A Page from Men, The Missing Owner's Manual:Just Avoid the Toxic Waste Dumps that Litter the Manscape

Two of my favorite bad boys are involved in relationships now, with very different, but wonderful, people. I'm going to write about bad boys at some point, but this post is about the how to avoid the men who are just bad news.

There are men who are good, men who can be house broken, and men who are just never going to be any good. Or at least, if they ever decide to change, it will be because of things completely beyond our control. And yet, well, and yet, how often I hear friends complain that their last several relationships have been destructive and toxic. Once was a moment of weakness... twice, is a bad sign... more than that, and you've got a problem, toxic man addiction.

Let me start by saying I have no excuse for the toxic men of this world. That's why the responsibility is all ours. Like not giving out your bank routing number to some guy from Nigeria who says his uncle left millions stuck in a bank account, your only protection is to just not go there. Toxic men, are toxic men, are toxic men.

So why do so many of us have toxic man addiction?

Well let's start by talking about the difference between a man who is a bad boy, and a man who is bad news. A bad boy breaks the boundaries, but he seldom breaks the Rules. He does things that are not safe, that go outside of the approved space, and he often gets hurt, badly hurt. But not because he doesn't know where the boundaries and rules are, and why they differ. The boundaries say not to stare, the rules say that being stared at can feel really flustering and really good. The bad boy knows when, and how, to lay his eyes on someone. The bad news man just stares.

This is the heart of the difference. A bad boy is aware, the bad news man doesn't really get that there are other people in the world, or if there are, they are no different than tables, chairs, or cars. Things to be pushed and knocked about. Being treated as an object can be very exciting and sexy, the letting go can. And bad news men are often very good in bed. Really truly good in bed. But often they aren't.

The bad boy often dislikes himself, because he has standards. He really is a good boy underneath it, but knows that people who are good boys all the time don't get the things they want. So he is often guilty. He has standards, and he measures himself, and he knows he often falls short of those standards. He often punishes himself for that. His darkness comes out of looking up and seeing the light. I'll talk about what that means some other day.

The toxic man may hate himself and be self destructive, or he may be completely oblivious to his faults and have an enormous ego. This sort of looks like the bad boys angry moodiness, but in reality, there is a big difference. The bad news man wants to take others down with him if he is self-destructive, and he wants to push others down in any event. This can make hims successful in the world of business or competition, as being completely selfish and willing to do anything to others, and knowing how to get away with it, are often big pluses.

These are the two things that bad news men trade on: they are successful, and they can drive us crazy when they have their hands on our bodies or minds. They are very much masculine in their ability to compartmentalize and drive. They look like they might be good providers, or good sex partners. And yet, after a short time, the other defects become obvious, and they drive us to despair.

I'm going to say though, that these surface traits aren't why we fall for them, because even bad news men who are not good in bed, and not successful, often have women in tow.

The reason is because many of us have toxic man addiction, which is to say, that it is the very thing that makes them toxic that draws them to us.

I don't think i am revealing any secrets when I say that insecurity is a trait everyone has some of, and negative emotions about what we are insecure about is part of the human experience. The woman with toxic man addiction goes to him because he validates her insecurities and self-loathing about those insecurities. It's one thing to be with a man who loves you despite having a fat ass. It's a better thing to be with a man who thinks your fat ass is wildly sexy. It's toxic man addiction when he needles you constantly about your fat ass and makes it clear that you should feel grateful that he is willing to tolerate it.

The toxic man's hook then, is he makes us feel that he could do so much better, and reinforces this by saying things that eat out or own sense of our own faults and failures. The ones that hold us back.

It is a matter of validation. A relationship can be an important part of feeling validated. Attention is validating. We all have to validate ourselves as people, but we also need others to do it too. Some of us more than others of course, but there is always that role. Validation is good when it reinforces our strengths, and tells us to overcome our flaws, and reach for better things. Validation is bad when it validates our sense of helplessness and despair.

Now, men can often feel validated by abstract and impersonal success. It's harder for us to feel that way. Companionship is a big part of feeling that we are validated. There are basic drives for this, but it is the individual person who decides how that happens. You should never believe that companionship and attention are the beginning of being validated, and being proud of your uniqueness as a goddess in this world. There, I said it. The beginning of being able to kick your toxic man addition,is to realize that you are the moving embodiment of a goddess, and that goddess is your best self.

