michael fiore: Hey folks, how’s it going? It’s Michael Fiore, and I’m really, really excited to invite you, or welcome you, to this, what’s going to be a pretty fascinating interview and a pretty fascinating little conversation with Mary E. Knight.
Quick warning before we get started is that we’re talking about sex stuff here. We’re talking about both the physical and psychological and emotional sides of sex with Mary. Mary is a former escort, which I know as soon as I say that word a lot of folks are getting a very emotional response to what that means. Whatever that emotional response is for you as you’re listening to this, or reading the transcript, do yourself and do me a favor and put it aside for now, because I’ve just spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Mary before we started this conversation, and some of the stuff she told me about what she learned about men and how to keep a man happy and monogamous while she was an escort absolutely blew my mind. I thought I was pretty well educated on this stuff. And I think it’s going to do wonders for you both in allowing you to get the wonderful kind of sex that you want, or love making, or something dirtier or raunchier, and how to keep any man who is lucky enough to be in your sex life so happy that the very idea of even looking at another woman sounds almost disgusting to him. So we’re going to have a lot of fun. Mary, hi.
mary e knight: Hi Michael. I’m so glad to be here.
michael fiore: I’m so glad you’re here. So Mary, before we get started, why don’t you just give the folks who are listening the quick rundown of who you are. And I really want you to tell your story, relatively quickly, about how you got into this whole escort thing, what that actually meant. Especially the aspect of how old you were when you started doing it is really interesting and will resonate with some of the women, and why you did it. So if you can quickly go through that, that’d be great.
mary e knight: Yeah, sure. I actually didn’t start escorting until I was 34 years old. And at the time I was a single mom of three kids under the age of twelve. And I was just going through a very tough financial time, and although I know that for most people, you know, my deciding to become an escort is unfathomable, at that time for me it seemed like a good option, and so I took it. And you know, it wasn’t an easy decision for me, but I did it and I learned so much about men, about women, about relationships. I learned why men cheated.
michael fiore: And we’ll definitely talk about that.
mary e knight: Yeah. And it was fascinating. I escorted off and on for about fifteen years and–
michael fiore: Wow.
mary e knight: Yeah! I was often the oldest escort in cities where I would work–
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: I was often the oldest escort, and I was also one of the most sought after and highest paid.
michael fiore: That is actually really interesting. And something I think we should definitely touch on while we’re doing this is that, you know, you started at 34 and stopped when you were 49, right?
mary e knight: Well I stopped when I was 46, almost 47.
michael fiore: All right, 46 almost 47 years old, and the idea a lot of women have is that men will only go to an escort that’s 22 years old. You know, you look at, who was that senator of New York City who was sleeping with some 24 year-old escort or something like that. But I think we can definitely talk about something about the sexual power of a woman who’s over 30, over 40, you know, whatever else at that point. And that women should know, you know, you can be a sexual creature who can attract a man and fulfill a man’s every sexual desire and every sexual need without being 22 years old. Actually, personally, I’ll say this, even when I was single I found 22 year old girls incredibly boring.
mary e knight: Oh yeah. That’s what I heard all the time, was that men specifically chose me because I was older. Because I was older there was a presumption that I would be somebody they could actually have a conversation with, and that I would feel sexually confident.
michael fiore: Because a lot of younger women, they just kind of lay there and they seem to be like, “I am giving you the honor of having sex with me.”
mary e knight: Oh yeah, because they think that’s what men want, and ironically, as an escort I learned that men wanted me to want them. You know, they wanted me to want to be there, they wanted me to enjoy what was going on. That was very important, and for a lot of escorts, you know, if they had a reputation of being mechanical or not being into it, then they would lose business because men didn’t want that.
michael fiore: As a guy myself, I don’t really like strip clubs per- sonally, right? Like, I’ve been to strip clubs before, I’ve been with my wife and friends and such before, and that can be kind of fun, going with girls is really fun–
mary e knight: Oh yeah.
michael fiore: But personally, you know, I never want to go any- where I’m not wanted, right? So the idea of somebody giving me a lap dance just because I’m going to give them $30, and that they’re not really into me in any way as a guy, for me personally, I find that, it kind of gives me a hard off. I’ve never found. . . I’ve been to a strip club several times in the past, you go to bachelor parties things like that, but I’ve never been turned on at a strip club. I have looked at women doing pole techniques and things like that and been like, “Wow she’s beautiful and that’s really impressive,” but I’ve never actually been turned on in that situation. So let’s. . . there’s a lot of stuff to talk about and the hardest thing with these interviews is always keeping them relatively linear. Very difficult.
mary e knight: Yes, yes, especially. . . because this is, it’s not a com- plicated topic, but it’s very complex and we can go down a lot of rabbit holes.
michael fiore: A lot of rabbit holes. One question I want to ask you before we get started, before we really get into that stuff, what was your. . . So as an escort, you did have sex with your clients, right? That was something that happened.
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: Sometimes people use. . . escort is essentially a eu- phemism most of the time, it seems like. We’re not going to use the “h” word because I think it’s kind of dumb and I don’t want to do it. What was your attitude towards sex workers and people who are escorts and things like that before you decided to get into the business?
mary e knight: Oh my gosh, so you were talking about strip clubs.
I was so intimidated just by the idea of strippers. michael fiore: Really?
mary e knight: I was, and I was fascinated, too. I was also intimi- dated by the idea of escorts or prostitutes because I thought, “Oh my gosh, what kind of woman does that?” because what confidence that must take. And also I thought, “These women must be physically perfect” and so that was. . . and I have something, just a little side note–
michael fiore: Go ahead.
mary e knight: Ladies, if you are ever feeling insecure about your body, go to a strip club with your man and take a look at these women. I’m not saying there are women who are gorgeous and perfect, but they have all the same bumps and bulges that we all do.
michael fiore: As a guy you want a real woman, right? mary e knight: Yes! Yes!
michael fiore: I’ve met some of those stick figures from TV before, because I’ve been on TV before, and I don’t find them attractive. What’s attractive to a guy, yeah, we like tits and asses and things like that, but it’s the whole package that goes. And there are guys, you’ll go to strip clubs and you’ll see guys who are really into the bigger girls, guys who are into girls with small breasts, you’ll see guys who are into the more androgynous…There’s like, whatever your physical type is, there are men out there that think you are the sexiest fucking thing on the planet.
mary e knight: Oh yeah! And ’cause something I say is, men aren’t looking for perfection, you know, they just want to know that you care about yourself.
michael fiore: Yeah, be the best “you” you can be.
mary e knight: Be the best that you can be, and that doesn’t mean, like you’re talking, it doesn’t mean having, you know, bleached teeth and big fake boobs and, you know, the perfect tan and the perfect body. It means, you know, feeling good about who you are and enjoying that because I know, you know, from talking to men, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me–
michael fiore: Yep.
mary e knight: You would much rather be with a woman who was having a great time in bed and feeling just fantastic, than being concerned about “is my belly hanging a little too low, or how do my boobs look at this angle–“
michael fiore: I gotta say, as a guy, you don’t think about. . . my wife will say this sometimes. She is a beautiful, beautiful woman who. . . Nobody who listens to this. . . it’s always funny, because they always want to know who my wife is and what she looks like and such. And we never share that because she’s a very private person, but she’s a very, very beautiful girl. And she’s like, “Oh, well, I’ve got a little bit of a belly,” and I’m like, “I never noticed, I don’t know why you did. I think you look amazing.” You know? And guys, especially if a man is psychologically turned on, which is way more important than anything else–
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: He ain’t noticing that your ass is a little jiggly. He ain’t noticing that one tit is bigger than the other one. Right?
mary e knight: And that’s true, because if women, if you’ll think about how you feel when you’re turned on, you’re not noticing the imperfections of the man in front of you. You’re just waiting for him to, you’re just waiting to get it on.
michael fiore: All of a sudden that cock looks really good, right? mary e knight: Oh yeah, everything about him does.
michael fiore: I always–
mary e knight: How broad his shoulders are.
michael fiore: Yeah or how hairy. . . I’ve got a hairy chest, which is great for some women.
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: But I always tell men, we get a lot of women that write in and say, “Why do guys send us pictures of their dicks over text?” And I say, “Well it’s because he wants you to be impressed by it, because guys think about dick a lot more than women do.” And I always tell guys, “Listen, no girl wants to see your cock until she’s already attracted to you.”
mary e knight: That’s right.
michael fiore: And already turned on. Then it’s beautiful, right? mary e knight: Yeah, then you think about what it can do for you. michael fiore: And also, as a woman, you’re like “I inspired that,” right? “I’m the one that caused that to happen.” mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: “I’m the one that got him turned on.” So, but you’re saying, like, before this, you were intimidated by strippers and intimated by escorts.
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: And you thought there was a lot of confidence there. A lot of women who are listening to this, when they think of porn stars, strippers, escorts, hookers etc. there’s this stereotype that these are all 25 year-old girls with daddy issues who were abused when they were kids.
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: Is that, is there any fact to that, in your experience?
mary e knight: Well as far as being 25, there are a lot of women who are escorts who are in their 30s. I would say that, like, all the women that I knew were in their 30s, 40s, even some in their 50s. And I personally was not ever sexually abused. I’ve never been a drug addict. I do enjoy drinking red wine.
michael fiore: You do have a lot of tattoos.
mary e knight: I have a. . . oh, that’s right. Yes, I have a lot of tat- toos.
michael fiore: And I’m sure. . . I’m not a tattoo guy, but some guys think tattoos are the sexiest thing in the world.
mary e knight: Well, you know, they do, and something else that would happen to me is I would have a lot of men contact me and say, “Hey, you know, tattoos aren’t usually my thing, but I loved what you said in your blog,” because I had a blog. “You know, tattoos aren’t usually my thing, but I like the way that you present yourself.”
michael fiore: So it’s the intelligence aspect. mary e knight: Yes, yes.
michael fiore: I can actually see that, ’cause I don’t like tattoos, but after having talked to you, I mean I’m happily, monog- amously, married and whatever else, but you have a very attractive way about yourself in the way that you hold your- self, and, you know, beautiful eyes and such like that. But beyond the physical stuff, and you’re significantly older than me, there’s that beautiful acceptance of your own sexuality. Which, as a guy, I find very, I always find very attractive in women, right?
mary e knight: Well awesome, thank you. That was a lot of what guys would say to me, you know, professionally and now personally. That’s what men like, is that when a woman is comfortable with herself–
michael fiore: And the worst thing is–
mary e knight: Because you’re not being self centered. ’Cause when you’re focused on yourself and your imperfections, you’re not thinking about him, you’re thinking about you. And it comes through.
michael fiore: Okay, and so–
mary e knight: You know you–
michael fiore: Go ahead. . . we’re having a slight audio glitch, give it a second there.
mary e knight: Okay.
michael fiore: There, that should be better. Continue whatever you were saying there.
mary e knight: Okay. Yeah, because when you can focus on the man instead of focusing on your, whatever you perceive is your imperfections, you know you’re able to be more open to him and what he has to say, what he has to offer, and then you’re feeling good about yourself so you’re more willing to be open.
michael fiore: And you’re being present in the moment.
mary e knight: You’re being present. And being engaged.
michael fiore: Just like a man. . . I’m sure plenty of women have had the experience, especially if they saw the video or read the letter I wrote for, or rather from, Felicity Keith for Language of Desire, the experience of being with a man and realizing he’s not even there.
mary e knight: Oh yeah.
michael fiore: His eyes are closed, he’s fantasizing and is he, it’s not that he’s fantasizing necessarily about somebody who is physically different than you. He’s fantasizing about an expe- rience that he just can’t get in this one particular way. Okay, so you got into this kind of thing, you found it intimidating. You did say that a lot of women were over 25.
mary e knight: Yeah, yeah.
michael fiore: Is the abuse and rape thing kind of true? I mean, I’m sure there’s some women who are in the industry who have that kind of background but is–
mary e knight: Well sure, there–
michael fiore: Granted–
mary e knight: There are women in every industry.
michael fiore: One-third of all women have been raped, which is a horrible, horrible thing.
mary e knight: Right, so there’s, you know, women in every indus- try who have that experience, but I think that because of the sexual nature of being an escort, porn star, stripper, people just expect that those women are just acting out their abuse, because what kind of woman would ever make the choice to be so overtly sexual? You know there must be something wrong with, if you’re not–
michael fiore: Well, they used to burn them as witches, by the way. Yeah, basically, I mean really, they burned sexual, you know, intellectually and sexually confident women back in Salem, Massachusetts. They were literally burned at the stake.
mary e knight: Yeah, women who would help other women, like midwives. Yeah, women who were knowledgeable about women. I feel like, well, yeah, and I feel like there are some people. . . you know, I live in the South, and there are some people today who would gladly burn me at the stake for my past. And it’s always amazing to me, because when somebody has a problem with my sexuality or what I did, I know it has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with them. Just like I used to be intimidated, you know, by strippers and escorts, once I got into the business and I was, got to know these other women, I realized these are just regular ladies, you know? And most of them were single moms.
michael fiore: That makes sense.
mary e knight: And just wanted–
michael fiore: Most of them were single moms.
mary e knight: Most of them were single moms, well, because you can work flexible hours and great pay, you know.
michael fiore: You can make money to be a mom.
mary e knight: You can make money to be a mom, and that’s what got me into it, too. I was able to take my youngest son out of daycare. I was able to spend all day with him, ’cause I only had to work a few nights a week.
michael fiore: Yep.
mary e knight: And I was able to support myself and my kids, be- cause I wasn’t getting any child support from my ex-husband, and that was why I did it, and that was why I stayed in it. And that’s why so many women do it, is because they can be moms.
michael fiore: And you’re not ashamed of this at all, which is wonderful. I mean, I think a lot of people would be. Obviously your kids know what you did for a living for all that time, because your kids are all over, around twenty or older at this point now.
mary e knight: Yeah, yeah.
michael fiore: Was that difficult when they found out, or how did you kind of broach that? I just think it’s kind of interesting.
mary e knight: You know, it is interesting. People ask me this all the time, you know, because my kids are grown and successful. Like, they have very successful lives as I shared with you earlier, but it’s. . . but think about it this way: my kids were no more interested in what I did for a living than any other kids are interested in what their parents do for a living.
michael fiore: Yeah, totally.
mary e knight: You know, I’m their mom. You know, it’s not like. . . I’m their mom. They grew up with me. Now, while I was actively escorting when they were really little, they didn’t know what I did.
michael fiore: It wasn’t appropriate.
mary e knight: Yeah, it wasn’t appropriate. It’s just like, why would I talk to my kids. . . why would you talk to your kids about your sex life, you know?
