The odds are against you.

Many years ago, someone quoted a woman who had been interviewed years ago. Unfortunately, her name and exact words have been lost in the passage of time, though the essence has carried with me. Apparently, this woman was known for being quite scathing of men, but was being quite mild on the subject during the interview. So her host asked her about it.

She responded (as best I can recall), "If you take a hundred men, ninety of them know nothing about sex and never will. Of the remaining ten, nine of them know nothing about sex, but can be taught."
Here she paused and reputedly the interviewer asked her, "And that last one?"
"That man is a god."

The first thing that ran through my head when I heard that was that damn near every man that heard that would mentally slot himself into being that one. The second was a rabid conviction that I would not let myself slide below the ninetieth percentile.

It can be a rather grim assessment. Out of every ten guys a woman picks up, odds are that all but one are total duds. Run it still further and you realize that ninety nine out of a hundred guys are going to suck in bed. A few might improve, but the vast majority will not. Of course it's all a matter of perspective. Adapt those odds to a jeweler selecting diamond gemstones and they'll never lack for inventory. But then again, a jeweler will run through thousands of diamonds. Not many women are going to sleep with such a number of men. Some women will have no problem in investing in the one in ten odds to find one that works for her. Some are going to sleep with one or two and hope for the best after the wedding. Some will be lesbians and laugh at the women enduring lack-luster heterosex.

Of course, the odds are that she's going to need to invest some time and energy having mediocre sex (at best) in discovering whether he can learn or not.

The interesting thing is that this assessment appears to reflect reality. In talking with my female friends, their lovers have roughly conformed to the break-down. We are talking odds here so there are always those who have beaten the curve as well as those who can't seem to catch a break. A few of these women have truly impressive data pools to draw from as well. Anyone who has ever worked with statistics should understand the importance of sample size in relation to margin of error. I'm reasonably confident of the relative odds.

Not one to refrain from tinkering with a nice simple general model, I've tacked on my own modifiers. We are talking about human beings after all, which tends to introduce chaos into any system they're introduced to with all the subtlety of an enema hose hooked to a showerhead.

As I interpret the model before me, the ninety men lack the talent or capability to be a good sexual partner for a woman. They're a complete write-off, total loss. Their entire purpose is to muddy up the system.

The vaunted one-in-a-hundred guy is a greatly appreciated sort possessed of both natural talent and the capacity to adapt his ever-growing repertoire to his lover's tastes. For the most part, he's pretty straight forward within this model.

That leaves the "trainable" few. They're not going to have much natural talent. Their stamina may be lacking. They won't know where to put themselves or what to do once they get there. They'll probably blunder through things or freeze up for fear of making a mistake. However, these blokes can learn. Repeated repetition will form patterns in their behavior. They will acquire skills. Mr. "I-have-all-the-rhythm-of-a-river-rock-in-a-drier" can develop methods to compensate.

Notice I only refer to capability. Just because they have the potential, it does not mean it will be realized. Some guys will seek to glide through life on talent alone. Some women will let them. Some guys will imprint on the wrong clues. A couple girlfriends in the past unable to speak up about what they like but faking orgasms, for example, can set in motion a lifetime of self-delusion for that man. Hell, some are going to take vows of celibacy or be gay which pretty effectively removes them from female consumption.

Then time is a factor. Past experiences will leave their marks, influencing what and how he does things later on. Many people also evidence a decrease in learning as time passes. By middle age, many men are indelibly imprinted with the skills they already possess. They cannot seem to modify what they already know to any great degree regardless of how much they desire to. If the framework to allow flexibility in sexual interaction has been incorporated early enough, he could very well progress happily onward because he's integrated a life-long learning approach to sex. Most chaps are going to reach a point of thinking they know everything they need to know. Not to mention, there are lots of men out there who lack the motivation to learn in the first place.

The wild card variable is that standards vary. What might be the best lover woman A ever encountered, could very easily be fair or mediocre to woman B. There's no accounting for chemistry. I would add that this would only play a part for the upper ten percent in the model. A dead fuck is a dead fuck across the board in my observation.