She's Everything a Player Could Want

Two new studies reveal fascinating evidence that manwhores are much more attracted to promiscuous women than to less sexually available women. They don’t settle for them, they strongly prefer them. Essentially, men who are oriented toward casual sex deploy “adaptive, exploitative measures against women they perceive as vulnerable.”

Study 1:  Sexual exploitability: observable cues and their link to sexual attraction

Recently published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, the research was conducted by proteges of David Buss at the University of Texas – Austin, the most prestigious department of evolutionary studies in the U.S. 

The authors begin by highlighting the natural conflict between male and female mating strategies, and posit that exploitation is an evolutionary adaptation that functions to motivate the pursuit of sexually accessible women. 

What is an exploitative mating strategy?

An exploitative mating strategy is defined as an adaptive strategy to get sex when a cooperative strategy is deemed unreliable. Cooperative mating strategies are exemplified by mutual interest and consent. There are two primary reasons why males might employ exploitation tactics:

1. The female does not want to have sex, while the man does.
2. The female wants a relationship, while the man wants casual sex. 

Exploitative strategies include four different tactics:

I. Sexual seduction

Sexual seduction is the act of charming or convincing someone into having sex. Seduction differs from courtship, which may include long-term commitment and investment as goals.

II. Verbal or nonverbal pressure

Pressure involves relentless persistence, threats, or coercion to induce an individual into having sex.

III. Deception

Deception is dishonesty about intentions, likelihood of further commitment, or personal characteristics such as those sought by members of the opposite sex—a phenomenon well documented in human mating (Haselton, Buss, Oubaid, & Angleitner, 2005).

IV. Sexual assault

Sexual assault involves using physical force, or the threat of physical force, to force sexual intercourse.

Key Implication #1: Men who rely on exploitative mating strategies are either unwilling or unable to secure cooperative mating arrangements.

What are the hypotheses re exploitative mating?

The authors developed two hypotheses:

1. It is possible to identify observable cues that signal which women are exploitable.
2. Men will find those cues sexually attractive.

194 college students looked at a wide range of pictures of females conveying specific messages or impressions, and males rated their sexual (short-term) attractiveness.

14 cues were significantly positively correlated with exploitability (in order of significance):

• “Easy”
• Immature
• Intoxicated
• Reckless 
• Promiscuous 
• Partying
• Flirty 
• Promiscuous friends
• Attention seeking 
• Young
• Sleepy
• Come hither look
• Revealing clothing
• Touching breast 

All 14 of these cues conformed to the pattern of being positively correlated with short-term mate attractiveness while being either negatively or not significantly correlated with long-term mate attractiveness.

The following 7 cues were significantly negatively correlated with exploitability:

• Intelligent
• Shy 
• Age
• Old 
• Passed out
• Flushed face 
• Anxious

Key Implication #2: Men most likely to pursue short-term or exploitative mating strategies are most attracted to women of low intelligence. Men who avoid smart women are likely relationship avoidant as well.

The second important finding of the study was evidence that “the correlations with short-term mate attractiveness were not driven by men simply relaxing their preferences when evaluating women as short-term mates.”

Key Implication #3: Men don’t settle for less when looking for casual sex. Men who prefer casual sex are actually most attracted to women who also prefer casual sex. Sluts find fellow sluts most sexually attractive.

Study 2: Exploitative male mating strategies: Personality, mating orientation, and relationship status

Building on the findings in the previous study, the researchers sought to determine whether there are differences among males regarding perceptions of sexual attractiveness as they specifically relate to short-term vs. long-term mating. 

The researchers noted that the men who would have benefited most from a non-cooperative mating strategy are:

• men low in agreeableness (deficient in personal empathy and warmth)
• men with an unrestricted sociosexual orientation
• men not involved in an exclusive relationship

However, they found that the sociosexual orientation piece revealed an important finding.

When a man does not have a committed relationship that could be jeopardized by exploitative short-term mating, possesses low levels of agreeableness, and has a greater orientation toward uncommitted sex, the synergy of these individual differences may activate an exploitative short-term mating strategy.

