No man ever cheated because he was looking for a friend.
Fifty Shades of Grey isn't a phenomenon with women just because it's pure fantasy. It should prove to men that they could try asking for what they want in bed before thinking they can't get it, a primary reason men cheat, according to what they told me when I was working in the trenches.
I was a relationship consultant for a big newspaper, interviewing hundreds of men over 10 years excavating the relationship, dating, and sex worlds. Modern women want sex as much as men do and they want it in all sorts of different ways. That's the most positive news for anyone wanting a long-term relationship that lasts.
But how do you get it?
1. A woman must first be invested in her own life before she can expect a good man to be interested in what she has to offer him. You may just be working a job out of necessity, but eventually, you must spend time finding out where your passions lie and what makes your heart sing, finding a way to do something close to it to make a living. The answer holds the secret to your life and what kind of man you'll attract.
Anastasia Steele met Christian Grey while doing what she loved, a break giving her the interview of her life. This is just one of the relationship secrets I learned from my own life, because it's how I met my husband. Amid a lifetime of fabulous men and great sex -- all of which came through an adventurous artistic career, which wasn't easy -- doing what I love paved the way to fuller happiness.
2. Regularly satisfying sex will sustain your relationship longer than friendship. A comfortable friendship begins a relationship, but it won't sustain one. You have to get naked with each other. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get an itch that needs scratching, which simply comes down to wanting, needing sex. You know, just like a man. The loss of this intimate, electric connection, often through familiarity and laziness, is a choice to remove lust from the package.
Fifty Shades of Grey proved, though it's rarely discussed, that ravenous sexual experiences are usually premeditated. Sometimes fantasies of satisfaction linger for days, but they all begin with knowing it's coming. Women love romance, which is worthless without sex, especially for men. Great sex is rooted in trust, the friendship, but at its best it demands our bravery in submitting to what can make us uncomfortable at first, but ultimately sets us free from inhibitions that we learned.
3. Never shy away from what you want and the strengths that make it possible for you to get it. A good man is not afraid of a strong woman as long as you're fair, appreciative, and honor what makes a man who he is, too.
The idea of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele begins on the page as a challenge, two people who areso different.
A hopeful romantic, Anastasia Steele is above all else a modern woman who is unafraid of telling Christian exactly what she wants, which is ultimately love that lasts, even if it scares him to the point of disappearing. Yet it's Anastasia who leaves, because she will not accept anything less than what she knows she deserves. This risk leads to her getting it.
Love so powerful, the possibilities so boundless, that even after all seems hopeless, she's willing to tread back into territory that's uncertain, because she senses something beyond her fear that could set them both free to create a life together that's more thrilling than anything they could have alone.
With a man so wounded, so brilliantly equipped, yet frightened into exerting control over everyone in his realm, that even as boundless as his sexual abandon and appetites appear, he remains a prisoner to his own insecurities, afraid to submit to love he feels he's unworthy to experience.
Friendship is safe and begins the trust, opening up the possibility for taking chances, because deep loyalty has been established, something a man cannot commit without.
Hot and satisfying sex is the dangling promise that Fifty Shades of Grey delivers on a bed of love. The consummation between two dissimilar and very strong-willed personalities sitting like a juicy strawberry dripping with molten chocolate we can't quite bite in real life.
But why not?
As I learned in the trenches, the only thing keeping each of us back from satisfaction is our unwillingness to say yes to adventure that scares us and shakes our comfortable status quo.
Successful modern relationships require hunger for the unknown, a curiosity to keep exploring beyond what we already know and doing so with our clothes off more often than we usually have time to spare.
Taylor Marsh is the author of the new book The Sexual Education of a Beauty Queen - Relationship Secrets From the Trenches.