Why Men Don’t Want to Wife Up “Sluts”

Questions asked. Questions answered.

Yesterday, I came across an interesting Substack post from a woman I’d never read before, who basically said she was a “slut” who slept with a guy that she really liked and who really seemed to like her. She genuinely seemed puzzled as to why that man slept with her but still saw her as nothing but a short-term fling. It was an interesting question, so it seemed worth going into it in detail, but first, here’s an excerpt from her piece:

The date was lovely. He shared that he’s looking for a relationship, and I shared that I try to date without expectations—but that I’d be ready for something long-term if the right person came along. We talked about self-growth and religion and politics and my job—and what my job would look like if I was in a relationship.

After two glasses of wine, he invited me to see his rooftop and later, his apartment. Eventually, we were kissing on his couch.

“Just so you know, I didn’t expect this,” he told me nervously.

“Oh!” I pulled back, unsure of what he meant. “We definitely don’t have to keep going. We can stop!” I’ve been that person on the other side of an icky hookup, where you don’t feel comfortable and don’t know how to get out of it. I would never want to put someone in that position. And I especially wouldn’t want someone to feel like because I’m a sex writer, I always expect sex or something. Does that make sense? Anyway, I started stressing.

“No,” he laughed with an ease that reassured me. “I want to!”

“Okay,” I replied. “We don’t have to go farther—whatever you want.”

It turns out that sex is what he wanted, as did I. He asked for my consent before grabbing a condom, and I double checked that he was sure he wanted to before putting it in. It was all well and kosher. And it felt great.

“I can’t believe I broke my ‘no sex on the first date rule,’” he said as we cuddled naked.

...Long pause. Some back scratches. Deep breaths. My eyes began to flutter in and out of sleep.

“Do you ever juggle multiple guys at once?” he asked as my eyes fled open.

“No,” I replied. “Honestly, I wish I could. But I tend to get wrapped up in one person.” I couldn’t believe how honest I was being.

He seemed somewhat satisfied by that answer, but my mouth didn’t feel like shutting up. “I’m a little slutty,” I said. “Is that something you are okay with?”

“I think so,” he responded. Looking back, I’m not sure if he was being as honest.

...I woke up the next morning to a cheeky text from him. I was excited! I had some weird feelings about our post-coital conversation, but I was still interested in getting to know him. He was the boy who asked me out when my hair wasn’t done, remember? We texted throughout the day, and I eventually asked if he wanted to get together next week.

“To be transparent,” he said, “I don’t see us being a long-term fit, and that’s what I’m looking for right now.”

Long-term fit. That fucked me up.

...I felt more bummed than I’d like to admit. Not even because of any feelings towards him—we really had just met!—but because of feelings I was having towards myself. Would I always be the girl you break your “no sex on the first date rule” for, but not the girl who’s a “long-term fit”? Would I always be someone you see tonight with, just not a future with?

Why can’t a slut also be a wife?

As I noted, I hadn’t run across this author before and I was looking at her work more to write this piece, I noticed she writes a Substack called Railed, where she says, “I care a lot about normalizing the experiences young women are going through today and alleviating the shame we feel around sex. Railed is a place to celebrate the complicated world of being a sexual woman. It’s a place to cry over crushes and laugh about sex; plan your wedding one day and have your organs rearranged the next.”

That quip reminds me of a conversation I once had with another woman who was heavily involved with writing about sex. We were just acquaintances, but I said something to her like, “So, you’re always complaining that you’re single, but you literally run blowjob classes for other women. Don’t you think those two things are related?” She assured me that they weren’t, and I didn’t know her well enough to push the subject, so I just let it go.

So, let’s talk about this a little bit.

First of all, men are very different than women, but guys are also fairly simple creatures.

Here are the fundamentals, ladies…

If a man sees you as a potential match, is attracted to you, you feed him, seem to want to take care of him, you’re a good mom (if you have kids), have good sex with him, are nice to him, he enjoys talking to you and you genuinely seem to think he’s great, he will think he’s the luckiest guy on earth. The great thing about all of this is that it’s mostly under your control. Yes, you might have to dress up and have some open conversations about what the two of you like in bed, but it’s a doable list. Being 6’4’ or making $500,000 per year to get some woman’s attention may be outside of a man’s control, but if a man considers a woman relationship material, she is probably capable of locking him in if she wants to do it.