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: And until they’re at an age–
michael fiore: Because they don’t understand at that point. It’s not something for them to have–
mary e knight: Nah. They didn’t understand, and it wasn’t impor- tant that they knew. But as they got older, I really like to be, like, honesty is such a huge thing for me. It’s very important to me, and I think it’s because I led a double life for so long.
michael fiore: Of course.
mary e knight: It wears on you, you know, and so I really like to be very honest and open with my kids and with people in my life, and people are so shocked.
michael fiore: They are, yeah.
mary e knight: When I was actively escorting and I would meet a guy, and we’d go out on a couple of dates, unless he asked me point-blank what I did for a living, I just never said so. And I live in a city where people don’t normally ask you what you do for a living, but once somebody said, “Hey, by the way, what do you do?” I would say “I’m an escort.” And I’ve seen more jaws drop, because they expect you to lie.
michael fiore: Of course they do.
mary e knight: Why would I lie?
michael fiore: So quick question on that. . . mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: Again, this is just interesting to me, and I think it’s interesting to our listeners, as well. . . are your kids, well, sexually well adjusted?
mary e knight: As far as I know. And it is something we talk about. Like, what’s interesting to me is that my daughter has been in a long-term relationship, my daughter is 28, and she has been with the same man since she was 20 years old.
michael fiore: Oh wow, okay.
mary e knight: And he is an amazing man. And then my son, who is 26, he has been with the same women since he was 21, and they’re married.
michael fiore: Interesting.
mary e knight: Yeah, and then my youngest son, who is 20, he has been dating the same girl since he was 16.
michael fiore: How fascinating.
mary e knight: So. . . I know for me, I’m like, oh my gosh, I did something right with the kids.
michael fiore: I know. They seem to have found, I mean there’s probably also something with your confidence and your ability to be sexually open, you know, they didn’t get the same thing so much. A lot of bad behavior ends up being rebellion, right, so if there’s nothing to rebel against, you’re like, okay, well I guess I’ll go do that.
mary e knight: Well, and they also would talk to me very openly, especially my middle son. He would talk to me, I don’t want to say a bunch about the kids of course, but he was very open and very frank when he was going through puberty. He would come to me and say, “Oh my gosh, this just happened. Is this normal?” And I was like–
michael fiore: You were willing to have those conversations. mary e knight: And I was like “Umm, yeah.”
michael fiore: Totally normal, I get it, honey.
mary e knight: Yeah, totally normal, everything’s great, you’re do- ing great, don’t worry. It’s going to happen to you a lot, you know?
michael fiore: Exactly. Okay, so let’s get in, so now that everyone knows who Mary is, and she’s awesome and I could probably talk to Mary for nineteen hours and have a great time the entire time, but there’s some stuff we definitely want to cover in this. So let’s talk about one question I think that comes up a lot: what kind of men go to see an escort?
mary e knight: Wow, yeah. Regular, everyday men, you know? Men that we all know and love see escorts.
michael fiore: So not just the guys. . . So it’s not just the fat guy who’s masturbating furiously in his basement and hates wo- men?
mary e knight: Okay, those guys hardly have the confidence to call an escort. And I know that sounds funny, but they are intimidated to call an escort, typically. And–
michael fiore: Interesting. mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: Because that’s the stereotype, right? The stereotype is that the only people that would call an escort–
mary e knight: Losers.
michael fiore: Losers who can’t–
mary e knight: Fat losers.
michael fiore: Fat losers who can’t get laid.
mary e knight: Can’t get a date, yeah! No, these guys were intel- ligent, successful, attractive, great conversationalists, gener- ous.
michael fiore: You were often personally attracted to them?
mary e knight: You know, well, there were–
michael fiore: I mean, I’m sure you draw a line in your mind somewhere on–
mary e knight: Of course you do, because there has to be a bound- ary, because they’re a client.
michael fiore: Yeah, they’re not your boyfriend or anything like that.
mary e knight: They’re not my boyfriend, they’re a client, and yeah. . . and, you know, there’s a boundary there. These guys were fun to be around, because we would spend lots and lots of time. We would travel together, we would spend lots of time together though these guys could have gotten dates, and they often would be seeing me and have girlfriends. Or they’d be seeing me and be married.
michael fiore: Which makes you a harlot, by the way, just so you know.
mary e knight: Well, what does it make them?
michael fiore: Well, it makes them. . . we live, you and I both live in America, where there’s a huge double standard around sexuality for men versus women. So of course, a guy who, you know, I’ve talked openly about my promiscuity before I was married, and people were just like, “Oh yeah, but now you’re married,” and, you know, it’s that kind of, like, heroes journey in a way. But a woman who has a promiscuous past, oh god, what a horrible. . . I disagree with that entirely, personally.
mary e knight: I know, yes, I know.
michael fiore: So you’re saying that these were regular guys.
mary e knight: Pretty regular, everyday guys. Men who were successful, you know, professionally. Well, I mean they had to be, because they were paying.
michael fiore: They were paying a lot of money.
mary e knight: They had to afford to pay escorts, and these guys were sensitive, they were communicative, and at first I thought, “Okay, well these guys, the reason they’re coming to me is because they just must be jerks, and that’s why their wives aren’t having sex with them.” Because they would come to me because their wives weren’t having sex. Originally I thought, well, these guys just want a lot of sexual variety and that’s why they’re seeing escorts. But what I found was that these men would see me over and over and over again. And I would ask, “Why are you seeing me over and over again when you can choose from literally hundreds of other women?”
michael fiore: Yeah, what was the answer?
mary e knight: In our city. Because they liked being with me. Be- cause they weren’t looking for variety, they were looking for a connection. They were looking for someone they felt comfort- able with, they were looking for a situation where they didn’t feel judged. And so–
michael fiore: Let’s stop there for a second, ’cause I think it’s re- ally important. And we’re going to talk about why sex dies in relationships in a second, I think, but I think there’s some- thing very, very powerful there that you just said, which is, again, you know a lot of women are going to think, “Oh, a guy just wants to fuck as many different women as possible.” But I’ve seen–
mary e knight: Fuck a bunch of 22 year olds.
michael fiore: Fuck a bunch of 22 year olds. But it’s not, you know, sex is never about, only the smallest part of sex is about physical pleasure, right? To me–
mary e knight: Right, I agree.
michael fiore: You know, to me and to I think to most people, the vast, the biggest aspect of sex is psychological. And one thing that I think a lot of women don’t understand is how sensitive guys actually are. I mean, most guys don’t even understand how sensitive they are, right? Because we have this kind of macho culture and all this other kind of bullshit. But you’re saying, basically, I mean, these guys would almost be monogamous, in a way, with you.
mary e knight: With me, yes.
michael fiore: Because their wives and them weren’t having sex, which we can talk about why that is in a second, and I’m sure–
mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: Some people who are listening and saying, “Well he hasn’t earned it,” or something like that.
mary e knight: Well, yeah. They train their husbands to pay for sex.
michael fiore: Exactly. Well, let’s talk about that in a second, but these men, even though they knew this was your job and they knew that you were not “in love” with them, I’m sure some of them developed feelings for you that were very strong.
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: And we can talk about that in a second and how you dealt with that. But they weren’t just looking for “I want to put my dick in as many girls as possible.” They were looking for, I don’t quite want to call it a relationship, but they wanted to be with a sexual, confident woman who appreciated them for whatever that was going to be, right?
mary e knight: Yes, yes.
michael fiore: No, go ahead. . . but there’s something big there about the idea. . . I think women don’t really understand how much a man needs to be appreciated for being a man. Right? As opposed to being denigrated for not being a woman. Be- cause there’s this tendency, especially, and I’ve seen this in my own marriage briefly, before me and my wife figured out what was happening, where soon after we got married everything changed, right?
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: And I’ve talked to other friends of mine, and they say. . . my brother and I talked about this, and another friend of mine who got married a couple years ago and such, and it’s like you get married, and all of a sudden you’re not good enough anymore, right? Like you were good enough, you were perfect.
mary e knight: You’re good enough to marry.
michael fiore: As a boyfriend you were great, as a fiancé you were fine, except you didn’t help plan the wedding enough ’cause none of us do, and then as soon as you become the husband, it’s like you’re judged in a very, very different way. And all of a sudden you can’t just be a man. You have to be her partner in a way that seems to make, all of a sudden all of your flaws become massively accelerated or whatever.
mary e knight: Exaggerated.
michael fiore: Exaggerated. And the things that you bring to the table are gone. And I saw this the first couple months my wife and I were married. We had this problem where, like, and she’ll laugh about it now, she’s like, “Yeah, there was something happened in my brain where I was like, you’re my husband now. I have to train you.” Right?
mary e knight: Well, the stakes are higher. michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: The stakes are higher, because she’s committed to you and she made a choice and she chose you, and yeah, then there you are. And the stakes are higher and so. . . also, I think once you become married there’s also, you feel safer and so you start to feel more open to sharing how you really feel.
michael fiore: Yeah which often– mary e knight: And your expectations–
michael fiore: And that can be a mistake in a way. I always say if you want to get something from a man, you don’t do it by complaining or criticizing. You do it by inspiring him to give him, get you what you want. My Text the Romance Back program–
mary e knight: Agreed.
michael fiore: –is largely about that. You know one of the biggest components of Text the Romance Back is about appreciation. Sending Appreciation Texts. Taking what you like or love about a guy, whether that be emotional, physical, or whatever else, and just sending him a text with that. And we’ve gotten so many testimonials from women over the years saying “Michael, I only sent two texts, and he came home and he took me in his arms and he gave me a kiss that I haven’t felt in fifteen years.” Right?
mary e knight: Oh yes! Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s something that I teach my, when I’m coaching clients: focus on the positive. To put it simply, focus on the positive. Focus on what it is that you like about him, because negativity is a default for so many people. And it’s easy for women to get caught up in what we don’t like, versus “what do I like, what do I want,” and that is something that’s important to focus on. You know, what do you want? What do you like? Why did you even marry the guy? Or why are you in this relationship with him? There’s got to be a reason, and going back and focusing on that and–
michael fiore: And so many women forget what that reason was. mary e knight: Yeah, and it’s, like, just taking some time to really focus just on the positive.
michael fiore: And actually. . . for some people listening that sounds like bullshit, right?
mary e knight: Yeah, sure.
michael fiore: So go ahead, yeah. . .
mary e knight: Well, when I, okay, so as we’re talking about. . . I must, so I find some of my clients attractive. You know, yes, but often, even though I found them attractive as a person and I enjoyed spending time with them, I wasn’t exactly en- thusiastic about having sex with them. So I was in a situation where I had to create this instant sexual chemistry.
michael fiore: Okay, let’s talk about this, because how did you do that?
mary e knight: Well, I did that–
michael fiore: ’Cause everyone wants to know how to do that. mary e knight: Yeah, I know, I know. And it’s. . . and what I did was, it’s so simple, is I focused on what I found attractive about the man. Now, for me, because, you know, I had to do it on the fly, I had to create this–
michael fiore: Really quickly, were you generally meeting a guy and having sex with him on that first “date,” or was it kind of multiple, you know, a few meetings down the line?
mary e knight: Most of the time, yes, we would meet and then that would be something that was expected. We would have sex.
michael fiore: Yep.
mary e knight: Not every time, though. Sometimes guys actually wanted to kind of court me.
michael fiore: Yeah, ’cause. . .
mary e knight: Which was kind of cool.
michael fiore: Because they miss the chase and–
mary e knight: They miss the chase, yeah.
michael fiore: As a guy, I gotta tell say, I’m married now, I’m hap- pily married, I love my wife, we are monogamous. . . I miss seducing women. Man, I miss seducing women. Like, it’s not even that I want to sleep with other women, I just want to seduce them. I want to chase. And again, my wife, we do that to some degree, but still, it’s like “you’re my wife,” and you know, it’s not the same thing as meeting somebody and getting that thrill and just being like, “Yeah, I’m working at this a little bit,” right? I’m making this happen in some way.
mary e knight: Well, yeah, it’s exciting, you know it’s exciting. And you, having that desire but also, you know. . . but with the guys, too, they knew with me that it was a given. If they wanted to have sex with me that that was certainly an–
michael fiore: An option. It was on the table.
mary e knight: An option. And you know, for a lot of guys, that’s enough. Just knowing that that’s available is enough for a lot of guys. You know? Because most men don’t have, like, what you’re talking about, what I call “The Killer Instinct” that you have. You’re like, “Yeah, I like to hunt and I like to seduce,” and you know that’s fun. That’s fun to be with a man like that, because most men aren’t like that.
michael fiore: Yeah, I know.
mary e knight: And so it takes, it can be boring to be in a relation- ship with a man who doesn’t have that kind of, like, that eye of the tiger, you know? And so creating and keeping up the sexual feelings for a woman can also be a challenge if we’re kind of thinking that he’s being a little wimpy.
michael fiore: Or effeminate in some way.
mary e knight: Yeah, being effeminate in some way. But a lot of times if a man is acting like that it’s because, I’m just gonna say it, it’s because we did something to make him feel that way. Without–
michael fiore: So you’re saying–
mary e knight: Without even realizing it.
michael fiore: It’s never on purpose, I promise.
mary e knight: Nobody wants their man to feel like less than a man. But it’s so easy when we do things like, you know, pick on him about things that he can’t. . . okay, here’s a prime example, so I’m going to use trash. We can all relate to having kitchen garbage.
michael fiore: I’d say trash or dishes yeah, those are two big–
mary e knight: Trash, dishes, oh.
michael fiore: Domestic chores.
mary e knight: Toothpaste tube. . . domestic chores. michael fiore: Domestic stuff.
mary e knight: So you know, a lot of women will say, “Why didn’t you take out the trash?” Instead of saying, “Hey, can you take out that trash?”
michael fiore: Yep.
mary e knight: Do you see the difference?
michael fiore: Well, it’s criticism versus a complaint or a quest. mary e knight: It’s like, “Hey, can you take out the trash?” Instead of making a big damn deal about it. And a lot of women do, because we’ll create a story around “well, he didn’t take out the trash because he doesn’t listen to me, he doesn’t respect me, he doesn’t love me, or else he would have taken out that trash.” And you see, like, that’s just a story we’re making up.
michael fiore: And women are. . . we talk about this in a lot of our programs around the idea of, you know, women will also ask me all the time, say, “Michael, why did he do this? Why did he do that? Why did he do this?” And I’m like “It’s not about you.”
mary e knight: It’s not about you! It has nothing to do with you. You can’t take that personally.
michael fiore: Why didn’t he call? Well, now we’ve gotten emails and such before saying, “I texted him and it took him three hours to text me back. Is he sleeping with somebody else?” I’m like, “He went to a movie. What do you want?”
mary e knight: He went to a movie! I mean, he’s busy, he has a life. michael fiore: You’re over thinking. Okay so let’s–
mary e knight: Well, you need to make the story negative, you know? That’s why it’s just. . . giving people the benefit of the doubt.
michael fiore: You’ve got so much invested in that guy that your mind tends to go there. But as a guy, I gotta tell you, there’s a phrase, “Happy wife, happy life.” And what men are generally most attracted to are women who are happy, or who can be happy. And for the women that are listening, no man is going to make you happy. And no man is ever going to be perfect. Ever.
mary e knight: Right, right. And not a fake happy, like, a real happy.
michael fiore: Yeah, which means you can tell yourself and who you are–
mary e knight: That has to come from within, because that was something I realized about a lot of the men who were coming to see me when I was escorting, is they were looking for some- thing outside of themselves. They felt dissatisfied, they felt unhappy, and they were looking for something to make them feel better, you know.
michael fiore: You know, I think in a lot of ways going to an escort, in a man’s mind. . . I mean, I would never. . . if I got to a point where I really wanted to have sex with someone else, my marriage, my wife and I would have a really long talk and we would figure it out, because I believe in honesty, but I can see, as a guy, the idea of going to an escort is not as bad as cheating. I mean, it is cheating by, you’re having sex with somebody not your wife.
mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: I mean, it’s only cheating if your wife is against it. If she’s for it, then it’s not cheating, but there’s the idea, since it is transactionary, since it’s not a relationship, it’s just a thing you’re doing. . . it’s like a woman reading a romance novel or something like that. It’s a way to get some of that spark, but you’re not, it’s not as bad as developing actual relationship, seducing the girl at the office or something like that.
mary e knight: Well, right, because there are boundaries to the escort-client relationship, you know. And I think that’s what’s appealing to a lot of men is they feel like, they know what they’re in for from the beginning to the end. And I talk to my women and coaching clients, and they can create that situation at home, too, because giving, making sure that, you know, you’re setting aside time just for the two of you, just for him. That was something the men loved is when they came over to my place, they knew that I was ready for them. You know, like, I would have, you know, myself ready and everything that that entails, and also I would have, you know, a setting for us just to be there together, alone, where we could talk. And also, it wasn’t this open-ended time frame either, you know.
michael fiore: Yeah, yeah.
mary e knight: It was limited. So it makes it more fun, makes it more exciting, and also that way, and I think the time frame thing helps women a lot, because a lot of the time we’re like, “oh geez, how long’s that going to take? I don’t have all day. You know, dah dah dah dah.”
michael fiore: I got three kids to deal with, yeah, what are we gonna do?
mary e knight: I’ve got all this. . . and you know, you can actually, both of you can orgasm, you can have a little bit of time for a chitchat, and all that kind of stuff, and you can do that in thirty minutes. I know because I have timed it.
michael fiore: I prefer longer, personally.
mary e knight: Of course.
michael fiore: Just me.
mary e knight: Well, a lot of people do, but sometimes you don’t have time, and so you can, you know, if it’s not an open ended situation–
michael fiore: That’s actually an issue with my wife and I, is that I like to savor, and she’s like, “I got stuff to do.”
mary e knight: “I got stuff to do, come on, let’s go.”
michael fiore: And I’m like, “But I got two more hours in me. What do you want?”
mary e knight: She’s a lucky lady.
michael fiore: Well, she has actually said before, “I need to tag somebody in,” and I said, “Honey, that’s entirely up to you. I’m not going to make that decision.” I want to talk about two quick things. First, I want to talk about the concept of earning sex. ’Cause you just touched on this without explicitly saying it, which is, you know, especially in marriage and in relationships when you’re dating a guy, you know. You and I were talking about Steve Harvey’s whole thing with, like, the, like, don’t have sex with a guy for three months, and every single woman who hears that who is over thirty is like, “But I want to get laid, too, dammit.”
