Brangus's 10 Rules for Sleeping with Women

---

I have so far in my life been pretty bad at most aspects of relationships, I think—I’d give myself a C- or so. I am currently in a mostly happy, close relationship, but it’s only been about two years. I have, however, been 99th percentile at sleeping with women I want to sleep with.¹ I have basically no exposure to PUA, and what I do hear about it seems lame to me. My guess is that I have a fairly unique perspective here, so I figured it might be helpful if I briefly gave you some basics of what seems to work from my perspective.

This guide ultimately will be very influenced by the fact that I am me. I know the advice works for Brangus and Brangus-like creatures, but your mileage may vary. I have qualities that might make things different for me, which include my environment, the women I tend to meet, how physically attractive I am², unusual features of my psychology, etc. There are other strategies available, and I am only an expert in this one. Nonetheless, I still expect most of my advice to be useful for most men who read it.

Rule 0: Want stuff from women and know it

When I meet a guy who is having a hard time with his sex life, I ask him things like: Who do you find attractive? Do you have a crush on anybody? What are you into sexually? What kind of flirting are you into? Do you want to have sex with a bunch of loose women, or do you want a relationship, or some of the first and then second? Etc.

About half of the time, they aren’t very good at answering these questions. Perhaps they do not feel like they want anything, or they feel like they want something but they don’t quite know what it is. The problem is sometimes even worse when they do know that they have a particular crush on a particular woman. If I then ask them what they want from her, they often go blank in a sort of shame-filled way.

If you have this problem, I am less confident that this guide will be useful for you. I have known that I wanted things from women since I was about five. My suggestion, if you do find yourself with this problem, is to let yourself fantasize. Maybe try thinking about specific scenarios with specific people while you masturbate and see what works for you and what doesn’t. I give this advice with low confidence compared to the rest of the advice I will give, because I have not had this problem and have not solved it for myself.

Rule 1: Let women know you want stuff from them

If you are lucky enough to already want stuff from women, that’s great, let them know. Women are different from each other, but in my experience, most of them (maybe 80%) have reactive desires, meaning that they often cannot really tell whether they are into someone until they find out that that person is into them.

There are a few ways that you might fuck this up. One is that you might start asking women for things. Don’t do that. Letting someone know that you want something from them is different from asking them for it.

Compare:

I want to take you to dinner.
I want to fuck you.

To:

Would you let me take you to dinner?
Would you let me fuck you?

The first two are statements about yourself. The second two are requests. Saying that you want something leaves it open to the other person to respond, “I want that too,” or “Sorry, I’m not interested in hearing about that,” but it also leaves open something like “That’s interesting,” which is neither a rejection nor an invitation. Asking something of someone is inherently needier-seeming than telling them that you want something.

The other important way that you can fuck this up leads me to Rule 2.

Rule 2: Be ok with any answer

Most women have to deal with rejecting men all the time. Make it as easy as possible to be rejected. Women can smell when a rejection is going to send you into a spiral of negative self-talk. They have been getting evidence about this their whole lives and have likely become experts by now, so merely trying to hide that this will happen from them will not work. You’re going to have to actually become the sort of person who is ok deeply wanting something from someone and then finding out that they want absolutely nothing of the sort with you, over and over again.

This is a tough one, and I’ve fucked it up a few times, but there are some concrete things you can do to make progress on this.

One is that you can hire sex workers, either for online services or in person. It’s hard for a rejection to not hit hard when you are starved for sex. Purchasing sex work can help convince part of your brain that you are not in a pussy-impoverished period of your life. You are aiming for an abundance mindset, and it is very hard to have an abundance mindset when you are in fact deprived.

Another strategy I implement is already assuming that this person is not interested and being in more of a state like checking just in case. Almost everyone in the world is uninterested in having sex with me, so it is no surprise that this particular person also is. That’s the way it goes; on to the next one.

This does not mean that you should shoot yourself in the foot before you start. Don’t assume you have been rejected from the outset. And definitely don’t cut yourself off from your hope and desire. You should perhaps relate to it like how you might relate to playing a scratch-off. You’re definitely hoping to win money, there’s no doubt that’s the outcome you want, but you’re mostly expecting that you won’t. If you do win money, that’s great! If you don’t, well, that was always the default outcome. It would be weird if you played a scratch-off and then were like, “I didn’t wanna win anyway.” It’s not any less weird when it comes to hitting on women.

Rule 3: Escalate skillfully

I do not recommend that you start DMing all of your female friends and saying, “I want to fuck you.” I recommend that you definitely do not do that. However, DMing all of your female friends and saying something like, “Hey, I would like to take you out on a date if that’s something you’d be interested in,” might be half reasonable.

The best metaphor I can come up with here is imagining that you are in a race with someone, and you definitely want to win, but you want the final snapshot at the finish line to be dramatic, so you don’t want to beat them too badly. You should be stepping on the gas more than they are, that’s exciting. But don’t race laps around them; that’s unsportsmanlike and nobody likes it. Of course, that means you need to pay attention to how much they’re accelerating, because you want to stay just a little bit ahead of them. Women are different from each other, and some of them will step on the gas much more than others. Pay attention.