However, when exploitative short-term mating does not align with a man’s sociosexual orientation, as with men with a more restricted sociosexuality, low levels of agreeableness may be insufficient to activate exploitative short-term mating mechanisms, even among unmated men.

Key Implication #4: Men are hard-wired to prefer short- or long-term mating. Men who are less likely to desire casual sex do not find promiscuity cues sexually attractive, even if they are not getting any.

Personality traits are the strongest predictors of willingness to implement exploitative strategies.

The finding that men’s agreeableness, sociosexual orientation, and relationship status interacted to predict perceptions of the sexual exploitability of women who exhibited high levels of cues to exploitability and women who exhibited low levels of these cues suggests that the higher perceptions of women’s exploitability among these men reflect a general tendency to perceive women as sexually exploitable.

…This is consistent with previous findings that men who engage in sexually aggressive behaviors have a personality profile that differs from other men on multiple personality dimensions.

Key Implication #5: Disagreeable players, also known as douchebags, are highly attuned to potential opportunities to seduce, pressure, deceive and/or assault women.

The bad news: If a player, always was a player, always will be a player. 

The good news: He doesn’t want you anyway.

Related posts:

1. The Sex Risk For Women That No One Likes To Talk About
2. What’s Dumb About Hooking Up? (Part II)
3. What’s Dumb About Hooking Up? (Part I)

Very attractive women get a lot of attention from cads and players. In a vestige of assortative mating among the beautiful people, the men most desired by women will at least occasionally try to supplement their “one and done” conquests with women of their own sexual market value. The highest value “target” is a super hot babe who isn’t promiscuous. 

Everything else being equal, the better looking a woman is, the less likely she is to indulge in casual sex. Unlike her male counterpart, who finds himself deluged with offers for what he prizes most (sexual variety), the beautiful woman finds herself the loneliest girl at the ball. David Buss, in The Evolution of Desire, explains why the most attractive women are loath to sell themselves short in the relationship market:

Those who hold valuable resources do not give them away cheaply or unselectively. Evolution favored women who were highly selective about their mates. If a woman walked away from a casual encounter pregnant, she bore the costs of that decision for decades afterward. Today, the pill alters that cost. But sexual psychology evolved over millions of years. We still possess this underlying sexual psychology even though our environment has changed.

… Men’s low standards for [casual sex] reveal a precise strategy to gain access to a variety of partners. 

According to Buss, the floor of male attraction for no-strings sex is characterized by the following female traits:

1. A low sex drive
2. Physical unattractiveness
3. Need for commitment
4. Hairiness

Bwahahahaha! I’ve known some women fitting 2-4 who bedded players. Beauty is just a lightswitch away!

Of course, everything else never is equal, and some women, including very good looking women, choose to play in the promiscuous pool. Genetic traits, family history, and self-esteem are all correlated to promiscuity in women. 

By and large, though, the women with the highest sexual market value will demand commitment (of emotion or resources) in exchange for sex. Problematically, the men most likely to approach them are the men least willing to make the trade. If cads and players wore signs like marathoners wear numbers, filtering out these opportunists would be easy, if somewhat tedious. In a college environment, a woman can easily steer clear of cads, or make inquiries when necessary to get the scoop on a guy’s MO. After graduation this becomes considerably more difficult. Short of having her knees wired shut, what’s a good looking girl to do?

Of all the stories I hear from readers, I estimate that between one-third and one-half of them are from women who incorrectly judged a man’s character and got burned in the process. With assholes pretending to be good guys, and good guys pretending to be assholes, the lines have become very blurred. Still, women are the gatekeepers to sex, and it is always the female’s responsibility to adequately screen men for honest intent. 