That doesn't mean you should not lose weight if you need to, study harder, learn more, be better at dealing with other people, practice dancing or whatever else it is you do. Being better at expressing that goddess is what makes you feel better. But it's like dressing sexy. You know it when you do it, not because someone stares.

The toxic man wants to break us of that inner goddess, and we get toxic man addiction when he eats at exactly the places where we despair of ever being that inner goddess in this world. The more we feel that our analog or digital avatar falls short of ourselves, the more the toxic man eats at us.

Strangely,one of the toxic man's best tactics is to make general or generic or vague praise, and go after specifics with acid precision. The toxic man often talks about how wonderful we are in general, but never seems to have a good word about anything we do in specific.

Now. Kicking the toxic man addiction means three things. And all of them our under out control. The first is not not need companionship for basic sense of validation. It should enhance that, not provide that. You do this by sensing your self, drawing a deep breath that runs up from your pelvis, through your midsection, to the lungs and then pops out of the top of your head. Seriously. Sit down and do this now, draw a breath, and feel it roll up your body.

There first step to kicking the toxic man addiction, because that moving sensation is the feeling of you in all of your wonder.

Second step to kicking toxic man addiction, is to understand that your flaws are not barriers to what you want and need. Maybe we will never be able to change certain things. You can buy boobs, but short is forever. Sigh. However, focusing on what cannot be changed misses the point that if it can't be changed, it is not a fault, but a fact. We fix flaws, we face facts. If it can't be changed, and we are fixated on it, then the flaw is not the fact, but that we are fixated on not going around it.

Notice I have not talked about the man here? Remember, the toxic man cannot be changed. There's nothing we can do about him. So the only thing that matters, is to get the strength to walk out, and the wisdom not to walk into another one.

So the third step, is to be the goddess. That's hard. It's something we do every day. And some day's it is harder than others. But, it is also where we are in our lives. Each time we bring out that inner beauty, reward ourselves with a moment of recognition that we have done it. That recognition, that smile, is the reward of validation. Now, when we are with someone who makes us feel that way, that's positive.

The bad news man, never does that, or does it only just often enough to keep us hooked. We give him that power by fixating on what we feel we can't fix. He pokes and hurts that point of weakness. We are with him because he validates our feelings of helplessness, and because he gives us permission to give up. He wants to wave his superiority in our face, and we suck on it, because we want to feel inferior. I just got finished chatting with a toxic man, who wanted to bombard me with his assertions, and felt that when I wasn't interested in his bombast, that I must be insecure. This is the search mode of the toxic man: if a woman bends herself around to accommodate him, then he knows she has a need for toxicock.

This game then has steps:

1. Wave cock in face.
   
2. If we return by praising something as a way to get to criticizing, take the praise as proof that we've admitted superiority and repeat step 1.
   
3. If we return by pointing out some flaw or failure, assert unproven, or undisprovable premise, and repeat as step 1.
   
4. If we show irritation, use this as proof that we've insulted him, even though he's waved his cock in our face rather bombastically. Wave this as cock in face, return to step 1.
   
5. If we ignore him or tell him to go away, use this as proof that his massive intellectual superiority has left us speechless. Use this as cock, return to step 1.
   
6. If we get angry, blow up at us, showing that this proves our bitch-hood, and use verbal or even physical force to show he is superior. Use this as cock to wave in our face, return to step 1.
   

The reality with the toxic man game is that he scores a point each time he goes through the cycle, no matter what we say or do, until we capitulate entirely and do whatever it is he says. The toxic man game cannot be won, only avoided. Score yourself one point each time you simply end the toxic man game and don't worry about him again.

The temptation is to struggle with it, maybe he can fix it, maybe we can help him. We talk, we engage, we compliment, because that is what we do to get men to listen to us. He feeds off those compliments. His next gambit is to get more arrogant if we don't accept. This is why it is a game not to play. He will always declare himself the winner no matter what. Appreciate him, and he will tell us that that appreciation makes him superior. Tell him off, and he will say that he's won because he made us uncomfortable, and that we are mental inferiors for not bending over for him. Ignore him and we are told that it is because we are afraid. The toxic man, because he does not feel anything about anyone other than himself, will always find a way to twist it into proof of his superiority.