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: ’Cause wow, women have sex drives. Who knew? mary e knight: Yeah, sex isn’t just for the man. I mean he makes it sound like it’s for the man. michael fiore: It’s a sin.
mary e knight: It’s like no, it’s for everybody.
michael fiore: It’s such a misogynistic BS attitude, by the way.
mary e knight: I agree.
michael fiore: They’ve done brain studies on this, by the way. Physically women enjoy sex a lot more than men do.
mary e knight: And do you know that an orgasm improves a woman’s cognitive function?
michael fiore: I read that recently, actually.
mary e knight: And doesn’t improve a man, but it does for a woman’s. michael fiore: Man, I would be a genius by now. But anyway, ’cause yeah. . . .I always say like, for guys, you know a guy isn’t with a woman to have an orgasm. As a guy, I can have an orgasm any time I want in about three minutes, right?
mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: And you know what? I’m really good at it. I can do it more effectively and faster than any woman can, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about being appreciated and wanted. But a lot of women fall into the trap, and this kind of covers a lot of “why does sex die in a relationship” in a lot of ways, but a lot of women, when you get into that domestic mode, you start making a guy earn sex. Which is the absolute worst thing to do, right?
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: In my opinion. mary e knight: It is.
michael fiore: So what should they do instead? Instead of making a guy earn sex?
mary e knight: Well, you know, I talk about “are you trading sex for chores?”
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: Like, oh my gosh, so who’s the prostitute? That’s crazy! But it’s, well, I saw disconnect your sex life from your domestic life.
michael fiore: That’s interesting.
mary e knight: It’s difficult for women, because we can be, so many things get tied into our sexuality, and I think a lot of it is cultural, though.
michael fiore: I think so, too.
mary e knight: I don’t think we are necessarily wired biologically to have to have all of these things in place before we feel like we can be turned on. Now, we do have to feel safe as a woman–
michael fiore: Very much so.
mary e knight: Like emotionally, you know, we have to feel like, because we have to open ourselves, not just mentally and emotionally, but physically. We have to physically open our- selves.
michael fiore: It’s being vulnerable versus being penetrated, yeah, totally.
mary e knight: Yes, yes, yes! So it has to be something that we, it has to be something that we want to do if we want to feel good about what we’re doing, and if we want to be present and engaged and have a really great time. So if we can disconnect that, like, the sex for chores thing, and just focus on “okay, this is our sex life, this is our domestic life.” ’Cause a lot of times you’ll get your, I recommend get your sex life in order, okay, and then once, you know, you’re no longer rejecting, if you’ve been rejecting him sexually or your sex is ho-hum, you know get that going again–
michael fiore: And by the way, guys can feel the rejection so much. As a guy, I can tell you, I mean– mary e knight: It’s so. . . yeah.
michael fiore: It’s why we. . . it’s emasculating.
mary e knight: That’s why men. . . men pay millions of dollars a year seeing escorts. Probably billions, because, and it’s not because of the sex, it’s because they want to feel needed. The sex is part of it, but they want to feel wanted and needed, accepted, not judged. But so–
michael fiore: Uh huh.
mary e knight: Yeah, respect is. . . and so if you’re denying him sex and bitching at him about chores, you’re completely defeating, you know, everything that he has at home with you.
michael fiore: And he’s going, actually, as a guy I’ll tell you, men will over time desexualize you when that happens. And then–
mary e knight: Yeah, you don’t want to be the mom. You’re the mom.
michael fiore: And then when you approach him for sex he’s not going to be interested.
mary e knight: Well yeah, because you’re mean.
michael fiore: Yeah, because you’re mean.
mary e knight: You’ve been mean.
michael fiore: Why would I want to fuck you? You’re mean to me all the time.
mary e knight: You’re mean to me, and men do eventually get that way. I don’t think men, you know, ’cause, you know, you can put a lot of stuff aside and still be very, very aroused and have sex with a sink full of dirty dishes. Or maybe, you know, your wife didn’t do something you wanted her to do, you’re not going to deny her sex.
michael fiore: No.
mary e knight: Because you’re going to deny yourself sex. But I say get your sex life in order, and we can talk about ways to do that, and then you can bring up things like “Hey honey, you know, I would really appreciate it if you could do X, Y, and Z.” And then, because then, you know, he feels accepted by you, he feels loved by you, and it’s not just piling on and attacking him, because you never want to make a man feel attacked.
michael fiore: And you never want to criticize a man. mary e knight: No.
michael fiore: Criticism or. . . and again, men should never criti- cize women either. John Gottman in Seattle has done a ton of studies on this, and he says criticism and contempt are the two biggest indicators on whether a relationship or a marriage will last.
mary e knight: Yes, isn’t that interesting, yeah.
michael fiore: And again, as Mary just said before, instead of criticizing what you do, instead is you make a request, right?
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: And that’s the same in the bedroom as well, you just make a request.
mary e knight: Well also, I think the thing, criticism builds into resentment and anger.
michael fiore: Yeah, and as a guy, if you’re constantly being criti- cized, and again, my wife and I fell into this briefly, and we’re on much better terms now in our relationship, it’s wonderful, but there was this time when I was like, “Well, I pay the bills and I do this and I do that and I’m, you know, I have this whole business, and I have all these other things, and all I’m hearing from you is that I didn’t do the dishes.”
mary e knight: Yeah! Well again, it’s focusing on the positive. Like, focusing on the things that you do, that your man does that are amazing. Or just nice. If you can’t focus on something that you find. . . well, you know, my client, what I would do is find something physically attractive about them and focus just on that.
michael fiore: Hold on one second, let’s just finish this, let’s wrap up what we’re talking about.
mary e knight: Okay.
michael fiore: Around the idea of, I think this is really, really smart what Mary said. One is separate your sex life from your domestic life. You know, separate your lover from your husband and the father of your children, you know, as much as you can, and think of them as two separate aspects of a person. And we’ll talk a little bit more about getting your sex life in order in a minute or two, but I think that’s a really valuable idea. I’ll also say as a guy, if you want a guy to actually do the domestic stuff that you need, it’s way more likely to happen if he’s having regular, passionate, appreciative sex with you than if he’s not. He will feel more inspired. And for myself, you know, my wife and I have a raucous, wonderful time, I guarantee I’ll take the trash out and there’s probably flowers coming later. Right? Because you feel respected as a man, right? Whereas all this domestic stuff, and I don’t think this is sexist as much as evolutionary, like, you know, as a guy, our pride does not come from cleaning up the house and doing the dishes. It just doesn’t. We don’t, we’re never going to feel satisfied about that. We’re not generally as domestically oriented. Now I’m not saying guys shouldn’t help with the kids or do chores. We should and I do, right? But it’s not something, that’s not where our pride comes from. Our pride, as a guy, comes from whatever our mission is, which is either our job or music or theatre or whatever it is that we do that we’re passionate about, right? And it comes from being respected by the woman in your life for that.
mary e knight: Yes, yeah.
michael fiore: So now let’s go back to instant sexual chemistry that you said before, because this is fascinating to me. I just think this is a great idea, and I’m sure there are plenty of women who are listening to this who have been in a relationship and they’ve lost attraction for their husband or their boyfriend or, you know, the guy they’ve just been dating for a while. Limerence. . . limerence is the scientific term for that initial rush you get when you fall in love with somebody. The concept of love, romantic love, psychologically is kind of strange. It doesn’t really exist the way we romanticize it.
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: But limerence is when you meet somebody and you know. . . I know my wife is a redhead, and I met her and we made out for an entire evening, and all of a sudden I was seeing redheads everywhere. And all I could think of was redhead. And all I could smell was the smell of her. And all I wanted to feel was the feel of her, and it was wonderful. And that is something that you can keep to a degree in a relationship, but if you don’t work on it, it fades very, very quickly. Right? That limerence aspect fades after X number of months. So can you just, step-by-step, talk through what you did to create that instant sexual chemistry with a guy that you did not necessarily find physically attractive, or did not want to have sex with, in order to get yourself turned on enough to make it an enjoyable experience for him?
mary e knight: Yeah, and also I was wanting to make an enjoyable experience for me.
michael fiore: Which is way better. Ya ain’t digging ditches here.
mary e knight: That’s right. Well, and that was actually what started it. I was like, I have to be okay with what I’m do- ing if I’m gonna last as an escort. And at that time I didn’t have the option of not doing that, so I thought, “I gotta make this work. . . what am I going to do?” So I would sit there and we’d be chitchatting, and I would find something about him physically that I found attractive.
michael fiore: Now, what if, I mean, what if the guy is fat, bald (I mean I’m bald and I think I look good bald, thank you), but–
mary e knight: Yes, you do.
michael fiore: What if he’s fat and bald and badly dressed? I mean, I’m sure those weren’t the guys you were getting so much–
mary e knight: Well, you know, every now and then one of those guys would slip in and. . . but a lot of it, too, you know, me, and I’m not just saying this, I’m a big personality person. Like, I don’t have like a physical type, and that made my life easier as an escort, too. A lot of escorts don’t have a physical type, you know?
michael fiore: That makes sense.
mary e knight: Yeah, because you can’t, because otherwise you’d never be able to make any money.
michael fiore: Somebody asked me what my type once was, and I was like “attractive women.”
mary e knight: Attractive women. . . uh, yeah.
michael fiore: Which are just women I’m personally attracted to.
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: And it varies wildly.
mary e knight: I know. Well same here. Well, I’m 5’11” and so I’m very tall and so I–
michael fiore: Tall is nice.
mary e knight: I think so. And so I like to date men who are taller than me.
michael fiore: Of course you do.
mary e knight: It doesn’t mean–
michael fiore: All tall women want to date men who are taller than them.
mary e knight: I know, but it doesn’t happen super often, and you know, I have no problem dating a guy shorter than me. I have zero problem. Cause I really like personality and all stuff. And I like a man’s hands, I like a man’s eyes, eyebrows, cheekbones. . . you know, I don’t know why, I just like those things, and so I will focus on. . . Like, so say the fat, balding guy, poorly dressed guy–
michael fiore: Let’s say balding because balding. mary e knight: No, bald is sexy.
michael fiore: No, that’s actually true, because I know personally, I started going bald when I was, like, 23 and my self-confidence went through the roof when I finally shaved my head.
mary e knight: Oh yeah.
michael fiore: ’Cause I was like, I’m bald now, as opposed to a balding 23 year old.
mary e knight: Bald, balding.
michael fiore: So let’s set the scene there. You’re at a restau- rant. . . or whatever else.
mary e knight: Let’s say, we’ll make it, we’ll make this one the old school ones when I first started, and I had to do this when I was just doing hourly appointments. So say I show up at this guy’s hotel room, we’re sitting there, we’re sitting on the bed chatting, fully clothed, and I would just engage him and chitchat with him, and I would just watch the way he moved, listen to things he said, or watch the way his mouth moved when he smiled, I would just really hone in on him and say okay, this is a man. This is a man and I am a woman, and I would find something, okay, I like his personality, ’cause if I didn’t like his personality I would leave. Because I wasn’t going to put up with that.
michael fiore: So you didn’t put up with jerks, basically. mary e knight: Didn’t put up with jerks, no.
michael fiore: If somebody was misogynistic or whatever else or anything like–
mary e knight: Oh I’m just done. I’d be out of there.
michael fiore: Keep your money.
mary e knight: Yeah, yeah. So I would, so personality would, so I would find something, like maybe he had really nice hands, okay? And I would sit there and think “I want those hands on me.”
michael fiore: So you would imagine it. You would–
mary e knight: I would imagine it. I would think about his hands because–
michael fiore: Strong hands kneading your muscles, etc.
mary e knight: Yeah, or just generally just, you know, touching me, touching my back, you know, and touching my hair. I would just think about those things that I liked and I wasn’t focusing on the fact that he was balding or that, which actually that doesn’t bother me, but or that–
michael fiore: It means he has a lot of testosterone.
mary e knight: It does mean he has a lot of testosterone. You know, or have, like, if he had a gut. Like lots of guys who work in offices have guts, big deal, whatever, you know? And so I would just focus on “I like his hands.” If he had great eyes I would think “I want those eyes looking into mine.” Okay, so I was doing that on the fly, so if I could do that with a stranger, imagine what you could do with somebody you love. You’ve got a whole storehouse of cool stuff that y’all have done together. It’s just remembering what that is.
michael fiore: But you can only do that if you push the negative out of your mind. If you can push the “But he forgot to pick up Sarah from blah blah blah.”
mary e knight: Well, you know, by trying to push anything out of your mind, that doesn’t work. Accepting that that is reality; forgetting to pick up Sarah from school.
michael fiore: Okay.
mary e knight: Okay and what?
michael fiore: Well, actually I think the big thing is not–
mary e knight: –and he has great hands.
michael fiore: The big thing that is not translating on the stake or something like that into a criticism, into something bad.
mary e knight: Just, not like, okay, do not allow yourself to think negative thoughts. If one comes up go, “Hmm look at that. And he has great hands. And I remember the time we were in Vegas and we stayed up having sex for five hours, and I remember that time when, you know, I had that orgasm, or I remember that time when we sat and talked after my dad passed away.”
michael fiore: Which can be very attractive. Emotionally.
mary e knight: I would love–
michael fiore: And again–
mary e knight: “I love the way he does homework with the kids.” You know, simple stuff like that.
michael fiore: This is similar to what, again, what I talk about in Text the Romance Back around really focusing on, you know, the best moments in your relationship. Remembering–
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: You know, you can, memory is a funny thing, but every time you bring up a memory you can feel those things again. I’ve studied hypnosis a lot of years ago, and there’s actually a lot of hypnotic language in Text the Romance Back and some of the other stuff, and it works really, really well to get you to mentally transport back to when you did feel that lust and such. So you’re saying, you basically sit there, you’d be with a guy, you’d be well dressed and flirting a little bit–
mary e knight: Yeah, sure.
michael fiore: Paying attention to him, which is–
mary e knight: Paying attention to him as a man.
michael fiore: And demanding his attention too, I suppose.
mary e knight: Demanding, oh, and, you know, when you’re giving somebody attention like, yes, I have his undivided attention, he had my undivided attention. And it was just this very, once I felt attracted, as we talked about earlier, I could feel opened to him.
michael fiore: But I think the time limit thing is actually really important here and something that women can use. Right? Because I talk about this in a lot of our stuff. Being too available sucks, and especially when you’re in a domestic relationship with somebody, it’s like, well, they’re there all the time.
mary e knight: They’re there all the time. But it doesn’t mean they’re always available.
michael fiore: And they shouldn’t be. And there is something about the appointment aspect of it. . . I mean yes, spontaneity like sex on the kitchen counter is awesome, I’m a big fan of it, but sometimes you just have to make it, like, okay this is a thing, and making a ritual out of it and making it about being his lover. Talk to me about what you mean by appreciating him as a man.
mary e knight: Well, I like men. So–
michael fiore: So step one. . . but I think there’s an important thing here. You like actual men. You don’t like the–
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: We talked about this before, the myth of Prince Charming, right? Like, a lot of women fall into this trap, and it’s not their fault. They’re trained this way by Disney movies and other BS like that, to want this man who is large and strong and dominant and intelligent and completely monog- amous and never looks at another girl and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
mary e knight: Well, and also who is going to take a lot of things, that ties into taking care of them.
michael fiore: Very much so, yeah.
mary e knight: Reading their minds and anticipating our every need. And that also means sexually, too, so I never have to ask for what I want because he just knows how to give it to me, and if he doesn’t, well, then there is something wrong with him. And that’s a coward’s way out.
michael fiore: It is.
mary e knight: Because it’s easy to not say what you want and then just be cynical about it.
michael fiore: I’ll say right now, by the way, my wife and I, we dated for four years before we got married. . . I’m not a gift guy. You know that great thing the Five Love Languages–
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: Gifts are not something that I. . . I appreciate the thought when I get a gift, I’m like “that’s nice,” but stuff isn’t really important to me and I’m not someone who naturally, it doesn’t even occur to me to buy gifts for people. I’ll do favors for people all day long, right? Once I like somebody, my girlfriend or whatever else, I’ll take to dinner etc. . . you know, it was like two years in when one of my wife’s best friend’s family said, “Hey Mike, would you just buy her some flowers sometimes?” And it wasn’t like. . . and I was like, “Oh yeah, no problem, happy to!” And now I just randomly buy her flowers because I know it makes her happy, but it honestly, and I know this sounds strange because I’m a world-famous relationship expert, it didn’t occur to me, right? Now does that make me a bad guy? No. It just simply didn’t occur to me. Men’s minds are different and we can’t read yours.
mary e knight: Right. We have to tell you what we want.
michael fiore: And we’re going to talk about how to do that, too, in a little bit. So continue on what it means to appreciate him for being a man, or as a man.
mary e knight: Yeah appreciate him as a man. There’s just some- thing, and this is a, it can be a subtle thing, but just knowing that he is physically a man and thinking how awesome that is that he is a man and you’re a woman. So I’ll put myself, I’ll do this first person, like “he was a man, I was a woman, we were there together, and he wanted me.”
