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male friends. You know what? I'm going to read a message that I got because there was a while ago on my stories where I was talking about male friends and you little sending me such incredible responses and insights from your own lived experience of this matter. So I'm going to read some of them that I got. Someone said,
I would like to hear more about male friends, platonic ones specifically. Because I got a feeling they still only hang around and treat me well because they expect one day I'll open my legs for them. And when that never comes to pass, then they get resentful.
I've had male friends in the past, and I've been getting the vibes, none of them truly respect women. And they feel entitled. I still have some, but I feel I need to keep my boundary solid. I resonate with this, trust me, look, I've got male friends, right? And I can count all of my male friends on one hand. I have a male friend who
He's the only man that I can actually say is reliable in my life. And it's not from a place of me needing him. It's from a place of we've cultivated such an incredible friendship that he's actually my emergency contact.
And he's been in the background of so many of my important moments because he wants to be there, because he wants to help. And I actually love him.
I don't say that I love men often, but I love him and I tell him all the time and he tells me he loves me too, but it's not romantic. I know you're probably thinking, well, you should get married then. No, you don't marry men just because you love them. No, girl. First of all, it's important to have men in your life who love you, who are not romantic partners because you shouldn't only be loved by the man who you're sleeping with.
you're a lovable person, therefore you can experience love from more than one channel. And the love that I experience in my friendship with this guy friend is the kind of love that's action based. He don't just tell me he loved me. And then I sit, no, like he's the kind of person from having a really awful time.
It's him that I call, because he gets it. He's in a similar industry to me. We don't have the same type of career, but he's in a very similar industry to me, so he gets it. And he's just such a good person. And you know what the best part is? He's like this with all his female friends.
It's not like he's only nice to me because one day, oh, one day he wants to sleep with me. No, this is just his character. And because I noticed that that is his character, I trust him. And even when there's been times when we've had some sort of like
bump in the road not a fallout but like a what did you say to me i don't like that he's handled it with such grace and poise like a true gentleman and again another reason why it's so important to have male friends in your life who actually love you is sharp for you is it increases your
standards for what you expect of a man who you're going to be romantically involved with. Because if this is the kind of love that I have with someone who is my friend, who I'm not sleeping with, I'm not romantically involved with, then imagine what I'm going to expect from a man who I'm actually romantically, intimately sexually involved with. I'd expect way more as I deserve to, as I deserve to. And
the other male friends that I have, you know, some of them, unfortunately, in fact, none of them are as reliable as this particular friend I just told you about. But those other male friends who are not as reliable, they have a different role in my life, yeah? Our compartment allows people based on what I know that they are capable of giving me because I don't like to over-expect from people. I think sometimes when we project too much onto a person, it only breeds more disappointment.
It only creates more room for us to feel let down by that person. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be able to ask our friends for help, but what I'm saying is it's a man. There's a guy friend I have who, this one, yeah, I think from my suspension, I think he fancies me, but it's the kind of complicated fancy
where he knows that he's never going to be able to hit because he knows what my standards are. He's heard me talk about it, but he knows I'm never going to sleep with him. So I get the version of him that's a bit more flaky, but this is something I've noticed right with men. When they realize through being friends of you, whilst equally being attracted to you,
when they realize that, you know what, she's not gonna sleep with me. Well, okay then. That's when you start to notice how flaky they are. That's when you start to notice that they're not as attentive. That's why you notice that they're not as reliable because men are very transparent people if you know what to look out for. If a man doesn't feel like you can get sexual access from you,
he's gonna just slowly pull away and put his energy where he feels like he might get more attention and I don't think it's I don't think it's the worst thing in the world there's a guy friend I have who's like that and the reason why it doesn't bother me is because
He doesn't play a significant role in my life. I know what he's useful to me for. And I'm okay with describing men as useful to me. Men should be useful to you. It doesn't mean you're dehumanizing them or only seeing them through the aspects of them being useful to you. But it's about what's gonna make it worth it for you to keep this money in your life. Cause a man is still gonna man at the end of the day. And this guy friend I'm talking about who's unreliable. This one, yeah. So what makes him useful to me?
Let's just say he's very talented and he's got lots of skills that are useful for like me making content and stuff when I want to. And so when I need to use some of his skills, I use his skills and I don't feel bad about it.
because he offers his skills to me. He makes it clear whenever I want to use his equipment, I can use his equipment. I don't have to pay for it. And I like that. I like that a lot. That makes it worth it for me. That's valuable to me, being able to use his equipment. Absolutely. I don't care.
that he hasn't checked in on me in three weeks. I don't care because what I want from him is the equipment. When I need to use the equipment, I use the equipment. He sends the files to me when I finish making what I've made on his equipment and off I go and off he goes. And whenever he decides to remember me, he remembers me and I'm not going to be passive and be like, oh, I haven't had from you. It's fine, don't worry because I know that he's clocked. I'm not going to sleep with him, but he still likes having me around.