To be immune to toxic man addiction then, is simple, and that is to always understand how lucky each and everyone of us is to be with our selves, and to express that good fortune in what we do, and radiating it, allow ourselves to luxuriate in it. Never be with a man who cannot do this with us, and who does not understand that he is with a luminous being.

The same thing flows in the other direction. We often become toxic. We become toxic when we eat at his fears and insecurities, and seek to unman him. A man can be a man as a submissive, but he cannot be a man if we take away from him that sense of his reach and possibility. Because often, the reason the toxic man is attractive, is because he gives us an excuse to be toxic in return, or toxic to ourselves.

So ask yourself, what has he said specific about us that is positive today, or recently. When was the last time his face glowed when he saw something we did. When is the last time he basked in that. If you can't answer that question, then maybe toxic is creeping into your relationship, even if it wasn't there to start. That's another fact I find from my clients. Many of them didn't start out toxic, but they ended up there.

A Page From Men: The Missing Owner's ManualThe Game of Sex

I think our age caters to weaknesses and sort of reductive views of people. I think one reason that evolutionary psychology is pop psychology, is that we live in a society that pushes our buttons, and so a good deal of our behavior isn't so much evolutionarily determined, as there are incentives to find the obvious evolutionary buttons and push them repeatedly. This is what turns men and women into guys and chicks: dealing with a real person is messy, but you can be sure if you bang the button hard enough to get enough people to sell them something or do something.

However, that's where we are, so let me talk about some things in a reverse evolutionary way: we all have path of least resistance behaviors, and those path of least resistance behaviors lead us down paths that aren't necessarily what we want. It is the combination of these factors that is more important than any one of them to get we want.

Let me take a simple example. One of the big reasons men cheat in marriage, and I know because they come to me, is because of a simple cluster of factors. Now the peevish way to look at it is to try and beat these factors out of them. Sometimes you can do that, but is the result really worth it? Or you can work with these factors to get what you want.

The first fact about men is that men are trainable, and we train them. The second fact about men is that men are focused. We train them by making them focus on things. Once a man is trained to focus on something he keeps doing that.

Now let's talk infidelity. There are of course the toxic men who never intended to be faithful. There are also the men who simply can't hold themselves to it, even if they have good intentions. But most men don't intend to be unfaithful, and they could hold themselves to it. In fact, one thing to remember is that it takes a certain amount of work for a man to get no strings attached sex, or low strings attached sex. He's got to look for it to get it, and he has got to present, usually, that there is a possible relationship. That's his lure.

So one of the easiest ways to help keep a man faithful, is this: don't train him to look.

But unfortunately most of us do. Here's how.

When it comes to getting sex several things work in combination. One is that men have more testosterone, which is what creates immediate sex drive and aggression. The other is that men are more visual in their attraction. The next is that the part of the brain devoted to finding sex and getting it is twice as large in men as it is in women. The last one is that men have a lower startle response. This means a man is more likely to notice a detail that causes arousal, more likely to look, which means a wider radius, and more likely to think about getting sex. Also men's sex drive while it varies, does not do so as regularly, and does not do so as much. Basically, on average, for a few days a month, women think about getting sex as much as men do all the time.

Now let me turn that around. When it comes to having sex, we enjoy sex at least as much, can do it longer, have an easier time to reach orgasm, have a lower refractory period. That means that if you privilege the "mood" for sex in your life, you will have sex less. If you privilege enjoying sex, you will have more. The first step to a better, more varied sex life, is to make sex something you are conscious of.

Now, let me put these pieces together. One mode men can get into is the "slut search" mode. Remember, every so often, almost every woman needs it. So one thing that men can do is basically sniff every woman they come across. "Are you a slut? No? Next." This becomes visible in SL because the visual clues are lower, and because the social penalty for just asking is lower. A man who asks every woman he meets to fuck would not have a job in most of the developed world.