Rule 4: Have a decent model of what it’s like being a straight woman dealing with men’s sexuality

A friend of mine (who I will later ask if she wants credit and, if so, mention here³) gave me an incredible metaphor for this.

Imagine that the human species is quite different. In your world, there are no human women, but there are still basically two human sexes. There are human males like yourself, and then silverback gorillas. Now, all of the silverback gorillas really want to fuck you. They are all much stronger than you and could easily kill or permanently injure you if they wanted to. And you barely find any of them attractive. Their impulse control varies, but probably at least a few of them have sexually harassed you at some point. You know that many of them are nice and willing to protect you and give you resources in various situations, expecting little in return, but again, you aren’t that into many of them, if any.

You have been rejecting gorillas your whole adult life. Sometimes they get angry at you, sometimes they cry, sometimes they stop being your friend, sometimes they decide not to hire you or tell others not to hire you. Now imagine that you are on a bus home after a long day of work, wearing your headphones, and one of these fucking gorillas sits next to you and keeps trying to get your attention even though you’re wearing headphones. How do you think you’d react?

This metaphor has been invaluable to me. You should always ask yourself: If I were me in this gorilla world, how would I want a gorilla to approach me? In what way could they approach me that wouldn’t make me wish I had stayed in today?

Rule 5: Lose the shame over being a gorilla

I suspect some men will feel some shame having read the previous metaphor. “Oh damn, I am a dangerous pushy gorilla that nobody is into.” Uhh, yep, sorry bud. Best to swallow that pill here and now. Go grieve for a bit if you’re into that sort of thing, but then come back here and read the next paragraph.

Done? Ok, so now how are you going to deal with that? The gorillas in gorilla world are also in a pretty tough spot. Truth is, most of them will only derive any meaning in their lives from their ability to court and live with a man, and men are barely ever attracted to them. The good gorillas have it particularly rough. It’s not their fault that the human men are afraid of them, and yet it’s reasonable for them to be.

You could react to this by cutting yourself off from your desire and sexuality. I don’t think that helps anyone. I recommend owning it instead. What would it take for you to see this with absolutely clear eyes, and still want things from women without any shame?

Whenever I initially hit on a woman, there’s some chance that I will make her uncomfortable. I want to minimize that chance and minimize the intensity of the discomfort, but I have to be willing to take some amount of risk if I am not going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life. I’m never going to be able to get that risk down to zero⁴, and I’m not willing to simply never have sex again, sorry. Luckily for us, most women do not want to live in a world where they never get hit on again, so let’s help them out by not letting that happen.

If you follow my advice, you will at some point make some woman uncomfortable. That’s unfortunate, and to be avoided and minimized, but it’s a cost you are going to have to live with.

When you eventually do, listen carefully to any feedback they might be willing to give you and make it as easy as possible for them to give you that feedback. Learn from the experience and try to minimize the chances and costliness of similar future fuckups but accept now that it is going to happen sometimes.

It helps here to again visualize the gorilla world. Imagine that you were her, and you were a gorilla: would you endorse a gorilla escalating in the way that you are about to, given your expectations about the costliness of her rejecting you and the expected benefits of finding that you are both into each other? If not, either figure out some way to change the tradeoffs, or skip this one for now and come back to it if circumstances change.

Rule 6: Use non-flirting

Most women (perhaps most people in general, I’m not sure) are into playing games and delaying common knowledge. I feel confused by what is going on here exactly—not sure what explains it—but I, for one, fucking hate it. I am not excited by “will they, won’t they”; I am excited by having sex. Most human flirting is even frustrating for me in the second person. I hate watching two people skillfully avoid common knowledge that one of them is attracted to the other; it drives me fucking nuts. It seems like they are leaving so much value on the table to me, exploring different possible arrangements that they could both benefit from, but whatever. If you’re into flirting and will-they-won’t-they, then great, you should try it, but I have no advice for you.

If you, like me, hate delaying common knowledge, I have good news for you. You can unilaterally make common knowledge with someone that you find them attractive. How? Tell them you find them attractive. They now know that you find them attractive, and they know that you know that they know that you find them attractive. There’s no way out now.

I once attended a party where you were required to flirt the whole time you were in attendance. There was some spirited debate about whether what I was doing counted as flirting.

If you have a crush on someone, you can just tell them. Even better if you can be more specific. Do you think about them a lot? Do you fantasize about a life with them? Do you find them incredibly hot? You can tell them. The only thing you are protecting by delaying telling them is potential, and sacrificing a chance at a real good thing in exchange for a sure fantasy seems like it is often a bad trade to me.

(See rule 2.)

Rule 7: As clichéd as it is, play the numbers

I have noticed that approximately never has a woman initiated with me. I thought for a long time that that was because I was unattractive. That may be part of the story, but a couple partners have now pointed out another mechanism to me. Women never initiate with me because I never give them an opportunity to. By the time they would have suggested that we hang out one-on-one or whatever, I have already asked them out on a date and probably said something about how beautiful they are.

