Relational Erotic Intelligence Podcast

Marc "Marco" Beneteau

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Sexuality

Headquarters for writings around Marco's book "As Lovers Do" (https://asloversdo.com), and for how I bring these ideas into practice in my own marriage. asloversdo.substack.com

10/15/2025

The missed Connection with the Lafayette Morehouse (1986-1988)

This story, drawn my from memoir Broke, Single, Crazy and Old, tells the story of my first (missed) encounter with the Lafayette Morehouse when I was in California from 1986-1988. The first Morehouse commune was founded in Oakland CA in 1968, and later they moved to another plot of land in Lafayette, CA. Victor Baranco, the creator of Morehouse, was one of the greatest sexual geniuses of the20th century and has had a profound influence on me and on dozens of other sexual educators, many of whom are now much more famous than he is. Relating to “bad sex,” another interesting fact. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a mere 20-minute drive from where I lived in Berkeley, through the Caldecott tunnel into a town called Lafayette, was one of the most advanced man/woman education and sexual research centers that the world has ever seen. It was called the Lafayette Morehouse and was founded by a man called Victor Baranco, who in the mid-80’s (the time I was in California) was in his prime; and the Lafayette Morehouse at the time was a wild, wild place. Baranco’s story is unusual. He was a street-thug who had gone straight, the son of well-known musicians who lived in Oakland, a black father and a Jewish mother. After going straight, he became a successful appliance salesman, and then courted a popular and wealthy socialite, his first wife Susie. He had participated in CIA-sponsored LSD experiments and had discovered in himself a kind of gift for therapy and for human transformation, based on his idea of “perfection,” which I will describe later. He had also discovered a sexual gift of sorts, as Susie was frigid. They had gone to see various doctors and psychiatrists about Susie’s condition, and been told that there was nothing to do about it. But Baranco had refused to quit, and in the end Susie became so orgasmic that she was able to do the three-hour orgasm demos for which Baranco ultimately became famous. From these gifts and these teachings, Baranco had bought a house and started a commune in Oakland, the Oakland Morehouse; and later had been donated a fairly large tract of land in Lafayette California, about 17 acres of what would later become prime real-estate. The Oakland and then Lafayette Morehouse have been running continuously since 1969, even though Baranco died in 2002. Over the years, the Lafayette Morehouse population has varied between 60 and 150. Baranco was not especially interested in getting rich or becoming a guru; he was just looking for “a good gig”. When he started his second commune, the Lafayette Morehouse, which ended up having about a dozen houses, Baranco was quite prepared, in his own words, to “coast” for the rest of his life. He wasn’t exactly ambitious. But then Baranco had a self-reported “thunderbolt” experience with a young woman in the swimming pool of the Lafayette Morehouse, which transformed him irrevocably. Her name was Cindy and she became his second wife, the object of his adoration and the center of his life for all of his remaining years. Baranco’s first wife Susie continued hanging around, took other lovers, and is a respected figure in Morehouse to this day. I had a slow-dance with Susie, once, in Lafayette about 2006, and she was still sexy then, 30 years later. For more information about Baranco, google my article “Lafayette Morehouse History,” and then follow the links in the article in which Baranco tells of his “thunderbolt” experience with Cindy, what it did for him, and how he came to start Morehouse. There are more Morehouse stories in Steve Bodansky’s fascinating memoir of those years, Extended Massive Life: A Love Story (the only biography that covers Morehouse, as far as I know, as Baranco wrote almost nothing). Baranco was a man/woman and sexual education pioneer, and he has had an enormous influence in sexual education in this country. His students are now much more famous than him. They include Bob & Leah Schwartz in The One Hour Orgasm; Steve and Vera Bodansky in Extended Massive Orgasm and other books; Patricia Taylor in Expanded Orgasm; Nicole Daedone in Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm, and many others. Even Tim Ferriss (of 4-Hour Workweek fame, who now produces one of the most popular podcasts on the internet), has visited the Lafayette Morehouse and speaks of it in his 4-Hour Body book. Baranco had little interest in self-promotion or even in making money, he mostly wanted to make women happy. He is one of the foundational teachers in my own system and as such has a prominent place in my book, As Lovers Do. He was the first man that I am aware of to say publicly that the best and most powerful role for the masculine is to serve the feminine (“do what the woman wants”). That