Understanding and Disarming “Last Minute Resistance”
Women generally want to be able to trust the guys they sleep with.
For women, trust is an important part of a sexual relationship, for good evolutionary and social reasons — like the fact that men are typically bigger and stronger (and might harm them) and men have the ability to do post-coital harm to a woman’s reputation (”she was really bad in bed” or “What a slut, she was so loose it was like throwing a hotdog in a hallway”).
Trust in sex is important to guys for similar reasons — the female analogs of the above concerns might be rape charges and slander about a guy’s sexual prowess — but generally guys can feel secure in knowing they will be in charge of a sexual encounter, which just comes down to their body structure and evolutionary role: men are sexually dominant and aggressive, women are sexually subordinate and receptive.
With that little review in mind, let’s dig in to the meat of a common phenomenon that crops up at the start of many sexual relationships: female Last-Minute Resistance (LMR).
What is LMR? And the Reasons Behind It
Last-Minute Resistance is a woman’s way of slowing down the escalation of a physical interaction, just as shit tests are a woman’s way of slowing down the escalation of an emotional/social interaction.
Generally, the quicker the relationship start, the stronger a guarantee there will be LMR — and the more LMR there will be. The ultimate “quickstart” relationship, the one night stand, where a guy brings a girl home from a bar or club in a matter of hours, typically features plenty of LMR (although sometimes extreme drunkenness disarms it, in which case you’re likely to meet another foe the next morning, buyer’s remorse.)
The amount of LMR you encounter (and very likelihood of encountering it) is moderated by a few obvious factors:
- The amount of time you’ve spent with a girl (under 7 hours and it’s almost guaranteed)
- How much the girl trusts you and feels comfortable with you (which is both explicit and implicitly communicated by you: some guys give off a “trustworthy” vibe, others a “dangerous” one)
- The perceived likelihood that word of her sex with you will get back to her (female) social circle
And a few non-obvious factors as well:
- The woman’s previous experience and comfort with quick-start relationships (i.e. has she had a lot of one night stands already)
- The girl’s self-confidence and self-imagewith regards to sex; she may already have happily accepted the “slut” label
- The presence (or absence) of any substance or circumstance that the woman could spin a backwards-rationalization around (alcohol, being on drugs, being trapped at your house in a snowstorm, etc)
There are really two factors that have laid the groundwork for the existence of strong last-minute resistance.
- The woman’s abdication of responsibility for sex. Because of the “anti-slut” programming in modern feminized societies, sex is NOT to be initiated by a woman; the Code of Femininity says so. So, you must take responsibility for every escalation — assigning responsibility for any part of a sexual interaction to a woman will freak her out and make her run away. It always has to be “Not my fault” when sex happens. LMR is simply a way girls have of covering their asses, “token resistance” designed to make sure their abdication of responsibility is total: “I tried to stop him, I kept telling him I had to go home…”
- The woman’s desire for permanence. Women are the ultimately impermanent gender. That may sound a little weird, but all it means is that women want SOME guarantee that they guy they are about to sleep with isn’t going to “pump-and-dump” them. Now, of course some women WANT one-night-stands; and if you find yourself in bed with one, you should count yourself lucky; but the majority of women view sex as something that, if it’s worth having it one time with a guy, it’s worth having more than once (unless he’s really, really bad). Women also use sexual relationships to establish a basis for an emotional relationship and social rapport; so they’re looking to get those things out of you as part of the bargain of opening their legs, too.
Again, let me be clear: none of this is to assign any moral value to any of these female behaviors. It’s just how they function.
Typical LMR Behaviors
Here’s a short list of the MOST TYPICAL Last-Minute-Behaviors I have seen in my travels:
- Saying, “I have to go home soon,”
- Saying “I shouldn’t…” or “We shouldn’t….” or “Stop that….”
- Asking “What are you doing….”
- Saying “It’s too soon….” or any variation thereof
- Saying “I’m not going to have sex with you tonight,”
- Physically turning away from kisses or caresses
- Putting her hands on your hands as you touch her body, physically restraining you from going farther
- Abruptly getting up and walking around rather than cuddling with you (often to “go to the bathroom”)
What differentiates these behaviors from an ordinary woman saying “No,” or whatnot if you went up and started groping her on the street is the different context: these LMR behaviors are deployed at a late stage in the game, when she is cuddling/kissing in bed with you, or on the couch, and the lights are dimmed, candles are lit, romantic music is playing, you both have bellies full of a gourmet dinner than *you* cooked, etc.
