The hottest thing a man can make for me
[Note: I identify as a woman who has sex with men, and as a coach work primarily with those who identify as men who have sex with women. This piece is primarily about folks in those categories, though the dynamics apply to all. All are welcome.]
A few years ago I was having a stressful health moment. The guy I was seeing at the time kindly offered to pick me up at the clinic once I was done. By the time I got out it was Friday night, already 7:30PM, and I was hungry. I didn’t have any groceries at home, and registered that I wanted food but felt overwhelmed at figuring out what to do on a weekend night in a busy city.
When he showed up, we hugged. Then he said some pretty magical words:
“I made reservations.”
But wait — it got even better: “Actually I made reservations at two different spots because I wasn’t sure what you’d be in the mood for. I’ll call and cancel the place we don’t pick.”
I swear I wanted to jump him right there.
In my work as a sex and relationship coach for men, I spend a lot amount of time talking about polarity. Polarity is the dance between opposites, and can happen between people of any identified gender. Much of it is simply about someone leading and someone else following.
When we discuss polarity we often use the words “masculine” and “feminine” in terms of the positions. Whoever’s holding the masculine position is holding structure, holding space. Whoever’s in the feminine position is relaxing into their body, into the flow of that structure.
In this case, I was so overjoyed to relax into my feminine and follow his lead that I started to cry (I was also probably relieved about being done with the clinic). It wasn’t just that he’d made reservations at two different spots because he wanted to make sure I liked one; it’s that he made any reservations.
The hottest thing a man can make for me is reservations.
Why? Because it shows that he’s paying attention. He’s planning ahead, taking care of us, and taking the lead. Even if we don’t end up doing whatever it is he has reserved, I already feel taken care of.
I get to follow.
This is just as true in committed relationships as it is in dating. A few months ago I was going on a little trip with the man with whom I’m now in a relationship. We were both doing research on transportation schedules, hotels and Airbnbs in the area, and when we should leave.
Long story short, we decided we should leave a day sooner than planned. I’d found a promising Airbnb and sent it to him a few days prior. Now it was getting close to when we’d need to leave, so we probably needed to reserve the place or it would get snapped up.
But on that particular day, I was really busy. I had client sessions, podcast recordings, and writing deadlines, plus a friend was having an emergency that I was text-supporting her through. I only had so much time to get everything done, and somewhere in there I needed to feed myself.
So you can imagine how I felt when I picked up my phone to a text from my man:
“I booked the place.”
Relief flooded through me. I’d been tracking that this was something that needed to be taken care of, but other things had taken precedence. It was incredibly hot to me that he took the lead and just made the reservation.
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I think a lot of men don’t make reservations — which is really just a proxy for leading — because they’re afraid of getting it wrong. What if she doesn’t like the restaurant? What if the Airbnb ends up sucking? What if I bring up something and it ends up being a difficult conversation? It’ll be my fault.
I understand this. It’s vulnerable to lead. It’s scary to contemplate doing the wrong thing and then being shamed for that.
And make no mistake: Some men have actually been humiliated for this. They’ve shared with me how they were punished, denigrated, or put down for attempting to lead in a relationship. This didn’t just happen during dating, either; it was frequent in marriages. Their women partners repeatedly rejected their suggestions; made fun of them for daring to assume they’d know better than her; or were told they did it wrong when trying to please her in some way.
If I’m being very honest, I’ve been guilty of this to a certain degree in my past. When men have led and “done it wrong” (in my eyes), I’ve been disappointed and let that disappointment show.
But the fact is, that minor disappointment pales in comparison to the major pain of a man not leading at all. I definitely don’t want to discourage a man from taking the lead and am sensitive to any way in which I might do that now.
Because here’s the thing: When a man doesn’t lead, I feel like I have to. When he doesn’t step up, I feel like I have to. I’ve been in plenty of situations where I’ve looked up the restaurant, found the Airbnb, made the decision, or — arguably most importantly — brought up the hard conversation that needed to be had … because I knew he wasn’t going to do it.
Over time, this kills polarity. When I’m constantly leading, I’m not relaxed in my feminine. When I’m constantly leading, my body becomes more rigid. Tight. Instead of the lit up, radiant version of myself, I’m contracted and, frankly, kinda angry.
A pattern I often see in the men I work with is that they never learned how to lead. They didn’t grow up with a healthy masculine role model, so they don’t even know what it looks like.
Sometimes they were in emotionally chaotic homes where the best strategy was to keep their head down and not attract any attention. Sometimes they were in homes where one or both parents were just … absent. Maybe they were there physically, but there was no emotional connection or expressive love.
And many of these men ended up in marriages where they were pretty passive, their woman partner was in her masculine a lot, and there wasn’t a lot of closeness, intimacy, or connected sex.
Fortunately it doesn’t matter whether you got that training in the past. I’ve seen man after man learn how to step into his power and lead in an authentic way. Not in a dominating or domineering way, but in a healthy, attuned way.
If you want your woman to feel relaxed and at ease, able to fully let go and melt both sexually and emotionally, much of it originates with you. Are you leading? Do you know how to do that? Have you worked through the traumas of your past to be able to feel comfortable doing so?
It can take work to get there, but trust me: It’s well worth it.
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I teach men how to transform their love lives by leading in a way that feels good to them and their partners. I coach alongside my colleague Jason Lange, and if you’re curious about working with us, take our free training. We work with both single men as well as those in partnership.
I also host the popular podcast Dear Men: How to Rock Sex, Dating, and Relationships With Women. If you liked this and want to hear even more about leading, I strongly recommend episode 105: “When men do this, we get wet!”
Finally, if you’re a man who has sex with women looking for a practical guide on sex *from a woman’s perspective*, I offer a streaming course: Please Her In Bed. It is based on my sex research on 1,067 women who have sex with men, and covers not only physicality but how to talk about sex with a woman in a way that opens her up and has her trust you.