So in his man brain, he's probably done his own compartmentalizing because this is what men do as well. If men know they're not going to be able to sleep with you, but there is something they can still enjoy or get out of being around you.
They'll take what they can get, but you won't really be able to, you know, have the most reliable version of him. Fine. Fine. Be like that then. But when it comes to this whole idea of like male friends who try to be male friends so they can sleep with you, hey, good luck.
Good luck. Good luck doing that over here because you know what I'll do? I'll pretend like I'm in on it. Oh, you're pretending you want to be my friend? I'm pretending not to see it. I'm getting exactly what I want to get out of you. Because you think that what I'm getting out of you is going to make me want to sleep with you. Go on then. Keep trying. But yeah, that's why I keep saying men are not very good people.
They don't respect us, okay? Think about all of your male friends right now, right? Especially those male friends who you suspect that they are attracted to you, those ones, I want you to think about those ones, because those are the ones who are the most, not dangerous, but they're the ones who you should pay more attention to in this conversation of male friends and their shady ways. If you think about the male friends you have who are attracted to you,
What's interesting here is now that they've clocked that you're not going to sleep with them and their behaviour is not as involved or intense in the positive way that it used to be. If he was to stick it on to him, he would get a hard on. Like, he's still going to be aroused by you because he's a man.
So I say all that to say, like, you can't be taking it personal when a man fancies you and he's your friend. It's a man. It's a man. Yeah, they're treating you well because one day they think they're going to smash. That's why you got to take advantage of it because they're taking advantage of you. Take advantage back. Take advantage back. Don't be scared. Add some more. Mm.
Because men don't be feeling bad about none of this shit. And you're trying to have the moral high ground. For what reason? Who is it serving? Because it's not serving you. I'm going to read another message that I got. But before I read that message, actually, when I was responding to some of the messages,
This is what I wrote. I screenshot it because I wanted to read it on the podcast and talk about it more. So someone was like, open the kind of worms as to how male friends take advantage of your loneliness. So I was like, all right, let's open this kind of worms then. So I said, male friends who take advantage of your loneliness via friends with benefits.
are scamming you into believing that orgasms are a benefit for you, even though men are the ones who rely on sex with women for their literal survival and sustenance, whilst women in situations like this are fucking for validation and companionship. The only benefits that come from sleeping with a man are financial benefits or a career opportunity.
Literally nothing else is worth fucking a man for free for. Liking him is not enough. A man has to make himself likable to you by making your life easier. I repeat, orgasms are not a benefit. Anyway, let me close back this kind of worms.
Because really and truly, men have marketed orgasms as a benefit. And you not fell for it. Ah! Giant. We are better than this. We're better than this, guys. Come on. Come on, we are smarter than this. That's why I don't do the friends with benefits thing. The only benefit is sex, because I would be very, very
very open to sex, to friends with benefits. If the benefit in question is money, absolutely, absolutely, we can be friends with benefits because money will benefit my life. All guys are not going to benefit my life. All guys will not take me any closer to a quieter, easier, healthier life. It won't.
It will improve my mood, but if I still got problems that money can solve, I've still got those problems. I run businesses. So if you're someone who runs businesses, you will know that there's always stuff to do with like tax, VAT, paying your accountant. I've always got some sort of outstanding cost somewhere that I need to pay for, right? And I always eventually get the job done. But if a man wants to fuck,
Well, you know, I owe my accountant two and a half grand this year for his accounting fees. Do you want to pay that? Yeah, you want to pay that? Okay, we're off to a good start then. I wouldn't necessarily fuck for two and a half grand, but that can get me in the mood to consider fucking.
which is a good start because I'm not somebody who cares to sleep with men for the sake of sleeping with men.
If you're not making my life easier, I'm not gonna get aroused. I'm just not interested. Like, orgasms is not doing anything for my life. Like, I'm running businesses. I am keeping this whole machine running by myself. Why would you put your dick inside me and make anything easier for me when I can create orgasms for myself, by myself? We don't need to outsource the pleasure right here. No, everything is made in-house, including the orgasms. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
But yeah, man, someone told me that in New York City, men pay her to hug them. Married men pay this lady money to hug them. She's being paid to hug married men.