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: That’s why I was there. He chose me. michael fiore: Oh, okay, ’cause he actually did choose you.
mary e knight: He actually had to choose me from hundreds of other–
michael fiore: In this particular case out of hundreds of girls, including 22 year olds with amazing abs.
mary e knight: That’s right.
michael fiore: Who have never had kids.
mary e knight: That’s right. And he chose me, and I’m there with him, and that, what a, you know, that made me feel good knowing that I was the one.
michael fiore: Well it’s an ego boost there.
mary e knight: I was desired.
michael fiore: When I hear you say the word “man” here, it almost sounds like it’s capitalized in a way.
mary e knight: Yeah, it is.
michael fiore: And I’ve had people tell, when I talk to, I was talking to a married friend of mine recently, we were out, my wife was there as well, and she is unhappily married, and she kept saying, “You’re the Man.” And she was capitalizing it. And to me, I was like, oh, you don’t think of your husband as a man. Why? And I don’t know if it was the way I presented myself or something like that, but I think there’s something very powerful there around the idea of just saying like, you know, what is a man? You know, besides the physical stuff, like appreciating him for being. . . me, I’m a 220-pound bald guy covered in fur. Right? And I’m fine with that personally, right? Luckily, my wife is, too, she likes it when I send her pictures of my chest hair, right? Because personally, I don’t think you’re really a man if you’re hairless, just seems kind of strange to me. But again, like. . . but I think you were talking about how he chose you, but in this case I think women could do a lot by sitting there with her man and saying this is a MAN, M-A-N, capital, capital, capital, and I chose him.
mary e knight: I chose him. I want him to be here.
michael fiore: And if I chose him, there must be something won- derful about him, right? And only focus on. . . and I love what you were saying about he’s a man and you’re a woman, and there’s almost this primal cave-man-y thing to it, to a certain degree.
mary e knight: Yeah. There is because you have to get out of your head.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: And it’s so easy to get all in made up stories. And for some reason our default is to make them negative stories.
michael fiore: That is human nature, actually. Human nature is built around negative stories, and negative ideas, and evolu- tionarily that’s why we exist, right?
mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: We think of the worst possible thing. It doesn’t work in relationships.
mary e knight: Well it does, and especially if you’ve already decided to be there and you’re getting together, or you’re together in this relationship, it’s like, okay, why are you there? And focusing on that, why am I here? And the thing, too, once I. . . it’s just this, once I was feeling open and accepting, I could feel energy, if you will, in the room shift because automatically he’s–
michael fiore: Did you ever have a guy start crying when that happened?
mary e knight: No.
michael fiore: Or look like he was going to?
mary e knight: Not then, not like, at that point in it, but like before we were getting ready to have sex, or you know, actually, like, kissing.
michael fiore: Yeah, yeah.
mary e knight: Kissing is a way, because, you know, they’re like “oh my gosh. she’s letting me do this.”
michael fiore: ’Cause actually a lot of escorts wouldn’t do that, right? They wouldn’t kiss or–
mary e knight: No, that’s, I don’t know where that myth started. That’s some Wild West stuff. And also I think that’s a street walker thing. Street walkers won’t kiss.
michael fiore: Oh that makes sense. This is a way classier. . . it’s also, I know from watching porn and such, it always bothers me that there’s so little kissing. And a lot of the porn that’s aimed at guys, it’s just fucking. There’s no kissing. You can’t even see the guy, it’s just a giant dick.
mary e knight: I know, right! Bingo.
michael fiore: And personally, I’m like no, what I want to see, personally, is people that want each other, right? And you can find good stuff out there.
mary e knight: Oh, sure you can. They call it “sensual.”
michael fiore: they do. I like the rougher stuff too, a little bit, but I want to see that these people are actually making eye contact and enjoying each other.
mary e knight: I wanna know they’re enjoying–
michael fiore: Otherwise what’s the point. But–
mary e knight: But that’s the point, because you want it to be reflective of what you like, you want to see what you like.
michael fiore: Exactly. So you’re there, you’re appreciating him as a man.
mary e knight: Appreciating him as man, and then, you know, we start, and when the kissing starts, that’s usually when some- one will either kind of maybe break down a little bit, or that’s something that’s a turn off, because I’m like, oh my gosh, I haven’t kissed in so long because that’s not part–
michael fiore: No, I remember.
mary e knight: Part of their routine. That’s not part of their love- making routine.
michael fiore: Or because there’s been a de-sexualization or a de-passionation in the relationship. Like, I remember when I was younger, you know, again, people are like “Michael Fiore, you must have always been so good with girls.” I was awful with girls until I was like 28 or something like that, and then I finally figured it out. But I did go like, I tell a story about this in one of our marketing pieces, you know, I went six months without hugging anybody once when I lived in LA.
mary e knight: Oh my gosh.
michael fiore: And then when I finally, I actually hugged my boss ’cause she was having a hard day, and I gave her a hug, and I almost broke down crying just from that, right?
mary e knight: Yeah. Well, that was something I kind of, you know, when I would, you know, if they were coming over to my place, when I opened the door and they came in and I closed the door the first thing I would do was give them a full body hug.
michael fiore: Wow.
mary e knight: No groping, no, you know, none of that, but just a full body hug. And I could feel the tension leave their bodies.
michael fiore: Because he’s not, he’s walking into a woman’s home and not having it be a place of negativity and criticism.
mary e knight: Yeah, he’s getting a hug.
michael fiore: But also, he’s being accepted for who he is, which is what men really want.
mary e knight: Yeah, I agree.
michael fiore: That is not to say men can’t make changes such as “yes, I’ll take the trash out,” or “I have to take the trash out every Tuesday.” That’s fine, but in order to, but there’s something so wonderful to a guy, the idea of going to a, having a woman be there, accepting who you are. Not for who she wants you to be, not for the ideal, not for this fantasy idea, but actually for who you are. And appreciating you for who you are. That sounds wonderful.
mary e knight: Yes, just as one human being to another, and that’s often what I would do in my appointments, too, with men is I would sit there and I would look at them. And I would have, feel, this sense of passion, because we’re just a couple, you know, we’re all in this together, you know? So why not make the best of it? And that’s one of the thoughts I actually had. And I would kind of laugh to myself, thinking yeah, that’s exactly how I feel about this is we’re both people who are here in a situation that society frowns on, and oh boy, we could get in a lot of trouble by just being here together like this because it’s not accepted.
michael fiore: It’s illicit actually, which makes it a little hotter too, in a way.
mary e knight: Yeah, it does. But I actually, because it’s a little dangerous, there’s more at stake. Adrenaline is running a little high. But once you meet somebody after a couple times, that part goes away.
michael fiore: Well then, it just becomes a human interaction. mary e knight: Yeah, and I would make it a human interaction, because that’s what it was.
michael fiore: So you kiss him, you make out. Who’s in charge at that point?
mary e knight: I am.
michael fiore: So it seems like you’re in charge the entire time almost.
mary e knight: I am, because. . . but also because it’s a professional situation, it’s my job and I have to. . . I’ll be blunt, I couldn’t let somebody fuck me. Like, I was doing the fucking.
michael fiore: The work.
mary e knight: Because. . . and that’s a mindset thing that I had to do to feel comfortable where I was and what I was doing. After I got to know somebody then I could allow–
michael fiore: A little more vulnerability and a little more whatever else.
mary e knight: Yes, because I had to be in control and on top of things, literally and figuratively, because that’s what I was doing. So that’s a good place for a lot of women to start. If they’re not feeling very sexy or very sexual, if they can start taking control. . . and a lot of times women don’t because they don’t know what to do.
michael fiore: They don’t, and that’s a big issue and we’ll talk about, I definitely want to talk about control and sexuality in a second.
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: But there’s something here that’s important that I think you said. It’s not, I think there’s something very valuable, a lot of women have this attitude of “it’s his job to turn me on enough to want to have sex.” Right?
mary e knight: Right, but you have to allow yourself to be seduced. You have to be open to it. You can’t just sit there with your arms folded and think, “Okay, now it’s time for you to seduce me.” No it’s like you have to actually be open. And I–
michael fiore: And if you reject a guy over and over again, he’s going to stop trying.
mary e knight: He’s going to stop trying, because how much rejec- tion can one person take. I know me I don’t handle rejection very well, you know?
michael fiore: No.
mary e knight: No, and it crushes me. I’d never want to do that in a mean way to anybody. You know, there’s a way to let somebody down. You don’t have to reject them to let them down.
michael fiore: What I would say is if your guy comes to you and wants to have sex and he’s trying to get whatever else, you don’t have to say, “Well I’m busy!” You turn to him, you look him in the eye, you give him a kiss and say, “I can’t right now, but. . . ” and then you make a date or a time.
mary e knight: Yeah, “but. . . ”
michael fiore: But “listen, I really can’t right now. I love you, I find you attractive etc. but tonight, tomorrow.”
mary e knight: Yeah, tonight.
michael fiore: And you make it sexy.
mary e knight: Yeah, you make it sexy! You say, “You’re just going to have to wait.” Smile and “you’re just going to have to wait.”
michael fiore: And you don’t have to “not right now, I’m not in the mood. I have a headache, I’m watching my stories. . . ”
mary e knight: Watching my stories!
michael fiore: There was a great Facebook recently where a guy had put up a spreadsheet about all the reasons his wife gave him for not having sex for like–
mary e knight: No.
michael fiore: Yeah, he listed like every single time he had ap- proached his wife for sex over the course of twelve or thir- teen weeks, or something like that, and it was like “I have a headache, it’s too late, I don’t like having sex in the morning, I don’t like having sex in the evening, I haven’t brushed my teeth, I have to take a shower, I’m watching TV, not right now.” “I’m watching TV, not right now.”
mary e knight: Oh my gosh.
michael fiore: And then, like, every, you know, eventually she’d be like, “okay,” and then they had sex. And it would just be all this stuff. And the guy got a lot of flak for putting that up on the Internet. I get why, but damn.
mary e knight: That’s. . . and I can think of those situations where okay, I gotta take a shower. We can take a shower together. I have to brush my teeth. Well then, do it doggy style.
michael fiore: Yeah, whatever.
mary e knight: In the morning. . . morning sex is the easiest thing because I think it’s the most low pressure sex because women’s estrogen levels are high in the morning. And when your estro- gen levels are high, they’re highest in the morning, it’s very difficult to orgasm when your estrogen levels are high. How about that for biology. So that way you can have no-pressure sex in the morning without even having to try to come, or do this or that to come. And just do, like, a morning quickie thing. I love that! I personally love that.
michael fiore: Just for a couple of minutes as a way to get the day going.
mary e knight: Yeah, ’cause you’ve made that connection, you know, that’s a great way to start your day. He’s satisfied, and you don’t even have to be all the way awake. . . I’m teasing, I’m being glib, but it’s true. Like, you don’t have to put a lot into it in the morning to make it fun. It doesn’t always have to be a big production. It can be fun.
michael fiore: And it’s–
mary e knight: Fun, little quick thing.
michael fiore: It’s a great way to start the day.
mary e knight: Yeah. It is!
michael fiore: And actually, it really releases all sorts of fun hor- mones and you’ll be happier, he’ll definitely be happier, and he’ll take the trash out.
mary e knight: Exactly, and even if you don’t orgasm it still feels good, and it still releases lots of cool hormones for you, too.
michael fiore: Let’s talk about control for a second.
mary e knight: Okay.
michael fiore: You were saying for the first, you know, at the be- ginning of every, the first time you were generally in control. Most women, in my experience, are more sexually submissive than sexually dominant. Would you say that tends to be true or not?
mary e knight: Yes, yes I would.
michael fiore: And most men, not all by any means, tend to be sexually dominant and less sexually submissive, right? It’s–
mary e knight: That depends on their age.
michael fiore: Interesting. What. . . explain, please explain.
mary e knight: It’s a testosterone thing. As men’s testosterone lev- els drop off, you know, as they get older, they tend to be less sexually aggressive and then that’s when they also start to complain about they don’t have as much sex, but that’s be- cause, and they say, “well, I wish my wife would initiate sex more.” And so a male friend and I were just talking about this a few months ago at lunch, and he was saying, “Yeah, you know, she doesn’t. . . ” And I said, “Well, think about your entire sex life.” Typically with men, they want to initiate sex, right? Especially in the beginning, the first couple years. So it’s like we women, we never have to initiate it, we never have to think about it happening, it’s just something that happens, you know?
michael fiore: Hey, there’s an erection, he wants to put it in me now.
mary e knight: Hey, here we go, and then as men’s testosterone levels dip off, they’re not going to be as easily aroused or as focused on having sex. And so they’re like, wait a minute.
michael fiore: And I’ve got to tell you as a guy, all guys have gone through the experience of not being able to get a hard on. I have.
mary e knight: Oh, sure, of course, yeah. It’s fine.
michael fiore: It does happen, but it’s only a big deal if the girl takes it as an insult.
mary e knight: Right, right. I shouldn’t say it’s not a big deal, ’cause it’s not a big deal to me, but it can be a big deal to a guy if you make a big deal out of it.
michael fiore: And for a guy if it happens all the time, it’s a really big deal because his masculinity–
mary e knight: It is right.
michael fiore: Go ahead. . .
mary e knight: No, and when men were first. . . like, for me, like men I was a fantasy woman for a lot of men. They had never been with somebody who looked like me or also I was very, ’cause I was very sexually experienced, and these are guys who had sex with maybe two or three women, and they’re coming to me. So yeah, it’s common with a lot of men. You know, they get married, they had sex with maybe five people in their whole lives, and so, you know, they would be nervous, maybe. . . but, you know, I would just, like, say, “Don’t worry about it! Let’s do something else that does not involve touching your penis,” and that usually will help. Taking the pressure off.
michael fiore: I found actually taking penetrative sex off the table–
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: A. it’s really fun, ’cause then you’re teenagers again, right?
mary e knight: Right. Let’s make out some more.
michael fiore: Or, you know, setting rules.
mary e knight: Touch each other.
michael fiore: As a woman. . . I mean, if my wife or a girl I was dating before came to me and said, “Hey we’re going to mess around, you’re not allowed to touch me with your hands,” or something like that or whatever else. Setting limits like that. Or “nothing below the waist.” Or “the clothes are staying on.” I’m going to see whatever else. You know Language of Desire, the program, one of the programs that we sell, is all about that. It’s so much more erotic at that point, right? It’s so much more passionate and interesting at that point than just the “all right, let’s put it in.” Let’s see what happens from there.
mary e knight: No, I’m a big proponent of teasing.
michael fiore: Mmmm, me too.
mary e knight: You know you can, and I think that’s something that men–
michael fiore: Well, men love to be teased.
mary e knight: Oh my gosh, I know, and they weren’t used to it. They weren’t used to it, and so that’s the control thing. Like for me, that’s fun.
michael fiore: Explain what you mean by teasing, to make sure definition-wise we’re on the same page for people who are listening.
mary e knight: Okay, well, say, so say we’re making out and we’re undressed and we’re, you know, lying on the bed, and we’re not just going to go into penetrative sex, you know, okay? We’re not going to do that. So it’s, you know, a lot of guys like to, would want to go down on me, which would always surprised me in the beginning because that wasn’t something that their wives–
michael fiore: “No it’s dirty down there. I’m taking a shower.” etc.
mary e knight: Yeah, or because they’re uncomfortable. They feel like they’re being serviced. Anyway, that’s a whole other “why women don’t want to have oral sex.” And so that was something that was a big deal, and so that’s something that’s kind of a tease because then he can’t, he’s focused on me not focused on himself, and then I would reciprocate and give him a blow job. Well, I would do it as slowly as I possibly could, and men would go crazy. Because usually a woman is just trying to get it over with, you know? Or doing it too hard or too fast or whatever. So there’s that. And then they’re thinking “okay, well now we’re going to get down to business,” and it would just be like “uh-huh-huh.” If someone was trying to be grabby or overly enthusiastic, I would just move their hands to a different place on my body, like maybe my waist instead of my boobs. Like, I would just gently move their hands and put them in places that weren’t as sexually stimulating for me. And then I would just continue to, you know, kiss them or tease them or stroke them and then wait, you know, before we actually would have sex.
michael fiore: That sounds. . . I’m getting a little tingly just hearing about it.
mary e knight: Guys love it. And then even when I was putting them inside, and let’s say I was going to be on top, you know, I would just do it so slow. Like if they would try to push in I would say “Uh-huh-huh,” you know? I was like, we’re doing it my way.
michael fiore: ’Cause you’re teasing and you’re taking control, but you’re not being a Dom in this case.
mary e knight: No, no, no, no. ’Cause I wasn’t being dominant. I wasn’t trying to dominate them.
michael fiore: But that’s a really important distinction, right? mary e knight: It is, because there’s a difference between being, you know, I had no desire to dominate these guys, because I don’t want to have sex with someone who’s going to let me dominate. You know, that’s just me.