Now, here is the reality. We train them to this in a relationship. As soon as sex becomes about our mood, and men, being focused, figure this out, they stop trying. Males are lazy. Lazy males. If they come to believe that sex in the relationship is a matter of our hormones, they put us in the slut box. "Is this the slut time of the month? No? OK I'll watch sports."

Now, men are focused. Once they start focusing on slut signals, they don't just look at their partner that way, but more and more women around them. Once they know it isn't even worth asking most of the time, they start slut searching everywhere. Remember men are focused. Men are visual, and they have a drive to find it. They have a chunk of their brain devoted to getting it. Once getting it is a matter of slut search, that's what they do. Since they don't need to do anything for you, they start putting their energy elsewhere. Sometimes that is hobbies, but sooner or later that is their own fetishes. If they have to get lucky, why not try and get really lucky?

So there you go, you've trained him to slut search, and you've trained him to look for a chance to be unfaithful, and you've trained him to see every woman he meets through the lens of slut.

Not good.

Now let me turn that around. Men have focus, men have a part of the brain devoted to getting sex. If you train them to understand that keeping you happy means getting sex, then they will spend that brain power focused on what keeps you happy. Men are focused, men are visual, men have a drive.

So here is what you need to do. Start keeping score. Look at the world from his eyes. When he does things for you, even if they are not exactly what you want, let sex happen. The reality, married girls, and I hear this from all of my married male clients, is that you don't just not have sex, you shut sex down. You push his physical advances away. They know it, they see it, and it trains them. If your body isn't erotic territory, they stop looking at you as an erotic partner. And as just another potential slut. Worse, they can start trying to court and please some other woman, who they are not having sex with, because that one might reward their courting. You don't.

Once you start keeping score, start having signs that tonight is a good night. Have a favorite set of things that you do. He will, in a Pavlovian kind of way, learn this. Relate things he does not want to do, and that you want to do, to giving him an opening.

Now many people I have told this to get offended, they think of it as prostitution. It isn't really. No more than anything else anyway. It is privileging having sex where we are about equal as genders, over getting sex, where men are more wired to be more active. Train his getting sex brain to want to see, and then fix, things that make you unhappy. The last time there was a man in my physical space, the clothes were not on the floor. Men, as we've all observed, do not seem to think that hampers are the appropriate receptacle for clothes. But if they learn that clothes off the floor means a more receptive partner, then they pick them up.

The key is that we often want to do things Together. Now a man thinks that doing a chore, Together, is a tax. It is two people doing something that one person can do. It means he is stuck listening to our criticisms and emotional moods, and he can't be alone with his thoughts, which is one thing he values from working. Doing some chore together is points towards having sex together. Every time you do something Together, especially if that entire time is spent talking about things you want to talk about, if it does not lead to erotic encounter, then you've just trained him that Together is a bad thing. In the other way, each time that it does, you've trained him that Together is a good thing. Get it Together then. Demand Together time, demand that things get done, and then reward him, and yourself.

So clothes? Let's pick them up Together. But then you've got to make some dirty laundry Together too. Once trained that some particular thing, like clean dishes and a clean floor means having sex, he will see them and do them. Then move on to the next thing.

So first lesson from the missing owner's manual. Men are wired to try and find and get sex, but what they are looking for is trainable. Train them to look for that time of the month when you've got the itch, and they will simply start serially slut searching, and pay attention to you, at best, when they think it matters. Train them to do things Together, and they will start to do those things automatically.

Or you can bitch about your men logging on and paying me for virtual anal sex and trying to get my phone number.

(T tells us the power of blow job...")
(Hamlet Au has all kinds of nice things to say about me blush. He's really incredibly sweet.)
(Here is another page on toxic men.)

(Oh yes, and Dr. Grohol of psychcentral endorses calling me a whore because I disagree with him. Clearly in the state he practices in abusive language is acceptable. This is a professional context, and it speaks poorly of him and his advisory board.)

Most Guys Can't Find Ass with Two Hands and a LandmarkOr, some helpful hints on how to see and not just look.

Why Most Guys Can't Find Ass With Two Hands and A Landmark.

