It is with deep regret and sadness that I write this post. It is to every man that I have ever dated, and I want to say the most difficult words that will likely ever cross my lips: I apologize.

I apologize for not recognizing that – unfortunately – nothing less than everything from you will do. I know I told you it would be alright if you bought me another pair of shoes, or if we spent the next seven hours processing. I know that I made subtle promises that you didn’t have to do anything but be there, hang out and let me love you; or that once we “settled down” I would be happy. I lied.

I apologize that I was unwilling to answer your question of what women want, leaving you frustrated and confused. I left it open-ended and murky because I thought you would say no. I want you, all of you, wide awake and ready to play. I want you to handle me, so that I can stop “taking care” of everything. I want you to tell me to stop, just stop, lie down – and to know that you are totally capable of taking over. I won’t believe it at first (and at second and at third). I won’t believe it until you show me repeatedly. I want you to be willing to subdue my doubt with your conviction.

I apologize that I did not ask the difficult questions at the beginning. That I was essentially a drug dealer and hoped to get you so hooked that you had no way out. Rather than just asking you if you wanted to go deep, if that turned you on, if you were prepared. I hoped that we could deal with that issue when we came to it. Invariably when it did, when the bill came, you felt duped and upset. Rightly so.

I apologize for the times when I used my sex as a bargaining chip – to get you to love me, to want me, to claim me. And then, when I had you and no longer needed to bargain, stopped having sex. I apologize for seeing you as a security conquest, giving you the best sex of your life right before you gave me the commitment.

And I apologize for playing “nice” – because as a woman, the only way I am going to be nice is to shut down the rest of me. I was not clear with you that I am like a game of obstacles, and you get the temporary respite under only two circumstances: when I give up on you, or when you figure out the Rubic’s cube and handle me. My kindness is the most cruel thing I can do to you, because without challenge you become a mediocre man.

I apologize for believing that my only power with you was withholding and withdrawal. For believing you too weak and fragile to withstand my power and wrath. For walking on eggshells with you, careful never to bruise your ego, lest you leave me for “an easier woman.” I will tell you that at the root of quiet kindness is a rage of everything I believe I cannot tell you. And that where it has come down to the options of either breakthrough (and all the fucking, fighting and staying-in-there that it entails); or the learned-helplessness that results from kindness (and the degree of giving up that that entails); all too often I have chosen the latter.

I apologize for those times I forgot that the power-supply of our relationship is rooted in my sexuality – that I expected and trained you to be the voice of desire in the relationship, and then was victimized when you reached for me. I did not hold up my side of the sexual bargain in terms of holding that much hunger and wanting, projecting it all onto you. We both lost in this equation. Because I want nothing more than for you to be inside of me, but admitting that, fully owning it, means that I have to accept the full responsibility of citizenship in womanhood rather than girlhood.

I am sorry that I settled for love without passion.

I am sorry for all the times I let you off the hook – you know, like when you got scared and didn’t call. Or when you didn’t know what to do with me and shuffled into the other room onto the sanctuary of the computer, or into your office, or into the sanctuary of another woman. When that happened I fell under the same tyranny of fear that held you, and I was not willing to trust that you could actually hear the truth, that it hurt, that it sucked, that I missed you, that I love you. I believed that you were actually incapable of showing up. And in that I made you less of a man.

I apologize for not saying to you, please-please-please stop with the “divine goddess” schtick, and the sensitivity, and being the perfect complement of “deep masculinity” – if I wanted that man, I would find him. I want you in all of your weird, quirky, imperfect, totally unpolished self. That is where I fall in love with you. I am sorry that I was so unwilling to give you any fucking clue about how to be with me that you had to listen to other men who are equally clueless, and turn into a caricature of yourself.

Lastly, I apologize for trying to protect you from feeling how much, how deeply I love you. How deeply cannot be fathomed.

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Nicole Daedone (nicoledaedone.com) is a speaker, teacher, and author who has spent her groundbreaking career redefining orgasm from a woman’s point of view. Starting with her fundamental belief that a woman’s sex is her power, she treats supposedly taboo subjects with unparalleled humor, intelligence, and insight. Nicole is the author of Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm and founder of OneTaste.us.

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