michael fiore: But that’s also the vast majority of women, right?
mary e knight: True, true. Like some women think they want to have, put somebody under their thumb but any guy they have under their thumb? They’re not having sex with that guy.
michael fiore: No. They’re not attractive.
mary e knight: No.
michael fiore: I was talking to a guy. . . I was psychoanalyzing a friend of mine recently, she’s very tall, she’s taller than you.
mary e knight: Wow.
michael fiore: Yeah, she’s a very large, beautiful woman. I mean absolutely gorgeous, and I was talking to her, and I was saying, well, we’re just chatting on Facebook or something like that about relationships and things like that, and I’m like, “Well yeah, what you really want is a guy who can both, who is psychologically and physically stronger than you, who can dominate you, throw you over the couch and fuck you silly.” And she goes, “How did you know that?” I’m like “You’re a woman.”
mary e knight: You’re a woman, yes I know!
michael fiore: And you’re a tall woman, which means you don’t find a lot of guys who can actually do that.
mary e knight: Because you want to feel small. Like, that was something another friend of mine talks about, like, “I want somebody who can make me feel small.” And that’s not neces- sarily, that’s not just a physical characteristic. There are men who are, you know, I dated a man who was 5’8” who made me feel like I was this tiny little creature because–
michael fiore: Because of the personality.
mary e knight: His personality, because he was a man. michael fiore: Because he could, and again this teasing thing. mary e knight: Yeah, the teasing.
michael fiore: This being coy. You know, you’re, he’s going to get what he wants, but you’re not giving it to him too easily.
mary e knight: No, and also some guys are a little, like, especially if they’re inexperienced or if they’re just, I don’t know, enthu- siastic, and they get grabby. Like, a lot of women don’t like that because it doesn’t feel good, and so they just think, oh, that’s what sex is, is being grabbed and being manhandled. And it’s like no, no, no. And so it’s making him. . . and that’s instructions that I give women, too. It’s like no, this is your show, make it at your pace, put his hands where you want them. You know, ’cause some men like to grab your hips if you’re on top, and then thrust you back and forth, you know, with their hands and it’s like hey, whoa.
michael fiore: The pornification of sex.
mary e knight: That doesn’t, I mean, I guess at some point once you’re super-duper aroused that can feel good for a little bit, but not, no, no that’s not the go to. You don’t start like that. And so I would tell them, “Hey, no we’re going to slow it down.”
michael fiore: You do it with a smile.
mary e knight: I was like, “Hey we’re going to slow this down,” or “This feels better to me like this,” or “Let’s try it slower,” instead of saying “Look, asshole, that hurts,” which is, you know, not what you want to say, but again, no criticism.
michael fiore: Never.
mary e knight: Never, ever criticize, because then, you know, you don’t want to make somebody feel–
michael fiore: Never criticize, always request.
mary e knight: That’s right! It’s like–
michael fiore: Again, we’ll talk about, I want to talk about different types of things in a second. So basically, you were in control then, you’d go through that, and there was that teasing aspect, but I call it coyness.
mary e knight: Coyness.
michael fiore: To me, there is nothing hotter than a coy woman, right? My wife will do this thing where she will look over her shoulder at me a little bit and has this smile and, like, kicks her leg up a little bit, and just like, it’s like, you know, I literally feel the testosterone flood my entire body as soon as that happens, right?
mary e knight: I got chills by the way when you said that ’cause I just imagined how cute that would be.
michael fiore: Oh, and she’s absolutely adorable and has the nicest ass in the entire world. So–
mary e knight: Well, I’m going to speak to this a little bit, too. So this is, okay, so as an escort–and this is a whole different world to a lot of people and I’m not going to go into a bunch of detail here–but there are online advertising sites where escorts can place their ads, and these are the websites, and men can go and check you out and decide if they want to see you. So I would go to these advertising sites and I would see all these pictures of women, and, like, I never showed any nudity on my website as an escort, and they. . . ’cause I thought, well, one reason was, the main reason was, if they want to see they’re going to have to hire me. They’re going to have to pay. Well, and ’cause that’s another teasing thing.
michael fiore: It is a teasing thing.
mary e knight: And so–
michael fiore: It’s suggestion as opposed to overtness, right?
mary e knight: Right, so you go to these sites and you see all these women, and they got their gorgeous breasts, showing their boobs and some of them have, you know, just showing a lot. And for me, what I always said was “look at all these dummies trying to out ’ho each other.” And so I distinguished myself by being different from them by not giving it all away up front. By not showing everything. And that’s what drew, like, these high- quality clients to me was because I was different, because I wasn’t as available as these. . . well, the perception was I wasn’t as available as these other women.
michael fiore: And you weren’t just giving it away and you weren’t just–
mary e knight: I wasn’t giving myself away.
michael fiore: You weren’t just being an object. Right?
mary e knight: No. It was like, hey, if you want to, and I was, you know, you have to, I have to want to see you. That was a big thing, too, that I would always say in my ad copy was, you know, I have to want to see you. Don’t assume just because you had the means and the references that you’re going to get to see me.
michael fiore: So that means he was still getting to chase in a way.
mary e knight: And I think that, and the reason I bring this up, is, like, a lot of times less is more. Like your wife looking over her shoulder at you and you’re like “whoa.”
michael fiore: No, yeah.
mary e knight: It’s not like she lifted up her shirt and showed you her boobs.
michael fiore: Oh god, no.
mary e knight: You probably would have liked it.
michael fiore: No, it’s fun but it’s slower and more suggestive. You’ll learn this from strippers, too. The really good strippers aren’t the ones who are like “and now my pants are off.”
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: They take their time and such. But I think there’s something very powerful in what you were talking about, the idea of, like, you know, you can be in control and still be submissive. And submissive gets a bad, the term gets a bad thing. The less dominant partner in a sexual situation. Right? ’Cause a lot of women want the guy–
mary e knight: Surrender.
michael fiore: There we go, surrender is a wonderful word. Sur- render is a wonderful word.
mary e knight: Because that’s what I had to do.
michael fiore: But also the term surrender means you had to fight a little first. To surrender you have to fight a little first. You have to be a little bit, and in my experience with women, my wife and women I was with before, you know, if I met a girl and it was too easy, I would lose interest, right? That little bit of, you know, needing that, and again you don’t want rejection, you just want that little bit of push back, right? No, no, no, not quite that, slow down, stay here with me, and then he won’t close his eyes and start thinking about porn. I promise.
mary e knight: Yeah. It’s a subtle, the thing is, I mean I can give explicit instruction about this, but also, when you are in the heat of the moment, there’s a subtlety, these things happen between the two of you, like the eye contact is very important. But also looking away. You know looking away and being demure and being like “okay, well, I know what I want, I know how to do this, but I’m also, you know, I’m a little shy about this, and I’m looking for a little bit of guidance from you” kind of thing. It’s a very subtle, it’s so fascinating.
michael fiore: It’s interesting trying to balance, because we get emails all the time from women saying, who are sexually, who are very sexually confident, but they intimidate men, right?
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: Because they know what they. . . A couple of friends of mine in particular, and they’ll talk to me about this, and I’m like “you gotta soften up a little bit,” right? I mean, if you just, you can’t just. . . Actually I got hit on by a lesbian once which was interesting.
mary e knight: That’s awesome.
michael fiore: I found it flattering, it was nice.
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: It was at a conference and she–a butch lesbian actually, but not like, you know, skinny, but dressed as more masculine in a lot of ways–and at one point she’s hitting on me, and I took her aside and I’m like, “Listen: A. I have a girlfriend, so nothing’s going to happen anyway. B. This is very flattering. Thank you. C. You don’t hit on a guy the way you hit on a girl.” Right? ’Cause she was basically trying to, she was basically treating me the way she would treat a woman when she was hitting on women. And as a guy I found it repulsive. Right?
mary e knight: Oh yeah, yeah,
michael fiore: I was like “what are you. . . what?” I mean, being appreciative of it was fine, but she was, like, basically, you know, trying to pick me up the way a pick up artist would pick up a girl, and I was like “excuse me?” Like you don’t want to out-alpha the guy. ’Cause then he’s like “this is not what I was,” most guys, “this is not what I was looking for.”
mary e knight: That’s something that strong, successful women have trouble with that. You know, because you’re used to being with people in the business world.
michael fiore: Those are the women who most want to surrender in the bedroom, but they have to have a man who they can respect and–
mary e knight: Who they can respect, yeah, and appreciates them as a woman, and also won’t take any of their shit.
michael fiore: But getting that, well again, those are usually the ones, they get a little bratty, and they want to get put in their place, and then you have a lot of fun. Thinking back to my single days, I was like, “oh you’re trying to do that to me? No, that’s not going to work.” But there is something there for the women who are more successful, because a lot more women are more successful and dealing with guys, a lot of women who are dealing with guys who make less money than they do. And I think–
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: The deal there, what we were talking about be- fore. . . you have to, it’s partly your job to find what you appre- ciate about him. To focus on that stuff, right, and to put your own personal, you know, financial success, career, everything else aside to a certain degree. You know, take off the bitch face or bitch shield or whatever the hell it is at that point and be soft with a guy at that point.
mary e knight: Yeah, be soft. Be the girl. And I’m using the term girl–
michael fiore: It sounds almost sexist, but it’s really not.
mary e knight: Be the girl! Yeah! Well, I think that it does sound sexist, and it’s just gotten, like femininity has gotten–
michael fiore: A bad rap, yeah.
mary e knight: And I don’t understand why, because being, well, that’s a whole other topic, but for me being in a position I loved, being an escort, I mean, there were times when that’s dangerous, because even though you check references you’re with a stranger. So it’s having the confidence as a woman to be able to be vulnerable and yet still be in control.
michael fiore: And vulnerability, the idea of a woman opening herself to you in that way and being vulnerable to a guy, is extraordinarily intoxicating.
mary e knight: I had so many men tell me, like, oh my gosh, this is just a. . . and it wasn’t about technique.
michael fiore: It rarely is. I mean, if you can give a great blow job that’s great, but it’s more about the emotional aspects of it.
mary e knight: It is. It’s the way, because I felt comfortable enough with myself as a person, as a woman, I could let them in in ways that other women weren’t comfortable letting them in. Now the only problem I had with that is yes, I did have clients think that they were in love with me, because they had never experienced that kind of connection with someone before. Which actually is sad.
michael fiore: Well I would get a similar thing. I was never an escort or anything, but when I was single and I was, I was promiscuous. I was with several women, and I wasn’t looking to date at that time in my life, that was before I met my wife, but I’m also somebody who’s. . . if I’m going to be having sex with somebody, I’m there, you know?
mary e knight: Yeah, with that person.
michael fiore: Full on eye contact, you are the only woman in the world, etc. at that moment. And at that moment it was true, but then it would get a little weird afterwards ’cause they’d be like “oh. . . ”
mary e knight: I would tell myself, like, you know, I would allow myself to feel whatever I wanted to feel when I was with my clients, you know, ’cause sometimes you can fall in love with somebody a little bit for an hour. You can. You know, you can let yourself do that, and I think that, you know, maybe, in your personal life, if you’re dating, you’re being promiscuous and dating around, that may not be the best idea for you, but in my situation I could do that. But if you’re with your man, it’s like, you know, let yourself fall in love with him all over again.
michael fiore: Give yourself to him.
mary e knight: Give yourself to him. And a lot of women are like, well and respect, like, respect my man, you know that is. And then, you know, give yourself and surrender and be submissive and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
michael fiore: Coy.
mary e knight: You know, people are, people like coy, too, or teasing, people don’t like those words that have negative connotations.
michael fiore: That’s where feminine sexual power comes from. mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: Like, male sexual power is about, largely, is about that old caveman stereotype. You know, again, I talk to a lot of women and they want to be, they want a guy who can grab her by the hair, bend her over the couch, and fuck her silly, right? Now not all the time–
mary e knight: Not all the time.
michael fiore: But that’s the thing. Like, having a guy who has the confidence and the ability to do that. Even if he’s not physically intimidating, if he has a strong enough personality to be, you know, strong personality like a rock that she can’t, and you know, women tend to test guys a lot in that way. Are you actually that strong? Do you actually deserve me? But for women the power comes from the coyness and from the teasing and from the surrender, right? You know, getting to the point that you decide to give yourself to a guy or he takes you, in a way. If we’re getting into that whole 50 Shades of Grey market, that kind of a thing.
mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: But I think a big thing that you were talking about that, I think, is very, very important is you found a way to enjoy the sex with these guys.
mary e knight: Yes, yes I did. Because I got my mind out of what was going on, and I let my body enjoy the sex and let my body enjoy the man.
michael fiore: So you could just enjoy the sensations. You could enjoy the man for who he was.
mary e knight: Yes, whether he had, you know had, whether he had that, what do you call it? The love handles, the big belly, and the horseshoe hair or you know–
michael fiore: The penis that just barely pokes out of the fat. mary e knight: Pokes out of the fat, you can work around that. Like someone that I would not have chosen, but I could enjoy him because, again, I wasn’t in my head. And when you’re not in your head, that’s another way of saying you’re present.
michael fiore: Is there any ritual or anything that you would do to get out of your head? ’Cause a lot of women are just like, oh man, but I’m thinking about the kids and the dog and this and that and my job and this and blah, blah, blah. The hamster wheel keeps running. What technique would you use to do that?
mary e knight: Well, what I would do is I would look–this is another thing I love and I recommend highly if you’re disconnected from your partner–I would look the man in the eye, I would see the rhythm of his breath and I would share a couple of breaths with him.
michael fiore: Wonderful.
mary e knight: That is so powerful. Even if you’re mad at somebody and you do that, it’s like you’ve flipped a switch. And do it a few times, I’m not talking about a deep breath, just a normal breath. Just be aware of your breath.
michael fiore: You’re basically pacing them, in a hypnotic term. So you basically mirroring them.
mary e knight: Yeah, mirror them. Yeah, doing the mirror thing. And so it’s very, very relaxing, it’s very nice, and then also it helps you to get into your body in a very real way. And another thing is a lot of us can feel sensation in our hands. Like, if you just think about hands, you can feel your hands in your mind, with your eyes closed you can feel your hands. So another thing to do if you’re feeling like you’re too much in your head, start thinking about feeling with your hands. I know it sounds funny, but it gets you out of your head and into your body. And–
michael fiore: And then from your hands you can move down and–
mary e knight: You can move down. You can, ’cause a lot of women, though, are not super in touch with their bodies. Like me, I constantly–
michael fiore: A lot of women are very divorced from their bodies.
mary e knight: They’re divorced from their bodies. I’m also a med- itator, so that is where I get a lot of this stuff, too, like from how does it feel to be meditating for a couple hours a day on a meditation retreat. It’s, like, you learn a lot about yourself. And I know not everybody’s interested in doing that, but these are things just to get into your body. And also, you know, if you think about your, when a woman thinks about her vagina, you can actually like, you can start clenching the muscles that, you know, your Kegel muscles, that start and stop the flow of urine, start doing a little bit of those, that will get you into your body, too.
michael fiore: I think also masturbating, you know? A lot of women–
mary e knight: When you’re sitting there trying to connect with somebody–
michael fiore: In that moment. I just mean as far as being more sexual in general.
mary e knight: Touching yourself. Yes, oh definitely.
michael fiore: And a guy always loves watching a woman touch herself.
mary e knight: Oh my gosh, men go bonkers when you do that. That was something, too, that’s, that a lot of women don’t feel comfortable with that. And I understand that, because it’s very personal and you’re on the spot, man. You are totally on the spot when you are doing that. You know, that’s a good go-to for some people that might be a little advanced. You know, but it is a great way–
michael fiore: It is great. So you pace with them, you mirror what they’re doing, you breathe, you focus on his hands or his eyes or his arms. . . for me, women go for the bicep or something like that.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, sure.
michael fiore: You know, and slowly almost drink the man in for who he is, right? And start accessing that more sexual, primal part of your brain, right? Pushing that stuff on. Working to turn yourself on, right? As opposed to expecting the guy to do all the work to get you in the mood for what it’s going to be. Yeah, he’s got to do some of it, that’s for sure, but it takes two to tango.
mary e knight: It does. What I learned was. . . being an escort, though, I couldn’t have that expectation. So that’s how I learned all this, was I was, like, I gotta do all this myself. And then what it’s done for my personal life has been amazing.
michael fiore: I believe you.
mary e knight: It’s been phenomenal.
michael fiore: I believe you, because as a guy I’d be like, “This is awesome.” I think there’s also something I wanted to say before about sex, when you were saying you would tease the guy. A lot of women have fallen for this myth that a man is just a dick in a way, basically. That that’s the only thing he cares about when it comes to sex, right?
