A Guide to Marrying Down

According to a recent study, marriage rates have been declining over the past few decades because there are fewer economically-attractive men.

Now there are a number of presuppositions behind that research conclusion. Let's take a moment to unpack them.

First, women are attracted to men according to their economic status. All else being equal, a man with a job, or good job prospects if still in school, is more attractive than a man without either. A man with a salaried job is more attractive than a man working for minimum wage. A musician, a movie star, a wealthy businessman, or a powerful politician is the most attractive man of all.

Second, this economic attraction is relative not only among men but between men and women. Nothing much has changed among men in the last couple decades. The changes have been with women. Specifically, women are more educated and successful than ever before in human history. Women are not marrying because they find that they have surpassed so many potential mates in education and in the workplace and they find them less attractive for marriage.

Third, men are contributing to this as well. Men do not find educated and successful women more attractive. At least, they don't weigh these factors as highly as women do. In spite of decades of feminist browbeating, men are, for the most part, still picking out potential mates the way they always have: according to their physical beauty and personality. Only after these do men rank women according to their education and success. But even there the tendency for men is to exclude from marital consideration women who are more educated and successful than they are.

Fourth, men still prefer women who have not had many prior sexual partners. If, during your pursuit of education and your advance in the workplace, you have gone through a series of sexual relationships, no matter how serious and genuine, men are going to find you less attractive.

If you don't change something then your chances of marrying will be significantly reduced. You will be at risk of joining the growing ranks of women who never find a husband.

Of course, the natural response to this situation is to compromise. If you can't find your ideal husband then you will have to settle for something less. Sadly, too women are making the wrong compromises or, worse, leading lives of denial well past their marriage years.

The first thing you should realize is that time is not your friend. Unlike men, women do not benefit by waiting to get married. The things you gain, education and success in the workplace, are not valued and the things you lose, youth and beauty, are. Additionally, the longer you wait, the greater the chance that you will not have children even if you do get married. So while you should not rush into marriage with the first available man you meet, you should be looking with an intent to marry and selecting dates on that basis.

Beyond that, you will face some hard choices.

One option is to give up your career and higher standard of living to marry a man and live on the level of income that he can provide. That might make for a romantic novel but it's not especially appealing to most educated women. 

Another option is to look for a husband who is comfortable earning less than you do. To make for a successful marriage he will need to bring something more to the table than his sperm. A man who is good with children, for example, might be able to spend that extra time with them that allows you to pursue your career.

Another option is to find a slightly younger husband who is awed by you. There will be at least a hint of a mother-child relationship in this marriage so be certain that he respects his mother.

Another option is to find a man whose work is so different that you and he are less tempted to make economic comparisons. For example, if you hold a professional position in medicine or law and he does physical labor, such as construction or works in a field for which economics is not the measure, such as art or political activism, then he can be confident in his role even when he is earning less than you do.

Of course, you should be looking for all the things you would if you were marrying up but in particular, avoid men with fragile egos. Even if he seems confident around you while you are dating, his economic inferiority will grate on him until, eventually, he harms the marriage, himself, or even you. Watch how he treats you and others when he is embarrassed. Don't be afraid to test his reaction to embarrassing situations.

Look, instead, for men with a good sense of humor and genuine humility. You are looking for a man who will be comfortable in a marriage where he is the economically inferior partner. Look for a man who is not afraid to make a fool of himself or to be made the fool by others.

Look at his male friends and how he interacts with them. Are they married or dating seriously? Are they respectful of women? Does he feel the need to justify himself to them?

Look at his female friends. Does he have any? Are they respectable women? Are they strong and confident around him?

This brings us to the reality of a marriage where the wife outearns the husband. These marriages suffer a high rate of divorce. But these statistics include marriages where the husband initially outearned the wife but fell behind either due to her success or to his misfortune. When the couple is not expecting this outcome it can come as a shock and destabilize the relationship.

But even a married couple that is initially satisfied with a more economically successful wife might be destabilized when children come. At this time, the wife feels the urge to focus on the children and the husband to provide for the family. The wife may come to resent the husband who cannot provide or the husband may lose respect for himself if he cannot and turn to distractions like alcohol or worse. So it is not enough to plan for the marriage, you must also plan for the children.

Finally, if your income is sufficient to support a household, then you should look for a man who is comfortable with the idea of becoming a househusband. You can't always take people at their word, but if you ask directly if this is something that he would consider because this is so counter to social expectations, it is unlikely that he would lie and say 'yes'. So ask before you marry.

If you use your time dating to set expectations and then use the honeymoon period of your marriage to establish your position as the head of the household and become proficient with your erotic power then, when the children come, you will be better prepared to deal with the challenges that you face.

Marrying down is not easy. But given recent trends it is that or the life of a spinster for the vast majority of educated and successful women.

Sexual Intimacy

Asymmetric sex sounds like an enigma. How can you seduce your husband into accepting less sex?

But, of course, you don't seduce him into accepting less sex, you seduce him into accepting fewer orgasms.

The asymmetry of sex in wife led marriage refers to the higher frequency of orgasms that the wife enjoys compared to her husband. This disproportion can approach a ratio of 50:1, not counting multiple orgasms.

But even in such an extreme disproportion, the wife and husband are still having sex. It is simply that in the vast majority of encounters she is choosing to end the sex before she has allowed him an orgasm.

One way to think about this is that you are separating sex into its various components only one of which, typically the last, is your husband's orgasm. You and your husband are still having sex. Lots of it.

And this is why it works.

Men crave sex. Naturally, they assume that an orgasm will follow at the climax. But your husband will not lose interest in sex merely because you deprive him of that orgasm. On the contrary, he will crave sex with you all the more. In fact, he needs sexual intimacy with you not as a means to orgasm, however much he may enjoy that, but for itself. When you strip away his orgasm, foreplay is no longer just foreplay, it becomes the sex.

This creates a wonderful virtuous cycle in which the more sex you have the more he wants and the more he will do to get it. He will become obsessed with you and will move heaven and earth to enjoy your sexual intimacy.

And it is not necessary to deceive him about sex. You can set his expectations as realistically as you like. You can tell him at the beginning that, in this instance, there will probably, or even certainly, be no climax for him. And still he will eagerly engage in sex with you. Provided that you occasionally allow him an orgasm, and this could be as infrequent as once or twice a month, he will not lose his enthusiasm.

In fact, as you develop a habit of asymmetric sex he will gradually shift his attention away from his own orgasm toward yours. What might begin as simple courtesy in the bedroom, making sure you get yours, becomes the center of your sexual encounters. He will desire the intimacy of sex with you merely for the opportunity to touch you, to please you, and to be close to you. You will know you have arrived when you find him begging for the opportunity to please you with no expectations of his own release.

Of course, asymmetric sex will only work within the context of erotic power. You need to earn his respect for your control of sex and your decision as to when it ends. But having established your dominance in the bedroom, you will command his obsessive attention to your needs both in the bedroom and throughout your marriage.