The tried and true method of delaying sex until you know “what it is we’re doing” is still your best bet. But a girl can waste a lot of time and get pretty attached to a guy during that period, only to find out he “wasn’t trying to turn this into anything.” This weekend a young woman shared her method for filtering out players and it’s probably the best one I’ve heard. She’s used it to great effect several times. Unfortunately, every single one of the guys has turned out to want nothing from her but sex, which sucks. She’d love for just one guy to make it through the filter. Of course, nothing is foolproof and a clever cad could sneak through, but she recognizes the enormous value of having a standard that cads are unlikely to meet. 

“Be less interested or more interested.”

Grace met Brady in an orientation program at work. (They had just started working for the same company, but not the same department.) They hit it off, but she learned he was still with his college girlfriend, so she kept her distance. He didn’t act flirtatious or shady, so she figured he was a good guy. A couple of months after the program ended, he asked her out for coffee to catch up, and took the opportunity to mention that he had broken up with his girlfriend. As they walked back to work, he casually said, “We should hang out sometime.” 

Brady began to text Grace just about every weekend. He was always wondering where she was and whether she wanted to come meet him. Since she was with her own friends, she declined the opportunity to hop in a cab and join him on the other side of town. At a Marathon Monday party held by a coworker, Brady was very attentive and when he walked Grace to her car, he told her how much he’d enjoyed seeing her outside the office and asked if he could kiss her. 

Grace: “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Things could get awkward at work.”

Brady: “I don’t share your concern.”

Grace: (laughing) “Oh really? Why is that?”

Brady: “Because there are only two ways things could get awkward. One is if I tell anyone else our business, and the other is if I act like a dick. I have no intention of doing either.”

They kissed. That night Brady sent Grace a text: I want more

Brady continued to text Grace frequently, always spontaneously. He usually initiated texting once he was already out, inviting her over. In some ways Grace felt singled out for attention by this handsome young man. He was motivated, in touch, consistent, and undeterred. He began checking in to see how her day was, say good night, etc. He invited her over for a glass of wine, and asked when he would get to see her apartment. In some ways, Grace felt that she’d gotten to know Brady pretty well, and he certainly had been making his interest clear over the past three months. 

One night Brady confronted Grace (by text of course) about her unwillingness to take their relationship to the next step. He told her he was tired of putting in all the effort if she wasn’t going to give him a shot.

Grace: “You need to be less interested or more interested.”

Brady: “What does that mean?”

Grace: “Your effort is consistent but half-assed.”

Brady: “Half-assed? What the hell. Why would you even say that. I’ve been trying to get with you for months.”

Grace: “Exactly. You want to see me? Let’s meet for dinner one night at 7:00. Let’s go for a run. Don’t text me late night when you’re already out with your friends. Either stop contacting me completely or step up your game.”

This just happened, so I don’t know the outcome yet, but Grace feels certain she won’t be receiving any more attention from Brady. In fact, she thinks it’s entirely possible a lot of those texts were group texts. 

Many women convince themselves that a consistent level of attention over a period of time means the guy’s intentions point toward a relationship instead of a hookup. In fact, months of low quality attention is worthless. You’d be better off without it. You’d benefit if he were less interested.

If he does want something real, he’ll step up and ask you out in a legit way, eager to demonstrate he’s not a player. He’d be more interested.

Related posts:

1. Swearing Off Players, Once and For All
2. Time Management for Players

We know that humans are descended from only a minority of prehistoric men, half the number of women who reproduced. The men who were successful in passing along their genes were the ones who embraced risk and succeeded in their quests. Men who failed the challenge, or who were too risk averse to attempt it, ended their lines with their own deaths. Therefore, in a very real way, we are all descended from dominant, successful males. (For the record, those challenges were not all heroic. At least one biologist has argued that the most violent early men successfully reproduced via rape, which is why the rape gene is still in our DNA today.)

The alpha/beta nomenclature as applied to humans only goes back to 1970, when David Mech coined the term to describe wolf behavior. It was later adopted by Game encoder Mystery to describe the pecking order among males. Biologists also sometimes refer to “dads” and “cads” in their work, generally to describe specific personality traits that correlate to short vs. long-term mating strategies. Over time, we’ve conflated the two concepts. (A Google search for the term alpha male produces many pages of links to Pickup Artist and Seduction sites with products to sell.)

