Ex-Boyfriends and Sex Rank

Reader question...

"I'm a big fan of your site. I just discovered it a month ago, but I've already read about half of the archives. Well written.

I have a small quibble with your sex rank explanation, though. My marriage recently ended because in my wife's eyes, my sex rank plunged. (It had definitely fallen. I'd say I dropped 1-2 points. She'd tell you I dropped 3-4 points.) And you nailed it with "I love you but I'm not in love with you."

The problem with your theory is this: my ex-wife's sex rank plunged as well. Granted, she left me for an ex-boyfriend -- but she had left the same ex-boyfriend before. But when she left, she was 15 pounds heavier (5'3" frame), hated her job, and was generally anti-social and un-fun.

So my question is this: does the sex rank theory require some calibrating, or is there already a sex rank addendum to explain what happened to me?

PS - it is possible that my sex rank really did plunge on a subjective basis. I didn't gain weight like she did, and I have a high-paying job. But my betatude was off the charts. Hmm."

Well Sex Rank is by and large best viewed as a metaphor, so it's hard to nail down exactly what a 6 is vs a 7 for example. I mean I could possibly come up with a chart and points for everything to map out what exactly makes up every level of Sex Rank, but then we'd all just get into a big fight about the chart disagreeing over the fine points. Some people find different things sexier than others. Anyway there's a few points that might help.

Firstly female Sex Rank seems to be fairly fluid compared to male Sex Rank. Guys tend to have a particular number and then have to work extremely hard or totally slack off to change their number. For example a guy might go from a 7 to an 9 by becoming a doctor, a woman might do the same simply by wearing better make up and a tight dress often. Simple tricks like that for women sounds unfair in comparison to effort a man has to make, but the downside is that so much is dependant on physical appearance for a woman.

Likewise women's sexual activity can increase or decrease based on their attraction to a male. So the same woman "with a low sex drive" with her low Sex Rank husband might suddenly discover "her sex drive just increased somehow" if George Clooney started asking to screw her. A woman with low sexual interest loses Sex Rank, and a woman with a high interest gains Sex Rank.

So some of your wife's drop in Sex Rank might have been just a drop to match some of your decrease in Sex Rank. Women tend to calibrate to their man's Sex Rank.

Secondly, Sex Rank is kind of a competition. If you were a 7 and the ex-boyfriend was a 6, advantage you. If you fall to a 5 and the boyfriend stays a 6, advantage ex-boyfriend. Even if she falls from a 7 to a 5 with you, she probably perks it up a bit with the ex-boyfriend straight back to a 6. I'm not saying it's an automatic packing of her bags as soon as you drop lower than him, it's just an influence on behavior.

Thirdly ex-boyfriends and especially ex-boyfriends that have had sex with your wife, are always going to have a much higher risk of influencing your wife against your interest in her. At some point he managed to trigger her attraction enough to get her seriously interested in him. No matter how badly the relationship ended, he can still probably flip at least some of her switches still.

I obviously don't know all the details in your case, but I can guess there was some sort of ongoing relationship that reignited that you kinda sorta knew about at first that didn't seem so bad, but then it was purposely hidden from you until it was all getting too late to do anything.

Moving to more general advice... ex-boyfriends, specially ones that were at all "alpha / dangerous / bad / edgy" can lodge in a woman's mind forever. And of course men being men, if he's still attempting contact with her... it's because he still wants to see her stripped naked and doing that thing she does.

Though the other thing to watch out for is you obsessing about her ex-boyfriends. That communicates fear and weakness and is a Display of Low Value. High status males don't need to worry about their females wandering off to find someone better. So basically ignore the entire topic unless one shows up on her radar again. Then watch carefully and be mildly annoyingly present as required.... by which I mean cock block.