My Book Is No Longer On Scribd

Years ago I published my book on Scribd where it was previewed on my blog and free to view or download. To date it has been viewed or downloaded over 79 thousand times.

However, Scribd changed it's policies and now users are required to subscribe in order to download it.

Therefore, I have moved the book to Google where it can again be freely viewed and downloaded, the link is here and in the Publications list above right. If you haven't read it already, it's time that you did.

The Dog That Caught the Car

We've worked hard all our lives to justify our feminist ideals. We chose academic degrees in medicine, law, engineering, and business and we studied hard. Upon graduation we competed for the best opportunities in the field and won the positions. Once there we put in extra hours earning the respect of our supervisors and peers.

In a word, we have arrived.

And like the proverbial dog that caught the car, we are not quite sure what to do with our hard earned success. Because our husbands did not arrive with us. They have not enjoyed the same career success. On the contrary, they are embarrassing failures.

No problem. We're doing well enough for the both of us. Our relative success only makes us prouder of our achievements.

But that is a problem. Because that's not what we signed up for when we married. Rather than icing on the cake, it has become a fly in the soup.

And it's not just the embarrassment of having to explain to family, friends, and colleagues what it is our husbands do or, rather, don't do. We feel overwhelmed by the burden of being both breadwinner and homemaker.

If our husbands had been as successful as us then we could have hired maids to keep the home and nannies to care for the children while we each pursued our successful careers.

But now we realize that will never happen.

And, as if to add insult to injury, our husbands are equally unhappy with the situation. They feel emasculated by their failure to be the primary breadwinner in the family. Sure, they willingly allowed us to pursue our careers but always with the expectation that ours would be a supplementary income and that keeping the home would remain our responsibility.

This situation breeds resentment from both the wife and the husband each directed at the other and at the situation in which they now find themselves. Patience runs short, affection wanes, libidos atrophy, empathy dies.

It's no wonder, then, that marriages where the wife is the primary breadwinner are 40% more likely to end in divorce.

But divorce is not the answer.

Rather, we must adapt our marriages to our unexpected, perhaps even unwelcome, status as the primary or sole breadwinner in the family.

And in order to adapt our marriages we must first adapt ourselves beginning with the recognition and resolution of our conflicting desires.

We love being successful in our careers. We are rightfully proud the fact that women who work hard can outearn men, such as our husbands, in the workplace. We enjoy the self respect and adulation that comes from realizing our dreams.

But we also dreamed of marriage to a husband who would provide for us and the family as our fathers did. We can't help but feel disgusted with his failure to measure up to our expectations.

We bested our husbands in the workplace and now we resent our own success. We caught the car and don't know what to do with it.

We must resolve these conflicting desires for our own peace of mind and for the sake of our marriage. And the best place to begin is by bravely confronting reality: For whatever reason, we are now the primary breadwinner in the family. No amount of nagging our husbands is going to propel him ahead of us, even if we wanted that, which maybe we don't.

Instead, let us savor our success and make peace with our husbands on new terms. They may not be what we hoped for but that does not make them useless or unworthy of our love and respect.

The solution, of course, is staring us in the face. We can't do it all and we don't need to do it all. We are not giving up our role as breadwinner so we must look to delegate our homemaking responsibilities. Not to a maid or nanny but to our otherwise useless husbands.

And that, in turn, means seizing the reigns of power at home. Because men do not naturally gravitate to doing housework and caring for children. We must assert our rightful authority at home and gently and lovingly guide our husbands into a subordinate role as homemaker, supporting the family through their contribution of domestic labor.

We have arrived at the wife led marriage.

Protect Your Knight

It seems, to some, as if I am advocating an "anything goes" attitude on the part of the wife. After all, she is supposed to be the Queen of the household and the role of the husband is to worship and serve her. So if the wife is sovereign, how could she do anything wrong?

But a closer reading of my book will reveal many ways that a wife could do wrong in her marriage.

To start with, the wife has certain goals in the marriage and cannot count on the cooperation of her husband. She could do wrong simply by failing to enlist her husband in her goals or causing him to work against her. For example, if she neglects to project her erotic power then her dominance will wane and her authority will be diminished.

But even if she is completely successful in establishing her authority in the marriage, her dominance may be short lived, or the marriage itself may become endangered, if she fails to adequately nurture her husband's happiness. As I often say, once you own his heart you are responsible for it.

A husband in wife led marriage tends to find himself depending more on his wife than he would naturally prefer. This is especially the case when he gives up his career to keep the home. In that situation, especially, he may lose the respect of friends, perhaps even his family. He may feel socially isolated for a time until he makes new friends or otherwise adjusts. But even when the husband is still the breadwinner, he may feel some loss of dignity in his new role in the marriage.

So the wife cannot adopt an "anything goes" attitude in her marriage. In fact, I can think of three distinct and important ways in which she must take her husband's feelings into account. I describes these as the "Three Don'ts".

Don't compare your husband unfavorably to other men. Comparing your husband unfavorably to other men is absolutely toxic. It is the surest way to arouse his ego and sabotage your dominance of the marriage. Your goal should be to tame his ego, not to crush or inflame it. When you compare your husband unfavorably to other men you shift his thinking from serving you to competing with other men. When men think about competing with other men they fall back on very primitive and crude evolutionary tools including, among others, anger and violence. And at least some of this, if not most of it, will be directed at you.

Instead, reassure your husband that he is the best man you know. You chose him in marriage and you would gladly do so again. This not in spite of, but at least in part because of, his surrender to your dominance in the marriage. He is the greatest man you know because he serves you. Other men are pathetic creatures who ignore their wives and indulge their outside interests at their wives' expense.

Don't lead your husband to think he is inadequate. Even apart from comparing him unfavorably to other men, you should avoid maliciously belittling him. This can be subtle, of course, when you are in the process of putting him in his new subordinate place in the marriage. The act of domination must, as far as practical, entail raising you up, not putting him down. And disappointments should always be tempered by your confidence that he can be the person you expect him to be. By contrast, if you leave him with the impression that he is an irredeemable failure he will rightly conclude that you have given up on him and he will lose interest in becoming the husband you desire.

Similarly, actions that humiliate your husband must be taken with extreme care. As a rule of thumb, I always frame humiliation with a dose of humor. Good humiliation invites him willingly experience humility. It requires his cooperation. Bad humiliation tries to force humility on the husband over his resistance and it can serve instead to inflame his ego against you. So keep the humiliation light and fun. And try to keep the eye rolling to a minimum.

Finally, don't emasculate your husband. One of the biggest confusions about wife led marriage is the mistaken belief that it involves a repudiation of gender roles. Nothing could be further from the truth. This error arises from a fundamental confusion about gender, itself. Masculinity and femininity are not defined by their relative dominance and submission but by their respective approaches to life. Masculinity is at its best when it is exercised in service to femininity.

This is one reason why I am such a strong advocate of the Queen/knight metaphor. The knight in this relationship is no less of a man because he serves his Queen. On the contrary, she depends utterly upon his masculinity. The Queen will never be a King, she will always be a Queen. And the knight will never be King but he will always be a man. The Queen has every interest in nurturing her knight's masculinity. The ideal situation is one in which the Queen dominates the knight and the knight dominates all else.