Women select long-term mates according to a long list of traits. Those include alpha traits like social dominance, physical prowess, and symmetry. They also include what might be called beta traits, including ability to provide, kindness, honesty, demonstration of love and affection, intelligence, compatibility, dependability and industriousness.

WARNING: Alpha traits alone are suitable for short-term mating only!

In the current era, the men at the very top of the dominance hierarchy – the most alpha of all alpha descendants, are highly problematic as husbands and fathers, as reflected in rates of marriage, infidelity, fatherhood and divorce. Proceed with extreme caution.

If you harbor dreams of marriage and family, I encourage you to give the beta male traits the utmost consideration. Since betas represent more than 75% of the population, there’s a large pool of men with a potentially optimal mix of alpha and beta traits. It is also possible for men to learn alpha behaviors, raising their own testosterone levels in the process. I believe it is far more difficult to teach natural alphas, or cads, how to empathize, cooperate and share. They are not designed for marriage or fatherhood.

Why should you look for a beta male?

1. He’s more highly evolved. 

From Andrew at the blog Evolvify:

Anthropology argument against tribal alpha-male narrative

There is no good reason to believe that humans evolved in hierarchical tribes between tens of thousands to two million years ago. To the contrary, there is a mountain of evidence showing that humans evolved in largely egalitarian bands that punished attempts of dominance with social sanctioning, banishment, and death (Boehm 1999). Yes, that’s basically saying that alpha males got offed by their social group — not exactly a benefit to reproduction. 

Evolutionary argument against tribal alpha-male narrative

Without going into tedious detail, it’s unlikely that the alpha-male behavioral type (however imprecise that classification may be) is particularly adaptive. Traits that confer significant reproductive advantage tend to spread through a population rapidly. That basically means that traits that consistently vary widely among a species are probably not under significant selection pressures. If being alpha was the ne plus ultra of mate wooing strategies, there would be a whooooooollle lot fewer “betas.”

It is very possible that there are few genetic betas, but that the culture, i.e. feminism, has “betatized” a significant portion of males. In which case, rectifying the culture should restore equilibrium. It’s also possible that the alpha beta divide will remain a constant 80/20 regardless of characteristics. There must always be a most dominant male. The question is, can one have too much of a good thing?

John Durant at Hunter Gatherer makes the interesting observation that dominance strategies among hunter gatherers would likely have included many of the traits we’ve come to call beta:

Whatever strategies those alpha males did to successfully reproduce, are, by definition, dominance strategies.

The following are all dominance strategies: height, intelligence, humor, athletic prowess, health, kindness, creativity, wealth, status, violence, deception, honesty, and more.

2. He plays well with others. 

The Worth Ethic Corporation is a consulting firm founded by Kate Ludeman, PhD and Eddie Erlandson, MD, both Harvard Business School professors. They specialize in helping companies treat Alpha Male Syndrome (no, this is not a joke). 

Dysfunctional alphas create resistance, resentment, and revenge. People admire their competence, but they hate reporting to them or teaming with them. When we’re invited into a company as consultants, most of the complaints we hear are about alpha males who are driving people crazy. We’re told about alpha managers who demoralize their staff with autocratic, abusive, or micromanaging tactics; about alpha coworkers who are demanding, impatient, and unwilling to listen; about alpha peers who fight to get their way even when they’re demonstrably wrong; about alpha subordinates who solo rather than collaborate. The gripes we hear have usually been part of the corporate milieu for some time, consuming far too much employee time and energy. The cost in absenteeism, turnover, stress-related health problems, and the loss of loyalty and motivation is enormous.

… a great deal of wreckage is caused by boys behaving badly. While alphas of both sexes are aggressive, competitive, and prone to anger, the male of the species is far likely to become ruthless, intimidating, and belligerent. These common observations were borne out in our research: men scored much higher than women on virtually all measures of alpha risk factors.