Of course, like everything else in life, there is some nuance involved here.

For one thing, good sex is a key part of a good relationship, BUT unlike a lot of women, men are also generally very comfortable with the idea of having sex OUTSIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS. A lot of men can enjoy sex with women they just met, women they know they’ll never see again, or even women THEY DON’T EVEN LIKE AS HUMAN BEINGS. Men just have a biological drive toward sex, the same way, for example, a lot of dogs have a biological drive toward prey. The second my dog sees a cat; she wants to chase it. If she catches up to the cat, she doesn’t even know what to do, but she does know she wants it to run so she can have the fun of running after it. It’s an innate drive for her and most men have that same kind of innate drive around sex, even though most of us never have the opportunity to fully express it.

What about when men do have that opportunity? That’s when you see, for example, ancient male leaders with harems, people like Tiger Woods supposedly having sex with over a 100 women on tour even though he had a swimsuit model wife at home, Wilt Chamberlain and Motley Crue allegedly sleeping with thousands of women and Genghis Khan reputedly being the ancestor of 1 in 12 men in ASIA. The number of women most men would theoretically be interested in having sex with is titanic, but wanting to have sex with a woman doesn’t mean they want to have a relationship with that same woman.

For example, all other things being equal, just about every man would prefer a virgin to a woman with say 50 previous partners. Why? Well, in a man’s book, being promiscuous is a huge negative in a woman you’re interested in long term for reasons great and small, fair and unfair.

Like what?

Well, first and foremost, the traditional concern is that if she’s sleeping around, how do you know your child is yours? The last thing any man wants to do is get cucked and end up spending his life raising a child some other man impregnated his wife with right under his nose. Along similar lines, the more a woman has slept around, the more likely it is that she may cheat. After all, unless you’re the absolute peak of the pyramid for men, having sex requires a lot of effort and work. For women? Not so much. She’ll have easy opportunities every day of the week, probably multiple times per day, and if she feels comfortable sleeping around, can you trust her?

How easy is it? Well, once, I remember talking to a female friend of mine who had moved to another city, was lonely, and she complained to me that she “Just needed to get laid.” I laughed at her over the phone and told her something like, “All you have to do is dress up, go to a hotel bar, look for any attractive single man, sit next to him, and talk to him for 5 minutes, then ask him to take you up to his room. You’ll be having sex 5 minutes after. It’s that easy” – and it is, for women.

We can go on. Promiscuous women are statistically less likely to stay married. You also have to think they probably aren’t going to be as satisfied in bed if they’re comparing you to a large number of men. You know, “Well, Brett had that amazing 8 pack, Jimmy was really hung, Paul could go forever, and Todd did that really cool thing with his tongue, so how good is this compared to those guys?” Furthermore, it’s natural for men to want large numbers of female partners, but not so much for women, which usually means women who sleep around have issues. How many mentally healthy, happy women are racking up truly large numbers of guys? Not many.

Of course, we can go even deeper into the weeds of the male psyche.

A lot of men look at promiscuous women as DIRTY or trashy. Is that fair? Maybe not, but they do. At a minimum, they’re certainly more likely to have STDs. If you’re talking about women who’ve been in professions society looks down on like prostitutes, strippers, or OnlyFans models, do you really want to explain to your family that you’re wifing a woman like that up? Not really. Would you want a woman your friends have slept with or seen naked? Again, nope. Worse yet, would you want your kids hearing, “Your momma was an OnlyFans model. I’ve seen her naked,” at school? No way! How about the idea, now considered archaic by a lot of people, that sex is supposed to be “special?” A lot of people will practically laugh at that idea but show me a man and woman who have never slept with anyone but each other, and they’re not going to laugh at all. Last but not least, who wants to be the guy who has to wife a woman up to get her in bed when she slept with 40 other guys just because she was attracted to them? If you’re a man, what does it say about you that you had to promise her, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part,” to get the same thing they did by smiling at her and buying her a beer?

Is being a “slut” a hard “no?” For some guys, it absolutely is and a significant percentage of the guys who don’t see it that way tend to be sleazy, simps, or generally the sort of guy most women don’t find attractive. Even if you find a good guy who doesn’t consider it an automatic rejection, it’s definitely heavy baggage. Does heavy baggage always mean, “no thanks?” No, but the heavier a woman’s baggage, the less likely it is that a guy is going to sign on to carry it long-term.

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