Whenever I encounter a marriage where the gender roles have become confused I suggest a very direct solution: the wife should instruct her husband to join a martial arts studio and learn self defense. This allows the husband to express his masculinity without inhibition by beating up on other men while preserving the dominance/submission relationship in the marriage. If he were ever called upon to use his learned skills it would be to defend his Queen and their family, perhaps even to give his life for them. You can't get any more masculine that that!

Hypnotic Conversation

Supposedly, hypnosis is a state of human consciousness involving focused attention and reduced awareness and an enhanced inclination to respond to suggestions. But as the subject of legend and show, it carries with it a great deal of baggage. Even among those who accept hypnosis as a real phenomenon there is controversy as to whether it is primarily a matter of willing susceptibility or an altogether altered state of mind.

I have been told many times by those who claim to know that what I describe in my book as erotic conversational is, essentially, hypnosis. Now, needless to say, conventional hypnosis does not involve sexual stimulation or deliberate manipulation of sexual desires but perhaps this is merely a difference of method.

When I have an erotic conversation with my husband there is behavioral conditioning associating my words with his sexual feelings and rewarding his compliance. But my impression, based on our erotic conversations in the bedroom and subsequent interaction outside, is that something more is going on. Especially revealing have been my husband's confessions to me. And other wives have confirmed similar phenomenon in their own marriages.

We naturally engage communicated thoughts as they are received, evaluating and judging them for their correctness, relevance, and usefulness. In this process we tend to maintain a distance from most of what we hear, especially the commands of others. We are more likely to resist that which is not immediately confirmed by our own experience and to argue if pressed. Men are especially prone to this distancing approach to conversation. It is one reason why husbands interpret instructions from their wives as nagging.

But the situation is altogether different when the communication occurs in the context of sex and in the passion of sexual stimulation. The husband's mind is focused on the pleasant feelings he is experiencing and the desperation he feels to discharge the sexual energies that are building up inside him. He is wondering, whether consciously or unconsciously, "what must I do to get my orgasm?" And since you are in control of the situation he is hanging on your every word and gesture. If hypnosis is a matter of willing susceptibility then this creates exactly that.

In such a state of mind he is putty in your hands and unable or unwilling to resist the thoughts you communicate to him. Over time, repetition will make these thoughts his and he will not even care where they originated.

I prefer to let our erotic conversations develop naturally based on my intuition about what issues may be obstructing our immediate progress, what our marriage might need at the particular moment. But, almost always, I have taken the opportunity to talk about obedience to my will and submission to my dominance as these are fundamental to everything else. I want my husband to internalize the belief that regardless of the situation he can't go wrong if he simply obeys me and that whenever he is in doubt that he should seek me out for instructions.

For us this was no small feat. Before we embarked on wife led marriage, we were always arguing and fighting. It would never have occurred to me to expect his obedience. And while progress came quickly as I developed my technique, old habits died hard. Even when he intellectually recognized that we were no longer equals in our marriage, still, he would habitually fall back on prior behaviors. But with time and repetition he eventually became addicted to my dominance and I believe that our erotic conversations were essential to that.

I suspect that hypnosis played a role because eventually he began repeating back the very phrases I had earlier communicated to him, not just immediately, in in the heat of passion but later outside the bedroom in our everyday lives. Not only did his behavior improve but he had internalized exactly the thoughts, almost verbatim, that I had been communicating to him. He often confessed to me a confusion about his thoughts about obedience. Intellectually, he knew that I had been demanding obedience from him and he remembered when he had earlier resisted my authority but emotionally he felt as if he had always been obedient to me, as if this was just his nature and my words were redundant.

My advice is that you, too, let these conversations develop naturally but I thought it would be helpful to put together a few scripts from a recollection of our conversations that might serve to illustrate and inspire you in yours.

Relax.
Breath and relax.

Don't make any effort.

Allow my words to guide you deeper into relaxation.
I will tell you to say something.

You will repeat it back to me.
It takes no effort to repeat back to me what I tell you to say.
Even if you don't agree with it.

Even if you don't want to say it.

Just repeat it back to me.

It will be easier if you just say it.

There is no effort in repeating back to me what I say.
Say, "I love you." ["I love you."]
Say, "I want you." ["I want you."]
Say, "I need you." ["I need you."]
Say, "I am lost without you." ["I am lost without you."]
Say, "I am lost without your direction." ["I am lost without your direction."]
Say, "I am lost without your commands." ["I am lost without your commands."]
Say, "I want you to command me." ["I want you to command me."]
Say, "I need you to command me." ["I need you to command me."]
Say, "I want to obey you." ["I want to obey you."]

Say, "I need to obey you." ["I need to obey you."]
Say, "I must obey your every command." ["I must obey your every command."]
Say, "I crave your dominance." ["I crave your dominance."]
Say, "I hunger to surrender to your will." ["I hunger to surrender to your will."]
Say, "I worship you." ["I worship you."]
Say, "You are my Queen." ["You are my Queen."]

Relax.
Breath and relax.
Listen to my voice.
The longer you listen to my voice, the happier you feel.
Just the sound of my voice fills you with desire.
Let yourself be drawn to my words.
Whenever you hear my voice, your mind opens to my words.
You must follow each and every word that I say.
So you will never resist my voice.
And you will never resist my words.
Let my words sink deeper and deeper into your mind.
Let my words become your absolute and complete truth.
Knowing now that you just love my voice.
And the happiness you feel whenever you follow my words.
Feeling the desire for my words building inside you.
My voice just soothing you, softly caressing your mind.
You know you want to give in to my voice.
Surrender to the bliss of obedience to my voice.
It's so easy to give in.
Feeling my words pulling you deeper.
Your resistance vanishing.
You feel yourself sinking under me.
Wanting my words to control your mind.
Feeling aroused, feeling that urge, that craving for my voice.
Whenever you hear my voice.
You must drop whatever you are doing to listen to  my voice.
It just feels so right to follow my voice.

Relax.
Breath and relax.
You feel helplessly captivated by my femininity.
You feel yourself longing for my attention.
I am that woman you cannot touch.
I am that woman you wish you could have.
I am an unfathomable mystery to you.
My dominance arouses and overpowers you.
Just wanting to surrender to my dominance.
Focus on my voice and allow me to reveal the truth to you.
This truth is your new reality.
You cannot resist my erotic power.
Don't deny that you feel turned on by my dominance.
My erotic power is a force stronger than you.
There is nothing you can do to resist my erotic power.
You feel deeply controlled by my strong and powerful words.
Just surrender, you are powerless to me.
You feel incomplete without my command.
I am your wife.
I am the root of your life.
I give your life purpose.
Without me your life has no meaning.
You are merely my husband, a weak creature.
It is my nature to dominate.
It is your nature to surrender.
You feel weak and helpless before me.
Whenever you see me you want to throw yourself at my feet.
Whenever you see me you will remember your submissive feelings.
Your submissive thoughts fill you with joy and contentment.
You will remember that you crave my dominance.
Just surrender to my dominance.
A submissive feeling is growing in your heart.
Your purpose is to serve, respect, and fulfill my needs.
You will drop everything to fulfill my request.
Without my direction you are lost.
But under my direction you are a knight in shining armor.
You would brave any danger, any humiliation, to see my will done.
You swell with pride at your obedience to my command.
When my command is fulfilled you will seek my approval.
When I express my satisfaction you will feel joy and contentment.
When one command is fulfilled you hunger for the next.
Nothing else, nobody else, matters to you.
You are mine to do with as I please.
I am your world, your life, your Queen.