surrender is as much a masculine virtue as a feminine one; indeed, that surrender is essential for love. Morehouse teachings and Morehouse lifestyle are especially relevant to me because my experiences of therapy during my time in California were, essentially, a failure. Those experiences just increased my despair, because I was giving it my best, spending all my money, but not having any meaningful success. I was not looking exactly to “find myself,” clear childhood traumas, discover the great existential truths of the human condition, or leave my mark on the world. I was looking for a fun, all-immersive environment where I could hang-out with interesting people, men and women, and learn about love and sex. The Lafayette Morehouse was the answer to my condition at the time, but I did not engage with them until many years later, through Rebekah who was then living in the Yonkers Morehouse in New York (I moved in after 3 dates with her and we became lovers). Morehouse made a man out of me later, and so I wonder what would have happened, had I engaged with them way back then. I do half-remember a so-called “Mark Group” which I attended when I was in California. Mark Groups are an early form of Authentic Relating, a group conversation practice or type of intimacy game; but that Mark Group felt too chaotic, too sexual and too “hard”. They don’t always treat you gently in Mark Groups, which is unfortunate because the underlying philosophy is pure gold. It’s about love and connection and fun, and about making women happy, based on the underlying notion of “perfection”. The idea of “perfection” is that we always attract what we unconsciously want and need for our own growth and development, especially in sexual relationships, because “human beings want to experience the full range of human emotions” [Baranco]. Meaning that we are attracted to both the light and the dark. As such, Morehouse philosophy is an early form of Esther Hicks’ “Law of Attraction” (or LOA), and yet, arguably, much deeper. LOA can be criticized for focusing mostly on the good and our ability to attract the good. LOA is probably correct; but an over-focus on attracting the good, versus just accepting and making peace with “what is so,” can become a neurosis. The root contexts of Morehouse philosophy and LOA are the same, however: it’s about taking 100% responsibility for the results that you generate. I personally can’t (or won’t) believe that these ideas are “true” in a universal way (s**t happens, cancer cells find a home, racism and genocide exist, etc); but in the inter-personal realm, I think it is true. I believe that all my relationships happened for a reason, and maybe were even engineered by Spirit. If this is superstition, so be it. I don’t mind holding superstitions that make me happier, more effective, and more loving. Morehouse is also about creating exceptional sex, with many very practical and effective tools for getting there, such as the “do-date,” which is a (mostly) man-on-woman clitoral massage. They teach a range of courses on sexuality, including the awkwardly named “Mutual Pleasurable Stimulation of the Human Nervous System Intensive,” better known as “the 69 course”. Rebekah and I took this course in Hawaii, and it was wonderful. Morehouse courses haven’t changed in 40 years, so I am not sure I would still recommend them, exactly; but I love the community still. There are only four remaining Morehouse communes: in Lafayette California (where Cindy Baranco currently resides); in Oakland; in Atlanta; and in Hawaii. The New York and then Yonkers Morehouse, where Rebekah and I lived for 3 years, shutdown in approximately 2013. Baranco is virtually unknown; but these teachings are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. Anyway: I left that Mark Group in California and never went back. It’s not a cult as some people claim, Baranco had no interest in running a cult, he just wanted to make women happy. There was never any kind of financial coercion, for instance; although people did pay big money for the so-called “Expansion of Sexual Potential Course” (or “ESP”), which became one of their big money-makers. Having done the ESP was something of a badge of honor in Morehouse, a status symbol. All such groups have cult-like traits, even if they don’t meet the official requirement for being a “cult”. Rebekah and I could not afford the ESP, but we did give them quite a bit of money during the years we were living in the Yonkers Morehouse. Later in Philadelphia we produced a course for them. The Oakland Morehouse is about a mile from where I ended up living in Oakland, in my third and final year in California. But I never knew this, and I didn’t know anyone in the community. A personal introduction would have made a big difference. In those years of hopelessness and despair I was just batting wildly at anyone and anything that looked like it had the potential to end my pain. I wasn’t always able – I lacked the time and money and emotional resources – to go deep. Also, those were still the “wild west” days of therapy and personal development. The therapis