In other words, when a woman has allowed herself to be drawn into the appropriate “sex” context — allowed herself to be seduced — and is now trying to put the brakes on things, as if she didn’t know exactly where it was all leading, from the very first moment you opened your mouth to tease her.
But of course she has to deny all knowledge of the inevitable conclusion of the seduction, otherwise she would be responsible in some way for sex.
EXASPERATING NOTE: Some women will give LMR up until the bitter end, when you’re both naked in bed. Some women have such cognitive dissonance that they will actually get naked in bed with you, and kiss and cuddle with you, and still expect that sex won’t happen, and deploy LMR accordingly.
What a piece of work is woman, huh? Thankfully, these girls are few and far between.
Calibrating LMR Severity and Disarming It
In the list above, I ordered the LMR behaviors more or less in order of severity. Anything a girl says isn’t as important as anything a girl does; and what she does is not to be taken very seriously unless she is actually physically disengaging from the interaction (i.e. if she gets up and walks away, or “to go to the bathroom”).
That is an advanced-stage LMR that lots of people call a “mini-freeze-out” or a “sexual freeze-out”. By turning, moving or disengaging her body, she is sending the clear message that she is serious about not giving in to arousal.
In a way, these advanced-stage freeze-outs are a good thing — they let you know that she is having to deploy her biggest guns because you have aroused her so much. A woman who is not very aroused will typically just sit there sucking up the attention and good feelings — but if you are doing your work so well that she is aroused to the point of being in danger of actually fucking you, she’s more likely to go to greater lengths to stop herself from giving in.
The concept of a freeze-out is also very important to understand, because it happens to be a guy’s #1 tool in handling and disarming LMR.
The temptation, when faced with LMR (and the route that most guys unfortunately go), is to respond to whatever she does or says logically, and try to directly contradict her in order to convince her that she’s wrong.
For instance, if a girl says, “I have to go home soon,” the guy might say, “No you don’t. It’s only 10pm.”
See how logical this is? It’s only natural: guys, being logical, tend to deploy logic in order to convince others. Of course this doesn’t work with women — in fact, it has the opposite of the intended effect.
Trying to convince a girl logically out of her LMR is basically setting up a “You vs. Me” frame. As the guy, by trying to logically convince her to stay, you are setting yourself up as chasing her sex, and that’s needy and highly unattractive. Also, women hate being contradicted, and contradicting her in this situation just demonstrates that you don’t understand women and their need to abdicate sexual responsibility. And why would she want to sleep with a guy who doesn’t understand? He’s likely to try to make her take responsibility for her actions later.
In this way, LMR is a bit like a shit-test, inasmuch as if you respond to it in the most natural, honest way, you will kill her attraction and she won’t sleep with you.
And that’s where most guys go wrong (not just with regards to LMR, but to everything a woman says) — by taking women at their word, at face value, seriously, and responding in kind, with logic and rationality.
BAD! BAD logic! You must re-program yourself to be illogical when you are around girls, especially in bed with them.
There are two basic steps to anti-LMR tactics:
- Agree with whatever she’s saying, and keep doing what you’re doing
- If #1 doesn’t work, freeze her out.
So when a girl says “We shouldn’t be doing this,”, just say “You’re right” and keep doing what you’re doing.
Or if she says “Stop,” say “Okay, I’m stopping” and keep right on doing what you’re doing (maybe slow down the pace a tiny bit, but then speed it back up again a little later).
Or if she says “I should be getting home soon,” say “Yes, you really should be”, etc.
This has the effect of disengaging her logical mind, because on the logical layer, she’s hearing you agree with her — and obviously if you two are in agreement, there should be no problem, no contradiction to fight, no opportunities to push back and prove you wrong.
At the same time, on an emotional level, you are doing exactly what she wants — it feels good, and you are continuing as though you can read her emotional mind (which wants sex).
So while her logical mind is occupied with your agreements, her emotional mind is just sliding along enjoying the sensations, while her arousal is building.
Now. Some women have the built-in defense to the point that they eventually WILL hit an arousal point where they physically disengage, a final crowning attempt to fully abdicate responsibility.