This is a post that could be too harsh. Honestly, I've rewritten it several times, because it is easy to go on too much about how guys fail to find sex on second life, or in the real world. Part of this is that most guys don't pay attention, and the other part is that most guys don't have the self confidence they need.

The reality, from the point of view of a woman, is that there are lots of guys, and very few men. You can be a flawed man, and that is still acceptable, because it is manliness which is most attractive. A guy is ruled by his eyes. His emotions surge and crest based on the buttons that other people push. To be a man is to be able to leap, jump, and turn at your own command.

The difference between men and women is not that it is any easier for a woman to find the right person. It is that if you lower your standards enough as a woman, there will be men willing to be with you. You don't have to be attractive, or even average. Any woman on sl can get a sex partner, of some kind, just by showing up at an orgy room, or joining a free sex list. IRL a single posting to Craigslist with the little of "I want it tonight!" will get, probably 100 responses in the space of a bit more than an hour. This is why guys who run around propositioning everything they see are annoying. We don't need them.

The reverse of this however, is our reality. That's what you have to start doing if you want to do well on SL, pay attention, and start thinking of things from a our point of view. It is just as hard to sort through offers as it is to make offers. There is no such thing as free sex, and that goes in both directions.

What do we talk about alone? Yes, shopping, yes, chick culture. But sooner or later the topic turns to "where are all the good men?" We ask our girlfriends who have good men where and how they met, and how they keep them. We ask the people who are newly enthroned in possible good relationships what the new man is like. The ones that don't chuckle about the guy passing through their lives, or bemoan being single.

So why is it with all these men wanting sex, and with women wanting to be in a relationship that has sex as a component, there is such a mismatch?

It starts from our reality, namely we don't have to be trying to get offers. Not at all. If I go to inventory, pick out my building clothes, which are nothing more than pants, sandals, an updo and a t-shirt top, I'll get propositions. That means when one of us is interested in one of you, specifically, we aren't going to vamp up.

Let me say a few words about being vamped up as a kind of frame around this discussion. If you see one of us wearing great clothes, it isn't to get you to ask us for sex. Most likely, it is because the person you see wants to feel sexy. Or because she has someone, and wants to remind him how sexy she is. In either case setting the sexy slider up, does not mean the fussy slider is down. If anything a woman who looks attractive, and knows she looks attractive, and feels good about looking attractive, is more likely to have a sense of her self-worth is more likely to have her defenses higher and her standards higher. It's like shopping, if I have the attention of the sales associate, I'm going to make her bring out everything that I might be remotely interested in. Vamping up is to make sure that if one of us notices one a man, he will notice back. The other offers are boxes of shoes that we didn't really want to begin with. If you are a guy looking for cheap random sex, then the thing to do is not to proposition the well dressed to kill, but to proposition the people who have intentionally or not, made themselves look dowdy and not put together. She's unhappy with herself, and therefore has a better chance of lowering her standards.

Instead, if we've got our eye set on someone, we want to send him a signal that we are interested, without sending a signal to a wave of other male attention. This is because we want to talk to him and not every various guy out there. If we are attracting other guys, it is simply to provide enough of a challenge to engage his sense of capturing the fair maiden from the crowd. This is why I say that most guys can't find ass with two hands and a landmark. Over and over again I've seen men have a woman interested in them, and not responds. So you, they guy reading this, are saying "so she should be more obvious!" But if she were, she'd be surrounded by those other guys.

So what should you do?

It seems to me that guys are always on the prowl, that they want to be able to meet anyone anywhere. However, we want some control. We want a place where there is enough of a barrier so that men who aren't really interested don't waste our time. We don't want to be just another number on your browse through the meat market. Really, it's not a turn on. We also want the barrier to be low enough, so that men will feel that it is alright. At work, it is delicate, because at work if you get the reputation of being on the hunt you are seen as desperate, and guys avoid the desperate, probably drunk, loser chick. Or you get the wrong kind of attention.

The other thing we want is some place where the man will pay attention. This is because we want to send him, and only him, signals of interest. Other people will tell that they are not invited to that oh so private party that is happening right in front of them. The rest of the world disappears, even if it is crowded, and there is just the two of us.

