A friend of mine, a guy who used to occasionally step out on his woman and hook up with other girls, had the strangest theory about the female species.
“Women don’t cheat,” he told me, when I asked if he was ever worried she was doing the same thing to him. “It’s just not in their nature.” I just laughed. Of course, I was not at all surprised when he found out she’d been two-timing him for most of their relationship after their inevitable breakup, but he was completely shocked.
There are of course many things that men don’t know about women, mainly because we don’t want them to know, and so we try and keep them hidden really well. But during my two and a half years of interviewing countless ladies, I discovered that there are many, many more things that we ladies keep hidden from men …
When you’re not around, we fart. The longer, the louder and the stinker, the more enjoyable.
1. As soon as we are alone in the house—husband leaves for the office, kids go to school, roommate goes out of town—and we have quality free time knowing no one is going to walk in on us, we masturbate. Sometimes we even just do it if you’re still in the house if that quality free time is never going to come. Usually, it’s while we’re in the bathroom.
2. A good majority of us prefer to pee outside. And in the shower. And sometimes we really just want to do it in the hot tub, but we try to not do that one out of respect for everyone else in there.
3. We pluck stray hairs from our toes, our chin, our lips, moles on the backs of our legs and our nipples. And we really, really enjoy plucking a stubborn ingrown hair. Getting that sucker out is, for some gross reason, such sweet satisfaction.
4. When we’re in love, we smell your clothes or the pillow you were sleeping on when you’re not around. If you were to catch us doing this, we’d be mortified.
5. We’ve all wished that we could be more open and casual about sex from time to time … maybe go to a swingers party, have a threesome or be a dirty stripper for a night, but with no emotional consequences.
6. Deep down we really hope that your guy friends secretly want to sleep with us, and very often we will dress for them and subtly flirt just so they will. We don’t want to bone them; we just want them to want us.
7. We are not insulted in the slightest by those catcalls from construction workers, as long as they aren’t rude or nasty. It’s kind of flattering. We also like it when you get a little jealous, to a degree. Not in an irrational or psycho way, just a bit to show you’re protective and you care.
8. We regularly check in on what our exes are up to via Facebook, emails or texts. As long as we have the technology, they will never be fully out of our lives or minds. This doesn’t mean we still love them; we’re just curious.
9. When we have girls’ nights, we do bad things that you wouldn’t approve of like spill all of your embarrassing secrets, sneak cigarettes or other substances, and drink way more than we let on. Grinding with strangers at a club can also sometimes occur.
10. When you’re not around, we fart. The longer, the louder and the stinkier, the more enjoyable.
11. If you’re really hot or the sex is good, you can be a total idiot and we’ll still date you for a while. But we’ll never marry you. Brains and kindness will always trump sexiness when it comes to marriage material.
12. A lot of times we really like to have sex on the first date to determine whether the chemistry is there and we should have another date. Or sometimes we’re just plain horny and want to get laid. We hate being judged for it.
13. We hate waxing our privates. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But, we like that when it’s cleaned up you go down on us more readily. In a perfect world, you would go down on us with regularity on naturally bushy pubes.
14. When a guy says he doesn’t want kids, it’s really a deal breaker for almost every woman who is still of child-bearing years.
15. The majority of us don’t really care about how much money you have or make as long as you are kind and emotionally generous and work hard. Laziness and lack of motivation is inherently unsexy.
16. A lot of us are fakers … when it comes to our love of sports and being outdoorsy.
17. We love flaws on guys. A little belly, gray hairs, even a receding hairline. It reminds us that we all have body issues and that we shouldn’t be so insecure or hard on ourselves. Being human is cool. But being whiny about your paunch or constantly fussing over your gray temples is as annoying as us always asking, “Does this make me look fat?”
18. We are not always in the mood so sometimes during sex, we’re usually thinking about something other than you. A gross and perky situation, another man, being dominated … who knows, but we always, always fantasize. It doesn’t mean we’re not sexually attracted to you, we just need the weird mental images to get us off.
19. We don’t consider drunk kissing cheating, as long as we’re the ones doing the drunk kissing. PS: We consider sex with another man cheating.
20. We cherish our independence and “me” time more than you’ll ever know. We say we miss you, but are often secretly glad you’re going so we can just totally relax and be ourselves. But we still love it when you come back.
Written by: Esosa Osagiede (@penndpaper)