Oh, she sounds like kind of person that I want to be friends with. I would love to be your friend, girl, whoever you are. That's hilarious. That's so funny. But it's happening because men get something from the intimacy that we don't see because we live in our bodies as women. So we're like, well, I don't really see what he gets out of looking at my tits. They're just my tits. I see them every day. No!
You're not a man. So you can't see it. So you're always going to have a blind spot, but you need to compensate for that blind spot by making sure that whatever that man is doing in your life is benefiting you. That's all I'm saying. It's really not complicated. I feel like people are overcomplicating this because they are scared to acknowledge that with power comes responsibility.
And what's that power? The power that comes with being a woman, you do have power when it comes to your interpersonal interactions with men on a sexual level. You don't have systemic power as a woman, but you have sexual power and that should be used to your benefit. And that's why the responsibility part comes in because you are responsible for what you tolerate in your life. You're responsible for what you're working into your life. You're responsible for what you allow to slide.
And once you acknowledge that responsibility, that's where you recognise where you might have betrayed yourself. That's where you recognise how much more work you've got to do because it is a lot of work to get to a level of self-esteem where asking men for things and expecting more from men becomes your baseline.
It takes a lot of work to get there, but you can get there. Just because it's a lot of work doesn't mean that you shouldn't start. You're worth the work, you're worth the effort, especially what you're gonna get off the other side of that work you're gonna put into yourself. It is what it is, you're gonna have to do it if you want a better life with men involved, especially if you're doing your fucking men for benefits. The only benefit is your life being benefited. All gasms are not benefiting your life! Anyway, I'm gonna read another message that I got.
Someone said, as someone who has chosen not to engage with men in romantic slash sexual capacities, I was wondering why my male friendships were still draining me. They're vampires. The emotional labor isn't exclusive for their sexual slash romantic partners. The home girls are dealing with it too. All their loneliness, depression, women problems, et cetera.
All they want to do is complain and nag till one of us makes their life easier. They'll do it to any woman they can. I keep all these motherfuckers on red and at arm's length because they don't do shit for me. They can cry me a damn river. Period, girl. Period. Talk your shit, girl. I completely agree.
That's why you got to be so careful with these male friends who once they realize that you're not going to sleep with them, they just use you as their sounding board instead. Or if these guys are not attracted to you, but they know that you can be useful for like emotionally enabling them, or you can be useful for validating their self-esteem, they will use you for that.
So that's why I don't believe in helping men who run into financial crisis.
If a man is doing a charity run, like he's doing a 5k run for charity, I would happily donate to the cause because I believe in what that money is doing for the cause. But if a man has decided to run himself into financial ruin because he was too busy sleeping around with girls, not building anything tangible for himself, running away from the responsibility of facing his problems, I'm not helping you with that. I'm not doing that.
You're gonna have to find your way. You got this champ. I believe in you. I believe in you. You got this. You got this. I know you've always been the kind of person you can get yourself out of a hole. So you can do this. That's the most you're getting out of me. A little pep talk. Two, two pep talks. I'm not about to give you money. Figure it out. You gotta be careful, man. Men be using friendship to mine for validation from women. They even use friendship as a way to
explore some sexual slash erotic interests without actually being super front up front about flirting with you. You've got to be so careful. You've got to be really careful, girl.
Someone said, when I moved to the USA, most of my friends were guys because of my interest in martial arts. Boy, I had to do so much emotional labor every time one of them would fall for me. I have three guy friends now just because I benefit immensely from their friendship. The other men, I am only happy when they are afraid of me. See that last line?
The other man, I'm only happy when they're afraid of me. I resonate deeply. I actually like it when, because I've got, I've got guy friends who I know they're a bit scared of me. And it's not scared as in, oh, she can beat me up. No, they're scared of me as in.
They know what I'm like. They know that they're going to get cut off. They've seen what happens when they disappoint me and they know that with each disappointment I turn the heat up a little more. I like when a man is scared of me. You should be scared of me. I like having a reputation of being unforgiving and stunned because that's way better than having the reputation of being a pushover who is forgiving.
They will trample all over you, stand on your head and use you as a springboard to get to the woman that they couldn't get. Watch and see, that could be you, being the floor mats. Now they're letting men get over on you because you're a nice person. You'll have to be so careful. Another person messaged me and said, most boy mates are just waiting for their turn or opportunity to fuck you. I had a lot of boy mates when I was unhealed and a people please are,
And now I mainly surround myself with women.
Multiple of my boy mates over the years have expressed their love for me, or even worse, tried it on me, slash tried to have sex with me when I've been vulnerable and confided in them when I was in a bad place. I only have two guy mates I know for certain would never do anything more. However, the rest I know, if I said, let's fuck, they would do it immediately.
