Why we don't like talking about needs

The thing about needs is that they are needs. If I deny your wants, you may get angry about it but you'll survive. If I deny your needs it will make you sick and ultimately may kill you. You only want the things you want you actually need the things you need.

Sex advice columnists may sincerely believe that they are doing women a favour when they tell them to tell their partners about their needs but they are doing anything but. A human being's sexual needs, insofar as we have any, are actually things that make us vulnerable to others. Heck, even our wants, especially our strong wants, make us vulnerable to others. And this is something women have no trouble figuring out without anyone telling them.

If a woman wears leather clothing that carries an implicit or even explicit suggestion of bondage she does so because she knows or hopes this will make men respond. If she actually wants to be tied up she'll only tell the partner she really trusts.

The truth is you don't have many sexual needs. You can go without and most of us do in our early teen years when our sex drive is unquestionably very strong. What we do have is wants.

And our strongest want is the desire to have successful sexual interactions with another human being. Yes, women want pleasure and they want orgasms but they could get all that alone if that was all they wanted. Assuming she wants sex—and that is important because a lot of women don't want sex and most women don't want it right now—the thing she wants most of all in sex is the feeling of knowing what to do. What she hates most is the feeling of not knowing what to do.

And that includes far more than what happens when she gets naked. It means the way she flirts, the way she dresses, the way she walks and talks. It includes the way she interacts with literally hundreds of men she wouldn't dream of letting touch her. That is her strongest want.

She is naturally going to prefer men who play their part in the dance. And your part is to be very clear about the kind of dance you want to have. The nice guy who feels he is getting used because some woman comes to him when she wants to talk about her troubles and then goes to some other guy when she wants to have fun isn't actually using him. She's just responding to what he has offered. When he showed up and acted like he wanted to be her friend and confidant, she responded by dancing the dance he initiated.

Even a complete pig of a man will do relatively well if he is consistent and persistent in expressing his wants because whatever else happens she will always know what to do to make the sexual interaction work. And thus the success of pick up artists.