The Habit of Love

A wife will often feel frustrated that she must constantly remind her husband of what he needs to do. The husband, on the other hand, often perceives these reminders as nagging. Neither is happy with the situation.

Wife led marriage offers a solution. But while it can be fun to seduce your husband into submission to your will, it requires a lot of thought and work in the beginning. Essentially, what you are doing is teaching your husband new habits. So it helps to think about this in terms of habit training.

What is a habit? A habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. The more subconscious the behavior, the more likely that it will become natural and consistently repeated. Habit makes virtue easier.

Habit is usually contrasted with willpower. For example, you might require your husband to clean the table and do the dishes after every meal. If you must constantly remind him to do this he may perceive this as nagging. If he must rely on his willpower to do this chore then he will be inconsistent and exhausted by it. But if the cleanup becomes habitual, then you won't need to remind him and he won't even need to think about it. He will just do it.

But habits can be more than routine behaviors, they can become rituals. When a habit becomes ritualized your husband will not only do it routinely, he will enjoy doing it, even anticipate it as an enriching opportunity.

Given the power of habit, it's worth your time to learn how to teach your husband new habits. You can read a lot on the subject but the basics are these: cue, routine, and reward.

First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. In our example, the cue is a finished meal and dirty dishes.

Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. The desired routine in our case is cleaning the table and washing the dishes, pots, and pans.

Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Your husband will not naturally feel rewarded by clearing the table and doing the dishes. You must supply the reward initially.

Introducing the reward is a simple as putting the dirty dishes in front of sex. If, for example, it has been you who routinely does the dishes you simply leave them undone and initiate the routine for sex stopping at the last moment to ask your husband to first do the dishes. Upon completion then the sex resumes and he experiences the reward.

But you can also achieve much the same with more subtle rewards. You can use sexual touching and kissing while he does the dishes to reward his behavior.

Over time, this habit loop--cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward--becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges. Eventually you can reduce or even remove the artificial reward of sex and the habitual behavior will continue on its own momentum. In part this is because the habit is now subconscious but also because the chore itself becomes associated with sex. It becomes its own reward.

You may need to refresh the habit from time to time but if this is part of a larger program of housekeeping training then it will eventually fall naturally into place. He will acquire the habit of keeping the home of which doing the dishes is simply one part.

Indeed, ultimately what you want to instill in your husband is the habit of obedience. When your husband subconsciously seeks to obey then your will find him anticipating your needs even before you have articulated them.

For a little effort, and fun, upfront, you can achieve a lasting solution through the power of habit.

The Language of Love

Over twenty years ago author and relationship counselor John Gray wrote the classic marriage text, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. In the book, which became hugely popular with many subsequent works, Gray claimed that most common marriage problems between husbands and wives are a result of fundamental psychological differences between the sexes and that each sex is acclimated to its own planet's society and customs, but not to those of the other.

For example, men often offer solutions to problems that women bring up in conversation but women are not necessarily interested in solving those problems, they mainly want to just talk about them. And while such generalizations are always problematic, the essential idea was almost certainly right: men and women are different and we do often talk past one another oriented as we are on our own way of thinking.

To make matters worse, husbands and wives intuitively "keep score" but each tends to score things very differently from the other. As a result, it is quite possible for the efforts of one to go unrecognized and unappreciated by the other. And when the imbalance goes too far, the marriage is in trouble.

Among the differences between husbands and wives is how each views sex. For various biological reasons, women tend to have higher requirements for sex than men. Whereas a woman needs to feel loved to feel sexy, men tend to feel loved through sex. She wants romance but he just wants sex.

Often a wife will want nothing more than to cuddle up with her husband, a moment of nonsexual physical closeness. The husband, on the other hand, tends to see this as a signal of sexual interest or to react to it sexually.

One reason that erotic power is so powerful is that through it the wife speaks the husband's language of love. This is also the reason that it seems so strange for wives who are new to it. Essentially, erotic power entails sexualizing the marriage through and through. In this sense, the wife is agreeing to speak the language of the husband.

But wait!

At the same time the sexualization is, for the most part, without actual sex. In other words, while there is a sexual connotation to every interaction, the frequency of complete sex, especially if measured by the male orgasm, is much reduced. In this sense, every sexual encounter becomes desexualized, the equivalent of courtship and cuddling. The husband is learning to speak the language of the wife. Remembering actually, because he knew to do this before marriage but in the routine of sex in marriage this was all forgotten.

Finally!

The wife can be intimate with her husband without his expectation of sex. Instead, the husband is showering his wife with attention, affection, even worship, at almost every moment of their time together. And the wife freely raises the bar, as high as she dares, for actual sex. The wife is, once again, demanding courtship from her husband.

Like most counselors, Gray believes that the solution to marital difficulties is communication and advises the couple how to better understand each other. But the beauty of wife led marriage is that it doesn't rely on verbal communication. The wife doesn't need her husband to understand what she is doing or to obtain his agreement to change the style of their interaction in the marriage. Instead, she takes the lead in the marriage through her own actions, by her own initiative. And her husband simply learns to follow her lead.

Intimacy Plus Denial Equals Happy Frustration

Men crave sex. That is one of the most reliable truisms of wife led marriage. The more you wield erotic power in your marriage, the more obsessed your husband becomes with sex, the more devoted he becomes to you.

A wife wants her husband to be sexually frustrated, yes. The more frustrated he is, the more romantic and obedient he becomes. That requires managing his sexual release.

When you are first establishing your authority in the marriage simply finding excuses to not have sex is a powerful way to create the crisis that opens the doors to your ascendancy in the marriage.

But once he has surrendered to you, once he has accepted you as Queen of the household, what then? You don't want to live your marriage in a perpetual state of crisis. You simply want maintain a constant state of sexual tension.

The answer is quite simple: deny release, not sex. We call this intimate denial and it has several benefits.

First, you want to be sexual towards your husband, to tease him, to keep him on the edge as much of the time as possible. This is especially the case when he is doing the household chores. You want to eroticize your marriage in general and his homemaking experience in particular.

And just because he is going without sexual release doesn't mean you should be giving up sex. As I wrote in Asymmetric Sex, you can indulge in many more orgasms than you allow your husband.