Ludeman and Erlandson’s research has identified the following risks that are present along with positive alpha attributes. As you can see, the context is the workplace, but parallels to relationship behaviors should be obvious.

Alpha Attribute	Alpha Risk
Dominant, confident, takes charge	Doesn’t develop strong leaders; intimidating; creates fear; stifles disagreement
Charismatic, magnetic leader who leads the way	Manipulates to get his way, uses charm to lure people down his path
Aggressive, competitive	Competes with peers; alienates colleagues; reluctant to give others credit
High achiever with a strong sense of mission	Takes high levels of performance for granted;expects the impossible and fails to acknowledge what’s required to achieve it
Bold, creative, innovative thinker	Arrogant, stubborn, overly opinionated; imposes own views; closed to others’ thinking
Persistent, tenacious, determined, steadfast	Drives self and others to exhaustion; urgent; impatient; thinks rules don’t apply to him
Strong appetite for newness and change	Overzealous; undervalues organizational alignment; launches into action before gathering support from others
Farsighted; sees what’s possible	So focused on future that present and near term are neglected; loses sight of business viability
Sees what’s missing	Can be critical, demeaning; fails to appreciate others’ contributions; people feel demoralized

There’s not much you can do if you work for an alpha boss. But do you really want to come home to this guy for the next 50 years?

3.  He’s more likely to be creative, artsy and funny.

4.  He’s capable of emotional connection (assuming he isn’t caught up pretending to be an alpha who is incapable of emotional connection).

Mark Manson of the blog Postmasculine:

The Alpha worldview pigeonholes women into two simple, robotic drives: pursue the Alpha, use the Beta. This is fantasy. A role that’s purely an extension of the guy’s Alpha/Beta fixation in himself, a broken record playing inside his own mind. And not to mention it gives women little to no credit to both their nuanced preferences, as well as their ability to act on their own free will. When I see a man judging female behavior in these terms, my first reaction is always to think: this guy has spent way too much time chasing the wrong kinds of women.

And finally, perceiving the world in these terms sabotages real relationships and strong emotional connections . If the definition of Being Alpha is somewhere in the vicinity of holding your personal drives above others, and the definition of an emotional connection with a woman is to empathize with her and literally see and feel the world through her eyes, then we have a major conflict of interest. The two are mutually exclusive. Genuine emotional connection, by definition, requires one to experience and relate to the drives, motivations and will of a woman. This is simply impossible if you’re enmeshed in a self-serving and social-bulldozing mindset.

5. He’s nurturing and caring.

He’ll take care of you when you’re sick. Over the course of having and raising children, confronting illness and plain old aging, this is not to be dismissed lightly.

6. He’s much less likely to cheat.

Key predictors of whether a man will cheat are the personality traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness. Promiscuous men are low in both, hardwired for short-term mating only.

Agreeableness:  A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.

Conscientiousness: A tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

The strongest personality predictor of short-term mating is impulsive sensation-seeking. Studies have consistently linked sensation-seeking to short-term mating, including men’s patronage of prostitutes. Impulsive sensation seeking is closely associated with the Big Five dimensions of low agreeableness and low conscientiousness.

7. He’s far more likely to marry and stay married.

Could be his divorced counterpart has higher T levels:

In an American study men with just slightly more testosterone than average were 43% more likely to get divorced than men with normal levels, 31% more likely to leave home after marital problems and 38% more likely to cheat on their wives.

8. He wants to be a dad, and he’ll be good at it.

He’s three times more likely to have kids.

“Some alphas compete with their own children,” says Eddie Erlandson, MD.

9. He’s healthier.

Alpha males are stressed out and more likely to have cardiac disease.

While they may appear cool and calm, many human alphas thrive on adrenaline, the hormone that primes the body to fight or flee in times of danger. Those short bursts of power helped our ancestors outrun predators. But if the perceived threat never lets up, the chronic state of alarm increases cortisol, too, and can eventually weaken the immune system, raise blood-pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels, block arteries and spread inflammation.