13 min
10/15/2025

A lecture on sexual polarity

[Note: this article is part of my memoir, Broke, Single, Crazy and Old. It is also available as a podcast here, although the podcast doesn’t include the final section The masculine and feminine evolutionary purposes] “Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer his full, undivided presence.” ― David Deida Second comment on the letter, and I will use the opportunity to deliver a bit of sexual polarity theory lecture – and also explain, as promised earlier, the great tragic flaw of masculine psychology, with fatal consequences to women’s happiness: “To be honest I do not sense it is uniquely me you are loving…”. Much of what I am about to say next reflects my understanding of David Deida, the man who brought sexual polarity into the mainstream. Note that John Gray’s ideas (the “Mars and Venus” books) is also a sexual polarity theory, but it doesn’t have the depth and scope of Deida’s ideas. I believe that Deida misses a few things, perhaps even the most important things; but if you complement his thinking with Victor Baranco’s ideas, you get a complete picture. Every woman wants to feel she is loved uniquely and is irreplaceable, but this happens rarely with masculine people, according to Deida. For a person living in masculine consciousness, purpose must precede and pre-empt love. One of the consequences of this, which is controversial, is that for a masculine person, his woman is replaceable. This is not “sexism,” by the way, to the extent that men and women are not slaves to their gender, meaning that men can be core-feminine and women can be core-masculine in their polarity. Another important distinction here (this one is mine and not Deida’s), is that masculine and feminine are two dimensions, not a linear scale with two poles. The goal here is to become highly skilled in both. Simplistically speaking, these two poles are “doing” versus “being,” or achieving success versus the ability to be happy no matter what. Deida’s fundamental idea is that people tend to prefer, and willingly inhabit, one or the other sexual polarities (which are also fundamental psychological archetypes), having greater or lesser skill in one or the other, and are happiest and most productive when they stay in that role most of the time (not always! That would be unhealthy). And finally – very important – that the most powerful (or transformative) sexual relationships tend to occur between people who are, maybe deliberately, occupying opposite polarities. I am not going to fully define what I mean by “masculine” and “feminine” here, for that please check out my book As Lovers Do, or anything by Deida. But I will summarize the basic ideas. First, there is a common misconception that “surrender” is a feminine trait. All love requires surrender, from whatever polarity you inhabit, meaning that you surrender to the needs and desires of your partner. It’s the needs and desires that tend to polarize into one archetype or the other. A neat definition is that “masculine” is the desire and skill to get what you want, whereas “feminine” is the desire and skill to enjoy what you have. Masculine is single-pointed consciousness, whereas feminine is diffuse, it is more aware of different objects in its environment and their needs. The masculine wants to solve problems, or to “provide,” whereas the feminine wants to give and receive pleasure, especially being seen, witnessed, appreciated and to have her desire and her gifts honored (which is especially pleasurable for her, obviously, given that this rarely happens for her under patriarchy). The main usefulness of this theory – which Deida appears to miss, despite other deep wisdom – is that the optimal relationship occurs when masculine serves the feminine, and feminine serves her own pleasure – which, her being feminine, naturally extends to taking care of her masculine partner. By contrast, a man left to himself would not naturally be very attentive to his feminine partner’s needs. This is not how men are designed, we are designed for hunting, winning wars and problem-solving, which require single-focus on our mission or goal. Typically, men have to be educated about women if we are to be successful with them. Just as women need to be educated about men, if they are to be successful. Women need to be educated to value their own pleasure and to operate from attraction and loving assertion (informing the men of their needs, thus ensuring that the men will win with them) rather than direction, criticism or make-wrong, and to accept men as they are – which is difficult for them, because men are not like women and are often emotionally clueless. This is not a prescription or a command for women; nobody should inhabit a sexual polarity all the time and boundaries are important. It