If you want to sleep with many women, you’ll have to let them know that you find them attractive. Every time you escalate with a woman by letting her know that you find her attractive, you are taking on some risk of her having a bad time as a result, so you do want to figure out ways to avoid that, but you’re going to have to ask a lot of women out. In part because each time you escalate you are also taking on some chance of success, but also because you are going to need some practice being rejected.

Practice makes perfect, and exposure makes chillness.

(See rule 4.)

At one point, not that long ago, I was asked to speak on a panel for people with body counts over one hundred. At one point I was asked some question I don’t remember, but I asked all of the women in the room to raise their hand if I had ever hit on them. Approximately every woman I had ever met before that day raised their arm. I then asked them to put their hands down if we had never gone on a date, and then again if we had had never had sex (only if they wanted to reveal that of course). About one third of the women who had raised their hands still had their hands raised. If you want to know how I got to a body count over one hundred, that’s how.

Rule 8: Provide some kind of value on dates

If you have been following my other advice, you may have found yourself in a new situation. You have a date scheduled. Great, don’t panic! All you have to do now is be yourself while also not being the sort of person who is absolutely fucking insufferable on dates.

Do the following obvious things. First, you should buy dinner. Why? Dude, just buy dinner. Don’t expect anything in return. Don’t let her buy dinner. Just buy dinner; don’t make a big deal about it. This is an easy way to signal abundance. It provides some self-signaling as well.

Second, cultivate your genuine curiosity about her. This is an extremely complicated object in front of you, like one out of a billion topmost complicated objects in the universe. I realize that you are hoping to get laid tonight and are feeling distracted; that’s understandable, but you should still be able to muster some curiosity about how the person in front of you works. Show her that curiosity. Try to get your curiosity answered. Run experiments.

Finally, related to the last two points, provide some kind of value to her. I buy dinner and try to understand her. I’m also fairly funny, so I try to make her laugh. You don’t have to go for these things exactly, but you should have some model of what makes you fun to go out on a date with and make sure that you exploit those qualities of yours. Your goal here is to make sure that she does not regret seeing you. The best way to do that is to make sure that going on this date turns out to be worth her time.

Rule 9: Sleep with reasonable people, preferably the horny ones

Sluts are great. They have sex with us, and for that we should honor them. But I have noticed that sociosexuality does seem to correlate with personality disorders. I recommend avoiding this, although I do not recommend avoiding sluts altogether. Sluts have the benefit of having had some experience with dating and being hit on. They are experienced in rejecting men and dealing with the kinds of fallout that can sometimes happen as a result of sex. And besides, if you are going to sleep with many women, you are probably going to end up sleeping with sluts, for the same reasons that most of your friends tend to have more friends than average.

Determining the reasonableness of a female slut is an essential life skill for male sluts. It is luckily not that hard. You can ask about their past partners and take care to notice how they talk about them. Everybody has at least one ex they hate, but does she hate all of her exes? Does she hate all men and have no appreciation for their plights? Maybe you can skip this one in that case. Generally, if it seems like conflicts with her tend to be especially unpleasant or public social battles, proceed with caution.

Choosing to exclusively sleep with reasonable people is the only guaranteed way to avoid being cancelled when you do not deserve to be (it’s like the abstinence-only method of not getting cancelled). I, in fact, don’t even recommend initiating escalation with a woman unless you already have decent reason to believe that she is reasonable.

Rule 10: Don’t hold out for a cheat code, do it the hard way

Human advice has a peculiar way of not working. I find myself often giving advice to people like “You should ask her out, be yourself,” and then seeing them go out and do it, and then they so totally, face-palmingly blow it that I have to wonder if I fucked up giving them the advice. I think what is going on here is that there is a lot of know-how (as opposed to know-that) to be communicated in this domain, and that is famously difficult to communicate through advice. It’s like trying to write advice on how to play a Bach fugue: “Ok, first put your left pinky finger on the white key next to the fourth group of two black keys…” You’re only going to get it through practice.

It’s true that reading about how to play a fugue can help you avoid some pitfalls before you start practicing (I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think it could be useful), but really, you will have to practice if you want to get good.

So, don’t worry too much about following my exact rules. You have to figure this stuff out for yourself anyway, and some of it probably won’t click until after you have had some experience.

There isn’t some simple set of rules that you can follow that’s guaranteed to work. I didn’t learn these rules by reading someone else write about them. I figured them out through getting out there and trying to get laid while also trying to not be an asshole.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if things don’t go well initially. Dating is hard. Male and female sexuality are messy. Talk to the people in your life about it and treat it like a hard skill you want to master like any other.

I hope you have some success.

1. My only real qualification is that I am a straight man and my body count is over a hundred (not including sex that I have paid for).

2. My guess at how attractive I am is something like 65th percentile, but I have heard mixed messages from people and have had some unusually honest people say they think I am particularly attractive, so I am not sure what to make of it. However, I suspect that I would still be in the 95th percentile of number of sexual partners if I were fat and much uglier.

3. Here is the friend’s twitter, as promised. She is generally talented and insightful. I recommend following.

4. Some men maybe are able to get the risk to near zero by becoming very physically attractive and wealthy and then waiting for women to make the first move. But that would be a different guide written by a different kind of man who isn’t most comfortable representing himself as a trash creature.