mary e knight: Oh yeah.
michael fiore: But as a guy, I mean, I love when my wife kisses other parts of my body. My neck or whatever else. Slowly drags her fingernails down my arms or anything like that. There’s a whole guy there. It’s not just about the penis, despite what pornography would tend to tell you. Like for me, for instance, for me nothing turns me on more than having a woman suck my fingers. I don’t even know why, there’s just something. . .
mary e knight: Men are so different. Their bodies are so different. Some men really like to only focus on their penis because that’s all that they’ve ever really focused on or had other women focus on, and so if you can expand that out and find out what other areas of his body. . . ’cause he may be like “no, no, no, don’t bother, my nipples don’t have any sensation. Don’t kiss my neck, don’t bother.” And it may be because he’s trying to rush things.
michael fiore: He might be, yeah.
mary e knight: He’s just trying to get down to business instead of, you know, having it be this, you know, really erotic, sensual experience for him, too. ’Cause some men don’t know that they’re allowed to have that.
michael fiore: Well, they’re also frightened of it a lot of times. Be- cause it means opening themselves to a certain level of vul- nerability, as well.
mary e knight: Yeah and they feel like that’s, they feel like that’s feminine.
michael fiore: But I love the idea, you know there should be some- thing, I love what you were talking about, about being coy and teasing and being in control while making him feel like he’s in control, too.
mary e knight: Yeah, because in reality, I mean, he could certainly rush things along as quickly as he wanted.
michael fiore: Physically.
mary e knight: He’s physically capable of doing that. And I think that’s part of the fun, is knowing you are–
michael fiore: The back and forth is the fun. mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: You know, as a guy who is kind of sexually dominant myself, it’s like, oh, there’s a little resistance, can you break through that resistance, and do this and do that. That’s way more interesting than anything else.
mary e knight: Well yeah, just like, yeah. ’Cause I personally prefer, in my professional life, I mean my personal life, I love a sexually dominant man.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: And then in my professional life it was rare that I actually met a sexually dominant man, because a lot of men don’t know that that’s okay. But one of the comments when I did meet those guys, it was so fun.
michael fiore: I was gonna ask you about that. Because, like, I’m a pretty sexually dominant man, as any woman who’s been within five feet of me would know, and that’s, you know, I was asking, like, you know, if you allowed that or not. If you allowed a guy to be sexually dominant, or was that something you waited, he had to wait till maybe the second or third time ’til you felt really safe, or something like that?
mary e knight: Well, there are some men who just have this raw, amazing sexuality about them.
michael fiore: I think I know one, yeah.
mary e knight: That made me feel like oh, you know, they just want me. It’s not about dominating me, controlling me, trying to make me do something. It’s about hey, let’s do this. And it was like, because it was so genuine, it was just, yeah.
michael fiore: Well he’s not trying to work out anger, he’s just–
mary e knight: No, no, no, no. He just likes to have sex. And if I had said, “Hey, let’s slow this down,” he’d say “ooohhh, okay” But a lot of escorts don’t like seeing men like that because they can be intimidating.
michael fiore: Of course they can.
mary e knight: It’s very intimidating.
michael fiore: It takes the professionalism out of it in a weird sort of way.
mary e knight: It does, but I let it because it was just so unusual for me to experience.
michael fiore: ’Cause usually the guys were more passive that were coming to you. Or even so, they’re paying you, so there’s a power level there.
mary e knight: There’s a power level there ’cause they’re paying me, and I’m a woman, right, and also, I know that a lot of people would think that the power level would be flipped because they’re paying me, that I should let them do whatever they wanted.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: But men don’t want that. Men don’t want to feel like, okay, we’re going to do this, this, and this. Men were expecting me to be a certain way and have standards and have boundaries.
michael fiore: Well, they were paying for you to be a real woman, not just–
mary e knight: They’re paying me. . . right, ’cause they took me out. . . ’cause I thought, men would say, “hey, you know, what’s your favorite sex position?” and I would say “Oh, I like them all.”
michael fiore: Yeah, by the way, all guys hate that. Hey, like, you’ll ask a woman where to go to dinner. “Oh I don’t care.” I’m like, okay, well we’re not going anywhere, fine.
mary e knight: My grandma would say, “I don’t care if it doesn’t have any house or home.” Good answer.
michael fiore: But yeah, it seems like the guys were going for more of, not like a “girlfriend” experience, just like a real experience.
mary e knight: That’s what the men want, especially if you’re going to a higher-end escort. That’s the expectation, is that this is a woman who is doing this because she wants to do it, because she enjoys what she does. She loves having sex, and that’s why this is her chosen occupation. Not that she’s a drug addict or some–
michael fiore: Or making $20 for meth.
mary e knight: Right, or she has abusive issues, she’s trying to work it out. Or because she hates men, she’s charging. You know, this is a whole legitimate profession that men enjoy, some men enjoy, because they know they can go have this amazing experience and that they’re not getting it any place else.
michael fiore: Did you ever have a couple come to you, or was it always just guys?
mary e knight: Yes, yes, I love seeing couples.
michael fiore: Now, what was that about? Was that, I mean what was the woman’s view point on that?
mary e knight: Well, sometimes, it was because they just wanted me to watch them have sex.
michael fiore: Interesting.
mary e knight: But more often than not it was because they wanted me to participate with them. Like, a lot of times it was where it was, the man was watching me and the woman interact, you know?
michael fiore: Well as a guy, I mean, that’s awesome.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, it was.
michael fiore: The idea of watching my wife with another woman sounds awesome.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, and it was so fun. It was fun for me. And a lot of times those women had never been with another woman before, so it was like this new. . . they were exploring, they had been married for a while and they wanted to spice things up. And I always made sure that it was her idea.
michael fiore: Always.
mary e knight: It’s always gotta be the lady’s idea.
michael fiore: It has to be the lady’s idea or it never works.
mary e knight: Or else it will be weird. And so that, or sometimes they would want me to full on participate and have sex with him. A lot of times it was me and the woman both giving him blow job at the same time or you know, or one of us sitting–
michael fiore: Which, by the way, greatest thing ever.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, four hands and two mouths and tongues and all
michael fiore: You need a lot of dick to make it work but you know, whatever.
mary e knight: Yeah, you know.
michael fiore: There’s got to be enough room for, you know, there’s got to be enough room on the boat.
mary e knight: But it was so fun for me and I loved doing it. That was my absolute favorite thing and you know a lot of escorts won’t do that. It’s just not their thing. They just don’t like the lady.
michael fiore: They’re not into the girls.
mary e knight: Yeah, so. . .
michael fiore: The stats show that women tend to be more sexually flexible than men, in general.
mary e knight: Sure.
michael fiore: There certainly are some women who are like, “Nope I’m straight.”
mary e knight: “Nope not doing that.”
michael fiore: I don’t like vaginas. I don’t like boobs. I don’t want to do that.
mary e knight: Well, you know, also there was women that, they would want me to go down on them, but they weren’t exactly interested in going down on me. Like they just wanted to experience.
michael fiore: Yeah, I could see that definitely, yeah. They want to get head without having to deal with stubble for once. It sounds like these women were. . . what’s interesting to me here is this is a monogamous experience for her. She’s watching or participating in that way. How did you see that affecting their relationship? Bringing a third party in, especially a paid third party in?
mary e knight: Well, I think that’s what made it safe, was I was a paid third party. It wasn’t like I was going to be, I wasn’t, man, I hear about women inviting their best friends to come in–
michael fiore: Don’t do that.
mary e knight: I cannot think of a worse idea. That’s the worst thing in the world.
michael fiore: You need someone who can go away.
mary e knight: You need someone that, exactly, that can go away. But I would see couples over and over and over and over again. Like, I became a part of their fun night out away from the kids.
michael fiore: Oh, wonderful.
mary e knight: Which was so cool. It was so fun. michael fiore: Yeah it sounds wonderful.
mary e knight: ’Cause the women, it also gave them a safe place to explore, you know, think about things. And then they call the shots and I made sure they called the shots, too. As I said, it had to be her idea. But also, while the interaction was going on, I would sit there at the beginning and I would chitchat with them a little bit about, okay, so why am I here? What do you want from me? What’s my role?
michael fiore: And what boundary do you want to push or what boundary don’t you want to push. I think is probably a big part of it, as well.
mary e knight: Well, when I was married and that was something my–and I wasn’t escorting when I was married–and that was something that, you know, that I enjoyed, was having another woman every now and then, you know, join us. And we had specific rules. And one of my rules was that you can’t cum with her. You can make out, we can have. . . and that was just my thing. I don’t know if I just made it up so I could have a rule.
michael fiore: It’s an ownership thing, and that makes sense. I mean, I know plenty of couples who are poly or whatever else, and everyone sets their boundaries their own way, and that makes sense. And that’s actually really powerful. By the way, I have a friend who was deep into the swingers’ community in Seattle for years and years and years. He’s literally had sex with more women than I’ve met in my entire life.
mary e knight: Oh my goodness.
michael fiore: Not literally true, but a lot. And I’ve never been into swinging or anything like that but–
mary e knight: Me either, really. You know, just with the ladies sometimes.
michael fiore: So yeah, some people are just not really my– mary e knight: Some people are just too complicated for me.
michael fiore: Yeah, like he was saying, like, it’s really hard to get a woman into the swing community, and it’s ten times harder to get her back out.
mary e knight: Wow.
michael fiore: ’Cause in that community, once she’s there, she realizes how much power women have in that kind of situa- tion, right? The women are the ones who call all of the shots when it comes to that kind of situation, or swinging thing, or something like that. And a lot of women have never really ex- perienced that before, because you’ve got the vagina, so you’re the one who’s making the rules, as it were. You know, I’ve seen couples have very successful non-monogamous relationships that way. As successful as people who have monogamous relationships. Whatever you want to do from there–
mary e knight: Sure, same here. I have some good friends who are involved in that, and I’m like oh, this is just too much for me. That’s funny, I’m an escort, but it’s like oh, I don’t think I want to do that.
michael fiore: Well, I actually had, this is a funny story, back when I was single, you know, I was single and was in a relatively new community and whatever else, and I was getting hit on by one girl, and I was like oh well, you know, and I was like, “aren’t you married?” And she was like, “Yeah.” “I don’t, no, no.” And her husband actually said, “Why didn’t you want to sleep with my wife?” And I said, “I just don’t want to get involved in your relationship. It’s not my thing. Sorry.” God, we could talk all day.
mary e knight: I know, I know.
michael fiore: I want to cover a few more things. So there was one big question that Nora, who actually does the podcast with me, put down here: What is the most surprising thing that you found that men want from women?
mary e knight: They want acceptance.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: You know, I always say if I could give one piece of advice to women, it would be simply “be nice.”
michael fiore: Yeah, yeah.
mary e knight: Be nice. I know it sounds kindergarten, that’s a kindergarten rule, but it’s that basic.
michael fiore: Be nice and treat him like a man.
mary e knight: Be nice and treat him like a man. And when I say be nice, of course I’m simplifying it. But it’s having this, having an attitude of acceptance of–
michael fiore: A radical acceptance almost. . . it’s just who he is. This is who he is.
mary e knight: It’s okay if nothing ever changes, you’re okay exactly as you are.
michael fiore: Yeah, that’s very, very powerful. And I think a lot of women do fall into the trap of wanting him to change. You know, the old adage is women think men will change, and men think women never will. And of course women, you know, most women these days get married around 27 or so, and there’s a lot of changes in the next ten years as far as–
mary e knight: Oh boy.
michael fiore: Especially men, I think, start settling into who they are, as well, but women just become more, they become more of a woman and things like that. But that’s really what these men were going to you for. It wasn’t ’cause you give an awesome blow job, although I’m sure you give awesome blow jobs
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: Yes, I actually do that. Yes, sir.
mary e knight: Why, yes sir, I was known far and wide for that. And sometimes men would come to me not expecting to have intercourse because they just wanted to experience a blow job.
michael fiore: By the way, for the ladies who are listening, if you just give your guy a blow job sometimes without expecting anything else in return, you’ll get a lot in return, I promise. If you just, like, make, say, like, “I’m just gonna suck your cock right now and that’s all that’s going to happen,” he might be a little confused. And you set a boundary and you’ve said it’s not going to go any further. You just make it about that, you’ll get more of the domestic stuff done, I promise.
mary e knight: And again, that’s a powerful position to be in.
michael fiore: Very powerful.
mary e knight: That’s what I tell women. I’m like, that’s one of the reasons I loved giving blow jobs so much, was because I loved that sense of “I’ve got you where I want you.”
michael fiore: You can do anything you want.
mary e knight: I can do anything I want right now, and I can take as long as I want to or we can hurry this up, and maybe I’ll choose to have sex with you and maybe I won’t.
michael fiore: But going into–
mary e knight: You know, kind of thing.
michael fiore: But giving a blow job can be, a lot of women are repulsed by it a little bit, or have weird. . . I think it’s the women that generally hate giving blow jobs, hate it because either of the culturalization or because that one asshole in high school, right? Like the guy–
mary e knight: Right, and I actually talk a lot about that. I have a little video series that I’m working on right now. It’s, like, you know, “The Reasons You Don’t Want to Give a Blow Job,” and then it’s, like, I have another one, “The Reasons Why You Don’t Want Oral Sex.”
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: Why you don’t want him doing down on you. And it’s all because of not feeling like you’re in control. Not knowing what to do. I think that’s where a lot of sexual insecurity comes from in women and why a lot of times women don’t know how to say what they want, is because they don’t know.
michael fiore: That makes sense.
mary e knight: And you know, it’s also, like, you don’t have to know. You can just say, “Let’s try this. How about this? What do you think about this?”
michael fiore: “How does this feel? How does that feel?”
mary e knight: “What do you think about this? Let’s try that.” michael fiore: Having a sense of play about the entire thing, right? mary e knight: Yes being playful and–
michael fiore: And also being willing to learn, you know? It’s like sex is a skill. I play drums, right? And I started playing drums seriously two years ago, two and a half years ago, something like that, and at first I had some natural talent. I can keep a 4/4 beat pretty easily. But I kinda sucked. And then after a whole lot of practice and a whole lot of learning and learning from people who are better than me, I’m a pretty damn good drummer now. Right? But people kind of feel like sex is something you should just naturally be good at. You should just be like, “I should just know how to do this,” but that’s not the way it works.
mary e knight: Right. I think a lot of women put that on. You know I’m not putting women down or trying to say this–
michael fiore: No.
mary e knight: On the one hand, but it’s that a lot of women expect men just to know what to do. And then they’re like, oh, if he doesn’t know what to do, well, then we’re not compatible. And I think, again, I think that’s a bullshit way to live your life. You know, like, blaming the other person? It’s, like, well, how is he, again, he can’t read your mind.
michael fiore: Nope.
mary e knight: And you need to have the courage to say what you want and what you need.
michael fiore: Well how do you do that, though? How do you, how can a woman. . . okay, you’re in bed with a guy or a woman’s in bed with a guy, her boyfriend or a guy she just met or whatever else, and, you know, as a guy when I was sleeping with women you kind of start feeling women out a little bit to figure out what she likes, right? And there’s–
mary e knight: You’re trying to read her.
michael fiore: Or, like, for me, I would just, like, you know, you hold her wrists very firmly for a second and that gives you a lot of feedback, and you kind of know where she wants to go a little bit. What reactions do you get from various things that you do? But for women, you know a ton of women, they write into me and they say, “Mike, I want kinkier sex,” or “I want this,” or “I want more love making,” or “I want whatever, but I don’t know to tell him that.” Or, like, how do you, or they’re ashamed to bring it up right?
mary e knight: Sure, sure.
michael fiore: Because women are so sexually shamed in our cul- ture. I suppose it’s worse in Middle Eastern cultures, but how, what can a woman do to bring that up with a man, either in bed or before? I mean I’d probably do it before that–
mary e knight: Yeah, you don’t want to, a lot of times you don’t want to wait until you’re in the heat of the moment, because you’re emotional and you might, if you don’t get the reaction you want, you might say something that you regret later, or you might get your feelings really hurt.
michael fiore: Yup.
mary e knight: I know a lot of women, and myself included in some situations, it’s not always easy to actually verbalize–
michael fiore: Articulate, yeah.
mary e knight: What we want. You know, using language and words, using our words, and saying, “Hey this is what I want you to do to me.”
michael fiore: Or oftentimes a woman will think, “I want you to just know to do it to me.”
mary e knight: Exactly. I want you to know that this is what I want.
michael fiore: And that’s what I discovered, again, I’m a pretty sexually dominant person, and I discovered there are a lot of women, especially I had one lover who was divorced, and she was just like, “Wow it’s so nice to just be taken by a man.” You know?
