Friends with benefits – does he feel the same?

Yes, Liz nailed it. I agree with everything she wrote.

A woman’s “love buttons” get pushed (and pushed HARD) when she’s having sex with a guy and especially during orgasm.

There are biological and neurochemical reasons for this.

You are literally swimming against the current of tens of thousands of years of human biological programming and evolution.

There’s no such thing as casual sex for a woman. Casual sex only exists for men.

“But Eric I know a woman who’s able to have casual sex!”

OK, but you’re not her.

“Yes but if she can do it that means casual sex is possible for women.”

I want to say this compassionately, but I want to share some insight I have based on working closely with women for the last 20 years on their love issues.

Women tell me very personal details from their love lives. And then, on top of that, I have female friends who are happy to speak frankly about such things, too.

The only women who I’ve seen who can have what appears like “casual sex” are either:

– regularly abusing drugs (usually stimulants).
– on some kind of psych meds (antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, antipsychotics).
– have a history of traumatic sexual abuse.

Now, I say these women are able to have “what appears like casual sex” because the problems “casual sex” causes are small in comparison to the other problems in their life.

I admit I always feel reluctant when sharing these facts because I feel bad for these women. They’re dealing with difficulties as it is and then adding “casual sex” to the cauldron of misery…

My point here is that women are not biologically designed for casual sex.

“But Eric, my favorite TV show / movie / influencer personality / comedian talks about their casual sex lifestyle all the time and it works for them!”

Does it though?

Does it?

All of that stuff isn’t real life. Just like Instagram stories aren’t a person’s real life.

When these people are feeling embarrassed, ashamed, confused, misled and heartbroken, they won’t tell you that.

Because after all, even in a culture drenched in the message that “casual sex” works, you’ll still get told that “you should have known better”.

So the toxic cultural idea of “casual sex” perpetuates. People will brag when they’re up and hide their shame when they’re down.

Sex, for women, is more than just getting pregnant or not.

It’s the most powerful bonding trigger possible for women.

Doesn’t matter if you’re on birth control. Every other psychological, biological, neurochemical process is happening, and they are the most powerful feelings you can feel.

And they can be subtle and subconscious too.

Most people think when I’m talking about powerful feelings, they think it’s some sort of obvious explosive feeling.

Some of life’s most powerful feelings are SUBTLE.

A subtle craving that grows and grows over days or weeks.
A subtle anxiety that grows, yet you can’t pin down the source.
A subtle fear of losing him, yet you didn’t care before.

On a different note…

Imagine this.

I started A New Mode back in 2009 with Sabrina.

And every step of the way, I’m looking at the traffic to the website and reading the comments from the audience.

I see the articles that women read, I see their responses and I see the patterns.

Did you know that between Sabrina’s and my content, we’ve received more than 1 billion views?

Think about that… over 1 billion views over 13 years.

Do you think we might see some patterns?

Of course.

And the pattern is this.

FWB always turns into the woman “catching feelings” and wondering if he feels the same.

Always. The only exceptions are what I described above.

And it’s not that casual sex “works” for them, it’s that they have deeper problems to overshadow the problems of casual sex.

A man’s “love buttons” don’t get pressed during sex.

For a man, sex and love are not connected. For a woman, they are totally interwoven.

If you want love with a man, you need to press his “love buttons”, and that happens outside of the bedroom.

As Liz said, “You can’t sex your way into a relationship.”

If there’s any chance of a relationship, it’s happening outside of sex.

And if you’re already having sex and he hasn’t even started down the path of showing up as “relationship potential” for him, then it is insanely difficult to start afterwards.

Not because it’s not possible, but because it means so much to you and none of those feelings have been triggered in him yet.