If a girl pulls away from you, don’t chase her — pull away in the opposite direction, and harder. If she says something like “We shouldn’t be doing this,” and moves away, agree with her immediately, but in a light-hearted tone: “You’re right,”. Get up, turn on the lights, blow out the candles, go and start making yourself a sandwich (or watching TV, or playing video games, or whatever you’d normally do if she wasn’t there).
This is a way of taking her OUT of the emotional, relaxed, sensual happy pre-sex state she was in. The goal is to make that break out of state as sharp as possible. What that tells her is that if she’s not going to cooperate, she’s not getting anything, not even the enjoyment of gentle caresses and devoted kisses for the hours it takes her to finally get her ass up and leave.
This will flip a switch in her brain: “WTF? He was arousing me, everything was going so good, and now he’s stopped?? I thought he wanted to fuck me….doesn’t he want to fuck me?”
Part of what you’re deploying to counter her LMR is something called “outcome independence” (see The Zen of Not Caring). It’s enough to say that you’re throwing into question her assumption that you actually want to fuck her, and that is usually to pique her curiosity to stick around and see what you will do next.
The key is, as soon as you start getting hardcore end-stage Big Gun LMR, you immediately start viewing her as a nonsexual “buddy”, rather than a potential mate — at least until she starts behaving again. Go dick around on the computer, start watching goofy videos (she can join if she wants) or the Discovery Channel.
She will feel the lack of sexual interest, and it will feel like a loss of rapport to her. It is an invalidation of her value as a sexual woman — and frequently, that will be so hard for a woman to bear that she’ll practically jump on your dick to re-validate herself.
Those are the basics of disarming and handling last-minute resistance. If it’s light resistance, agree with her logically while progressing sexually. If it gets heavier, freeze her out entirely until she makes some sort of overture — and then re-initiate. Work back to where you left off, because odds are you’ll get farther this time.
This can be a laborious process. I’ve heard of guys using these tactics to plow through 4+ hours of heavy LMR. That seems a bit excessive to me, but I can’t say that if the girl was worth it I wouldn’t do the same.
What NOT to Do and Anti-LMR Recap
Oftentimes, just getting rid of some typical “guy” bad habits is enough to get you much closer to the endgame.
When a girl shows the least signs of resistance, DON’T do the following:
- Get pouty
- React emotionally / act disappointed, in word or in expression
- React with any surprise / react AT ALL
- Employ logic or words to “convince” her of anything
Instead, DO:
- Smoothly agree with whatever she says and keep pushing.
- If she starts acting up harder, physically restraining or pulling away / dodging kisses, get up, turn on the lights, destroy the “romantic” mood altogether, and more or less ignore her until she takes some steps back towards you.
- At which point, re-engage, tease her, carry her back to bed, re-start the process.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
This is hardcore push-and-pull. Notice how similar it is to the back-and-forth that goes on between little kids on the playground? The guy does something for the girl (gives her his favorite red dump truck or whatever), the girl pretends she doesn’t like it and snubs him, the guy runs off, the girl chases him a little ways, he turns around and re-engages, she retreats, he backturns, she follows again….
This dynamic has also been called (brilliantly) “Fucking With Magnets“. It’s a dynamic that runs all through modern male-female interaction, sexual and nonsexual, so get used to it.
If you run into any trouble with the above tactics, don’t hesitate to drop me an email:.thirtyplus (at) realitymethod (dot) com.
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February 13th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Um, Thirtyplus, I know you don’t like “mouthing off” on your blog, however, I would like to remind you that you are writing on the internet, and in a context that allows comments. I shall comment.
I think it is important that something with as strong a message as this post has have a counterargument, or at least a note of dissent next to it.
I think you’re on highly questionable moral ground. I think you are righting off a woman saying “no” as a thing to be ignored, or at least to be something she does not mean. I think you advocate violation in some parts of this post.
“Or if she says “Stop,” say “Okay, I’m stopping” and keep right on doing what you’re doing”
It is exactly that behaviour which crosses an important line for someone that has said “stop”. That, to me, is a piece of advice to violate.
“If she starts acting up harder, physically restraining or pulling away / dodging kisses, get up, turn on the lights, destroy the “romantic” mood altogether, and more or less ignore her until she takes some steps back towards you.”
Okay, so here we’re a stage better. She is resisting, and quite strongly, and at least you’ve reacted. But, you’re still not honouring her right to say no thoroughly. Your goal is still sex. You have not listened.
