Customer Reviews

The 91% Factor:Why Women initiate 91% of Divorce

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I went through the reviews and thought that this book must be daring...and it is. The one thing that I agree with is that you shouldn't have sex unless you are being treated right, not just right before, but after and in between and in daily life...if not you'll fall into loveless sex and left feeling cold and used and eventually you'll leave him. I buy that completely. The rest of the book (the parts I could get through) basically say that whatever it is..anything at all wrong with the relationship, including being treated like dirt..is the womans fault. It is our fault because we hold the power but are too stupid to see it... and on top of that, men are too stupid to see it or anything else for that matter but are blameless because they are men. (no advice to men about being decent human beings who are worth a womans time...because no matter what they are faultless...this book is about blaming rather than healing, loving, relating and growing together in life and love) If you didn't already know to hold out for someone that treats you good...know it now and don't waste your time with this book. If you want to read that you are a moron and men are even bigger morons (and it's your fault anyway you look at it) then DO read this book. If your lifes ambition is to kill your personality and life in order to "get" someone to father a bunch of kids, then this book is definately for you. I for one don't believe that men are this stupid...though the author certainly is. It assumes that your calling is to have children, which isn't for everyone. It also assumes that we don't have many orgasms and prefer to be on the bottom (and this is suppose to be a good thing)...this part stunned me, I've had very few non-orgasmic love making or romps.

The movie version of this book is The Stepford Wives...watch it, cringe and thank God you are who you are.

I love men, but if I were to believe this garbage I would opt for a vibrator and give up on men completely...maybe try to find myself a girlfriend.

The BEST relationship book I have ever read is Extraordinary Sex Now (it's about the relationship that leads to great sex, not about technique..it is about people, our personality traits and how to get along and be close). I have read Extraordinary Sex Now several times with great reward. I got 91% today, read most of it and will put it in the trash first thing in the morning.

Here's a one-sentence summary of this book's advice: A woman needs to withhold sex from her husband so he'll behave well. Such emotional *blackmail* cannot possibly be the foundation for a good relationship. I've been quite happily married for almost six years now--thanks to *communication* my husband and I can get exactly what we want, both inside the bedroom and out. Don't waste your money on this puritan dreck.

Another Guru who's Out to Lunch:

1) don't give your man too much sex; this is the opposite of what the pursuit oriented male was bred for by the forces of evolution and it is certain to kill his sexual interest in you; if not his entire interest in you and the outside world. (Try this at your own peril! A hungry person will look for food elsewhere)

2) if you insist on a lot of sex, learn to be more orgasmic so you too will have a resting phase that perhaps will coincide a little more with his. (I don't get this one, but O.K.)

3) learn how to masturbate or to have sex with him in different ways that do not always involve an orgasm for him. This will keep his interest high, but not satiated, the way it generally is from puberty to marriage, and the way it was during the long period when humans evolved without the benefit of constant marital sex.(Just what I want, Frustrating Sex! Perhaps the author would have us chew our food and not swallow so we won't get complacent about eating. I'd rather be put on a schedule. See 1. above.)

4) remember that too much free sex is actually opposite to the expensive biological sex that men must purchase or earn with various kinds of good or impressive behavior. (The author has conveniently forgotten that the "forces of evolution" did not require a man to be monogamous. Monogamy is a social phenomenon, not a genetic one. Prehistoric man had no restrictions on the NUMBER of women he could have sex with!)

A big draw for married partners IS the guarantee of regular sex. What person in their right mind would promise to forsake all others and then be put on a leash like this?

This advice is abusive and will drive a wedge into the relationship.

The entire premise of this book is based on the assumed power women have over men through sex.It discounts the many truths that men also have the same sexual power over women.Women are the givers and men are the getters nothing different,simply the same thrown about myths which have exsisted for years in order to keep women's sexual desires in the back closet long enough so the woman will always be blaming herself for being 'sexually too available' and walk all over her sexual drive to keep any man under any circumstances. If men were really like this I would join a convent because to withhold sexuality in order to keep interest is a very sick game. Also the book is on the premise that women don't want sex and only use it to get love in return.What a sad way in which to look at relationships.

I read this book with some interest, and I conclude the author makes some good evolutionary points, but the question remains in my mind: do women really need a man to make them happy? Happiness comes from many different sources, and it is unrealistic to think that, even with the "sex for flowers" trade, a woman can get all of her emotional and/or instinctual needs met just from sex and marriage. No one person can fulfill all of anothers' emotional needs.

