Sex Secrets of an American Geisha (19 page)

The biggest time-waster for you on the road to love and marriage, as it was for me, will be the time you spend with inappropriate men. I spent years and years with the Wrong Men. Please learn from me, bright Younger Sister. Do not spend any time with a man once you realize he is not a Good Man for you.

The Four Core Characteristics
of a Good Man

As you consider what makes a Good Man good, you will first be concerned with the very basics. These are the most important and fundamental areas of a man’s character that must be right in order for you to have a wonderful, happy love relationship and marriage with him. The smart, assertive, sexy American Geisha does not compromise at all in these four areas; your Good Man must show you that he possesses these traits.

A Good Man’s Four Core Characteristics are:

1. He has good values.

2. He is aware, conscious, and responsible.

3. He is nice, and he is supportive of you.

4. He is positive, optimistic, and happy.

1. A GOOD MAN HAS GOOD VALUES

What this means, in essence, is that he is honest, that he tells the truth to you and to others, in both his personal and business lives. Because he tells the truth you can trust him and relax in the security of the relationship. You do not always have to be on edge, wondering what the truth of any situation actually is. When people live in accordance with their values, they have integrity.

A man can have good values no matter which religion he practices (or even if he practices no religion). Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor can all have good values. When a man tells the truth you can respect him. The American Geisha would find it difficult to respect a man who lied to her, and respect for your husband is critically im portant in a good, happy, sexy marriage. Both Scott and Neil were less than fully honest with me, and I realize now that I didn’t always respect them.

2. HE IS AWARE, CONSCIOUS, AND RESPONSIBLE

Your Good Man is conscious of what is going on around him, of his rela tionship with you, of his dealings at work, and, generally, of the passing of the years and events in his life. When he is aware and conscious you feel heard by him, appreciated by him for what you do and who you are, con nected to him because you are both actively involved in your relationship. For your Good Man to be responsible simply means that he doesn’t blame others for much that happens in his life, but instead takes it upon himself to do the best he can to succeed in life and in his relationship with you. He’s dependable.

Here, again, I now see that both Scott and Neil, rather than taking re sponsibility for doing what needed to be done, chose to deny that they had serious untreated problems (erectile dysfunction and depression, respec tively).

3. YOUR GOOD MAN IS NICE, AND HE’S SUPPORTIVE OF YOU

Niceness or kindness is so important in the definition of a Good Man. Couldn’t you, dear Younger Sister, put up with a whole bunch of imperfections in a man if he were consistently the nicest person in the world in the way he treated you? “Nice” is an underappreciated adjective when it comes to personality traits. Notice whether he treats other people kindly, too.

A man who is supportive of you has your best interests at heart and wants you to be successful in whatever you attempt. He believes in you, cares for you, and wants you to be happy. He builds you up and never tears you down. He’s a friend and a teammate as well as a lover and a husband. I see so clearly now that Scott and Neil just weren’t very nice to me.

4. HE IS POSITIVE, OPTIMISTIC, AND HAPPY

This final core trait has to do with a Good Man’s way of looking at the present and the future, as well as how he interprets the events of his past. Many psychologists believe that this attitude has a strong genetic or inherited element that is difficult to change. Most basically, you want to be a happy woman who’s sharing her life and marriage with another happy per son, not a happy woman trying to make her unhappy husband happy. Get ting someone else to change is always difficult, even harder if much of his negativity is based in his DNA.

From my experience with Neil, I can testify to the intractability of depression and negativity, no matter what another person does to help the suf ferer overcome it. Instead of your changing him for the better, his negative life view will probably drag you down—at least, that’s what happened to me. Over the years with Neil, I became more negative, more pessimistic, more depressed, and unhappy. I blamed myself that I couldn’t help him no matter what I did.

As a kind, caring person, dear Younger Sister, encourage such a man to find help—as difficult as any change may be—but do not try to be a help mate to him and do not put your own happiness at risk by staying with him. Instead, find a Good Man who has done the psychological work he needed to do. Find a Good Man who is already positive, optimistic, and happy.

The Asian Geisha accepts all of the men she deals with exactly as they are, without demanding, expecting, or even hoping that they will change. She knows that they will not. Learn this lesson, my dear American Geisha: Men will not often change. Do not try to change a Bad Man or a Wrong Man, for only your great unhappiness is likely to result. I felt lonelier when I was with a Wrong Man than I did when I was actually alone. Don’t make my mistake. Instead, find a Good Man who
already
has the core qualities that you require for your and his great happiness together.

What If You Choose a Bad or Wrong Man?

Your American Geisha Older Sister likes to stay positive in her advice to you, dear Younger Sister. However, to make the point of how important a Good Man’s Four Core Characteristics are, I need for just a moment to get a little negative. Imagine that instead of seeking a Good Man who embod ied these four important personality traits, you became involved with a Bad Man or Wrong Man who embodied their opposites.

Your life with this man might entail serial lies, some big, some small, perhaps about where he was, whom he saw, what he did. Perhaps even criminal behavior. You’d worry, be unsure, insecure, anxious, upset, perhaps an gry or scared. Since he’s also unaware, this Bad Man doesn’t know the real you, who you are at your core. Perhaps debts mount and he’s not conscious of your family’s precarious financial situation. His lack of consciousness and responsibility does not make him a good employee or otherwise en hance his job security; nor does it bode well for his being a dad, if he has even given serious thought (awareness) to parenthood. And blaming others (the government, his boss,
you)
rarely is a good strategy for having a happy, successful life or marriage. Perhaps this Bad Man will be unsupportive of you, put you down, and treat you unkindly, because he is not a nice person, not a nice man, not a nice boyfriend, not a nice husband. You’ll feel inse cure, perhaps even physically afraid. Finally, if Mr. Bad Man is negative, pessimistic, and unhappy or even depressed, imagine what that does for your day-to-day quality of life together!