is, however, a suggestion to women if they want to have their masculine partners support them and be present to them and adore them, something which is important to most feminine people’s happiness. That’s Victor Baranco for you, in a nutshell. It’s a far more practical and actionable philosophy than Deida’s for ordinary couples. Deida’s philosophy does work well for a sex guru or anyone who is relating from a primary sexual need, as it does have the potential to create powerful sex. It also has deep wisdom for men seeking enlightenment through their work in the world, men with a tantric attitude towards life. The challenge here for men, is that relationships have many needs beyond the sexual, and an obsession with enlightenment tends to preclude it. Deida’s ideas have limitations in dealing with most women, especially the women that we really want (the women who aren’t looking for a “daddy”). I know a lot more happy couples who follow Baranco’s system, than Deida’s system. In fact, I don’t know any happy couples at all who follow Deida’s system. Deida’s system is aspirational, compared to Baranco’s system which is highly practical. And in addition to creating happy relationships, Baranco’s ideas, if they were implemented, will naturally and inevitably transform patriarchy. Full equality of the sexes in politics, business and the law is desirable, but women do not want to be equal in the bedroom. They want to be adored and to receive all the attention. It’s my main critique about Baranco, that he seems to have missed the social/political implications of his philosophy. If men were fully present to women in the home and the bedroom, and listened to them fully within their masculine limitations, it would fundamentally transform politics, business and the law. And not only because women’s viewpoints are valuable (and often dismissed), but for an even more important reason: everyone would be happier. Happy people are naturally more effective, more generous and more loving. The fight for women’s equality is a good fight, but it’s not enough. There needs to also be a fight for more love, freedom and joy in the world. You do this by modeling love wherever you show up and by being joyful, generous and free (as in free from self-judgment). Women are uniquely qualified to model love for all of us; but it is everyone’s job. Once again: I have written a whole book about this, and Deida has written many books (his most famous being The Way of the Superior Man), and John Gray has written many books; so summarizing these ideas in a few paragraphs is not easy. The thing I want to leave you with, is that despite a lot of wisdom, the male writers on sexual polarity (excluding Baranco, who wrote almost nothing) don’t go far enough. Due to the fact that women evolved to be nurturers and care-givers, they are genetically superior to men in that regard (and their social conditioning makes this even more true) – that’s the simple truth that nobody wants to say, and which generates push-back everywhere, even from some feminist women, ironically. And therefore, practically speaking, the wise man will let his feminine partner take the lead and will do whatever she asks of him, especially in relationship; but provided (and this is key) that satisfying her desire is congruent with his own needs, purpose and identity. Where the real power emerges, is in that negotiation. And not just in the sexual sphere, which is Deida’s focus. In every sphere. This is controversial, and I address that controversy – probably not very effectively, because people have so much emotional charge around this that intelligent conversation is often impossible, but I try – in my other article What Women Want: Towards a New Psychology of Love, Sex and Gender Relations. The masculine and feminine evolutionary purposes I will return now to unpacking Ellen’s statement, “I do not sense it is uniquely me you are loving”. There is one more important piece here. Deida’s idea is that if a masculine person disobeys the basic rule of staying true to his purpose, and sacrifices it for his woman, he will likely lose both; because at the end of the day, what makes a man attractive is his commitment to his purpose or his mission, and his ability to “provide,” however you define that (it’s not just about making money, it includes emotional and intellectual gifts, and quality of attention). I take everything that Deida says with a large grain of salt, partly because I don’t like him as a teacher (I find him lacking in compassion and a bit of a misogynist), and partly because I find his ideas too extreme. Any mission or purpose, be it masculine or feminine, must be balanced with the needs of the other when in relationship. And yet I largely agree with Deida here. A masculine person without a mission, is an unhappy person. A