Girl. Girl. Oh my God, let's talk about it. When you're vulnerable and a man decides it's time to press your breasts. I've seen it happen to people where like they've experienced a grief like someone has died and they are in emotional shambles. So they're with their guy friend and he's helping her talk through the grief. And next thing you know, they're sleeping together.
All the man needs is the opportunity. That's what I'm saying. They're not very good people. So you're here trying to do, oh, I'm a nice person. Let me give this guy a benefit of doubts. Okay, girl. Let me know how that works out for you. Because as far as a man is concerned, if he knows that he can get access to your body by you being in a vulnerable state, he's going to try his luck.
And him being a male friend is a better angle for him than him being just some guy that you happen to have met during this tricky time of your life because in him being a male friend there's already a level of trust and familiarity that has been established. So he's not going to feel as
lost in terms of figuring out where your weak points are. And remember, when you're going for a vulnerable time and someone decides to be present and be there for you, it's more of a big deal. It's more of a big deal because you're like, oh wow, this person really showed up for me in a time when I'm really going through it. Wow.
I really feel connected to him. And if he decides to take advantage of that and now you have a sex with him and then lo and behold, he starts to become detached and avoidant because he's gotten what he wanted from you. And now he considers your emotions too much. You're now double grieving. You're not even even more paying your name and even worse off place. And you would have been if you were just grieving on your own about him involving himself. So that's why you've got to be so careful, so much more careful than you think you're being.
I'm going to read another message. I've been noticing this recently and male friends will literally think they're being moral by not having actual intercourse with you.
They be super emotionally intimate with you but act like as long as they're not physical they can behave however they want. They're happy to take your time and emotional labor but give nothing back and then act like they're not taking advantage of you because they didn't try to sleep with you. Someone else said
There are so many theories about women being social capital. The more men want a woman, the higher her capital is. So if a man is just seen with a highly wanted woman, he gets praised for it by other men, and his own social capital is rising. That's not only with husbands, but with friends, brothers, or even fathers.
You've got a gorgeous daughter there is what people often say. Nothing other than showing how his social capital rises if he's just walking around with you. So being friends with a man and so increasing his social capital with nothing in return is the stupidest thing anyone can do.
Y'all hear that? Y'all hear that? Basically, this person is saying, men are getting clout off being seen around you. You see it, you see it. That's why it comes back to, if you're gonna have male friends, make sure they're benefiting your life because they benefit from being seen with you.
And you don't have to be a public figure for a man to gain clout from being seen with you. Just the mere idea of you being beautiful makes other men think something higher of him because what must this man have done to be able to have such a beautiful woman in his life? Because men know! Men know!
From them even perceiving that man as more accomplished for being with a beautiful woman, it's because men know that it's only successful men that deserve to be with beautiful women because beautiful women deserve men who are pouring into them and only a successful man can pour into a woman. Yes, so there are men who people think that man is rich just because he's seeing a view, because you look so good that they think that that man has got money.
Because what would a woman as stunning as you be dealing with that man unless he's genuinely making your life easier? That's why you got to be careful girl. Someone said, I matched a guy on Tinder. I could already see it being transactional and under the systemic influence of patriarchy.
He joked that he takes me out and I pay half unless I impress him. He said he had a Nintendo Switch but in return he must borrow something off me, a kiss. I already feel so connected to your work and this new literature understanding a connection between sex work and marriage helped me to deeper understand that it really starts there.
Safe to say, I unmatched him and called him out for wanting transactions when actually I should just receive. Men always will have the nerve but never the money. Isn't that a crying shame?
It's so weird when men do that joke, like even my well friends are like, I dare you. Like they'll make a fake joke or like a stupid fake game. Yeah. And they'll be like, if you lose the game, you have to kiss me. Triple dare you if you lose the game, I'm going to have to squeeze your tits. Like, that's so weird. That's so weird. Why do you need to have a sexual interaction with me for a game? What a weirdo.
Someone said, even the good ones are problems because since they aren't the kind of men who are the bad ones, they tend to have rose-colored glasses on about the men around them. I learned this the hard way. Sometimes, assuming men are decent by association with a good guy will be the reason why a woman experiences a covertly abusive man. Points were made. Points were made because
All men benefit from the actions of abusive men. They all benefit because what happens is when men are abusive towards women, the bar of expectation becomes so much lower for men as a whole social group. So what it means is if a man is not abusive towards you, that's considered a win. It's like, he doesn't abuse you. Oh my goodness, you're so lucky you found a keeper. Wow.
