Most men walking back into the dating world after divorce are operating on outdated assumptions about what women want in bed. Here's what the research actually says, and what I put in the book because somebody had to.
I'll be honest with you. When I started writing Dick Her Down Right, I knew it was going to ruffle some feathers. Not because the content is extreme, but because it goes directly at something most men are either too proud to admit they need help with or too uninformed to know they're getting wrong.
Here's the situation I kept seeing in my coaching work. A man finishes the hard part of post-divorce rebuilding. He's back in the gym. He's got his purpose sorted out. His confidence is returning. He starts dating again and meets a woman he's genuinely interested in. And then somewhere between the first date and the bedroom, something doesn't land the way he expected. Not a disaster. Just not what it could have been. And he's not entirely sure why.
Nine times out of ten, the gap isn't physical. It's knowledge. Specifically, knowledge about how women actually experience desire, arousal, and satisfaction, which turns out to be pretty different from how most men assume it works.
The paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions of Dick Her Down Right are available right now at mybook.to/dickherdownright, and the audiobook is out now on Audible if that's your preferred format. But before you grab it, let me walk you through the core problem the book is solving, because understanding the problem is half the battle.
The Assumption Gap
Most men learn about sex from three sources: pornography, locker room conversation, and whatever happened in their actual relationships. None of those three sources gives you an accurate picture of female sexual psychology, and two of them actively mislead you.
Pornography is a performance built around male visual arousal. It tells you almost nothing useful about what a real woman responds to in a real encounter with a real man she's chosen to be with. Using it as an instruction manual is like watching action movies to prepare for a fistfight. The format is completely wrong for the application.
Locker room conversation is largely mythology reinforced by collective insecurity. Men tell each other what they think sounds good rather than what's actually true, and everyone quietly agrees because nobody wants to be the one who admits they don't know what they're doing.
Actual relationship experience is the most useful of the three, but it comes with its own distortions. You learned what worked with one specific woman over a period of years, in a relationship context that had its own dynamics, history, and emotional texture. That experience doesn't automatically transfer to a new woman with a different history, different preferences, and different needs.
So you've got a man who genuinely believes he knows what he's doing, walking into a situation that requires knowledge he doesn't actually have. That's the assumption gap. And it costs men more than they realize.
What the Research Actually Says About Female Desire
Here's where it gets interesting, because the actual science on female sexual psychology is both more nuanced and more actionable than most men expect.
A landmark study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that women's sexual desire is significantly more context-dependent than men's. Where male desire tends to be fairly consistent and visually triggered, female desire is highly responsive to psychological safety, emotional attunement, and the specific dynamic between her and the man she's with. The same woman can have wildly different experiences with two different men, not because of physical differences between those men, but because of how present, confident, and attuned each man was in the encounter.
Research from the Kinsey Institute found that the single strongest predictor of female sexual satisfaction wasn't duration, frequency, or physical attributes. It was whether the woman felt genuinely desired by her partner, not just wanted in the generic sense, but specifically wanted, seen, and pursued by that particular man in that particular moment.
A comprehensive review in the Journal of Sex Research confirmed that women consistently rank a man's enthusiasm for her pleasure, his directness and confidence, and his attentiveness to her responses as the primary drivers of sexual satisfaction. Technical performance ranked below all three.
What this adds up to is a pretty clear picture. The man who walks in genuinely interested in this specific woman, confident enough to be direct about what he wants, and attentive enough to actually pay attention to her responses, is going to outperform the man with better abs and a busier schedule every single time.
That's teachable. That's what the book covers.
The Presence Problem
I want to spend a minute on something that doesn't get talked about enough, which is the role of mental presence in sexual performance and satisfaction.
Most men, particularly men who are newly dating after a divorce, are carrying a significant cognitive load into intimate situations. They're evaluating how they're doing. They're comparing this to past experiences. They're wondering what she's thinking. They're managing performance anxiety they'd never admit to. All of that mental noise happens at the exact moment when the only thing that actually matters is being fully present with the woman in front of them.
Women are extraordinarily good at sensing when a man is in his head rather than in the room. It registers as disconnection, even when the man is physically doing all the right things. And disconnection is the single fastest way to kill the experience for her regardless of everything else that's happening.