9 min
10/15/2025

I have a dream

Note: this article is part of my memoir, Broke, Single, Crazy and Old. I present it here as an addendum to the What Women Want article, as it goes more deeply into the political theory or ideology that underlies much of my work around sexuality. The basic idea is that the fastest way to end patriarchy — and maybe even the ONLY way — is the reconciliation of men and women, leading to a lot more good sexual loving. Of course, we must first wake up to our essential nature, and understand that Western culture has us all hood-winked (duped) about the nature of our humanity and the cornerstones (or causes) of authentic happiness and real success. My fundamental thesis is that increasing good sexual loving, will not only make us all much happier but will end patriarchy, eventually. To be perfectly frank, I am not certain of the relevance of posting this article here, on a site that is about teaching men and women how to relate more successfully. However, this is a topic that I am extremely passionate about, and so I am posting it anyway hoping that it will bring some insight. My point is that the work of loving your opposite-polarity partner is one of the most important things that you can do to change the world — in addition to making you and your partner much happier. “We cannot have peace in the world so long as men and women are at war with each other” – Dieter Duhm A major theme of this book is the lack of quality information about love and sex, the conspiracy of silence, the guilt and shame surrounding it that block intelligent conversation and real solutions. I am not really a conspiracy theorist, believing that the culture – that is, all of us – act as we do out of ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt to suppress anything, or to maintain the status quo at any cost, the military-industrial complex or whatever. But whatever the causes, the suppression of good information and intelligent conversation through internalized oppression – the shame and guilt that is put upon us for being human, for having human desires and human needs, including sex – is tangible and disastrous to our happiness, fulfillment and well-being. Sex and love are not the only areas of our internalized oppression, far from it. Our culture and the media try to paint a picture of “the good life,” the “American dream,” that only 10% of us (if that) will be able to achieve, leaving the other 90% of us feeling inadequate in some nameless way, blaming ourselves for our failure to be happy or successful. This fantasy-picture of “the good life” was invented and perfected by the advertising industry in America between the wars, in order to get us to buy more stuff. For more information on this topic, you can watch the amazing BBC 4-part series The Century of the Self (free on Vimeo), or read my mentor Mike Jay’s book, @F-L-O-W, Find, Design, Use Talent to Emerge Happiness & Success in a Post-Modern World. So, while I am not a conspiracy theorist, exactly, you can easily discern a secondary function of this media-created fantasy (in addition to getting you to buy more stuff): to distract and pacify you from the callousness with which they kick you through their so-called educational system, bend you to fit into their heartless industrial machine, and then send you off to be butchered and poisoned in crazy, unnecessary wars. The purpose of the fantasy is to hold at bay your natural existential anxiety under the conditions of modern life, so that you play willingly into this inhumane treatment. We are all complicit in this, full partners and guilty as charged, unthinking and unconscious victims; but this does not exonerate you or clear the responsibility that you have for participating in this insanity. The fantasy of the happiness and success available to you by “playing the game,” or buying into the system, is extremely seductive, because it does work for 10% of us, with the remaining 90% aspiring to be like the 10% and then imagining there is something wrong with us that we can’t be as happy and successful as the people in the ads, the movies and the celebrity sound-bites. They say: “you must try harder! You too can be happy and successful! Your problems are all in your head”. And this argument is hard to counter, because it is true, you do have a problem in your head. What most of us fail to understand is that any normal person would have a problem in their head, under the conditions of modern life. “Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.” [R. D. Lang]. Of course you are crazy! You are being kicked through schools, denied human needs, and bent to fit into heartless business and war machines. If you did not feel crazy, this would be deeper proof still of your insanity. This is a terrible problem, but not an unsolvable one. The solution is quite simple, and it is to understand that we have been duped. We have been given false values, and have adopted a lifestyle that does not meet real human needs, as social animals who really seek nothing more than to love and be loved, make some kind of contribution, and reproduce. That is all most of us want, really. And frankly, what more is there to want? Simply learning to love and be loved is enough work for a lifetime, for most people. It’s not that easy. We begin this journey by unlearning everything we have been taught. Then we must shed decades of emotional armor, cry oceans of tears, and learn how to feel and how to love again. Many of us imagine that we can make this change through a new ideology, way of thinking, or social-political structure. We can’t. There is one way forward here, and only one way: the way of the heart, of understanding and forgiveness. And this is really great news, because nobody can stop us from doing this. It is the “irresistible revolution”. So, I have a dream… … and a possible solution to this problem. It is perhaps delusional, but it is the deeper reason for all my writing. I hold this truth to be self-evident: that men and women want some good sexual loving more than they want to be kicked through boring and oppressive schools, or bent to fit into heartless industrial machines, regardless of the promised rewards. And a few of us, especially feminine people, want some good sexual loving more than a big house, a secure retirement fund, or even the most interesting and prestigious job in the world. So here is my dream: Imagine that men and women could learn to speak each other’s language. And from there, the fights at home would stop, for maybe the first time in human history. As Victor Baranco said, “you are either fighting or f*****g”. Let’s imagine a lot more f*****g and a lot less fighting in the bedrooms of the world. If that happened, what impact might it have on the fights in the schools, workplaces, parliaments and even battlefields of the world? Maybe they would stop too, duh? Or at least quiet down a bit? More f*****g in the parliaments and on the battlefields might be too much to hope for, initially, but maybe we could try for a bit more civility, fewer insults and bullets? And from there, once people found what they most deeply want – love – and started putting their resources where their hearts and minds truly are: can you not imagine that the oppressive schools and industrial machines would empty, and the big expensive houses all go up for sale? Who would grieve any of these things, really? We might be poorer, but we would make do. We would have fewer physical comforts, but more time to enjoy the comforts we had. As everybody knows, the best things in life are free: time, freedom, play, creative work, music, peace of mind, and the company of our loved ones. Could this be the next revolution of humanity? Beyond religion, democracy, communism, and “economic progress”? The world’s first true revolution of the heart? Could we be heading toward the kind of world described by Werner Erhard: “We can choose to make the success of all humanity our personal business. We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the world what our lives are really about. Each of us now has the opportunity, the privilege to make a difference in creating a world that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart. It is much more radical than a revolution, it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. You have the power to ‘fire a shot heard around the World’” A world where the greatest aspirations and focus of our efforts would be our “love for the world,” our desire to make a difference to other people and to our loved ones? Could we? I personally believe so. This revolution, of course, has many dimensions and ramifications. But it can begin, as far as I am concerned, with men and women learning to love each other. It’s really quite doable. Furthermore, that act alone may be sufficient to start the ball rolling, dragging everything else in its wake. Men and women were actually made for this; they are perfectly designed to teach each other how to love. The proof, paradoxically, is that they are also perfectly designed to torture each other. They would not be able to torture each other, if they did not care. It is time they accept the great work and get on with it, get on with the job. It’s no longer just for fun and pleasure, it has become a survival need for the planet. One can dream this could happen: that the men and the women of the world would finally understand they are on the same team. Perhaps the great tragic flaws in men’s and women’s psychology[i], the cause of enormous suffering to both sexes over millions of years, has a reason after all. Perhaps God has a plan, and maybe it is not a bad one. Perhaps He wanted some good sexual loving to happen, and the only way He could do this, was to create men and women so that they were

