What the Petraeus Affair says about the sexual behavior of men and women

Some discussions I have related to dating and relationships provoke heated debates with other men, and other discussions I engage in about issues related to love and sex tend to cause more women to vehemently disagree with one or more of my strong opinions.

There is at least one strong opinion I have expressed that provokes frowns, disagreements, and harsh criticisms from men and women alike. What opinion of mine provokes such reactions?

Emotions - and more specifically, feelings of "love" - should never be allowed to enter into a sexual relationship that is not between a husband and wife, or between a monogamous boyfriend and girlfriend.

I even wrote a variation of this quote in one or two of my previous articles in this very column. I have been known to say, "Sex is sex, and love is love. The two are not necessarily correlated to each other."

Many men do not care for this opinion of mine. Why? Because a good number of men believe that the most effective way to seduce a woman, and get a woman to agree to engage in one or more episodes of (casual) sex with them, is to make that woman feel like there is an "emotional connection" present between the two. Personally, I believe it is highly manipulative to give a woman the misleading impression that you are "falling in love with her" just to get in her pants.

Many women, including some of my former casual sex partners, tend to criticize my way of thinking because they like to always feel like they are "more than a piece of meat" in the eyes of a man and that something about them is "special" in our eyes.

I say, both men and women need to get real. I mean, really, really real.

For starters, if former CIA Director David Petraeus is married, he should have never allowed himself to have sex with Paula Broadwell in the first place. That is a given. I am not one to throw stones at anyone from a modest glass house, because I will publicly confess that I have had sex with a married woman before. Actually, I have had sex with three different married women in my adult life (twice when I was in my twenties, and once in my early thirties).

In retrospect, I regret being involved in those extramarital affairs with those women. In my partial defense though, I was not the initiator with any of the three married women. Instead, the married women who I had sex with were the aggressors. That still does not make what I did right. Now, older and more mature, I believe too much in the idea of "karma" to fool around with married women. Jealous husbands have been known to murder men who are caught having sex with their wives.

Secondly, beyond the immoral and unethical nature of adultery, Ms. Broadwell should have never allowed herself to become "emotionally attached" to Petraeus. I have yet to read a direct quote where Petraeus has stated that he was "in love" with Broadwell, and similarly, Ms. Broadwell does not have a public quote suggesting that she had fallen in love with Petraeus. That said, you can tell by the sequence of what happened that Broadwell had become emotionally attached to Petraeus. What is my evidence?

Why send a "threatening e-mail message" to Petraeus' acquaintance, Jill Kelley, warning her to stay away from Petraeus? Some would argue "that was Broadwell's ego at work more so than her emotions." I say it was both. I firmly believe that Broadwell began to feel that she was "very special" in the eyes of Petraeus, and that she deserved the ranking of the #2 priority in his life next to the former CIA Director's wife, Holly.

I have either witnessed, or heard about, too many of these scenarios playing out. They never have a "happy ending." Adulterous affairs rarely, if ever do. (Read Chapter Six in my latest book, The Possibility of Sex: How Naive and Lustful Men are Manipulated by Women Regularly; I talk about women who are "Man Thieves" & "wannabe mistresses")

A former casual sex lover once complained to me, "Alan ... sometimes, I don't like the way you treat me. You treat me more like a 'fu** buddy' than a woman you truly care about. And that irritates me and hurts my feelings." You might think I responded with some comment that was 'soft' and empathetic along the lines of, "Oh sweetheart ... that is so not true. I do care about you. I love spending time with you. Just being in your presence makes me happy, and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." Yeah, riiiiiiiiiight.

That is the type of response a "smooth liar" and master manipulator would have offered, such as a professional pickup artist. That is not my style at all. Instead, I looked at her dead in her eyes and said, "You are not my girlfriend. Remember that. You and I primarily, if not exclusively, share each other's company for the sake of enjoyable, satisfying sex. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Either you're cool with that, or we can break things off starting right now." She did not particularly care for my response at the time, but I made my point clear. I had no desire to mislead this woman, and toy with her emotions. In the long run, she respected me for my unapologetic candor.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: I can have sex with a woman two hundred times and never, ever develop any sort of "emotional bond" with that woman. That does not mean I treat all of my casual sex partners like a 'piece of meat,' but I am very real and bluntly honest with them. Sex is sex, and love is love. Most men who I have been friends with in my adult life have said the same thing, if only privately. For the vast majority of men, there is no correlation between enjoyable, satisfying sex and feelings of "love," with the exception of maybe with that man's wife or long-term girlfriend.

Men: Quit lying to women, and making them believe you are "falling for them" when you really just enjoy experiencing pleasurable orgasms with them. Lying to women regularly and misleading women about how you really feel about them is representative of emotional manipulation. One day, you are going to toy with the emotions of the wrong woman, and she is going to put a bullet in your skull.

Women: Quit being so damn naive and delusional. If you believe your husband is truly in love with you, fine. If you believe your long-term boyfriend is truly in love with you, okay. But if you believe that the guy who only hooks up with you four or five times per month when he is horny has profound feelings for you, you are setting yourself up for heartbreak and frustration. If a man has engaged in intercourse with you for weeks, months, or years, but you have yet to earn the title of "girlfriend," "fiancée," or "wife," then 99.9% chance, that man has no profound emotional feelings for you. Wake up.

Why do you think many men pay money for the companionship of street prostitutes, professional Call Girls, and upscale Erotic Escorts? Among other reasons, they want sex with women without having to worry about the idea of developing and/or maintaining an "emotional attachment" with women, and all that comes with that. Guys who pay for sex just want enjoyable, satisfying sex. That is it. End of story. No cuddling, no "small talk," no gifts or cards on Valentine's Day.

Even men who are unwilling to pay for sex feel this way. Most men pursue casual sex with women because they really have no interest or motivation toward spending a significant amount of time with that particular woman in a non-sexual manner. Men want to watch a movie and have dinner with women who they really care about. If we don't care about you, a movie and dinner is just a manipulative tactic to get in your pants. Don't like reading this as a woman? Tough. Grow up and get real. If you are a man reading this, and now you're "mad" at me for telling the truth about how we men really think? Tough. Quit trying to get over on women.

Did Broadwell think Petraeus was going to leave his wife for her? I have no idea for sure. My gut feeling and strong opinion is that if Broadwell had treated her affair with Petraeus as "just sex" and nothing more, more-than-likely, their affair would have never made its way into the microscope and scrutiny of the national news media.

Some women have said to me, "Well Alan, you know as well as I do ... us women are emotional!! We release a hormone in our bodies that is called oxytocin, and this causes us to bond with men who produce powerful orgasms for us!! We can't help that we fall for the guys that we have fantastic sexual chemistry with!!"

Not true. You can help it.

Two recommendations for women:

1) Only allow profound emotions to be combined with sex when you are involved in a long-term monogamous relationship with a man;

2) If you are going to indulge in some sort of short-term and/or non-monogamous sexual relationship with a man, just enjoy the sex and leave your emotions (and ego) out of the equation.

You have been warned.

If you choose not to adhere to my warning, then at minimum, prepare yourself for future heartbreak. At maximum, prepare to see yourself on television and in newspapers like Paula Broadwell.

Either way, you were warned.

Advice to men? A good friend and fraternity brother of mine who everyone simply refers to as "Ferg" once said this to me in 1999: "Men make their absolute dumbest decisions when they are extremely bored, desperate for money, or when their d*ck is hard."

Yep, yep. Just ask any man who lost his career as a result of an adulterous affair.

#realtalk

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