<< Deceptively simple and ingenious. If by relationships you mean heterosexual then getting the sex in some reasonable context is the most important thing according to this book. After all, nature draws the opposite sexes together expressly for the purpose of having sex or being sexually intimate. If not for sex we would prefer someone of the same sex with whom we have more in common, exactly the way children do until they reach puberty.(that was in the book) Sex is the glue that nature gave us, but it must be used properly; almost like food. The 91% Factor is all about what happens when couples fail to understand the meaning of sex in heterosexual relationships. More importantly, it is about how to use sex to create a loving long term relationship. This should be a given but we just don't know how to do it despite a flurry of books on sexual pleasure and techniques that miss the point completely. A very believable theory based on intimate first person sexual accounts of 30 couples on the way to divorce. Sort of like the Mars/Venus book in that it deals with the difference between men and women, but different in that it deals with intimate sexual/romantic differences rather than with why men like TV and women don't. The chapters on sexual frequency are fascinating. They go into great depth on the biological reason why men pursue sex while women grant it, and how the human family would not be possible if not for this precise evolutionary development. More importantly, it details how fighting this basic phenomena of nature can destroy heterosexual relationships, while seeking harmony with it will build a relationship. As a woman this all strikes me as a very new sort of "feminism in the bedroom" whereas in the past we have been concerned mostly with feminism in the boardroom. But, it is a feminism that men can like too since they tend to like sex in any context;even a context that includes a sexually aware woman.

A fascinating theory based on the notion that heterosexual relationships are 1) primarily sexual (certainly from an evolutionary viewpoint this is true) and 2) fade, 50% to a female initiated divorce, because a woman's sexual power diminishes from the first date forward. The author claims, with much scientific support and measurement that on the first date a woman knows to withhold sex until the male has proved himself a worthy, long term lover, but in time, assuming a marriage or long term relationship, she comes to believe that sex is a free marital good which the male successfully demands and receives too much for his own good. Rather than being on his best and most affectionate "first date" behavior he is like a child served his favorite meal to often to the point where his appreciation of the thing he is programmed to value most is lost. Then, both feel unloved and eventually a divorce is the result. The author's statistical claim is that a female's sexual communication skill is best and most purposive on the first date, due to fundamental evolutionary forces, and fades thereafter as she slowly comes to believe, or is persuade by her mate, that her obligation is to provide sex on demand rather than in return for "first date" affectionate and loving behavior. An ingenious and actionable theory, based on much fact and observations of the sex life of many couples on route to divorce, to hopefully stem the 50% divorce rate. Who knows of a better theory,especially a better theory that can be remembered and acted on?

We all have been well trained by modern psychology to accept the idea that every food, drug, alcohol, sex, money, emotional, or physical abuser has an enabler, i.e, someone who supports or encourages the bad behavior. According to "The 91% Factor" if the above is true, then it must also be true that women (who initiate 91% of divorce) divorce men because of the abusive male behavior that they (women) somehow enable, and that women could also enable good or loving marital behavior, if only they understood or knew how. According to the book women initiate 91% of divorce because they have not enabled good or loving marital behavior. The book demonstrates that women naturally enable good behavior on the first few dates by withholding sex. This enables or encourages the man to act as responsibly and loving as possible in order to eventually secure the woman's love, sexual support and hand in marriage. But, after a relationship develops the woman changes her behavior dramatically by beginning to provide free sex (without the requirement of flowers or dinner or general affection, etc.); thus enabling or encouraging or teaching less and less loving male behavior. Eventually she blames the man for the poor behavior she has enabled with free sex, and eventually divorces him only to remarry and repeat the same pattern. Second marriages, it turns out, are shorter than first marriages despite what women think they have learned from the first failed marriage. This book helps women learn the right things from failing relationships. With divorce still at 50% certainly there must be something to learn? All things considered, it is an excellent and modern analysis of marriage with a Freudian emphasis on a woman's sexual power in the creation and destruction of her own family. Women will certainly object to using sex, or even recognizing the importance of sex but who can honestly argue that sex isn't designed to be at the heart of heterosexual relationships? The book is highly original, serious, and step by step logical. It asks you to look beyond the smugness and false wisdom which has created a 50% divorce rate, and broken homes for most of our children.

Blatant sexism written by a clearly bitter multiple-divorcee who wants to blame the women in his life for his own problems.

Reading this book makes it painfully obvious that the author has severe emotional issues, and should frankly be seeking relationship therapy instead of trying to blame an entire gender for his personal faults.

This hacked-together opinion piece is based 100% on personal opinion. You will find no bibliography, notes or index, because there are no facts to reference. All the numbers and information used in this piece are essentially pulled out of a hat and have no relation to what happens in the real world.

I am a 47-year-old woman, widowed after a happy 15-year marriage, and now in another satisfying partnership with a man. Neither the title nor the contents of this book offend me -- far from it -- I think it's time American women took some responsibility for our decision-making powers. As the author points out, and my experience validates, we women choose the relationships we want, nurture them, manipulate them, feed them or starve them, and untimately decide whether they thrive or die. Women want sex in a loving context. Men want sex to soothe, comfort, and reassure them. It's up to women to demonstrate to our men the power they have to turn us on or turn us off. I agree with some of the other reviewers that there's a fine line between sexual blackmail and honest, immediate communication about the sexual climate in a relationship. I would not recommend (as the author does) that you start making love and then stop in the middle with an admonition that you will not culminate the act until you feel loved. But there is nothing wrong with an instance rebuke of bad behaviour and an immediate move into the spare bedroom until it changes. These are issues that must be explored prior to marriage & kids --- for the sake of both genders. As the author also points out, it's men who suffer when women decide to terminate a marriage so men should welcome straight talk from a woman about her requirements for on-going sexual interest. As the author says, most men want to please us; they start out loving us and only resort to loveless sex if they are led to believe we don't care.