I know it can be frustrating when you are led into a scenario where you anticipate sex. I understand this, but being able to opt out, right up until the last minute should be considered a person’s right. I am not attacking every tiny little part of your post. I agree, for instance, that our society does make it difficult for some women to accept themselves as sexually confident/forward. A pressure to be “feminine” does make one feel that chastity is more highly regarded than “wanting it”. I think that society would benefit from breaking free of these prescriptive ideas of gender in order to make women feel more at ease when they do want sex, and empowered to say “no” with conviction, whenever they feel like it.
You have trivialised any instance where a woman has second thoughts about sleeping with a man as her need to abdicate responsibility. This simply is not the case. A person can have second thoughts or change their mind at ANY STAGE of a process of seduction. That can be frustrating, but it is important to respect the wishes of others. If you think I am misreading you, please explain how.
Also, you claim that women are illogical. I think this is a sexist claim. And an inaccurate one. (I scored 99% in a logic exam at university). You are right, that pulling back from a sexual encounter cannot be overcome with logic. That is because sex is not a logical process. You are right that it would anger a woman (well, I can only speak for myself on this one) if it was put forward in a logical argument why I should sleep with a man. Because my decision would not take place on a logical plane. Sex is about the physical and the emotional, not the logical.
“In a way, these advanced-stage freeze-outs are a good thing — they let you know that she is having to deploy her biggest guns because you have aroused her so much. A woman who is not very aroused will typically just sit there sucking up the attention and good feelings — but if you are doing your work so well that she is aroused to the point of being in danger of actually fucking you, she’s more likely to go to greater lengths to stop herself from giving in.”
Here you say that if a woman ever pulls away it is because she actually really wants it. Then how on earth does rape exist? Are you actually going to claim that a woman has never genuinely freaked out and wanted to stop? And that rape does not occur when a man ignores this? Does it have to get to kicking and screaming before you take her words seriously?
I know a lot of people play games when it comes to seduction, that this may have spurned your claim that it is a mistake to take a woman’s words at face value. But seriously, as someone that does not play those games, who knows many women who don’t, who wants to be taken seriously if I decide against sleeping with a man, I believe that your post discourages respect.
I could go on, but I shall end by saying that this post advocates exactly the attitude that leads to violation. I know this was not your intent, but you need to be far more careful when writing advise for others to read. And I shall add that a lot of women may have experienced difficult sexual experiences (statistics vary, and are usually untrustworthy, but there is a horribly high proportion of the women I know who have experienced sexual assault, and they are just the ones who I know about) and this is a) a serious problem that needs tackling, and one which the advise in this post is definitely not helping, and b) a reason why someone may pull back during a sexual experience, and this should not be overlooked when trying to get laid.
I welcome a counterargument, I cannot see one.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Well Euny, I certainly do welcome dissent and am more than happy to address your points….
They key distinction I make in this post — which I know you read, even though you don’t refer to it explicitly — is that these LMR behaviors are in a different category than a woman shouting “NO!” on the street or at a party where date rape is imminent. The behaviors I talk about and strategize against are contextualized by different environments — seductive environments.
What’s at issue here is not “being frustrated because…you expected sex”. That is a mis characterization of my position. What’s at issue is a woman AGREEING 100% to a seductive context and environment that PRE-SUPPOSES SEX EVENTUALLY HAPPENING…and then puts the brakes on at the last minute.
Notice that nowhere do I say how “BAD” women are for this braking-behavior. Nowhere do I say it is morally wrong or I wish it didn’t exist or I hope to eradicate it and turn all women into my willing little cum sluts. The strongest comment I made was that it can be extremely dissonant at times; and to the contrary, I feel seduction and the give-and-take of relationships would be boring without the “Fucking with Magnets” principle that underlies LMR.
>>being able to opt out, right up until the last minute should be considered a person’s >>right.
Wait a minute. What is the “last minute”? Who sets that definition and how can we agree on it? Is the last minute the last 60 seconds before penetration? Is it within the first 5 strokes of intercourse? What if a woman then decides to say NO mid-stroke? There are some feminists who argue that a woman should be able to KILL a man if he finishes that stroke, because he is “violating her bodily domain” and “raping her”. That is just a logical extension of what you are arguing here. Do you really want to go that far? If not, how do you reconcile your position with the positions other feminists who would take it farther?