11 min
10/15/2025

What Women Want

Contents PreambleAsbstractRe-Inventing FeminismSexual Polarity according to David DeidaSexual Polarity for WomenSexual Polarity for Men Preamble (July 2019) This article is already 3 years old, having been previously published as a pamphlet. To be quite honest I am afraid of keeping it, as its reception has been very mixed. Some people have found it very interesting and even transformational, others have told me it is too adversarial and even pedantic (ouch). I have also had some heated debates about this with my ultra-feminist sister (who incidentally is quoted in the text as a case-study). So I want to give you a heads-up of what you are getting into here (perhaps you will hate me less for this, LOL). To begin, if you haven’t read (or listened) to my article / podcast Online Dating and the Man/Woman Game: My Story (or else the even shorter I have a dream), I suggest you do this first. These articles are shorter and more personal. The “What Women Want” article below, by contrast, is a more complex article that summarizes my own ideas, my 20 years of research into sexual polarity and man/woman psychology. This research includes more romantic disasters than I care to admit, plus a 9-year marriage with Rebekah Beneteau, who is now my best friend and business partner (so perhaps I have learned a few things along the way). Despite the controversial nature of this article, and some of the “heat” that I have taken personally about it, I stand by my ideas below, and I want to say why. The essence of the conversation that I had with my sister about this, was her idea that by accepting the reality of genetically-based gender differences and engaging in a conversation about it, we justify and defend men’s aggression, sexual and otherwise. And while I understand this, my argument is the opposite. I present it below and also in shorter form in the Online Dating and the Man/Woman Game article. We simply cannot solve this problem of the relations between the sexes, including the associated problem of patriarchy and all the evil that has derived from that and continues to this day, by blaming men and demanding that they change. We have tried that and it hasn’t worked. Feminism has done much good in educating men about women’s emotional and sexual reality under patriarchy, but what many women don’t realize, is that men suffer under patriarchy as much as women do. Patriarchy is essentially a pyramid where the top 10% of men, along with their female allies, benefit. The 90% of men who are NOT at the top, are now suffering not just from patriarchy, but from this cultural meme of men-bashing, and the tyrannical holding of the conversation. This is a very sad situation for everyone, because it precludes what I see as the only real and practical solution, which is emotional healing and reconciliation leading to a lot more good sexual loving. Thus, I am letting this article stand, while fully acknowledging the radical nature of the solution that I am proposing, which is to end patriarchy through more good sexual loving. We need to begin this process, of course, by waking up to our essential nature, to the fact that Western culture has us majorly duped about the nature of our humanity and the cornerstones (or causes) of authentic happiness and real success. My thesis is that for most people, good sexual loving has more impact on happiness than any other single factor. Martin Seligman’s research on Positive Psychology, incidentally, confirms this by naming the three strongest predictors of happiness: “marriage” (or sexual partnership), community, and faith. I expand on this idea in my article I have a Dream: the social-political context of love and sex Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, and that it challenges your ideas of what it takes to relate successfully to the opposite sex. Ultimately that is my goal. I am not interested in mere philosophy or evolutionary biology science. What I want is to see men and women getting along better. Abstract This paper is an attempt to redefine the concepts as “masculine” and “feminine” not as gender roles, but as psychological archetypes that affect all human relationships whether we are aware of them or not. It extends David Deida’s ideas on sexual polarity into the realm of human loving: because if it is true, as per Deida, that people have a preferred sexual polarity; and if it is true, as per Jerry Jud, that “love is a response to need”, then masculine and feminine people have different needs and therefore must be loved differently. Once the fundamental sexual polarity model is explained, the paper goes on to present actionable strategies for men and women to increase love and attraction with their partners. The ideas presented here are eminently practical and have the power to dramatically transform a person’s relationship to the opposite sex. These ideas also have the power to finally fulfill on the promises of feminism, but much faster and more pleasurably for everyone: that women should have the same respect and opportunities that men have; that women should not be subject to male violence; and that women should not be