Centerfolds Only Need Apply
Question...
I’m very shy and haven’t dated — or had sex with — many women in my life. I think part of the problem is I am really picky. If a woman doesn’t seem perfect and look like a centerfold, I’m not interested. But if she does, I’m way too scared to even say hi to her. What should I do?
Answer...
This is a problem that a lot of inexperienced men that we work with have. We call it the "centerfolds-only-need-apply" problem.
Before we talk about this problem, let’s be absolutely crystal clear: You should date women who turn you on. This is not about "settling" for a BBW (internet-speak for "Big, Beautiful Woman" — i.e., FAT). This is not about lowering your standards, or having sex with women who don’t turn you on. To hell with that.
But it is about being willing to learn.
Very, very often, the men we work with who have the problem you are describing don’t have a lot of real-world experience with women. Specifically, they haven’t learned about what turns them on from real-world women. They’ve learned what turns them on from porn magazines and Victoria’s Secret catalogs.
Yes, those women are hot, but at the same time, this creates an idealized standard of "sexy" that can keep you from discovering other women who also turn you on. Let’s give some examples.
David recently pursued a woman who he never thought in a million years would have turned him on. He says, "If she had been naked in a magazine, I probably would have thrown the damn thing away. She was, honestly, kind of weird-looking; really short and thin and with an odd face and very long blonde hair down to her butt. But every time I talked to her we connected really well, and I couldn’t help but notice that I got kind of turned on."
It didn’t work out with her, but that’s not the point — the point is, if you are not open to being surprised by who you are attracted to, you will be stuck idealizing the perfect woman and not even getting a chance to know, from real-world experience, what you really want.
One of our students tells this story: "I was taking a comedy improvisation class, and the female instructor was what I would normally call ’hot.’ She was tall with large breasts and a very sexy mouth, but the truth was, I wasn’t that into her. There was a girl in the class who had a funky punk look, that I had never considered attractive before, who really did turn me on as I let myself get to know her — her vibe was just much better for me. We ended up going out, and it was great. If I hadn’t given her the chance, I really would have missed out."
Men who have the "centerfolds-only-need-apply" problem never have a chance to learn more about themselves and their sexuality by having this happen to them, because they won’t even consider talking with any woman who isn’t a centerfold-quality beauty.
We believe the "centerfolds-only-need-apply" problem is actually a developmental phase that men go through. It’s sort of a teen-age phase of idealizing certain women as perfect sexual beings while at the same time having almost no real-world sexual experience with any women at all.
Real world experience helps most men get through this phase. They have sexual interactions with a variety of women, and learn that more kinds of women turn them on than they had thought. Unfortunately, really shy guys sometimes get caught in this phase, because the difficulty they have with talking with women at all, combined with their insistence on and fixation about having idealized centerfold-women, keeps them from getting any other experience that could help them broaden their sexual tastes.
The solution is to let yourself be open to some real-world experience with a variety of women, and to start interactions with a variety of sorts of women and let yourself be open to the idea that they might turn you on.
In our experience, doing this has a strange paradoxical effect: The more willing you are to be turned on by "non-ideal" women, the easier it is for really hot women to like you and want to be with you, probably because you are not so obviously only after her because of how she looks.
Think of it from her perspective: Any woman you interact with while you are thinking that she has to be perfect or you are going to get rid of her is under a lot of pressure to be perfect. (This is why being put on a pedestal actually tends to piss women off.) At the same time, she is prone to think that you are more than a little superficial — and, in fact, she will be right. Thus, she will not be attracted to you.
Put another way, idealizing the perfect centerfold woman, and insisting on having that, or nothing at all, is a great way to alienate those exact women. On the other hand, NOT putting them on a pedestal is a great way to be more attractive to them, because once you take the pressure off of them to be perfect, you are easier to be around.
Once again, you learn how to not put centerfolds on a pedestal by learning what turns you on in the real world, not just in the world of magazines and porn videos. And you do that by interacting with a variety of women, flirting with them, and by being open to being surprised by who turns you on.
Best of luck!
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davidc@howtosucceedwithwomen.com
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Write us: P.O. Box 55094, Madison, WI 53705
Ron and David are dating coaches. How to Succeed With Women has sold over 40,000 copies. They have been featured in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Playboy, YM, Maxim, GQ UK, Swank, Gallery, and Players. They have also been on the Rosanne Barr Show, the Issac Hays show, To Tell the Truth, Fox News, CNN, UPN, and ABC.
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