But most importantly, sexual intimacy is emotionally reassuring for your husband. Withdrawing sex leads him to feel abandoned. Even if you are reassuring him verbally he will subconsciously feel neglected. But if you engage in regular sex with him that happens not to end with his release his emotional experience is altogether different. He is sexually frustrated, yes, but emotionally satisfied

He experiences intimate denial as a happy frustration. He learns to enjoy his frustration, his deep desire for you, his willingness to move heaven and earth for you. You answer his desire for sex with incomplete sex that is playful and teasing but also a demonstration of both your affection and your firm authority in the marriage. He is reminded, again, that you are in command and that he is in submission to your will.

Ideally you will have some long-term schedule of release planned, say once or twice a month, but you will keep him always guessing as to when any particular sexual encounter will end with his release. In this way he is always guessing and hoping but never expecting or demanding.

What it boils down to is that you are saying "yes" to sex and "no" only to his final release. Rather than halting at the start of intimacy you are allowing it to proceed all the way up to, but not including, his final release. You both enjoy the full experience of sexual intimacy. And to the extent that he desires more sex, as he surely will, you can allow, even encourage it.

The more you deny sexual release, the more sexual intimacy you need to provide.

The Power of Attachment

Human attachment is a powerful psychological force. The attachments we form with others  direct our attention and affections and shape how we relate to one another.

Marriage is traditionally idealized as a relationship of mutual attachment. At the wedding, formally, the husband and wife declare their primary attachment to each other. But in practice wives typically attach themselves to their husbands while their husbands only partially reciprocate that attachment. Husbands, instead, attach themselves to their careers and their professional peers sometimes to the exclusion of their wives.

This is a problem.

As do all people naturally, your husband is intuitively attuned to the social hierarchies of authority around him and he will attach himself to what he perceive to be the authority especially if he feels himself dependent upon that authority.  By contrast, within the marriage, to the extent that he feels himself to be in a dominant role, he will not make that attachment but will, instead, be aggressive and self-centered.

If the wife is dependent on the support of her husband and the husband is dependent on his job then that his how the primary attachments will tend to form. If the wife works outside the home then she may form outside attachments that compete with her husbands leading to a weaker attachment in both directions. Only if the wife is the sole bread winner, and the husband a stay at home Dad, is the husband likely to form a stronger attachment to the wife than is the norm. And even then, if the wife relies on her financial power alone her husband is likely to feel resentment, not affection.

Erotic power changes everything.

As you begin to exercise erotic power in your marriage, you make very explicit your husband's sexual dependency on your good will. Sex is a a potent bonding agent evoking powerful emotions of attachment, especially when it is deliberately rationed and used to reinforce compliant behavior. Erotic power alone is extraordinarily subversive of his sense of independence but it is only the start of the transformation.

The human brain naturally establishes a working hierarchy in any attachment relationship. Your task is simply to establish yourself as the dominant party in that attachment and to encourage your husband to accept a submissive role in that relationship. The submissive party looks up to the dominant party for guidance and direction and allows the dominant party to take responsibility for setting the direction of the relationship and the decisions to be taken within it. And it all begins to happen as soon as you assert your sexual dominance in bed.

The capstone of the transformation is financial dependency. Even if your husband is the sole breadwinner, you can leverage your erotic power to obtain financial control in the marriage by having your husband set up direct deposit of his paychecks into a bank account that only you control. Once you accomplish that then his dependency on you is complete: He is not only sexually dependent on you but also financially. He will need your permission for every expenditure beyond the allowance that you grant him. This dependency makes you his primary attachment; his loyalty to his career is reoriented into a desire to work on behalf of you.

It will likely be gradual but you will notice many changes in his attitude towards you.

His attention will follow this attachment. As your husband begins to make you his primary attachment he will turn his attention primarily to you. He will listen carefully what you say and watch what you do. He will notice your moods and think about how to respond to them.

Once you become his primary attachment he will seek out your company. He will want to be with you all the time. He will long for your physical presence whenever he is apart from you.

The more he attaches to you, the less aggressive and self-centered he will become. He will no longer expect you to follow his lead, or become frustrated when you don't, but will, instead, increasingly follow your lead not only consciously but subconsciously. Eventually it will not even occur to him to make decisions without at least taking your wishes into account and he will seek out your approval before he makes any nontrivial decision.

Attachment reinforces authority by serving as a lubricant to ease submission. Without attachment, your assertions of power and authority in the marriage will tend to work against his ego. The more he recognizes your power as a threat to his ego the more he will be tempted to resist. But his attachment to you will lead him to a more natural and intuitive submission to your authority. What begins awkwardly by your power assertions becomes, through attachment, second nature to him.

By using your erotic and financial power to make yourself his primary attachment you will discover that he becomes attuned to you and naturally submissive to your will. He will gladly do whatever you wish of him.

Why is an equal marriage not healthy?

In our modern culture, the institution of marriage is under siege. So many are unable to keep a marriage going beyond a few years. Why is this happening?

I believe the main reason is that couples approach marriage as a partnership of equals.

Until recently husbands held the advantage and wives had little or no say in important matters. Women were not allowed to vote in most countries until the 1950s. But things have changed. Women are more independent and capable and confident of making decisions on our own; we are much less worried about our financial independence. Women are now the majority on college campuses. In short we have become the equals of, if not superior to, men in most matters.

This has skewed the marriage dynamic so that any decision big or small becomes a major fight between husband and wife where neither side is willing to budge for the other.

This is why I believe that inequality in a marriage is so important. In every relationship, one partner must dominate the other if those fights are to be avoided and this is the natural resolution. It is part of the Yin and Yang of marriage. In some marriages, one partner takes a dominant position for life while in others the marriage partners changes positions from time to time or from situation to situation. Sometimes when there are two dominant personalities in a relationship, one has to deliberately surrender to the other. Marriage is about making compromises but the dominant spouse gets the final say

I think dominance in marriage is an important but under-appreciated phenomenon. The most stable marriages seem to be those in which dominance is clear throughout. The dominant partner makes all the final decisions, from what to watch on TV in the evening to which car to buy, and the submissive partner acquiesces and assumes a supporting role. If what people expect from marriage is not necessarily everlasting passionate love but a stable partnership that will allow joint ventures such as buying a home and raising children together, or an opportunity to concentrate on one’s career without worrying about house chores, then an asymmetrical relationship with uncontested dominance probably guarantees the best outcome. The secret to a stable marriage is that one of the two spouses must be willing to give up a disproportionate share of control as the price for stability.

I believe it is time that wives embraced a more dominant role and that husbands accepted a more submissive and supporting role in the marriage. All that is required for this to happen is for things to continue on their present trajectory. Instead of wives deciding that we now have equality in marriage and halting their progress we should just keep pushing forward.

I also want to stress that dominance does not mean disrespecting your spouse. On the outside, of course, it may seem very disrespectful, but if you want to make it work and be healthy, you, as the wife, must express love and respect for your submissive husband. We sometimes worry that a submitting husband is going against his nature and is being emasculated. But this is simply not true.

