How Many Women Does a Man Have to Bed To Be Considered a Real Man?

The question seems to be one many men look to answer thinking quantity matters most. Stumbling upon an interview on another blog, Joffre the Giant, the poet Remy Williams gives another answer. He writes:

We have bought into certain lies that’s are flimsy as our pick-up lines. One of the most absurd is thinking that the more women you sleep with means more sexual skills, that more women equals more experience. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consider the  man who declares his love of cities, all cities and talks about his vast knowledge of cities. He spends the night in a different city one day after the next. He gets off the bus, buys a t-shirt, notches his belt and hops back on the bus. He is suppose to be a grand lover of cities? Rather his is the most worthless of tourists, he’s the doofus in the fannypack mugging in front of every giftshop across the nation. He knows nothing of the city, does not love any city at all, but rather he loves to see his greasy unshaven mug in different settings each  night. The man that says he knows New York City because he was once laid-over there one rainy insignificant night is a great fool. 

So too the lothario, who beds women with tricks and well worn moves. He’s never had to please a woman night after night. He can only pick up women at the watering hole looking to be watered, the lowhanging fruit. A real man knows how to please the woman who’s dealt with screaming kids all day, who went through the day with peanutbutter in her hair, wearing sweatpants and grannypanties because the laundry is stacked to highheaven. A real man can’t rely on a couple of cheap sex tricks to please a woman, running the same two plays on an unsuspecting defense, a real man has to play the same team night after night and the things that worked last night aren’t good enough for today. Real men bed the same woman every night keeping it new and fresh and exciting. Lotharios, in the extremity of their lameness, have so little game they have to move from woman to woman with their smoke, mirrors and hand dancing.

 I like his answer, but is definitely written from a male perspective. Underlying the answer is the assumption that men are men by the sexual conquest even of the one woman with whom he lives.  Here men are men still by being able to have sex with women. Maybe men are real men by realizing that sex is not what defines their existence. I realize that the author of the post was writing specifically about sex, but I think there needs to be more than that. For instance, maybe a real man is the man who realizes that his wife really would rather not have sex at all and he can let it go because his identity is not wrapped up in whether he or not he gets some. His wife is not just there to gratify him. A real man knows that.