So what are you, the man, looking for. One thing is the touch. The touch is anything which shows that we've made a special effort. An example is no copy jewelry. It probably isn't just pillaged out of the outfits folder, we put it on for a reason. That touch says that we want to look extra special. The other touch is if a woman wants to go shopping with you. If she wants to clean you up, she's got a reason. The touch goes far beyond things like this however. The touch is when she picks you out, asks you for something, like say, to dance. It's what you hope for isn't it? A woman's touch in your life? Well then respond when the first one is offered.

Another thing to look for is, the follow. The follow is when one of us is willing to go along with your lead. We put ourselves in your hands. It's tough to follow a man. In real life, there are signals of the follow you don't get here, so you have to listen more closely. The follow is when a woman starts complimenting specific things, and asking those kinds of leading questions that are an invitation to show off. Not the general kind, but the specific kind. What the follow is asking is whether you can do things for us. Surprise us, maybe even shock us. Make something that flowers into our eyes and makes the world brighter.

The follow is one of your best opportunities as a guy. It's what you should plan for. And have a good plan. It's also something you can't force with too early by asking to go someplace alone. You see, the time to ask that question is when we already are alone, and the crowd is getting annoying. When it is time to pay closer attention. When the lag is intolerable.

Then there is the look. The look is the one few men fail to notice, but they often fail to follow it up. What is it? Well everyone knows it, it is the full on compliment, the press of attention. The compliments, the sense of putting you on a pedestal. When I am paid to escort, a good fraction of the time, it is just enough to go through the motions of the look and the guy is having his world rocked.

Now why do I put them in this order? Because the touch is the most common approach, the follow is next, and the look is last. If you, a guy, are waiting for the look, then you are missing out on most of your chances. As importantly, the thing to do after getting the look is to lead back down the trail. That's right, you make an offer to follow, and that often involves a chance for the touch.

Let me say what I mean more exactly by giving a kind of do and don't list. Don't say "do you want to go someplace more private?" It only works when you already have things in hand. Say something like "a friend of mine just opened a gallery, I think you 'll like the pictures of flowers she does." That's an invitation to follow. An invitation to touch is something like, "You've got marvelous taste, I've been looking for a carnation for this tuxedo, can you take me someplace that might have them?"

As with many things, the world is in reverse order for men and women. The look is something that generally comes at the end, not the beginning, of the connection. That point when we're bubbly and happy and giddy. Instead, feel your way along by touches and follows first, and the world will look different. I mean, women can tell which women are desperate, which woman is open to offers from unexpected quarters, and which women have their eye set on some man. If you start looking for women the way we look at each other, then you'll see a very different womanscape out there. Start looking at the women who are in the right places, who've put on the extra touch, who are showing signs of being willing to go where you lead them, and who have turned their eye on you and want to add that little touch that will make you oh so much better. If you think about it, that's because in a relationship, we want a man who can surprise us, a man who can take us places we've never been, and at the same time be secure enough to let us touch, tease and toy with even the most private parts of his external existence.

This is because what women want are men. Men are defined by the fact that they can't be lead around by their eyes. OK, no matter what we will from time to time lead you around by your baser reflexes. It's even fun. But mostly, we don't want guys who are chasing around getting lucky, but men who can make their own luck. All these signals, the touch, the follow, the look, are meant to weed out guys who aren't paying attention, and can't make things happen, and find the men who are.

Now here is the thing to always remember as a man. Getting to that giddy happy state of having the right man is hard. Just spend some time looking at women who have just fallen in love. What is the first thing they talk about? Uh huh, that's right. If you are a man who can make a woman giddy happy, then you have something that is rare and valuable. That's why serial propositioning, forcing things the wrong way, or being clueless, are death to your chances of getting what you really want.

So what about vamp hunting? I mean, I know you want me to dish on how to get the hottest best dressed woman in a crowd. Well, that's for another time. But before I do that, i am going to cut the other direction, and write something that I've wanted to write for a long time, and that is how to sort out the lame and the losers from the gems. If men make the mistake of being too easily distracted by the tramps and the vamps, then we all too often make the mistake of falling into relationships that are bad for us.