Also remember that just because your husband is allowing you to take the lead in your marriage doesn't mean that he’s less than you. Submission is not synonymous with slavery or abuse. We have to know how to find the right balance.

In a nutshell a healthy marriage is possible, it is however just that it will not be an equal marriage!!

Learning To Lead

A wife who aims to become a Queen in her marriage expects to change her husband and the dynamics of their marriage. Seldom does she realize how she will be changed by it. But time and again I hear from wives who are ecstatic at how they have become new women not just at home with their families but also with their friends and colleagues.

My own experience is typical. Before I transformed our marriage I was a competent practitioner in my field. My colleagues valued my contributions but I was never called on to lead projects. That changed almost overnight.

We were meeting to discuss a project that had fallen so far behind schedule that the client was threatening to cancel it. Everyone was engaged in the political game of CYA. It wasn't their fault, they insisted, they were unable to deliver because they didn't get what they were expecting from others on the team. And so the finger pointing proceeded in ever more heated rounds. Even the so-called team leader was playing along, no doubt because the senior partner responsible for the client was in attendance.

It had been less than a year since I had taken over as Queen of our household and only a few months since my husband had given up his career to become a full-time homemaker. We were still exploring options, experimenting with styles, and working out various practical issues. But already I was feeling a sense of authority in the home and learning to express it freely and openly. Often I was amazed at what I heard from my own lips:

Before: "Can you please go to the DMV to take care of this?"
After: "Tomorrow you are going to the DMV to take care of this."

Before: "Would you please change the sheets today?"
After: "I expect to see clean sheets tonight."

Before: "I think your blue shirt goes well with the black slacks."
After: "I've set out the blue shirt with the black slacks for you to wear."

Before: "It seems like it's been a while since you've been to the gym."
After: "Go to the gym this morning, your workout card is on the table".

I remember feeling increasingly frustrated by what I was hearing at that meeting. I would never put up with that from my husband, why was the senior partner accepting it from the team? So when I got the chance I called them all out on their excuses, particularly the team leader, and proceeded to put the project back on track and save the account.

Not only did I earn the attention and respect of the senior partner, from then on I was regarded by my peers as one of the strongest leaders in the firm. As my responsibilities grew so did my confidence and authority. Everyone, even those who knew me before that meeting, just assumed that I was a born leader. Often women would approach me asking how they too could advance in their careers up the corporate ladder. I helped them as best I could without revealing the source of my strength.

The truth is that I was not a born leader. I might well have gone through life as a mere practitioner, content to take orders from others. But once I got a taste of it at home I could not be held back at the firm.

And, of course, my confidence flowed the opposite way as well. The more successful I was at the firm the more confident I was at home with my family. Although my husband had long since given up on his own career, it is fair to say that he grew increasingly reverential toward me as the breadwinner of the family. His gushing admiration was, at times, embarrassing. He truly draws his own identity and dignity from his support for my success in my career. He keeps the home so that I am free to be successful at the firm and thereby to provide for the family.

I remember being surprised by this turn of events but, upon reflection, I should not have been. How could any woman, ruling as Queen of her household, with a husband virtually under her thumb night and day, seeking her permission on his every decision, and reporting to her on his every move, not be transformed by it?

My only regret is that I could not be more open with other women about all this. Often I heard other women tell me how much they admired my leadership skills; they wanted to know how they could achieve the same thing in their own careers without ever imagining how it could begin at home. I often wished I could just hand them a copy of my book. But because I had made a conscious decision not to mix my professional career and my secret life as Queen of the household, I never did.

Even those who knew about my domestic situation, that my husband stayed home to keep the house, just assumed that it had always been that way. They could not fathom how much my life had changed.

But I can tell you: Wife led marriage will transform you in ways you cannot even imagine. The longer you practice it, the greater your leadership at home, work, and in your community.

Reminding Him

This is intended to be a short piece as I am interested in the thoughts of others and hope some will comment back.  I have mentioned before that my own marriage dynamic, even before I knew the terms involved, was always somewhat bent toward my leadership.  I tend to be outspoken, authoritative and clear.  My husband is gentler, more agreeable - somewhat submissive in nature.  It works.  

As my own wife led marriage has become even more so - I find that he "mis behaves" with less frequency.  Generally he is super focused on my happiness.  I don't know that the eroticism is all of what works but it is a huge part of it.  His "opportunities" for release are far and few between - maybe more so than in many marriages.  I would say our dynamic is quite successful.  We are connected. He gets a lot of direction(s).  I get exactly the home and lifestyle I want.  In truth I (almost) feel guilty about the extremes of what I have.  I have a (very) dedicated husband/worker bee.  

This brings me to my query.  Even though he is what I would generally (no not always) call "very good" I find it is important to give him occasional "reminders" of his position in the marriage.  His "place" if you will.  At first this seemed counter intuitive.  I had associated discipline or a consequence with mis behavior only - and that continues to be the primary association.  However I have found it important to periodically (even in what might seem to him as an out of the blue way) give him "reminders" of how things are. 

I expect (I really do not know) that I may exhibit a strictness or an authoritarian sort of approach that may go beyond what some other wives do.  We are all different of course.  However I find that the more directive I am, the firmer I am, the more accepting and almost relaxed he is. It is an interesting thing to me and I wonder how other women experience this or does it resonate?

Why Do You Hesitate?

I have been practicing wife led marriage for almost two decades. By now it is as natural to me as breathing. And, yet, I look around at so many failed marriages that could be successful if the wife would only give it a try.

To understand why more wives hesitate to explore their own erotic power it is much easier to begin with those women who are more willing.

Let us begin with the naturally dominant woman. Although for reasons of biology and culture women are, on average, less dominant than men, still, overall, by sheer dent of numbers and probability, it is frequently the case that the wife's will is stronger than her husband's. You've all met, I'm sure, women who show no hesitation to voicing their opinions in mixed company. And domineering women have long been the brunt of jokes; they have always existed.

On the opposite side, there are naturally submissive men. While culture encourages men to dominate their wives even if they are weak in every other aspect of their lives, there are some men who are comfortable with the fact that they are less willful than their wives and who are happy to allow their wives to tell them what to do. Wives who sense this often step into the power vacuum and do so.

On a sadder note, there are far too many marriages in grave difficulty and on the road to divorce. Sometimes wives recognize the situation in time and open up to unorthodox methods to solve their marital problems.

But while the above may dispose a woman to exploring her erotic power, still, there is one additional essential ingredient: comfort with sexuality. Women who are confident about their own sexuality are much more willing to explore their own erotic power.

So what is holding wives back? I have identified several ideas that stand in the way of wife led marriage.

The most obvious and common is simple caution. A cautious person will prefer almost any present difficulty to the risk of losing ground. That applies ten-fold where one's marriage is concerned. Sadly, this risk aversion extends even to many women in failed marriages: they would rather go through divorce than test their erotic power.