>I think that society would benefit from breaking free of these prescriptive ideas of >gender in order to make women feel……empowered to say “no” with conviction, >whenever they feel like it.
You are on a slippery slope that descends into a meaningless madness of categorizations. Women are always talking about how men fear commitment: there is something about your comments, and the comments of many other women, that bespeaks an enormous fear of commitment, not to relationships, but to sex. Why is it that feminism pushes an agenda of UNLIMITED and UNRESTRICTED RESERVATION OF THE RIGHT TO CHANGE ONE’S MIND AT ANY TIME with regards to SEX?
If men did they same thing, they would be roundly denounced as having “commitment-phobia”. What if a man could annul his marriage at any instant simply because he “didn’t feel right”, and throw his wife out on her ass immediately, with no legal process, financial repercussions, etc? Would not marriage lose its power and meaning?
How then is the sex decision different?
>A person can have second thoughts or change their mind at ANY STAGE of a process of >seduction.
Then they need to be taught to be clear about it, for instance saying: “I’m sorry. I’m having second thoughts about this seduction. About you and me. I think I want to leave now. In fact I don’t think I want sex at all, and I’m going to leave for tonight.”
That is entirely within a woman’s power to say, is it not? And an unequivocal message that I think most men would respond to with respect.
But the women I’m describing in the above article don’t SAY that. No, instead I am only dealing what they say is designed to dissemble and distance themselves from the process of what is going on. It is TOKEN RESISTANCE — not REAL resistance. I would never advise a man to try to plow through REAL resistance.
Women can, do, and HAVE gotten up and walked out on me in the process of seduction. That is perfectly natural and right. I do not get angry at them. I assign no blame to anyone. I do not moralize about it. My advice in this post is not on how to chase women down, bash them over the head, drag them back to your flat and rape them. My advice is how to move forward consistently with the women who STAY.
Notice that nowhere, not once in my article, did I include as an “LMR” behavior the strong, unequivocal, loud vocalized “NO!” that is taught in anti-rape classes. And that is me being generous — I have been with plenty of women (and many other men have been too) who actually communicated to us that the very process of having their “NO!” overwhelmed was critical to their sexual arousal.)
Say what you want about the mental states of these women, but you cannot impinge the clarity with which they communicate their sexual needs.
>Also, you claim that women are illogical. I think this is a sexist claim. And an inaccurate >one. (I scored 99% in a logic exam at university).
>Because my decision would not take place on a logical plane. Sex is about the physical >and the emotional, not the logical.
So you claim that women are logical, and then you claim that you as a woman do not use logic to make sexual decisions. We do not disagree here. Notice I never claimed that women are illogical categorically. The article is about sexual behaviors; ergo, it is about the lack of logic in women (and men’s) sexual decision-making.
Your argument, if taken to its logical conclusion, would result in a world where sex is a privilege given up only at the ultimate discretion of the female, and any and all males would be grateful to lap up whatever morsels were dispensed from their magnanimous female masters.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this sort of a world — as long as you don’t mind that it kills sexual masculinity absolutely 100% dead.
I know women don’t want this world because *they have told me*. And other men have told me that other women have told them that if a guy isn’t “dominant” in bed, she doesn’t want anything to do with him. If a guy gives up at the first sign of resistance, that is distinctly un-sexy and automatically filters him out.
Let’s just be clear: male sexual dominance is natural. So is female sexual selectiveness. Women are the choosers, and letting a guy lead you into a seductive environment where sex is very likely to happen is a *choice*. And do not hide behind the claim that you “did not recognize” the seductive environment — If you lack knowledge of the seductive environment you were either raised by wolves or a virgin (and most virgins have a pretty good idea of what leads up to sex, too, so that’s not even a solid excuse).
>I know a lot of people play games when it comes to seduction, that this may have >spurned your claim that it is a mistake to take a woman’s words at face value. But >seriously, as someone that does not play those games, who knows many women who >don’t,
*Everyone* plays games in seduction. Seduction itself is a game. The game is managing to hook up and have good relations while avoiding getting hurt or rejected or taken advantage of. Naturally we can’t always win; mistakes are part of playing. It takes skill and knowledge, which is why this site exists.
But you cannot play a game with rules that are constantly changing.