous gray goo where we have to play make believe that both sexes are subject to the same judgements, terms, and privileges in every arena. Both equally proficient with the same potential at everything. Santa Claus for academics.
Many territories are explicitly naturally advantaged for the masculine, others the feminine. To try and crush that salutary delineation because your religion of equality thinks it knows better is to crush the soul of man and woman. If you object to biology, go take it up with God, or whatever you feel like howling into the abyss at. Your collegiately-warped impotent rage against biology will have an audience on Reddit, Tumblr, Yale, and other rationalist fairylands, not here.
Behind closed doors we all know how it’s supposed to be, even if most can’t articulate it; we express it through our behaviors, not words. The embodied understanding always supersedes the verbal.
I’m Hard vs I’m Wet
Hardness is a reflex, wetness an invitation.
I'm Hard
A man whispering into a woman's ear "I'm hard" doesn't spark excitement, because it doesn’t communicate anything useful or sought after. In fact, if you’re not hard… is there something wrong with you? Male arousal is so common it’s assumed, and it’s seen as a defect if it doesn’t happen.
A woman who needs lube faces no such shame. It’s implied he didn’t do a good job if she’s not wet, and he’s also seen as deficient if not sufficiently erect: if both sets of genitals aren’t working, the finger is mostly pointed at the guy. This is not a social construct, but an instinctual one; there’s a lot of information embedded into subconscious expectations.
Men always want it, thus our sexual stimulation is not any kind of feat; in fact it’s so prevalent and often unwanted society creates rigid rules to keep it in check. Industries aggressively monetize it (porn) because it’s so easy to manufacture. Comparatively, men are reproductively dispensable insofar as the propagation of the species, and societal views towards male sexuality implicitly understand this in how it judges it. Dick pics are a scourge, tit pics on the other hand…
Being horny is a baseline for men. This is why men cannot be the custodians of sex, given that we are not programmed for intimate restraint. Male sexual demand is high, so female sexual supply holds the reins. Unpaid sex is a seller’s market.
A woman’s worth is fundamentally not found in her accomplishments, and we have an embodied understanding of this intrinsic value as a species in the rules and protections we create for them: women and children first off the sinking ship and such. Hitting a woman inspires an immune-system like reaction from bystanders and law makers. Only one sex is admired when it shows weakness.
I'm Wet
A woman whispering into a man's ear "I'm wet" communicates far more than a physical response. It says, “Your actions make me want to reciprocate, if you keep it up we’re going to have a great time”. Her being wet is not assumed, it’s an indication of your chemistry; whereas your erection is an indication of a pulse.
Women are the arbiters of sex, which means their arousal is coveted. Their stimulation and desire are quite possibly the most sought-after thing in human history, next to land.
Foreplay is mostly for women, because her sensual ignition is most readily found through some form of worshiping her body. The female form is implicitly the orienting focus of mutual stimulation for all parties. Sexual emphasis and admiration of womanly contours is hardwired within both sexes, no matter how straight she is, all women are just a little bit gay…
It’s not particularly difficult to stimulate her, you just have to try. Turning on a man is like flipping a light switch, turning on a woman is like assembling a 20-piece puzzle. Is that puzzle particularly challenging, really? It’s not a matter of esoteric knowledge, but one of effort. If you can’t figure out how to put together a 20-piece puzzle, some internal reflection is required; or more likely it wasn’t that important to you.
Pleasing a woman is an intentional act, thus why a man being “good in bed” is seen as a sexual skill, something she’ll brag about to her friends (they all talk about their sex lives with each other and you definitely come up, for better or worse). Female desire and enjoyment is what’s prized, and you’re a stud if you obtain it. You earn it, she rewards it.
However, an advantage in one domain always results in a disadvantage in another when nature has her say. In the realm of commitment, she earns it, he rewards it. Balance is found in the aggregate, not in the specific.
Men are the agentic ones in bed: they initiate, perform, dominate. He acts, she reacts. The one with agency can’t lie there. This is the pure state of the sexual dyad, based on who must earn what.
“That’s not true! I know a guy who likes to be pegged and is a findom paypig!”
Yes, exceptions exist. They prove the rule, they don’t refute it. That these exceptions are communicated as kinks illustrate they’re atypical. For the same reason liking boobs isn’t a fetish, femdom is not the baseline dynamic of this boy-girl yin yang.
Humans fit into dominance/submission hierarchies sexually and socially as effortlessly as ice accumulates on a windowpane in Alaska. This is especially the case erotically.
Dom/sub, DD/lg, do you both whip and tie each other up in BDSM? Does she bend you over after you do her? “Good girl” and “good boy” don’t exist within the same sexual encounter. Only one party consistently asks to be choked and has certain well-documented violent sexual fantasies. Revealed preferences really do a number on those “socially constructed gender roles” when you can candidly express what you want without ridicule or lecture.
The element with agency is necessarily the dominant one. Men are innately dominant and women submissive, in that she submits to the sexual acts of a man when she consents, since it’s her body that’s being acted upon. But in that submission, she is topping from the bottom in many respects, as her reactions guide his actions. Dominance and submission require a synergistic feedback loop to create a healthy equilibrium. Having agency doesn’t mean you don’t have accountability.
Of note: I lived in NYC for ~7 years, and it was always the girl-boss feminists who enjoyed the most-extreme displays of submission, physicality, and debasement. I have never been called “Daddy” more in my life. Ostentatious political zealotry is typically overcompensating for something else that latently lurks beneath… the she/hers have a lot of Freudian urges to unpack.
I believe the reason so many philosophers are borderline obsessed with sex is because the carnal is such a raw manifestation of inborn hierarchical behavior and value expression. They implicitly understand it as a proxy for a vast amount of seemingly unrelated human interaction. Sexual energy motivates male power, female beauty, and makes the world go ‘round. It’s subconsciously lurking in most we do. Nature intended it this way. One delivers, one accepts. One is, the other becomes.
Who is valuable just because? Who must act and who is acted upon? Much can be extrapolated by who needs to perform, and who gets to “lie there”.
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This so perfectly captures the unspoken sexual dynamic. Except...
"A woman who needs lube faces no such shame, in fact it’s implied the man didn’t do a good job if she’s not wet"
This part doesn't ring true for me, and I wonder if other women would agree? Becoming wet is part of the female performance, and failing to do so feels terribly unsexy (which renders the whole encounter doomed!). It's such a huge part of female eroticism, and certainly plays into the worship element: driving a man wild over how wet you are - there's no sexier feeling! Failing to become wet feels like failing to be the sexy. It diminshes the female power. It's a source of anxiety for sure, and though I'd agree no where near the pressure of the male erection, it definitely brings about feelings of shame when not achieved.
Kudos to this writer. This is the best essay on human sexuality I have ever read: well thought, and well written. It makes explicit, in ordinary yet well crafted language, what I believe most adults come to understand subconsciously during their lives; hence the sort of cognitive dissonance (if that's the right term) produced in us by being constantly subjected to post-modern "theorizing" on human nature, which "theorizing" is no more than a deliberate, simplistic negating, solely for the shock effect, of millennia-old, cross-cultural understanding of human nature. And while homosexuality and other non-heterosexuality are significant factors in human civilization, and deserved to be treated respectfully and decently by heterosexuals, the plain truth is that the male-female sexual dynamic is the essential (as in essence, a term the writer uses well) force governing human social life. Well done!