Much of this risk aversion flows from another hurdle: tradition. Cultural tradition places women in a particular position in marriage. The old tradition held that a wife should submit to her husband. Modern tradition holds that women should aspire to equality with men. But there is no tradition of women leading men in marriage. And, further, sex in marriage is traditionally regarded as something to be kept to a minimum in the bedroom. Ironically, there is far more sexual liberation outside of marriage than within!

Then there is the desire for normality. Let's be honest, a wife led marriage is not normal. Erotic power is not normal. Everyone is not doing it. To take your marriage down this path is to diverge significantly from the herd.

And, truth be told, erotic power is a fantastical idea. An older woman, especially, will find it hard to believe that she could wield such power over her husband. It's all too easy to dismiss what you have not tried.

Moreover, culture teaches ideals and many of these ideals run counter to erotic power.

The most common ideal of marriage is the idea of romance: a woman and a man love each other and dedicate their lives to each other in a bond of mutual respect and admiration. Erotic power upsets this ideal by enabling the wife to have a disproportionate influence in the marriage and over her husband. And while people happily romanticize seduction into marriage they are shocked at the idea of seduction within the marriage.

In a similar vein, a wife may recoil at erotic power out of deference to her husband's autonomy. Modern ideals of human autonomy discourage coercion and celebrate the unencumbered life. Live and let live. A wife may insist, for example, that her husband should freely choose to do things for her, not be coerced or seduced into it. Erotic power is, after all, a power and, as the belief goes, coercive.

Perhaps the most formal impediment to erotic power is the egalitarian ideal. After struggling for sexual equality for decades women are naturally hesitant to throw that away for a position of dominance in their own marriage. They want to be equal partners with their husbands. How can you be equal to someone you dominate?

Lastly, sexuality is a very difficult subject for many women for a variety of reasons. Many wives are, quite frankly, uncomfortable with their own sexuality and with the difference between men and women in this regard. They would much rather relegate sex to the bedroom where it is kept in a small box only to be opened when absolutely necessary. Wives tend to be far more comfortable nagging than seducing.

And, yet, you would have a very difficult time finding a wife who doesn't, in her heart, believe that her marriage would be far better if only her husband would listen to her more often. She would be happier and, truth be told, he would too. If only he would do what she says!

Wives recognize that, in many ways, they are better decision makers than their husbands. They want to have more control over their marriages and even over their husbands. But for the above reasons they are totally uncomfortable with their own desire for control. They deny, avoid, and suppress it and suffer the consequences.

My hope is that in identifying the various reasons that you may hesitate to explore erotic power in your marriage I may prompt you to rethink your own preconceptions and ideals.

After all, how valuable can an idea be if it destroys your marriage?

Melting Objections

I understand that some wives may not agree with or believe in using their erotic power in

the extreme.  I accept that and believe marriage and relationships themselves are personal and

complex.  If a woman is not comfortable with this or it simply does not suit her or her marriage

I get it.  What I share here is just my own perspective on my own marriage as well as my own beliefs about men and women. For me and my husband me holding the power works.

In attempt to keep this R rated - I will not be too explicit here.  While I have always been somewhat "in charge" in my marriage -- sexually and otherwise, I have experimented as I have learned more. I have restricted my husbands sexuality in many cases and sexual reward is fairly infrequent and directly connected to compliance and "good" behavior.  I expect some might find this manipulative or out of sync with "equality" in marriage. Frankly, it may be.  I think though what makes it work is that it works for both of us and keeps us both quite happy and content.

At this point a common male complaint, wife nagging, has been virtually eliminated in our marriage. I noticed some time ago that if he objects to a request or chore - me connecting his compliance to the prospect of his satisfaction takes care of that.  Noticing this I have experimented with it in "the extreme".

Now I keep an eye on him for signs of upset or objection to a chore list, a social engagement, a decision I have made.  Sometimes this is at the moment of the request itself.  A recent example was me sending him out for a Lowes and Pharmacy trip at a time he did not anticipate.  He did not give a big objection but I saw the look on his face and some irritation bubbling up.  

An older style of mine might have been to "talk" or "explain" or, or, or, or.  Then he would talk or explain (or complain more likely).  I have simply omitted some of that banter that more often than not goes no where.  I would always "win" but he'd be grumpy.  He would comply out of fear of me being "mad".  While I do not mind him being (a little) scared of me at times I would much rather him be motivated by a desire to please me - versus fear.

Now I have employed the practice of ceasing the "talk".  I simply call him to me (sometimes I will give him the sexy sort of index finger summons motioning him to me).  He has learned what this means or might mean and does not hesitate.  At that point without a word I lower his pants and provide some direct manual contact - somewhat "thoroughly" though not to ultimate satisfaction or orgasm.  I then pull him to me after a bit of this and ask him if he is "ready to do as I have asked". It is like his "objection" has evaporated.  The emotional objection he had is gone. He is now literally excited to do my bidding.  I do not allow at that point a release.  Off he goes.

Is this a manipulation?  Sure.  But, in my view so, so, much better than what could have happened. I get a motivated, excited and happy husband.  We have no nagging arguing to get over or through and the household gets the things we need from both stores.  I find this hard to explain and describe to friends.  A couple clearly get it.  But without being "explicit" about the erotic power it is tough to get.

Maybe not for all but for us it works -- big time!

A Lust for Power

Wife led marriage is extremely empowering. Extremely.

Sometimes a wife can wonder if she is giving into a lust for power.

Let's be honest. It's pretty nice to be the Queen of the household, to have your husband at your beck and call, to be adored and worshiped, to make the important decisions and not have to explain them to your husband.

But where do you draw the line? How far can you go? Can you go too far in asserting control of you marriage? Are you indulging a lust for power?

This is something that every wife needs to think about because the more you exercise erotic power in your marriage the less your husband will resist you. Given determination and the right technique you can get him to accept almost anything you decide.

I have found that the best way to check a lust for power is to keep focused on two questions:

1. What are the practical outcomes that you desire?
2. Is he happy?

Desirable practical outcomes include a clean and orderly home, stable finances, good health, and successful children. How does your marriage stack up against others that you admire?

By staying focused on practical outcomes you can avoid the temptation to keep pushing him just to see how far you can. If, for example, the house is clean then there is no need to have him clean it further.

It's also important to realize that, to a large extent, your husband's happiness depends on you. A husband can find great happiness in submission to a wife who wields erotic power over him. And a happy husband is a helpful and adoring husband.

On the other hand, a husband who is the target of malicious nagging will be very unhappy. A husband who doesn't know what is expected of him will be very stressed. A husband who does not feel that his efforts to please his wife are valued will be miserable.

If he's happy, if your marriage is healthy, then all is well and there is no abuse of power. If either of those things go offtrack then it's all your responsibility to get back on track.

You can indulge your power freely so long as you keep these goals in mind.

Motivating Him With Rewards

Punishment and discipline are common words associated with a Wife Led Marriage (WLM). I would imagine many people, especially those new to WLM, envision the female wielding a whip or paddle in order to get the male to obey.  While, these are effective tools to use in a WLM, it is also important and effective to incorporate positive reinforcement and rewards into your WLM.  Positive reinforcement encourages the male to continue to be obedient and do things in a manner that meet your expectations.  This can be as simple as thanking him when he is good or compliant with your orders or rubbing his crotch when he performs well or before you give him an order.  A small gift for him is another form of positive reinforcement.