Some alphas have so-called Type-A personalities, a combination of aggression, impatience and anger first linked to a higher risk of heart disease in the 1960s. Hostility is the main culprit, according to more recent research. A study of 1,750 Canadians in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology last week found that people who displayed signs of hostility—whether they admitted feeling hostile or not—had twice the risk of cardiovascular problems as those who did not. “Not all alpha males are Type A, but the combination can be deadly from a health standpoint,” Dr. Karasu says.

…Beta males, by contrast, are nice guys, peacemakers and team players. They make good husbands, fathers and friends. Some experts say they tend to be happier than alphas, since they aren’t driven by the need to be on top.

10. He’s not a sociopathic narcissist.

He’s nice to be around and interested in others. From Brett McKay at The Art of Manliness:

We’ve probably all seen those men who can enter any room and instantly command it. I’m not talking about the loud and boisterous dolt who makes a scene with obnoxious alpha-male jackassery. I’m talking about the man who exudes a silent magnetic charisma that electrifies the entire room just by his presence. People feel better when this type of man is around and they want to be near him.

…If you really want to be the man in the room that people are drawn to, focus your interest on them. Many men have the false idea that if you want to command the room, you have to make everything about you. These misguided souls wear flashy jewelry or skin tight clothing that shows off their well-chiseled body. Their conversation focuses on them- their cars, their bench press, their sexual exploits, etc. While a few pinheads will be impressed with this sort of thing, the vast majority of the population will think it’s a bunch crap.

The reality is that the magnetic gentleman-the man who can walk into any room and own it- is others focused. People want to feel loved, appreciated, and important. Sadly, many people these days aren’t feeling much of that. Perhaps their boss never compliments them or their wife never voices any appreciation for all that they do. If you can fill that void in people’s lives by focusing on them and acknowledging their importance, you’ll instantly bring them under your magnetic influence.

By way of putting my money where my mouth is, I can happily report that this September I’ll celebrate anniversary #28 with Mr. HUS, who fits this description to a T.

Any attempts to fit an alpha peg into a beta hole are strongly discouraged.  :)

Related posts:

1. Beta Male of the Week
2. I Found a Great Beta Guy, But He’s Ruining His Own Game!
3. Player or Beta?

Spoiler alert: Girls, Episode 5, Hard Being Easy 

As a studious observer of the human heart, trusted keeper of stories and secrets, maker of lessons, experienced practitioner of temptation and seduction, and eager student of maleness in all its forms, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve been utterly duped, deceived, swindled, fooled, hookwinked, bamboozled, deluded and beguiled by a cad. I’m 55, and I’m still making rookie mistakes.

I really thought Adam was starting to feel something for Hannah. I didn’t listen to the guys here. They called it easily: Adam is stringing Hannah along, he doesn’t give a shit.

“But no!” I thought. Actions speak louder than words! Hannah told him she really cares about him, she told him she wanted to stop seeing him because it feels so shitty that he doesn’t care, and he pulled her in for a passionate kiss. Surely not even a guy as self-indulgent as Adam would look at those tear-filled eyes and see one more opportunity to get laid!  I wish.

The day after their most recent hookup, Hannah shares her good news with Jessa:

Hannah: I have a boyfriend.

Jessa: Who?

Hannah: Adam. I told him everything, how he was torturing me, how sad I was, and he responded in such a lovely way…he like kissed me and kissed me and kissed me and he said, “Be who you are” and he touched my face and like we’re basically together now.

Later that same day, Hannah drops by Adam’s apartment unannounced, as usual. (A necessity when your “boyfriend” doesn’t answer your texts or calls, I suppose.) Also as usual, Adam is shirtless, displaying his pale squishy torso, ew. I don’t believe we’ve ever seen this guy in a shirt. Hannah comes up from behind and rubs against him.