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: ’Cause her ex husband just wouldn’t do that. He was almost too “respectful” or something like that.
mary e knight: Yeah, I’ve had guys like that in my life, too, where it’s frustrating. . . frustrating.
michael fiore: ’Cause you’re giving those signals. You’re giving those coy signals, those, you know, the look over the shoulder, the sigh of surrender, things like that, but a lot of guys these days have been, and I don’t necessarily blame feminism. I’m not even sure what feminism means any more in the modern day.
mary e knight: Yeah, yeah.
michael fiore: I’m, you know, I love women in all ways, but I also know that sexually most women don’t want to be “in charge,” right?
mary e knight: Sure, sure.
michael fiore: They want a guy who can do that. But it’s like, I just wonder how do you get that from a guy? Is there a way to communicate to a guy who’s just not getting it?
mary e knight: You know, we can go to acting coy. I’m not talking about looking over the shoulder. I’m talking about actually being in the sexual situation where you are teasing, you know. Just make him crazy enough where if you’re on top of him and you’re going slow, and you’re going slow on purpose to kind of tease him, and he’ll just flip you over.
michael fiore: So he hits that breaking point.
mary e knight: He just hits that breaking point. That works, and then while you’re in that position you can say, you know, let him know yeah, this is what I want from you. This feels so good.
michael fiore: Yeah, giving positive feedback is big.
mary e knight: Right, This is what I want from you. I want more of this. And then you know, after, however it is, you, like to talk to him and then when everything is over–
michael fiore: Dirty talk during sex is wonderful, by the way. mary e knight: You know, dirty talk, you know, I have, I will say that I know that a lot of men do think they like dirty talk, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean that they like rude or raunchy language.
michael fiore: No, no, no.
mary e knight: I think a lot of people, when they think of dirty talk they think of that, and so a lot of women are like, “Oh I don’t want to do that. I can’t do that.”
michael fiore: Sensual is what it is. mary e knight: Yeah, it’s saying– michael fiore: And it’s appreciative.
mary e knight: Yes. Like “I like it when you do it like that.” Seri- ously! Or “I can feel how hard you are” or “You make me so wet. You see how wet I am? You did this to me.”
michael fiore: Exactly, yeah.
mary e knight: Those kinds of things. And that’s not raunchy, but it’s not–
michael fiore: But it’s not like “oh fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” like you see some porn stars do and things like that.
mary e knight: And I think, you know, a lot of times with men, you know, women have asked me, like, with dirty talk, do men really like dirty talk? I say some men do and some men don’t. And, like, well, do they? I can’t imagine they would really take us seriously while we’re talking dirty. If you’re being insincere, then he’s not just going to want to hear these “oh yeah, daddy” or “Hi, Poppi,” or–
michael fiore: “Hi, Poppi!”
mary e knight: I know, right. Or you have, and if he doesn’t have a big dick, and you’re saying, “oh yeah, your dick is so big,” you know, stuff like that, unless he just really wants you to say that to him. Saying things just to be talking and saying naughty things is not going to be a turn on to most men.
michael fiore: It can be wonderful foreplay, definitely. It can be a great way to build things up. I mean for me, and for a lot of guys I know, a girl who is communicative during sex is wonderful, right? Giving feedback for a guy.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, ’cause–
michael fiore: ’Cause some of them just lay there and they don’t say anything and you’re just like, “I’m not having a good time because you’re not having a good time.” And a lot of mascu- line pleasure comes from having the power to give a woman pleasure.
mary e knight: Exactly. And then having been with women, I even wrote a thing, I was like, oh my gosh, is there anything more puzzling than being on top of a woman and not knowing what the heck is going on with her.
michael fiore: Yeah, it’s awful.
mary e knight: You know, am I doing this right? Like, me as a woman, I’m like, am I doing this right? I’ve never felt so insecure until I started having sex with women. Oh my god.
michael fiore: That’s like a whole other interview, you know. mary e knight: I know, right?
michael fiore: How to make love to a woman.
mary e knight: Without driving yourself crazy, without, you know, having an inferiority complex. But it is–
michael fiore: Because honestly, Mary, your dick is tiny. mary e knight: It is very tiny.
michael fiore: It’s very small. It’s really small, so yeah, I don’t know what to do with that.
mary e knight: Small, so small. But for women. . . so women not being comfortable, you know, saying “hey, this is what I want,” then you can guide him to get what you want.
michael fiore: Even taking his hands and putting them where you want them, like you said before, can be a big thing.
mary e knight: Yes, that’s a big thing.
michael fiore: I would also say, like, if you’re, if you want, we do get a lot of women in their forties and such, they’ve been with a guy for a long time, their sex drive is ramping up even then, right? It’s still going.
mary e knight: Oh yeah.
michael fiore: And they want the kinkier stuff. I mean, not nec- essarily whips and chains or things like that, but they want more depth, and a lot of guys aren’t interested. That could be because a loss of testosterone, it could be whatever else, but I think to a certain degree even sending a guy a dirty story you read and really liked and saying “hey, I really, this really turned me on.” Or a video that you really like, just to show him what you’re into.
mary e knight: Well, also, I suggest thinking about what you want and what turns you on and writing a list.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: I know it sounds so corny, but even if you write it on this little.
michael fiore: Corny stuff always works in–
mary e knight: Yes, because it’s simple, it’s fun, it’s not very so- phisticated. And I think that’s what makes it more fun. If it’s just, like, a little yellow stickie, just, like, write down a list of things you want to do and hand it to him or stick it in his pocket or something and let him know. Talk about ramping things up, you know, ’cause it’s fun and it’s unexpected, and that way if you’re not comfortable saying it, you can do it like that. And then maybe eventually you’ll get more confident to where you can actually talk about it. ’Cause I know for me, it’s easier for me to do things than talk about it sometimes.
michael fiore: But if he’s not taking the hint, make the hint bigger, basically.
mary e knight: Yeah. A lot of guys, if you start giving them sexual attention like that, I mean don’t you agree, they’ll be like oh, huh.
michael fiore: They love it. They love it. Well it also it re-contextua- lizes you into being a sexual being in his mind.
mary e knight: Yes, yes,
michael fiore: And it also means he has an opportunity to get what he wants sexually. And there is, you know, being in a relationship means being game for what, to a degree. . . there’s guys who are like, “I really want you to fuck my best friend,” and you don’t have to do that because–
mary e knight: Yeah right, you don’t have to do that.
michael fiore: ’Cause it’s your. . . But you could entertain the fan- tasy aspect of it. You can do other things, whatever else. I mean, there are so many people who, they never tell their partner what they like or what their fantasies are, or that they even have them.
mary e knight: I know. I had clients like that. I had, you know, fetish clients, clients that we never had intercourse and the things they were doing with me they were afraid to share with their wives, and I would encourage them. I would say, “Look this is really none of my business, but look.” You know? And they were just too ashamed.
michael fiore: They were afraid of being judged.
mary e knight: They were afraid of being judged, and you know they had might have been.
michael fiore: Well yeah, the guys that want to dress up as a baby and things like that, yeah.
mary e knight: Well, some people are like, that’s not my thing. I wouldn’t participate in that because I don’t, it’s not something I’m interested in, so I would never do it, but if it was something I was interested in, then sure, I’ll give that a whirl.
michael fiore: I’ll try anything out once, yeah.
mary e knight: Sure, you know, three times, whatever. And I think if a lot of women had that attitude. . . you know, that we want our men to open up to us, we want our men to share things with us, but a lot of times when they do we can’t handle it. And so we need to be prepared, you know, if we want that kind of relationship then we need to be mature enough and prepared to really be accepting and really be open.
michael fiore: And to really be accepting of what really goes through a man’s mind. You know, I talk about this in my Secret Survey program, where I talk a lot about what men actually think you know. And, like, what goes through a man’s mind when he sees a pretty girl walking down the street, even if he’s happily married or happily. . . actually, this is something really impor- tant to talk about that we haven’t touched on. The men who came to see you. . . I’m sure there’s not one absolute answer, but the men who came to see you, who were cheating on their wives, did they not love their wives?
mary e knight: Oh, they loved their wives.
michael fiore: Yeah.
mary e knight: They adored their wives and they wanted to stay married. That’s why they came to see me.
michael fiore: You were a way to stay married.
mary e knight: I was a way to stay married, because they, if they came and saw somebody like me, they could give their wives the kind of relationship that she wanted, which was one with- out sexual pressure for whatever reason. And there are lots of reasons.
michael fiore: But women are, like, the hormones are messed up.
mary e knight: Well, it’s an age thing, or it’s also something that men would come to me and I would think well, you must be really terrible in bed, because if your wife doesn’t want to have sex with you, you must just, yikes. And I would have sex with them and be like wait a minute, wow.
michael fiore: That was good.
mary e knight: This was good. What’s going on here? And I actually talk about that in my book How to Keep a Man Out of My Bed. I talk about different experiences I had and what men told me drove them to seek out companionship from someone else. And the thing is, it’s not just like a couple of months without sex, I’m talking like a year, two years, where they’re not having any sexual contact with a woman they live with. And love and adore.
michael fiore: And they’re not getting any sexual appreciation in their life.
mary e knight: No sexual appreciation, and they’re also not getting affection, because their wives are afraid to touch them because then it might lead to sex.
michael fiore: Oh no.
mary e knight: It might make the guy think that “oh, I want to have sex now.” So no touching, no kissing, maybe turning the cheek if she stands at the sink doing dishes saying goodbye, and she might turn her check so he can peck her on the cheek.
michael fiore: That is so painful as a guy. mary e knight: It’s devastating. I mean– michael fiore: So painful.
mary e knight: Like I say, like, I was a substitute. All the things they were doing with me, they wanted to be doing with their wives.
michael fiore: No, I was reading recently–
mary e knight: And it’s true.
michael fiore: I was reading recently that men, I mean, nobody cheats for sex, really, right?
mary e knight: Sure, sure.
michael fiore: I mean, usually people cheat for, ’cause they’re missing something. There’s a connection issue in some way. Most of the time if someone is in a long term, monogamous relationship and they end up sleeping with someone else, it’s because they’re yearning for something, both men and women. They’re yearning for something. There’s something they’re not able to get from their partner, maybe never were, or whatever else it’s going to be. It’s not just going to be physical pleasure. It’s a very small part of it.
mary e knight: Sure, and it might not even have anything to do with their partner at all. It might have something to do with how they’re feeling about themselves. Am I still desirable?
michael fiore: That’s a big one, especially for guys, yeah. I would think both for men and women, it goes both ways. I know I’m a bit of a flirt ’cause I want to know. . . I was talking to a friend about this, it’s like it’s not that I want to sleep with anybody else, I just want to know that I could.
mary e knight: Well sure, and you know, some people are just very flirty, and it’s fun. It’s fun to be around somebody flirty. For me, I find it fun to be around somebody flirty when I know it’s not going anywhere.
michael fiore: And some women consider flirting cheating, though. I read an article about this quite a while ago, just the idea.
mary e knight: Oh.
michael fiore: And again, these are women who are very insecure.
mary e knight: Yeah, I guess it depends on the level of flirtation, too.
michael fiore: Is there intention behind it or not, and are you doing, basically diminishing your partner in front of your partner, or something like that. You know, I answered a question in our newsletter a while ago from a guy who was like, “Yeah, I have my girlfriend, and she wears these tight skirts and sat on my friend’s lap at the football game. . . ” and I’m like yeah, that’s too much.
mary e knight: That’s a little much.
michael fiore: You’re going too far. That’s disrespect, that’s not flirting. You know, something as simple as saying “Hey you look beautiful today” to somebody is not damaging to a re- lationship as long as he’s also doing that to the person he’s with, you know.
mary e knight: Oh of course, sure, sure. Yeah, there are different levels. And as you said, it’s the intention behind it, too, be- cause you can tell. You can tell when someone’s being sleazy versus complimentary.
michael fiore: I seem to have lost my wedding ring, and hey, I lost my hotel room key. Can I borrow yours, by any chance? Cheesiest pick up lines. It’s always funny when you go to conferences, and you see the guys who are like, you know, the women I know who go to business conferences and such are like, “oh it’s awful.” There are so many married guys who are, like, I want something else right now, please. So I personally don’t think that humans are naturally monogamous. I’ve written about this before, I’ve read about it a lot. I always say monogamy is like flight in a way. We don’t have wings. It took us a long time to develop air travel. It’s possible but it’s a lot of work, right? To actually have a long-term, happy, monogamous relationship. I think one of the keys to having a long-term, happy, monogamous relationship is, of course, to actually have sex if you’re not doing that.
mary e knight: Yes, that’s a big one, that’s a big one.
michael fiore: But it’s actually kind of funny, ’cause often mono- gamy turns into celibacy. Right? Which is unfortunate.
mary e knight: That’s very unfortunate, yes.
michael fiore: In some relationships, and obviously, like, you know, that first year when you have your first kid and such, you’re not going to get as much as you want by any means, etc. I get it. But there is a, like, you actually have to want to have sex, and that’s partly your job, right?
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: I was in a relationship years ago where, you know, like twelve years ago, with a woman who just had no sex drive. Just had none. And eventually I was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” We were only having sex every couple of months, and she wasn’t really into it. And I was like, “Listen, I love you to death, you’re an awesome person, I can’t do this.” ’Cause it was destroying my own self esteem, basically. And then I got back out into the world and said, “Wait a minute, there are actually women in the world who actually want to sleep with me.”
mary e knight: Well, did you feel badly because you weren’t getting sex, or, well, I’m sure if it was for a couple of months, but you just felt bad as a person that she didn’t want you?
michael fiore: I just felt there was a part of who I was as a per- son I wasn’t able to express. And this was at a time, in my early twenties. Let’s. . . so how do you get a guy to be happily monogamous then?
mary e knight: Well my whole thing is that I believe that infidelity is preventable, and I believe that because of the reasons that men gave me for why they were there with me instead of at home with their wives.
michael fiore: Can you just list through a few of those? List through a few of those reasons.
mary e knight: List through. . . well they didn’t feel, this is a big one, women are going to be surprised by this. They didn’t feel heard. They didn’t feel like what they said mattered to their wives.
michael fiore: You mean in bed or just in life?
mary e knight: In life.
michael fiore: Wow.
mary e knight: In life. Like, they didn’t, they felt like they were superfluous to the relationship. Like, I had one man tell me, “I feel like a wallet and a sperm donor.”
michael fiore: Oh my god.
mary e knight: And that’s pretty extreme, but, like–n michael fiore: I’ve seen those kind of relationships, though.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, they exist all over the place. But the wallet/sperm donor type was not the typical type of client. That was, like, an extreme example. It’s an extreme case. But they didn’t feel heard, they didn’t feel like what they wanted mattered at all. Whether that was making plans with the kids, making plans with how they spent their time as a couple, and of course, whether or not they were having sex.
michael fiore: He didn’t have any say.
mary e knight: ’Cause she’s running the show. He didn’t have any say because she didn’t really care. She’s like, “Yeah, we’re going to dinner with the Smiths tomorrow night.” “Timmy has a soccer game on Saturday in the morning, and we need to be there at eleven.” You know, I mean stuff like that.
michael fiore: No opportunity to be a man.
mary e knight: No opportunity. . . a lot of times men will tolerate that because they’re like, yeah, she runs the house, and I’m working and, you know, it sounds so strange to say that, but it’s true. Also, the only time that he really hears from her is when she’s asking him to do something. You know, he’s just another person to chauffeur and do chores and honey-do’s and that kind of thing. And of course, there’s the sex part. But those things I mention, obviously there’s no sex. It’s because she’s not viewing him as man, as a sexual being.
michael fiore: And he doesn’t feel like a man any more.
mary e knight: He doesn’t feel like a man, and also a lot of times it’s confusing to men, and they feel like they don’t have the right to be sexual or to ask for sex from their wives.
michael fiore: Because it’s a taboo topic.
mary e knight: So they don’t have the communication skills. It’s a taboo topic because he doesn’t want to bother her with his needs.
michael fiore: Yeah, yeah.
mary e knight: You know, because what’s wrong with him? Why do you want to have sex all the time? How come, you know, I’m busy. I’ve got better things to do than worry about pleasing you. Stop rubbing up against me.
michael fiore: Oh, that’s awful.
mary e knight: It’s stuff like that. And, you know, women say those things, and then maybe feel bad about it, but not bad enough to go back and say, “Hey honey, I’m . . . wow. Let’s fix this. Let’s back up for a second and let’s talk about this. I’m sorry I haven’t been available.” Or “The reason I’ve been unavailable is because I’m angry about blah, blah, blah.” So I guess what I’m saying is communication. I think that’s what we’re talking about. Communication and being open and talking to each other.
