Articles by Author: Chase Amante

We've had some rather heated debates on the discussion boards quite recently - and what better job can a forum do than to stimulate thought-provoking debate? - with one debate in particular centering on a report from one of the readers on a sexual encounter he had with a married woman.

In the report, the reader - The Byronic Man, a younger guy who's fairly new to seduction and still more or less getting his footing down - details an encounter that took place over several days with a late-30s married woman who wanted to sleep with him, but had some reservations. He persisted, slept with her, and she seemed to have gotten what she wanted... though also seemed to have dealt with a bit of inner turmoil.

And here's where things get interesting. Another of our readers, Landlord, in his early 40s and experienced, weighed in to let Byronic know he was out of line, and had crossed a line, sleeping with a married woman - whether she wanted it or not, that was beside the point. This is simply not something you do.

Various commenters weighed in on one side of the debate or the other; some in favor of, a larger number against.

This post, however, is not about the morality or ethics of sleeping with married women. I'll leave that for the boards to decide.

What's more interesting to me than the moral debates themselves (which you can debate forever... if two parties' value systems fail to match up, or their empathy levels are dramatically different, they will argue past each other for 100 years and never sway the other) is a set of questions posed by Landlord, asking for more opinions on "what game means" and "what does it mean to be a man"?

I'd like to veer a little deeper off that topic and talk about what makes the difference between a civilized man... and an uncivilized one.

content="Every friend with benefits relationship goes through 4 distinct stages: fun, relaxed, restless, and decision. Here’s what each entails.">

In Colt's piece on female intrasex competition, several commenters asked about the problem of getting a girl into a casual relationship, and keeping her there. To quote Sam, one of the commenters there:

“Very few of them were ok with a strict lover arrangement. All others wanted more than that and whenever I had the nerve to show or say to them that I was not into more than a lover arrangement I simply lost the girl either because she would cut me off or because I would not further pursue her.”

The problem, of course, is that "friends with benefits" is not an end goal for most women. That is to say, a casual sexual relationship - where you are a lover and nothing more - just ain't enough.

You can maintain casual relationships for varying lengths of time, depending on a number of factors, mainly having to do with the stage in her life a girl is at, and your value relative to hers in the relationship. We'll talk more about both of these below.

But the main gist of this article will focus on the four (4) stages that every friends with benefits relationship must follow:

1. The Fun Stage
2. The Relaxed Stage
3. The Restless Stage
4. The Decision Stage

... and the varying details on each.