Adam: What are you doing? 

Hannah: What does it look like I’m doing?

Adam:  You shouldn’t do that.

Hannah: Why?

Adam: Because we like said we wouldn’t or whatever.

Hannah: We did?

Adam: Uh, yah! You did.

Hannah: When did I say that?

Adam: Yesterday. You told me everything you want out of a relationship and all the ways I was fucking you up. 

Hannah: Yeah, but then you kissed me.

Adam: You looked sad.

Hannah: Then we had sex.

Adam: Because we were kissing.

This is the part where women start screaming, “Dick! Douche! Asshole!” In hindsight, it’s clear that Hannah projected her own sense of empathy onto Adam. Big mistake. She also rationalized all of his previous behavior and chose to focus on what appeared to be a slight shift in the dynamic, a change for the better, a flipping of the player. In other words, Hannah was an idiot. But how could I be such an idiot?

My theory is that there is something hardwired in women. We want to nurture that which cries out for nurturing. We want to believe that when a man stares into our eyes, cups our face in his hands, and says something that sounds profound, he is having the same emotional experience that we are.

My thought process went something like this:

Adam is so disconnected, so heartless, such a dick! Hannah is such an idiot, I can’t stand watching her making a fool of herself all the time. He doesn’t even pretend to like her, why is she settling for that?

Oh look, Hannah is speaking her mind! She is telling Adam what she wants, and she is telling him how she feels. Oh wow, she just told him how much she cares about him, and how it’s causing her to feel so hurt by his indifference. She’s starting to cry. And she’s saying that she knows he won’t change. Adam is about to say, “OK, I get it” and close the door.

But wait! Adam is reaching out to Hannah. He pulls her to him, and he’s telling her that he has strong feelings about what she just said. He urges her (with passion!) to be herself. This time is different, I can feel it! He’s been taking advantage of Hannah because she allowed it, but now that she’s stood up for herself, he sees her in a new light. He respects her, and that’s sexy!

Plus, Adam might be a dick, but he can’t be that much of a dick. He can’t be that guy who sees a girl’s teary confessional as an opportunity to get it in. That would make him more than selfish, more than narcissistic even, that would make Adam a sociopath. And there really aren’t that many sociopaths around, right? Except on blogs?

It used to be that actions speak louder than words, but all bets are off. Actions and words can both be lies, lies, lies. If Lena Dunham is right, and sex is a battleground, you should arm yourself well and trust only one thing: the white flag of surrender. Trust, but verify. Until he calls you his girlfriend, no sex. Witnesses would be ideal. Because apparently even I can’t properly judge a cad anymore. There are just too many of them around.

My other favorite moments from this week’s episode:

Dunham disses the feminist doctrine of Male = Violence

It was subtle – maybe you missed it.

After getting really pissed at Hannah and Marnie re Hannah’s diary entry, Charlie sputters, “You know what? I wouldn’t even want to stay here if I wanted to.” He then upends the coffee table he made Marnie. As gentle Charlie finally shows some anger, Hannah shouts, “That’s the kind of thing you do right before you hit us. Don’t hit us! Don’t hit us!”  With a “Fuck you!” he storms out of the apartment.

Charlie as the male who still prefers relationship sex

Charlie: You’re not in love with me.

Marnie: Are you in love with me?

Charlie: I don’t care!

Marnie: How can you not care?

Charlie: I decided on you, OK? Don’t you get it? I don’t wanna go fucking other girls then walk around feeling thrilled and then sad or empty or whatever. I like the smell of your hair and I like the sound of your voice and I fucking decided on you!

If only Charlie hadn’t followed up by begging Marnie during sex: “Don’t abandon me, don’t abandon me!”

Related posts:

1. GIRLS Got Game
2. HBO’s Girls Exposes Pretty Lies
3. The Hidden Cost of Keeping Sex Casual

Related posts:

1. How to Let a Man Know You’re Interested
2. How to Flirt Effectively
3. How to Flirt Effectively, Part II