Editor’s Note: The context of this article applies primarily to cisgender, heterosexual men and women. However, some of the concepts explored do transcend stereotypical gender roles.

What do men really want? Women think they know. If their stereotype is to be believed, men want sex — now. Later tonight will do, of course. Worse case scenario, tomorrow. Psychologists assure us, however, that this narrative on male sexuality isn’t entirely true. What men want in women and from women is getting more complex over time. Essentially, men and their motives are evolving.

Rebecca Plante, a sociologist from Ithaca College who led part of a tremendous national study on the hook-up culture involving over 14,000 college students, says it’s a massive oversimplification to think that what a man wants is “as plain as the erection in his pants.”

Plante noted that, while some men do conflate sex and desire, many others — even in the early stages of a casual relationship — at least start off wanting someone they know and trust on a deeper level. What such men lack is the emotional wherewithal to adequately express themselves.

“We haven’t done a good job,” says Plante, “giving men an emotional language, culturally speaking, to say ‘hooking up doesn’t work for me,’ to say, ‘I actually like to know my partner. I like to be in a relationship with her. I like to be connected to her. That’s what turns me on.'”

Younger women who came of age in the hook-up culture have a hard time believing such statements. They claim that men say they care about integrity, intelligence and independence in a woman, that they want women they can bond with on a deeper level — on paper. But what seemingly matters more is how events typically unfold when they’re face to face with those qualities in the flesh, vis-à-vis being two feet away from surgically enhanced breasts in a push-up bra and fragrant, flowy hair extensions. The involuntary effects of testosterone in combination with the dopamine driving male sexual function and libido do not, generally, filter into such discussions.

To understand what women really want, some would say, is to describe Jesus; no mere mortal could live up to their expectations. Albert Einstein was flummoxed for a proper explanation. As was the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

“The great question that has never been answered,” declared Freud, “and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is: ‘What does a woman want?’”

Modern-day relationship expert, the illustrious John Gottman of the Gottman Institute, a psychological researcher and clinician who has conducted 40 years of breakthrough research with thousands of couples, confided that he took ten years to write a book on his own in this regard, yet repeatedly failed at it. Gottman said that it wasn’t until he joined forces with wife, Julie, and Doug and Rachel Abrams, a gifted writer and a medical doctor specializing in women’s medicine, respectively, that he believes the perennial question — What do women really want? — can now be answered simply and clearly.

They attempt to clue in the rest of us in their magnum opus, The Man’s Guide to Women. About their findings, Gottman writes:
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“Here’s the big, untold story. From the beginning of a relationship, from the very first smolderingly hot glance and the stirring attraction that the right woman will generate in a man, how a man understands a woman’s emotions and responds to them will determine everything in the rest of his life. That’s the bottom line.

How a man understands and responds to a woman will determine his eventual wealth, his social status, his energy and motivation for life, his resilience, his mental and physical health, how well his immune system works, how well he copes with stress, his happiness at home and at work, his self-confidence, his friendships, his connection to his children, how his children turn out, and actually how long he will live.

No other single thing in a man’s life will be as important as how he understands and responds to a woman’s emotions.

“How a man understands a woman’s emotions and responds to them” — That clause is so crucial, Gottman repeats himself three times in quick succession. Gottman clearly believes he has found the “Holy Grail” to unlock the mystery that has puzzled men for centuries. I maintain, however, that his findings could actually be the key to bridging the gender divide for men and women. Men are inculcated not to show their emotions, not to cry, but to tough it out “like a man.” However, these mere mortals are not without them.

Perhaps, not being allowed to show emotions is part of the burden of being male. In male-dominated institutions like the army, this status quo works in favor of building men “army tough.” However, a lack of visible emotion —stonewalling, as Gottman has termed it — is not a quality women appreciate or grasp fully in the throes of the “Crazy Cycle.” This relates to that endless Catch-22 loop in which men typically withhold love when they feel disrespected, and women typically disrespect men when they do not feel loved. You see how that works. But more importantly, this Crazy Cycle is playing out in relationships everywhere, like Groundhog Day.

In the beginning of a relationship, almost every flaw, every red flag, every misstep is seen through the rose-colored spectacles of oxytocin in women, which drives them to bond, and the testosterone/dopamine driver in men that demands coitus. However, for us to cohabit peacefully, attract the partners we want, and manifest loving, supportive interactions that extend to our homes, here’s what we are all going to have to figure out:

What do people want? Every man. Every woman. Every child.

After 35,000 interviews in her career — presidents included — Oprah Winfrey professes that, in every exchange, every human interaction, there’s really only one common denominator in our human experience: We want to be validated; we want to be understood.

In every encounter, Oprah declared in her 2013 commencement speech to Harvard graduates, what people want to know is: Did I do okay? Did you hear me? Do you see me? Did what I said mean anything to you?

This resonated with me in a very profound way recently in an elucidating encounter with a loved one, and I was reminded how important these truths are in our intimate relationships. And I don’t just mean with lovers, but with family and our children. It is not only earnest toddlers who shout out from the playground sandbox, “Did you see what I did, Daddy?” The grown ones, despite their seeming maturity and independence, still tacitly seek parental approval.

I was reminded, yet again, how, in the busyness of life, in the pursuit of our own happiness and dreams, we can miss the cues seeking that validation, that support, that approval — and even more so if we don’t understand the language in which our beloveds “hear” love.

You may well be trying to communicate with a loved one in your “love language.” And therein lies the rub; they’re not “hearing” you. People hear and understand what is being communicated in their language.

Therefore, you could be beautiful. Amazing. The salt of the earth. Yet, still have difficulty finding — and keeping — your “person.” Or being heard.

Which of these love languages do you speak, vis-à-vis your partner?

1. Words of affirmation. Showing love through language and affirmation.
2. Quality time. Showing love by giving someone your full attention, not just making an effort to spend time.
3. Receiving gifts. Showing love through things.
4. Physical touch.
5. Acts of service.

If you’re still not sure, take this quiz to find out. Better still, take the quiz with your partner. Let’s get those wires uncrossed and open to communicate exactly what we mean…and to receive exactly what is being transmitted. Love is too important a language for us to be misunderstood.

Indeed, may you attract someone who speaks your language so you don’t have to spend a lifetime translating your soul.

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© Copyright 2019 Donna Kassin. All rights reserved.
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