michael fiore: Yeah, and being honest about, and non judgmental, and letting a guy, ’cause again, so many women, if a guy says, “I don’t feel appreciated. I don’t feel respect,” it’s like, “well then, you need to do something to make me respect you.” And I’m, like, no.
mary e knight: Like you need to earn that. Like, we touched on that earlier, earning those things, and you know, in earn- ing respect, okay, there is some merit to that, but it’s also, because you’re not going to respect somebody if they’re not demonstrating respectful behavior towards you or dong things that you personally find to be respectful.
michael fiore: You should have deal breakers. If you have a guy who is just not respectful towards you at all, don’t be in that relationship.
mary e knight: Don’t be in that relationship. Yeah, there are things that are just not going to be okay with you, and that’s. . . but hopefully you would have found that out before you’d been involved in this long-term relationship. But again, but even if after ten years, that’s still not. . . you know, here’s the thing. A relationship that has always been bad, and this sounds terrible, but why bother?
michael fiore: I agree.
mary e knight: What we’re talking about here are people who at one time had a good relationship, and it’s just kind of gotten ho-hum for whatever reason.
michael fiore: Yeah, it could be illness to work to kids to whatever, you can get back.
mary e knight: Right, yeah. Of course, all ’cause of unexpected things and then, like, days turn into weeks turn into months, hopefully not years, but it happens.
michael fiore: It does happen.
mary e knight: It happens all the time.
michael fiore: Yeah. Seven or eight years without, not just seven or eight years, I mean, we’ve heard from both men and women, seven or eight years not just without sex, but without affection.
mary e knight: Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s the affection part. And that, yeah.
michael fiore: And you’re “not allowed” to get it somewhere else because then you’re the bad guy.
mary e knight: Then you’re unfaithful, and then as a man you’re not supposed, you’re a man, what kind of man are you that you would need that? That you would need a hug, encouragement, some warmth, some affection. You know, guys have feelings, too.
michael fiore: We have a lot of feelings. We tend to be worse at expressing them, but we certainly have them, yeah.
mary e knight: Yeah, and I think that also touching on, you know, what we’re talking about, infidelity being preventable, is also you’ve made a commitment and so you have the bond because of the commitment, and I think that’s what keeps a lot of people, even if they are sexually interested in another man or another woman, it’s the commitment they have to each other that keeps them from straying. And so if you don’t, if you have that commitment, then you can rely on that if everything else is going well, too.
michael fiore: But when you make a commitment, you’re also making a commitment to be that person’s lover. Right?
mary e knight: Yes, right.
michael fiore: Not just their roommate, not just the parent of their child. You’re making the commitment to be their lover, and you’re making the commitment to, in many ways, be responsible for all of their sexual gratification forever. Which I think is a pretty big, by the way.
mary e knight: That’s a huge ask. And I think that it’s a friendship, too. I mean, think about when you see old couples who have been together for a long time. There is just this cute little thing they have going on that’s just sweet. You know that they’re not having sex very often, if at all, you know? And–
michael fiore: But they had a life together.
mary e knight: They had a life together. And I think that’s what needs to exist between people, you know, to get you through the tough times. Get you through illness, and death and job changes and moves and childbirth and all that kind of stuff. Having–
michael fiore: Having that in times that your partner is not avail- able for whatever reason.
mary e knight: Yeah, out of town, traveling.
michael fiore: Or if there is illness or whatever else, and it’s like, okay, the next month, you just had surgery, well, that’s not going to happen much. I’m just going to touch your arm.
mary e knight: Just touch your arm and look at you longingly.
michael fiore: Well, you can create quite an erotic experience for somebody just by touching their arm if you do it right, but that’s one of the things people don’t understand is how, what the variety their sex can be. It’s not just penis and vagina or whatever else, right? There’s a lot more to it that can be fun.
mary e knight: Right, right. Public stuff, stuff that you can do in public is like foreplay for the evening. Like, you’re sitting there at dinner and, you know, knowing that, okay, we’re not getting up and going to the bathroom and doing this, we’re just going to sit here and lightly touching someone’s hand.
michael fiore: Tease.
mary e knight: Lightly touching my hand. I’m like “oh my. . . ” michael fiore: You know what I would do? I did this to my wife when we first met. We were having dinner and I took her hand and I just ran a finger nail down the inside of her arm a little bit, not like really hard or anything like that, but just enough to create sensation. And her eyes just widened. She was like “oh, okay! This is interesting, where is this going?” But bring that sensuality back into it. But we gotta wrap things up ’cause we’ve been talking for two hours and eighteen minutes.
mary e knight: Oh my goodness.
michael fiore: So let’s just recap a little bit. So you know, how can we recap all of this?
mary e knight: Let’s see, okay, what did we talk about?
michael fiore: We talked about a lot of stuff. And when Maggie goes through and does the actual transcript, she’ll be able to kind of do that. But I think the biggest take aways that I got from it, one of the biggest, was the idea of separating your love life or your sex life from your domestic life as possible. You know keeping those, you know, you don’t make a guy earn sex, you don’t make sex a reward. You don’t withhold sex, withholding sex is always a bad idea. Plus, then you don’t laid either.
mary e knight: You don’t get laid either! Sex isn’t something a man does to you.
michael fiore: Women like sex.
mary e knight: It’s a shared experience.
michael fiore: I’m pretty sure women like sex. I mean the women I’ve–
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: Generally seem to enjoy the experience. I’m not sure why they came back otherwise.
mary e knight: Right, right.
michael fiore: So that to me is huge. The idea of just separating those two things and being able to see a man as a Man. As a Man and making that totally separate from the day to day domestic stuff. Right?
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: I also really liked when you talked about the idea of, you know, having been an escort and having an appointment that lasted an hour or two hours whatever it was going to be, those time bombs actually enhance the sexuality as opposed to diminishing it, right?
mary e knight: Right, right.
michael fiore: And I think women could even do that. I mean we do say when you’re dating one of the worst things you can do is make yourself too available to a man. You know seeing a guy 3 times 4 times a week right away can kind of be a bad idea because it makes you seem too available, too easy. But I think even when you’re with a guy, being too available can be a problem. ’Cause then you’re just sitting there in front of the TV, watching TV together, and not really having connective time. But finding ways to make a plan around that in some way can be very, very powerful.
mary e knight: Yeah, not having open-ended situations. michael fiore: Yeah, because then nothing happens. Right? mary e knight: Right, exactly!
michael fiore: When you know you can always do it later, you never do it.
mary e knight: You never do it.
michael fiore: ’Cause that’s too much work, or it’s an excuse, or that kind of thing. I also think there is something very power- ful around the idea of getting in touch with your own sexuality as a woman, which a lot of women aren’t at all, by the way. They’re trying to get there as is goes from here. The accep- tance thing, when you said what men are really looking for is acceptance, that really resonates with me and every man in the world, by the way, about what men really, really want from women. That’s what we want. And again it’s a complicated thing because some women will say, like, “Well, I can’t accept him if he keeps the toilet seat up because he needs to change that.” But that’s behavior, right? The key is to accept.
mary e knight: Yes, that’s behavior.
michael fiore: But that’s a changeable habit. Right? That’s not a fundamental part of who he is. If you’re criticizing a guy for a fundamental part of who he is, you got a big problem. Same thing goes the other way around, as well. Now you can make a request and say, “Hey, put the toilet seat down, please,” and just make it that kind of thing. But men want to be, you know, a man, whatever his job is, whatever his identity is, he wants to be accepted by the woman in his life and admired by the woman in his life for that.
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: He wants to be looked at with admiration. And I know most women want to be with a man they can admire. The complicated thing is, you have to do some work on that yourself. You have to find the things to admire about him, instead of allowing your mind to naturally lean towards the things you don’t admire, which is human nature. Right? There’s a reason no newspaper in the world prints good news. Right? And stays in business. . . or news websites. If you look at what’s on these days, all these different websites, it’s all bad news all the time. That’s human nature. You have to fight against that and focus on the positive. How do we want to finish this up? What do you want to say as we finish this up here? This has been fascinating, I could talk to you for another three hours and we would have plenty to talk about.
mary e knight: I know, right?
michael fiore: And maybe we’ll do more in the near future. We’ll find out.
mary e knight: I think for me, something that I learned personally and professionally, was that expecting people to know just what you want and then being upset or blaming them when they don’t give it to you is so destructive. It’s destructive for you as a woman, and it’s destructive to your partner as a man. Because men want to please you. Your man wants to please you, it’s so important.
michael fiore: Your man wants you to have–
mary e knight: If he feels like a failure, you’ll make him feel like he’s failing. He’s going to look at himself first and think, “oh my god, what have I done? I’m not pleasing her. I can be better.” Never once thinking, “Well, you know, lady, if you would tell me what you wanted, maybe that would help,” you know. “Okay, let’s fix this let’s make this happen” mode.
michael fiore: That is huge, actually. And I think there’s two roles to that, too, because there’s being able to communicate what you want, whatever that might be, and being able to listen to what he wants without judgment, right?
mary e knight: Yes, yes.
michael fiore: Because some guys, you know, as a guy, like, women will say, they’ll watch porn and they’ll see some of the more hardcore stuff, and they’ll be like, “well, do guys really want that?” And I’ll say “kind of and maybe slightly, in a way, but it’s, most of us know it’s not realistic.” Like I’m not personally into that really extreme stuff, but they do want some of that aggression. They do want an enthusiastic blow job every once in a while.
mary e knight: Yeah, yeah.
michael fiore: They do want, you know, they might not want to go as weird as some of that stuff goes, but yeah, they do want to be able to tie you up a little bit, and tease you and all these things. They do want to be tied up themselves a little bit and teased a little bit. They may not even know what they want as far as sensuality goes and things like that, but just having conversations about it. And really, those conversations can happen in a non-sexual setting, too, you know, just like sitting around, let’s play a game. Let’s talk about this.
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: What have you always, without it being realistic, if I could wave a magic wand and give you any sexual experience you want and have it happen, with no repercussions of any kind, what would it be. And, by the way, some guys are going to say a threesome or whatever else, or it might be something more than that. And you have to sit there and listen and not have it be an insult to you, ’cause it’s not.
mary e knight: And if a threesome, umm, you’re there, right?
michael fiore: Totally.
mary e knight: Unless he’s saying I want a threesome with this person and this person, it’s, like, okay but you’re there, you’re included in it. He’s sharing that with you, that’s a really special thing, because sexual fantasies aren’t something that you share with everybody.
michael fiore: But you should hopefully be able to share them with your partner.
mary e knight: Yeah, yeah.
michael fiore: And not be judged about it. And some people have pretty weird ones, you know? And that’s okay. And the fantasy can just be a fantasy, you know. When a woman writes me and says, “Hey, my boyfriend really wants me to. . . ” ’cause again the cuckolding guys, there are a lot of these guys.
mary e knight: Oh yeah, there are tons of those guys.
michael fiore: It’s insanely common. It’s just under foot fetishes, actually, under the most common fetishes. And foot fetishes are very common. I don’t have that one.
mary e knight: Yes, they are. I have nice, long, pretty feet so yeah, I know about that fetish.
michael fiore: And if I was one of those foot fetish guys I’d be turned on right now, but I’m not one of those foot fetish guys. I don’t even remember feet. I don’t even know what my wife’s feet look like. She has them.
mary e knight: I know she has them.
michael fiore: I also don’t want her to sleep with other guys, but that’s a very, very common thing. But a lot of guys have that and feel like, oh, I could never tell her that.
mary e knight: Exactly! I encountered that quite a bit, yes.
michael fiore: But you need to be able to engender a relationship and openness, ladies, is for you to go first. And you don’t have to say the freaky, if you have a really freaky deaky thing. You can start smaller, right? “Here is something that I’ve always wanted. Here is something I would like you to do,” whatever it’s going to be. If you go first he will eventually open up and tell you what he really wants, as well. And you need to be able to hear that and understand that it’s not an insult, right? ’Cause again, for guys it often is going to involve, it could conceivably involve other women or something like that. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It just means it’s something that goes through his head that he fantasizes about.
mary e knight: Sure, sure. And yeah, I think it’s fun for you to know and also he’s entrusting you with this information. That’s looking at it like, wow, he feels comfortable enough with me to share this with me. If you’re having a hard time with what he’s saying, you can focus on that. On the spirit in which he’s sharing it with you. And that can help keep you from getting you upset.
michael fiore: And making it more about the emotion and less about the actual stuff. And trying to get your own self-esteem issues out of the way. Right?
mary e knight: Exactly. ’Cause that can pop up really quickly. Like, you can have really great self esteem and not be a jealous person, but he might say something, like, oh my, I wasn’t expecting that.
michael fiore: And you have a reaction, and there’s a wide gambit of sexual fetishes out there, and you know, a lot of guys just like plain old simple vanilla sex, but also have dirtier minds, or they’d like to be open to more sensuality. Right?
mary e knight: Yes.
michael fiore: I know women want more sensuality, but the way to get more sensuality, you know, if you give him what you want, then he’ll give you want you want. That tends to be the way it works, unless the guy’s a jerk and then you shouldn’t be with him.
mary e knight: Right. Normal, healthy guys want you to be happy and pleased and will do anything, you know, pretty much within reason to make that happen.
michael fiore: Totally. Let me go get a power drill and we’ll see what happens. Mary, I wish we had more time! We could talk about toys, we could talk about–
mary e knight: We could talk about fetishes and all that.
michael fiore: We could talk about men’s obsession with their penises, which is an interesting topic ’cause women don’t quite get it. It’s always funny, ’cause guys are so dick obsessed and women are like, well, you know as long as it’s big enough it’s generally fine.
mary e knight: You don’t want it to be too big.
michael fiore: Then you’re not having too much sex, because jeez. mary e knight: Your options are limited.
michael fiore: Who wants to have their cervix banged that hard? I don’t really know.
mary e knight: Oh god. Even hearing you say that. . . no!
michael fiore: Even saying it, I just said that live on this phone call, or this recording. Okay, so any final words before we sign off here?
mary e knight: No, I just what I said before about the. . . no, I don’t have any final words.
michael fiore: Well this has been wonderful, and Mary E. Knight, her website is maryeknight.com Knight like a guy with a sword K-N-I-G-H-T. And Mary, I think, hopefully we’ll be doing more with you in the near future, because I loved talking about this kind of stuff with you. And for the ladies who are listening, yeah, Mary was a sex worker for years and is well adjusted.
mary e knight: Yes, normal mom! With healthy kids.
michael fiore: Healthy kids! And that can be okay, and, you know, a lot of women end up getting our material because they’re, out of a place of fear. Right? They end up getting our material out of a place of “What do I do to keep him from straying? How do I keep him in love with me? How do I keep him here?” And what we try to do with all this stuff is move you from fear to addressing your own passion. Because the way to do it is not to have fear. The way to do it is to find your own sexuality, find your own passion, and share that with him, as well.
mary e knight: Yeah, because a lot of times fear comes because we don’t feel like we’re in control. And if you think that you can control somebody, their thoughts, their feelings, their actions, you can’t. The only thing that you can do is control yourself. And like what Michael was saying, getting to know yourself. What are your passions? What do you want? And sharing that with your partner.
michael fiore: And again, if you go first he’ll hopefully open up to you.
mary e knight: Yeah.
michael fiore: Unless you’ve been together for a long time and he’s so ashamed, right? It is so often easier to share things with strangers than the people you’re most intimate with. Which is so sad.
mary e knight: Yeah, it is. It is sad. It happens all the time. And so you can stop that.
michael fiore: You can stop that.
mary e knight: They don’t want to be there. And. . . right, I mean, what have you got to lose? I mean when you think about it what’s the worst that could happen?
michael fiore: Yeah, totally. The worst that could happen is you have a better relationship and more sex, and they don’t go to a sex worker.
mary e knight: Right.
michael fiore: I mean, I actually think I know couples, by the way, who have used sex workers and saved their marriage in a lot of ways, because it was, you know, for whatever reason that outlet was needed for somebody in the relationship in some way. And it gave them the opportunity to take that pressure off for a little while or for whatever else it was going to be. It doesn’t need to be the destruction of everything or whatever else. So okay, it’s been great, but we’re finally going to finish up. We’re going to stop after 2 hours, 32 minutes, and 41 seconds. I think we finally have to stop.
mary e knight: Yes, yes, Michael. I think we probably have to stop.
michael fiore: It sucks.
mary e knight: This has been so fun. We could talk forever. I don’t feel like we covered anything.
michael fiore: Well, I think we covered a lot and there’s still a lot we can and hopefully will cover in the not-too-distant future. So–
mary e knight: I would love that.
michael fiore: Thank you so much, everybody who’s listening, and thank you to Mary E. Knight, and I hope you guys enjoyed this fascinating, I thought, interview with a former escort. Okay bye bye, guys.