You mean he doesn't control you financially? Oh my goodness, you're so lucky you found a keeper. And it's like, no one says that to women or no one thinks that of women when a man talks about a woman he's dating. And the man is like, yeah, and she doesn't abuse me. He's like, she doesn't abuse you. Oh my goodness, what a keeper. She doesn't financially control you. Oh my goodness, what a keeper. It's like, because women are not expected to be abusive.
We don't navigate our relationships with men in that way. So yes, it's very fascinating to see how the quote unquote good man. This is why I don't like this whole idea of like, oh, but there are some good men. The problem with that phrase is that the good men are in the minority. The quote unquote good men you speak of are in the minority.
Why are good men in the minority? That's weird. That tells you that men are not very good people because if the best of them are only in a negligible percentile, then what are the rest of them?
not good people. Right. Second point being then, where do you hear men saying, oh, there are some good women out there. They're just really, really rare. You don't really hear that, do you? Because most women are expected to uphold moral goodness. And what does that look like? Cleaning up after a man, making excuses for him, being his mule and his mother and his fuck wife. And now they're expecting us to split bills with them. So splitting bills with him as well. And also being the primary caretaker for the children.
Women are expected to be that, so men don't have to look that far to find that. But we're expected to look far and wide for a man who doesn't hit us crazy, crazy, crazy, which is why you need to be more vigilant of the men you're keeping in your life as friends because you know what? Trigger warning.
If you have sensitivities towards sexual violence, I would recommend that you maybe cover your ears briefly. But the reason why, for me, I am not trusting of male friends in the way that I've seen a lot of women be so blindly trusting is the man who raped me was a friend.
It wasn't someone who was like, oh, just some sort of distant friend that I kind of knew. No, this was someone that was in my life for quite a while. And he raped me and he immediately, after taking himself out of my body, he immediately was like, I'm really sorry, I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry. I couldn't help it.
and till this day occasionally when I see him in public I feel really sick and I always feel angry at myself for not smacking a glass bottle over his head.
So I'm sharing that not to like trauma dump. I'm sorry if that was really intense for you to hear. I won't go into it in that much detail because I really don't want to like make this episode a downer. We're going to wind it up here anyway and round this up. But saying all that to say like it really can even be the men who your friends with that can betray you and harm you. So this all comes back to the point of please make sure that if you're going to have male friends
make sure that they are serving a purpose in your life for you.
just for you. You know why that man is in your life because there are going to be male friends who won't be as reliable as the other ones but if you know what you need that male friend for and what role he's playing you can compartmentalize him as just that even if he is free food let him be free food even if he is someone who owns I don't know like a recording studio and he lets you use his recording studio for free take advantage of that
Focus on just the recording studio aspect. Don't worry about nothing else, girl, because you're saving a lot of money and you're getting a lot of access to equipment that you otherwise probably wouldn't be able to access as easily. Let that be the value you get from that. If you've got another girlfriend who is the person who you can bounce creative ideas off of, who holds a lot of space for you and he just likes hearing you talk,
let that be the relationship you have with that friend you don't need to turn it into a boyfriend because you're getting on well with him let him just be a friend it's important to allow yourself to be loved by men who you're not in a relationship with it's important to allow yourself to receive care and support including financial support from men who you're not in a relationship with because this is what you always deserved as a woman
and it sets a healthy barometer for what you should expect from a man who you're going to be fucking and sucking and possibly marrying. If your male friends are up here with how they're treating you, the man you're going to be romantically and intimately involved with has got to be up here, girl, because your baseline of what you expect from men in your life has already been met by your male friends. So it's healthy to have male friends in your life who treat you well.
And if deep down is because they want to sleep with you, that's their problem because they're not getting that from you. But as long as you're getting what makes you feel good, nurtured, safe, supported from them, that's what matters. So focus on that. And with that, I'm going to wrap this episode up. Thank you for listening.
I appreciate you streaming the Slumflower Hour podcast. If you are a supporter of mine, I would encourage you to give this podcast a 5 star rating on whatever streaming platform you use because when you rate a podcast with 5 stars, did you know
that it bumps the podcast up in the algorithm, which means that more people are going to hear it, which means the more women who think like this, the less of a spectacle it will be for a woman to have some bloody standards for once in her life. And the more that we think in this way, and the more we expect from men,
the less men are going to be in for a shock when they meet a beautiful woman who expects more from them it will become the new normal just like how friends with benefits apparently is normal we can create a new normal where we expect more from men and that starts with more of us thinking this way which means more five star ratings which means more visibility which means more of us being in community thank you as always and i'll catch you in the next episode
