: Re: How to balance male protagonist sensitivity to women My MC is an assassin by trade and has a military background - sniper, Special Ops, etc. He was raised partly by his sister after their

@Mendez196

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One alternative is to let him indulge in sex without love or romance. Especially in modern times, there are at least some women that want the same; there are apps for that.

for example the vast majority of adults that marry do not marry virgins, and do not marry their first sexual partner. That has been true for me and all my family and friends I know about, and even my female friends that are gay. (USA, I can't speak for other countries). There can be exceptions, of course, I just don't know any.

The point is that it is not unusual. As post-pubescent teens multiple evolutionary mechanisms are pushing hard for us to have sex and reproduce, including by brain manipulation causing us to be more rebellious, impulsive and emotional than we are reasonable, patient or rational; thus much more likely to ignore consequences and "live in the moment". This agenda succeeds. There's research! Sex and Youth, by Bob Altemeyer, a Manitoba university psychologist, "Secret Surveys" of 1st year college students, average age 19, thousands of subjects spanning twenty-four years. (The "Secret Survey" is a clever way of guaranteeing the respondents anonymity in their answers.)

75% of women engage in masturbation at a mean age of 14.2; and 73% (by age 19) have had first sexual intercourse, at a mean age of 16.2. For men, masturbation is again the youngest age (99%, mean age 13.1), but only 53% (by age 19) had engaged in sexual intercourse, those at a mean age of 16.6. 85% had engaged in sexual petting of some sort or another.

Your male protagonist can be eschewing romance, without getting rid of sex altogether. Without being explicit you can suggest he resorts to masturbation to relieve sexual tension, with or without pornography (approximately 100% of men have been masturbating since puberty).

Or perhaps that he has sexual pick-ups away from home, or is reasonably skilled at finding women seeking casual sex, either using modern Internet apps or the old-fashioned way, in bars.

Personally I find the idea of a man waiting until he is forty or fifty to have sex extremely implausible, and not in a good way. Meaning, I don't think this situation would indicate any mastery of self-control in a man, but something more akin to a mental illness, a phobia, or denial of homosexuality, or religious obsession, or some other psychological problem. I think the drive is too strong, particularly in the ages between puberty and 28 years.

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