How to Get Laid More (Alternatively: What Women Need)

Yep, I really just named a blog that.

It's what husbands everywhere want to know! 

I will be generalizing for *most men* and *most women* for the sake of this post, so please do not think of this as the end-all-be-all on sexual gender differences, but a conversation starter so that each of you can get more of what you want in your long-term relationship. 

Most of the time sexual frequency can be a barometer for how the relationship is going. "How is your sex life?" is a question I ask every couple I see. I've heard every answer from, "Non-existent," to "[giggle, giggle] Ummm, ok I guess," and many times each partner has a different perspective on the same sex life. 

Most men are trying to figure out how to have more sex and most women are trying to figure out how to have more emotional connection, but they're all making the same HUGE mistake.[...]

---

Most of us fail to recognize that men and women are inherently, genetically, and hormonally different creatures. Let's just talk testosterone for a minute. Men have 9x the testosterone women do and testosterone plays a HUGE part in sex drive (wanting or desiring sex)! Stress impacts testosterone levels. More stress = less testosterone, but women have a definite disadvantage in this area. Sexual desire is something most men in early-middle adulthood don't have to TRY at or be conscious of, but most women at some point in this stage do. 

I worked with a couple last year and remember explaining this to them. He looked at me quite seriously and said, "So, what do I do?" I said, "Reduce her stress levels." He seemed perplexed. She was smiling. She recounted stories of how he would "grab my boobs" while she did the dishes, and "smack my butt" while she folded laundry. I asked him what his intent was. Of course it was to get her in the bed. I asked her if this got her closer to the bed or further away from the bed? With irritation she boomed, "FURTHER. AWAY!" and her tone indicated she felt this was ridiculously obvious. "How could he not know this?"

Mom Porn

I asked her what would get her closer to the bed in those moments and she yelled, "DOING THE DISHES OR FOLDING THE LAUNDRY!"

In total disbelief he looked at her, and then at me, and then back at her and said, "Really?"

We do this thing called projection. We project onto others what we want. So if a husband gropes...it's probably because he wants to be groped! If a way that a wife shows him love is by making him dinner...it's probably because she would feel TOTALLY loved if he made her dinner. The problem isn't our differences, it's assuming we're the same.

Make lists with your partner of the top 5 ways you show love and the top 5 ways you feel loved.

For most men their needs priority list is 1. physical (sexual included here, safety, financial), 2. emotional (see how I am), and then 3. spiritual (see who I am). Women need emotional and spiritual needs to be met before we can get to the physical. This is hard for men to understand because it's just not how they're wired. 

One of the BIGGEST ways for a woman to feel you know how she is and who she is is by actively listening to her. Some studies show that the average woman, in general, speaks more than 13,000 MORE words per day than the average man! The good news is that active listening requires less talking and more head nods :) For many women talking can be a great stress release so it hits 3 nails with one swoop when done well. 

Here are some active listening tips:
1. See your goal as UNDERSTANDING and not fixing. Think of it as a game to figure out how what she's talking about might be making her FEEL instead of what's the quickest solution. 
2. Check for understanding by saying things like, "So, let me see if I have this right..." and then paraphrase what you've heard with a question mark at the end. This allows her to get even more clear and feel even MORE understood. 
3. Name the feeling or ask her how this all made her feel. You don't have to be a feeling expert for this part. Put yourself in her shoes and say, "If this happened to me I'd be __________." You don't have to be spot-on to have done this well, you just have to do it. If you say, "pissed" she can clarify by saying, "Well, it was frustrating" and now you're both more clear and she feels like you know who she is and how she is. 

As stated earlier, taking things off of a woman's to-do list can be helpful in reducing her stress levels and increasing her drive. Just know that sometimes women like to keep their to-do list invisible because we like to *look* like we have it all together. And so it might require some probing and active listening to get her list out of her, "You look stressed. What's on your to-do list that I can take care of?"

Men, I know what you're thinking: "WHOA, WHOA, Mika....I work my butt off ALL DAY and you want me to do MORE???" Men, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. And I could write a whole post (it might be much shorter) on what men want and need. But if there's something that you want and need in your relationship that you're not getting it's your job to figure out how to get it. And if you're in the *most men* category and she's in the *most women* category she's probably not worried about how to get laid. 

If your work/life balance is so off that you can't meet your relationship's needs between 5 and 10pm, it's unreasonable to expect your wife to be ready to meet your needs at 10pm. 

You have different needs and different ways you show and feel loved. When physical needs (finances, roofs over heads, $$, bills being paid) are being focused on at the expense of emotional and spiritual needs (connection, fun, laughter) something needs to change. Your relationship feels out of whack. Focus and energy needs to shift. You both need to honor yourselves and your needs more and it would be great if you could support each other in figuring this out. It's the WONDERFUL thing about us being different....Our closest relationships can force us to stay balanced if we pay attention. 

The man in the couple I spoke of earlier started implementing some of these strategies and reported having sex TWICE on Christmas Eve when his wife had a mile-long to-do list. He asked her about the possibility of having sex earlier that morning and got met with a pretty big, "NO." "I just kept asking, 'What's next?' and checking things off her to-do list and suddenly we had nothing to do..." ;-)

Sometimes when I have this conversation with men they think of this as a chore-for-sex transaction, and this isn't what I would wish for anyone. Most of us (men and women) don't have enough support and allowing space for her to vent about this can be like taking the straw off the camel's back. Sometimes just the conversation about the to-do list is enough for a woman to feel understood enough to want to meet her partner's needs. I hope this information leads to deeper conversation and more understanding of each other's stress levels, needs, and wants. 


Ask her what she needs to want to get in the bed more with a serious and caring tone. Romance and date nights can also be fabulous opportunities to see who she is and how she is by making her, and time with her, a priority. 

If you want more of a sex life remember that her sex drive is your job, too. 

When counseling might help:

• When it feels like it's hard not to take her lack of drive personally
• When conversations about the topic of sex seem to end in anger and/or hurt feelings

Here's to your happiness ;-)

**Help me in my goal of changing people's minds about therapy by clicking the 'like' button below.

---