“He Just Needs To Get Laid”

“He just needs to get laid.”

We’ve all probably heard this phrase used at some point. The scenario is nearly always the same. Someone (almost invariably male) who is in or around your circle of friends always seems to be cranky, sad, irritable or some combination of these. When he leaves and his emotional funk still hangs in the air, one or more of the remaining folks resolutely declare that what this guy needs is for someone who is not him to touch his wiener.

That’s right. The assumption here is that sex (at least for men) has magical emotional and psychological healing powers that will cure everything from depression, anxiety and anger issues to aggravating political opinions. So take that guy who brings a downpour to every parade and give him a good lay—even just one, and he’ll be right as rain in no time and never complain again.

This happened to a friend of mine back in college. We’ll call him “Mr. Turtle“. Mr. Turtle exhibited all of the disagreeable symptoms and behaviors mentioned above. Whenever he came to hang out with our general circle of friends in the student lounge, he always brought along something to complain about. Sometimes it was political or economic in nature. Usually it wasn’t even anything consequential. The fact that emo kids sometimes make fun of or exclude insufficiently emo kids was to him, a social cause in need of addressing NOW. This was in spite of the fact that we were in college where emo kids were all but extinct. He’d complain about Abercrombie and Fitch even though most broke college students long abandoned the brand when they lost unlimited access to their parents money and had to ration their funds for ramen and cheap beer. Video games weren’t just a waste of time. They were an EVIL, PATHOLOGICAL waste of time that in 100% of cases made you fail at life. Bought something with a brand on it? You’re an evil consumerist narcissist zombie bully asshole jerk snob who only did it to look cool and for no other reason. It doesn’t matter if you bought shoes, macaroni or a washing machine. Your decision was 100% image-based. And he could prove it.  Both the relevant things and the insignificant things held equal weight in his mind. Whenever he’d bring any of those things up he’d do it with his tone and mannerisms suggesting that he expected everyone to get up off the lounge couches immediately and go with him to…I dunno, somewhere…and go fight for these causes. This was a bargain basement State College. Our student population was not the fight-for-causes type.

Obviously, Mr. Turtle oozed resentment and butthurt; really old, infected, half-congealed, gangrenous butthurt. Most of the time he didn’t spend complaining and pontificating was spent pouting, moping and grumbling. Most were put off by all of this immediately. Others, who tolerated it for discussion and debate’s sake also quickly tired of his antics as it seemed he was demanding something of us (whatever that was) that we just couldn’t give him. So once he’d leave and the fog cloud lifted, the group would often erupt in complaints about what just happened, including but not limited to the title of this post. This wasn’t facetious either. It was well known that Mr. Turtle was a virgin and had never had a girlfriend. One friend of ours seriously discussed plans to have a party and hire a hooker for him and not tell him she was a hooker. Fortunately, alcohol in any quantity and casual sex were both things Mr. Turtle took loud and preachy issue with. So both party and hooker-pretending-to-be-genuinely-horny-interested-lady were a no-go.

It didn’t take long for this to escalate. As Mr. Turtle kept pushing his complaints on everyone more intensely, the charges of needing-to-get-laid went from something sighed out in relief behind his back to something said straight to his face as a conversation-ender. This happened frequently; in person, online; it was the go-to phrase to shut this guy up. And all the while I’m thinking “This is not going to end well”.

Now, what a more mature person would do would be to change the subject or if that failed, to politely tell someone like Mr. Turtle that they don’t want to talk about these things. In an open, unregulated space like a student lounge, it may be difficult to avoid such a person but it’s not impossible. People have the right to set boundaries and refuse to endure such behavior if they don’t want to deal with it. No special reasons are necessary other than “DO NOT WANT”. What’s immature and shitty is to voice this by slinging insults. If you’re thinking of taking that route, consider this. If a guy is that mopey or angry or negative all the time, there are several things that could be causing this. Maybe he has a mood disorder. Maybe he has really shitty or difficult stuff going on in his life. Neither of these mean that you’re in any way obligated to hang out with him or listen to him run on with things you don’t want to discuss but to purposely aim to hurt and insult him is uncalled for and not helpful.

That said, there is nothing wrong with being a virgin or with happening to be single. One reason why this insult is particularly damaging and noxious is because of the implication that not only is something wrong with a guy who fails to get sex (which is already a widely and loudly broadcasted message anyway) but also, failing to get sex causes things to be wrong with you. Therefore, guys who are virgins or who are having a dry spell of any length can only be expected to spiral into a vicious circle of increasing maladjustment, misery and loneliness if this is not remedied with Emergency Dick-Wetting ASAP.

So after having this insult slung at him countless times and having his virginity thrown in his face where it was neither appropriate nor relevant, Mr. Turtle did pretty much the worst thing one can do in response to “You just need to get laid.”

He believed it.

For much of that time, it didn’t really change things. He just had one more thing to complain about. Progressively this led to other lousy behavior and facepalmingly desperate failures to get laid. But then the other worst thing happened.

He actually got laid.

He started dating somebody and the student lounge crowd rejoiced (showing that they sincerely believed their insulting statement to be true) and Mr. Turtle was in a better mood.

For five minutes.

Remember that bit about mood disorders and difficult shit going on in one’s life? Mr. Turtle had both of those things going on and then some. That’s putting it mildly. He didn’t go to therapy or get a diagnosis til years later, so when he should have been getting professional help for these issues, he did what everybody else told him to do and got a girlfriend instead. Mr. Turtle got into this relationship, not because of genuine chemistry with the girl, but rather for the specific purposes of solving his problems and proving to himself and others that nothing was wrong with him. Good sturdy base for a relationship, right? Once the ego boost of finally lost virginity wore off, he immediately became his old self with anxiety on top. When sex failed to have the same effect as therapy and medication, his solution was to ask for more and more and more sex ad nauseam. In addition to truly believing that sex was supposed to cure him, his distorted rationale was that he was an unlovable, abnormal, disordered human being every minute he wasn’t having sex with his girlfriend. If his girlfriend didn’t feel like having sex at the moment, he’d act like he was in a hospital bed and she was standing on his oxygen tube. He felt that if his penis was not currently inside her vagina, he was cut off from any self-esteem or peace of mind. Her taking breaks from sex for social activities, reading, eating, sleeping, peeing, or talking were not exempt. These are not sex and not-sex would make him sicken and die. After all, depriving a guy of sex will destroy his health and make him insufferably miserable. The people from the student lounge told him so. Anyway, I’m not saying that every guy who ends up believing that sex is a psychological and emotional cure-all will end up in this scenario. It is clear though that such a belief creates very unrealistic expectations for what sex can do for a person and the reasons people should have it.

Chiefly (well, entirely really) because of these issues, that relationship sank like a rock and broke up in less than 2 months. Then Mr. Turtle was exactly as he was before and everyone was just as annoyed with him.

And they all lived crappily ever after.

The End.