Research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine specifically identified cognitive distraction during sexual activity as one of the top contributors to reduced satisfaction for both partners, with women reporting it as particularly disruptive to their experience. Your mental presence isn't a soft add-on to good sexual performance. It's a foundational requirement.
This is one of the reasons the book doesn't just cover the physical and practical elements. It covers the mental game specifically, because for most men dating after a long relationship, that's where the biggest gains are available.
Confidence Versus Performance Anxiety: Understanding the Difference
Here's a distinction worth making clearly. Sexual confidence and the absence of performance anxiety are not the same thing, and confusing them leads men in the wrong direction.
Performance anxiety is fear-based. It's the worry about whether you'll perform adequately, whether she'll be satisfied, whether you'll measure up. Trying to eliminate it directly rarely works because the effort of trying not to be anxious tends to produce more anxiety.
Sexual confidence is something different. It's the settled sense of knowing who you are in this context, what you're doing and why, and genuine interest in her experience rather than evaluation of your own. Confidence doesn't require the absence of nerves. It requires that your attention is on her rather than on your own performance review.
Men who develop genuine sexual confidence rather than just trying to manage anxiety report dramatically different experiences, and so do the women they're with. The research on this is consistent. A 2019 study in Sexual and Relationship Therapy found that men who scored high on sexual self-confidence, defined as positive self-assessment of sexual skills and comfort with sexual communication, had partners who reported significantly higher sexual satisfaction independent of the men's actual technical performance.
In other words, her experience of you in bed is shaped substantially by how you carry yourself, not just what you do. That's the confidence piece the book addresses head-on.
This Is What Dick Her Down Right Is Built For
Everything I've just covered, the assumption gap, the research on female desire, the presence problem, the confidence framework, all of it is in the book, laid out in a way that's practical and direct without being clinical or crude.
Dick Her Down Right is written for the man who's done the rebuilding work, who's ready to actually date again, and who wants to walk into that part of his life with a real foundation rather than hoping his old habits are good enough. They might be. But they might not be. And given what's actually at stake, why leave that to chance?
The paperback and hardcover are at mybook.to/dickherdownright right now. The Kindle edition is there too. The audiobook is available on Audible. Grab whichever format works for you and get into it. The woman you're dating deserves a man who actually prepared for her.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do women actually want from a man sexually? Research from the Kinsey Institute and the Journal of Sex Research consistently shows that women's top predictors of sexual satisfaction are feeling genuinely desired by their specific partner, a man's enthusiasm for her pleasure, his directness and confidence, and his attentiveness to her responses. Physical attributes and technical performance rank below all of these factors in multiple large studies.
Why do men lose sexual confidence after divorce? Research in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that sexual self-confidence typically lags behind general confidence recovery after major relationship disruption. Men may feel physically and emotionally restored but still carry uncertainty into intimate situations because their sexual experience has been tied to one specific relationship context for years. Knowledge, mental presence, and understanding of female sexual psychology are the most effective tools for closing this gap.
How does mental presence affect sexual performance? Research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine identified cognitive distraction during sexual activity as a top contributor to reduced satisfaction for both partners, with women reporting it as particularly disruptive. A man who is mentally present, genuinely focused on the woman he's with rather than evaluating his own performance, consistently produces better experiences for both parties regardless of other variables.
What is the difference between sexual confidence and no performance anxiety? Sexual confidence is a positive, attention-outward state characterized by genuine interest in a partner's experience and a settled sense of one's own identity in a sexual context. Performance anxiety is a fear-based, attention-inward state focused on self-evaluation. A 2019 study in Sexual and Relationship Therapy found that men high in sexual self-confidence had partners reporting significantly higher satisfaction independent of technical performance, confirming that confidence itself is an active ingredient rather than just the absence of anxiety.
Where can I get Dick Her Down Right? Dick Her Down Right by Paul Bauer is available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle at mybook.to/dickherdownright. The audiobook is available now on Audible. The book covers female sexual psychology, mental presence, sexual confidence, and the practical framework for being the man a woman keeps choosing.
Paul Bauer is a certified master life coach, NLP practitioner, and host of the Come On, Man! Podcast. He works with men navigating divorce, dead bedrooms, and relationship rebuilding. Learn more at comeonmanpod.com.
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