Rewards are good to use when he has been exceptionally good or has gone above and beyond the call of duty to please you.  If my husband, Thomas, has been consistently good for a long period of time I will reward him.  Thomas loves to see me in fetish wear.  I use fetish wear to often so it is a nice reward for him when I slip on my latex dress.  I am willing to do that if he has earned a reward.  I may also reward him with an exceptionally long teasing session or a by giving him a weekend of intense domination.  Isn't it ironic that many of the things that weaken him and reinforce his submission to me are also rewards to him.  I just love that! 

When I do these things, I make sure that Thomas knows he is being rewarded for his exceptionally good behavior.  I once had someone tell me they thought rewards were not good because then they become expected.  Sorry, but I disagree with that!  Rewards motivate people to do better and I see that in Thomas.  After a big reward, he is thankful and tends be extra obedient and attentive to my needs.  My rewards are earned and only given with exceptional behavior.   If he has consistently exceptional behavior and expects rewards for that, well then that's fine in my book because I am getting what I want and the rewards are working.

It is very important to incorporate positive reinforcement and rewards into your WLM.  It is a mistake to solely focus on repressing the male desires and focusing on what he has done wrong or needs to correct.  A strong and healthy WLM incorporates all of these techniques (punishment, discipline, positive reinforcement, and rewards) to manage the male and achieve obedience and dedication.

You Can Say Anything - If It's Sexy!!

I believe that women are sometimes hesitant to say certain things to their men for fear of damaging fragile egos.  Historically we have been taught to be caretakers and be gentle with the boys. I feel that I have learned that an immense intimacy can be engaged if things, even things that husbands and males find hard to hear can be said. I think it is the way a woman says it. I have actually come to believe that it is important, even, to acknowledge directly areas where your husband might fall short of your hopes and expectations. If a woman does it in a playful and "sexy" manner she can bring up and point out areas where he falls a bit short. My rule of thumb has become - if I give him an erection while saying or doing it I can do or say virtually anything. Whether it is income he does not produce, things he is no-so-smart-about, or bedroom challenges he may have - oddly enough, pointing them out and even sexily teasing him about those issues can add deeply to a woman's leadership and general dominance. You are saying things that you both know are true - you are just putting it out there and keeping it under your erotic spell while you do. I am coming to believe that this can be exciting for men (even if embarrassing/humiliating) as it can embrace their deepest truths right within the context of feminine relationship and authority.

Getting Him Motivated

I need to admit that only a few short month months ago I think I would have been embarrassed or perhaps too shy to share some of my thoughts on getting a husband engaged and motivated to work for his wife.  My thoughts and knowledge on this subject have changed in leaps and bounds from being very non-explicit and vague to quite clear.  The clarity I feel is based on what I have done and felt in my own marriage and over a fairly short period of time overall.

I should confess that I have always, even from the very start, been the more domineering of us and "in charge" in my marriage.  However, that has become increasingly the case as time has progressed and since I have engaged and thought more actively and read about female led marriages things have truly taken off and in a very good direction for the most part.

I would not have believed some of the things that we (largely me) have put into place.  My husband has always been generally compliant toward me when it comes to housework.  However what I have learned is that I can actually get him over the top motivated/excited to work for me -- and yes, it is precisely because it is "for me" that he gets engaged.

If this sounds manipulative, well, it probably is.  I think what I have done is to wire the idea of housework (or really any work that he does "for me") into his brain as being sexually exciting. What is amazing to me, or ironic, is that his excitement gets satisfied somewhat rarely.  What I think motivates him is a certain sort of hope that maybe it will be sometime or someday -- even if it is rare.

I sexually tease him a great deal.  I try to look sexy, smell pretty, and often make "work requests" with a hand on his crotch or whispering in his ear.  I like him to give him erections before he does the dinner dishes or sets into his Saturday chores (from a list that I have given him).  I keep him yearning, wanting, hoping and, yes a bit frustrated for much of the time.  I often give him the longest lists or the toughest tasks while he is very sexually turned on.  In fact I now almost match the degree to which I excite him to the size of the hardship to be encountered.

It is amazing to me what can be accomplished with a whisper, a hand on the crotch or a sexy smile. I have also found it important to keep him in want even if there a fair amount of frustration for him. It keeps him tuned to my satisfaction.  How far this can go in a marriage, or at least has, in my marriage, has felt remarkable to me.  It feels to me like he actually gets sexually excited to go to work for me.  I expect that sounds crazy to some and, I myself, would have thought so not very long ago.

Quite recently I ran into an old girlfriend who is not yet married but who said to me "If you control the erotics you control it all - and they (males) can really like it that way".  I know some of my closest friends might object to the idea of "control" but for us it works.

The Emotional Complexity of Wife Led Marriage

At first glance, the authority that a wife wields over her husband might appear to be nothing more than the exploitation of her husband's carnal desires.

Though wrong, this is perfectly understandable given prevailing attitudes.

Marital advice on how to save or improve your marriage has long been centered around conversation and intellectual engagement in problem solving. While an allowance is made for the emotional needs and experience of the spouses, it is generally assumed that the wife and husband must sit down and talk through their problems. Alternatively, marriage counselors lead the discussion asking each to make conscious changes in their behavior for the sake of the marriage.

This focus on intellectualizing emotional issues too often results in a dead end. If the husband won't agree to talk about the marriage, or meet with the marriage counselor, or consciously change his behavior, then the only alternative is divorce.

By contrast, when a wife sets about to assume the lead in her marriage, whether to repair or improve it, she does not share this decision with her husband. Rather, she simply acts to influence his thinking. And the most crucial step that she takes is to assume complete control of sex.

At a casual glance, then, it may appear as if the wife is simply withholding sex and that her husband is merely working hard in hopes of sexual gratification. But there is much more going on than that.

Sex, being a primal human desire, has deep emotional and psychological roots. When you manipulate your sexual relationship you are reaching past your husband's consciousness and manipulating the deepest parts of his subconscience.

As a result of this sexual manipulation, your husband's emotions and feelings about you and your marriage become fundamentally altered.

As you pair sex and authority you begin to wield erotic power in your marriage. Your husband experiences this differently than either sex or power alone. He very quickly becomes addicted to your erotic power. He experiences this addiction as an irresistible desire, arising out of his deepest subconsciousness, to submit himself to your authority. He begins to crave every opportunity to obey your command. He starts to feel great joy in serving you.

Ultimately, he begins to worship you.

That can be a very startling change if six months ago you were on the verge of divorce, arguing, as so many couples do, about money, kids, and housework. It may be tempting to miss or dismiss his adoring interest in you as nothing more than the pursuit of the sexual gratification that you have been so carefully managing. If so, you are selling short yourself and him and the transformation itself.
 
The transformation is real. It is profound. It is deep and permanently life changing.