Remember this, please, Younger Sister: If a man lives his life from bad values, if he is irresponsible, unkind, or very negative (any
one
of these four problem areas), you want no type of relationship at all with him. You do not share your heart, your vagina, your bed, or your life with a Bad Man. If you can avoid it, don’t even share a cup of coffee with a Bad Man! If some how you have gotten entangled with this Bad Man, end any such relation ship now. If somehow your Mr. Bad exhibits all four of the Bad Man characteristics, you should also spend considerable time analyzing (perhaps with professional assistance) your original choice to date him so you’ll never do it again.

Again, if you are with a Bad Man, get out, figure out why it happened, and start looking for a Good Man, only a Good Man. It’s not worth wast ing your precious time; it’s not worth putting your energy into a Bad Man. Because you’re worthy. You are a worthy person. You are a Good Woman. You deserve and will find a Good Man. (See the Recommended Reading list for some books that may be helpful if you’ve wasted time with Bad Men or even just Wrong Men.)

Notice What He
Does,
Not What He
Says

When you find a Good Man with the Four Core Characteristics—one who is honest, aware, nice, and happy—then your pleasant assignment is to fur ther determine whether other elements indicate that he could become a longer-term dating partner, a sexual partner, and finally a marriage partner.

No man is perfect. The American Geisha knows this and does not seek an impossible perfection in her man; however, she does seek to be with, to date, to have sex with, and to marry only a man who possesses the core characteristics that will support a long and happy marriage to her, a woman who has all of the characteristics of a Good Woman. Your Geisha Consciousness knows that you are so smart and so hot and so sexy that you do not have to consider selling yourself short in terms of the man you choose to date and to marry. He will be a fine man, a Good Man—or else you will not date, have sex with, or (heaven forbid!) marry him.

You will be able to get some hint of whether a man is a Good Man early in your relationship, often without ever going on a date. Look posi tively and optimistically at any man to see whether or not he has the four core qualities. Keep your awareness and focus on looking for his strengths in these areas, not on actively seeking out his weaknesses (unless his actions indicate that there is something negative to be on the lookout for). Watch for behaviors (that is, not so much what he
says
but what he
does)
that give you indications of how his personality matches up to your four core requirements for your future husband.

Remind yourself that a Good Man has the integrity to act in ways that reflect his professed values. That is, if he has good values (what he
believes
), then his behaviors (what he
does
) are a natural and consistent consequence of those values. Watch out for (and run from) the man who says all the right things, which would seem to indicate good values, but who does not seem to behave or live from those values. A man without integrity between his beliefs and his behaviors is not a Good Man. At least one indication that you are dealing with a Bad Man is the frequency of his apologies for misbehaving, followed soon by more bad deeds and more smooth-talking apologies. Don’t
listen
to the apologies;
watch
for the repeated bad behaviors. To treat you this way is abusive. Leave in a hurry; full politeness and gentle partings are not required for such a manipulative, unprincipled Bad Man. A good book on how to recognize and avoid inappropriate men is Sandra L. Brown’s book
How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved
(see Recom mended Reading).

Once You Choose a Good Man

Once you choose a Good Man with whom to have a relationship, please forever focus positively and optimistically on his good points and strengths, and accept his relatively minor bad points and weaknesses. You want to al ways be totally supportive of your Good Man, never subtly undermining him with your concerns for his limitations. The smart, sexy American Geisha can only be so accepting if she knows that, at heart, this is a Good Man for her, despite whatever less important shortcomings he may have.

The secret that I impart to you here is that the Asian Geisha, once she and her
danna
have chosen one another, makes his happiness (sexual and otherwise) and her support of him her highest priority, though her actual decision to take on a
danna
is more of a business/lifestyle choice than a love choice. The American Geisha, for reasons of love and support, chooses her Good Man with a clear understanding of who he is, and she does all she can to build him up as a man (sexually and otherwise) both in her eyes and in his own eyes. She then reaps the many wonderful rewards that such a happy and empowered Good Man will bring to her, to their relationship, and, ultimately, to their marriage.

My husband is most definitely a Good Man, but he is certainly not a Perfect Man (remember, there’s no such thing). As to the Four Core Char acteristics, he has a high sense of integrity; he loves sharing what he calls a “conscious relationship” with me; he is tremendously nice and supportive; and he’s the most consistently positive and optimistic person I’ve ever known. He has his faults, though. He reads the newspaper two hours a day, without exception; he has a very relaxed attitude toward work and money; he is more of a thinker than a doer; and he wants, at age sixty-three, even more sex than I do. I accept and even support that he is this way, and it doesn’t detract from our love relationship, because at his core my husband is a Good Man. Dear Younger Sister American Geisha, when you find a Good Man, please accept and support in him those aspects of his personality that you may not prefer, but which are not critical to defining him as a Good Man. He’ll love you for both your acceptance and your sincere support.

Remember, though, at the outset of the relationship you must be
very
careful
to ascertain that this man truly is a Good Man; otherwise your ef forts may ultimately be wasted on a man you cannot marry because he has very different values or is not sufficiently conscious or doesn’t treat you nicely or is an unhappy person.