Lying For Sex

Getting laid is so critical to a man’s well-being that if he needs to lie to get it I’m not morally scandalized. I liken it to the unemployed man who has to steal bread in order to feed his starving family. The sexless man would be negligent not to avail himself of the shadier moral choices to cure his condition.

If lies are necessary to avoid the walking death of celibacy then it is worth the soulpence it may cost in whatever personal code of integrity a man follows. A lie to bed a woman does her little harm. After all, what exactly has changed… what actual harm has been done to her… if the next morning she finds out he works at Taco Bell instead of Goldman Sachs? The sex will still have felt as good because a discovered lie cannot undo the past. Unless she has made important life decisions with him on the first night together the lie will not have any influence on her future. At best, she can say that had she known the truth she would have enjoyed one more night of sleeping alone.

The reason men lie for sex is because it is an option that is available to them. It’s a courtship tactic that exists because women look for non-obvious signals of attractiveness in men. Lying takes advantage of a woman’s base motives — her lust for powerful men, conspicuous displays of resources and confidence, and the feeling of being seduced — by feeding her what she wants to hear. Women lie as well when they wear makeup and act coquettish but that is not of the same order of magnitude as the lies men have at their disposal to beguile women into sex. Men pretty much know with a quick glance whether they want to bang a girl so girls don’t have much room to lie their way onto a man’s erection. Therefore, it is easier for girls to assume the moral high ground because their virtue is born of necessity. They’d lie like men if easy sex were on their agenda or it helped them as much to get what they want in a partner.

If a loser has trouble getting laid the normal way I see no reason why he should handicap himself by adopting a posture of perfect moral rectitude and telling the truth when it will obviously hurt his cause. The reward for such good behavior — many nights alone with his hand — hardly compensates for the sex he could have gotten through amoral means. Lying can be an attainable way for a beta to get a few early notches under his belt and purify himself of the stink of desperation.

Take the following two scenarios illustrating why lying for sex is not always the black-or-white moral decision many women want men to believe.

1. She asks if he’s a virgin. (Odd question to ask, but let’s assume something about him gave her cause for concern.) He’s a 30 year old man and is, in fact, a virgin. If he answers “yes” he has seriously impacted his chance to get laid. If he lies, he keeps his goal in sight and she loses nothing.
2. He has terminal cancer and will die in one year. He has been dating a girl for two months and it is going well. Both of them feel the first stirrings of love. She doesn’t know of his disease. He wants to spend his remaining time on earth in the arms of a woman who loves him. If he tells her the truth she may leave him or withdraw her love so as to avoid wasting a year of her life on a man who won’t be around to support her and the family she eventually wants. If he lies he has, in effect, stolen a year of her prime dating marketability, though he has given her a year of love she was not guaranteed to get without him.

While I have no abstract moral hang-up about lying I don’t recommend it as a seduction tool for three reasons.

• It’s weak game

Lying is the cut & paste, band-aid version of game. It’s quick and dirty and often effective, but won’t last. It has no roots, no foundation. It’s better to spend the effort to learn good solid game that will be there for you in any situation than to use the crutch of weak game where you have to waste energy keeping track of all your lies. You will feel a greater sense of accomplishment winning over a woman without resorting to outright lies and this will redound to your self-confidence.

• It complicates the pursuit of long term relationships

Lies work well for one night stands and even short term flings if the guy doesn’t contradict himself. But long term relationships — the ones where you go shopping for a condo together or she visits you at the office to drop off your lunch — will crumble under an edifice of lies. If you work at Taco Bell she’ll find out eventually. False advertising moves product only up until the first recall. So if you are looking for lasting love it pays to resist the temptation to lie away perceived flaws.

• Lying is self-reinforcing

The big problem with lying is that once you start, you can’t stop. One lie requires two more to sustain, and two lies requires four. You will soon find yourself mired in a fantasy world of talented Mr. Ripley proportions (which isn’t so bad if you have his skills of deception) that will kill any chance at a healthy relationship unless the girl is a complete masochist for your lying bad ass. (Those girls do exist.) Plus, lying encourages reliance on other bad habits to seduce a woman. If you lie to attract a woman then other parts of your game are likely to be equally sloppy.

Moral of this post: Don’t lie. Evade.