shamed for being sexual beings. The reason these ideas are so powerful is that they carry the potential, for maybe the first time in human history, for men and women to become full partners by truly understanding each other and connecting through their differences. Re-Inventing Feminism Note: this is the part of the article that may occur as overly polemic. If you have already accepted the idea that men and women are different, then you can probably fast-forward to the more actionable sections of this article, which immediately follow this. I think its important however to understand the cultural context of this conversation, so I am keeping this section. The idea of personality or character attributes that are genetically linked to gender provokes all kinds of reactions in people. These reactions range from dismissal and denial (“We are beyond that now” or “young people don’t do that anymore”); to the notion that gender differences are not relevant to modern men and women; or that if they are, that they should not be, that we should try and get over it, and that the ongoing conversation perpetuates these stereotypes and the further victimization of women; to violent opposition. Many people don’t even want to hear about “masculine” and “feminine” traits, they feel that the terms have become meaningless and therefore should be avoided. Others admit that differences exist, but believe that they are entirely the result of social conditioning. Many people don’t want to be identified as either masculine or feminine, they feel these terms to be limiting, like a psychological prison. They want to live their lives beyond gender stereotypes. “Good luck with that,” I say (living your life beyond masculine and feminine, as fundamental human psychological archetypes, as opposed to gender roles). And yet, of course this attitude is understandable given that for many centuries, purported gender differences were used as a tool for the oppression of women. Women were denied full participation in society, and their voices silenced, due to characteristics with which they were identified with at the time: weak, moody, overly emotional, irrational, hysterical, and sexually depraved. Gender stereotypes have led to great evil in the world. Naturally people are reluctant to engage in a conversation that seems, for many, a relic of a bygone time – and thank God for that, really, that at least the more outrageously oppressive aspects of this conversation are no longer happening. At the same time, the belief which denies genetically-based personality or character differences between men and women has many unfortunate results. The first is that it is hardly believable. On any given day there will be more men watching football or playing competitive sports than women, and more women shopping or hanging out with their girlfriends then men. Of course, we cannot exclude the possibility that our cultural conditioning is so deep and pervasive that it predisposes men to enjoy watching football and women to enjoy hanging out with their girlfriends; but I would argue that the average person is aware of gender-based behavior and intuitively feels there is some reality to it that goes beyond social conditioning. But even if it were true that many of our behaviors are culturally conditioned, the differences that are to be found in sexuality, in our sexual desires and relational needs, are even deeper. In fact, the sexual and relational variances are so apparent and so undeniable that commercial empires have been built attempting to teach men and women how to relate through these differences: John Gray and the “Mars and Venus” system, in particular. Quite a few Christian writers have also taken a crack at this (the Farrels among others). Some of this stuff is useful, and some of it might generate murderous thoughts in a feminist mind, or in any mind for that matter. There just does not seem to be any way of thinking and speaking about gender differences that does not provoke violent opposition from some quarter. The easiest solution to this problem, let’s call it the path of least resistance, is simply to deny that anything of the sort exists, and to avoid the conversation altogether. We are fundamentally the same, this voice says. Let’s not rock the boat or upset anybody. We have more important problems to discuss. I respectfully beg to disagree with the idea that the discussion of gender differences should be taken off the table. Because if it is true that we are actually different, and especially in our sexual and relational needs, this is a rather important conversation. Some people will avoid the topic by saying that what men and women have in common is really so much greater than what separates them. This may be so, but this idea mirr

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Headquarters for writings around Marco's book "As Lovers Do" (https://asloversdo.com), and for how I bring these ideas into practice in my own marriage. asloversdo.substack.com

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Marc "Marco" Beneteau
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Relational Erotic Intelligence Podcast