Marriage, Sex, and Self-Worth: Why Husbands Are Holding You Back | New Book & Seminar Series — Coming This Spring to London, Los Angeles & Perth!

I earned my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt with Team Icon in West Hollywood, CA, in 2019, and as of 2025, I’ve been promoted to a 2nd-degree black belt. But my first experience with a black belt wasn’t in BJJ — it was in Kenpo Karate. Or at least, that’s what it was called. In reality, it was a mix of Wing Chun, Judo, and Southern Shaolin styles, all stitched together into a custom system. Earning rank in that system wasn’t just about time on the mat — it was years of unpaid teaching, endless paperwork, and writing transcripts that felt more like a dissertation than martial arts training. More bureaucracy than battle. That was my first black belt experience, and it was with Doc.

And what does all of this have to do with female sexual liberation? Everything. Because martial arts — at its core — is about self-ownership. You don’t just learn how to fight; you learn who owns your body, your choices, and your power. When you train, no one can claim your space, dictate your movement, or determine your worth. You learn to resist external control, whether it comes in the form of an opponent on the mat or a societal system designed to keep you submissive.

Women are conditioned to surrender ownership of their bodies — to men, to institutions, to social expectations. Just like that first martial arts system forced me to earn rank through years of unpaid labor and pointless paperwork, society tells women they must earn their worth by conforming to beauty standards, being desirable, or proving their loyalty to men. It’s a rigged system.

But in true martial arts — real self-mastery — you reclaim control. You decide how you move, who touches you, and what battles you fight. In the same way that a black belt represents ownership of skill and agency, sexual liberation is about owning your desires, your choices, and your pleasure without submission to external validation.

Self-ownership in martial arts and sexuality is about the same thing: breaking free from systems that try to own you.

This is where Doc chimes in — he didn’t like men around me. At all. Andrew? Gone. The other idiot? The one pissing in the sink and putting on some weird performance of being “gay” and intelligent? Gone. He didn’t like me selling sex products while having men around me, and he sure as hell didn’t like those parasite lurking around, mooching off me. All his words, documented in the millions of transcripts.

And that was interesting to me. Because my guru? He was a badass motherfucker. The kind of man whose presence made the air heavier, whose words rewired your mind. He could talk you into anything — literally anything. If he told you to end it all, you’d seriously consider it. That’s how sharp, how precise, how undeniably effective his technique was.

You didn’t mess with him — because he was the kind of guy who could make you believe ending it all was your own idea. And you’d go through with it, convinced it was the only logical choice.

I know some people think this kind of thing doesn’t exist, but when he died, the truth came out — his connections to special ops in the ’70s, the experiments, the psychological warfare tactics. We all brushed it off as myth, just stories he told. But then it was confirmed. And that was terrifying.

So what does this have to do with female sexual empowerment and shedding the dead weight of those shriveling, apron-string-clutching males desperately grasping for any shred of self-worth? Everything. Because true power — whether in combat, psychology, or sexuality — is about cutting loose the ones who drain you, control you, or leech off your energy.

Most women go without the intimacy they crave, the closeness they need — left starving for connection while their husbands or boyfriends sit there, completely checked out, emotionally vacant, and just plain dumb.

Women’s growth mindset is shifting — fast. I just had coffee with a 50-year-old entrepreneur who doesn’t need a man, doesn’t need permission, and sure as hell doesn’t need someone micromanaging her life. She’s pulling in six figures, owns a paid-off home in Scottsdale, and is sending her daughter to UCLA without a single loan.

But 10 years ago? She was married. And that marriage was a financial chokehold. Her husband controlled the money — her money — telling her what she could and couldn’t spend. He was a nitpicking asshole about every dollar, yet somehow terrible in bed. The intimacy? Gone. Maybe it was never there. No matter how hard she tried, she was left unfulfilled, unseen, and financially stifled.

Now? She’s free. And thriving.

Women are waking up. Financially, sexually, emotionally — they’re realizing just how much dead weight they’ve been carrying. And let’s be real: most of that dead weight has a Y chromosome.

Look at your life. Who’s actually adding value? Who’s supporting your growth, your independence, your pleasure? And who’s just hanging on, draining your energy, stunting your progress, and giving you nothing in return?

Financial Dead Weight

That man who nitpicks your spending but can’t hold down a decent job? Dead weight.That partner who “manages” the money but somehow you’re the one left with nothing? Dead weight. That guy who has opinions about your career, your business, your goals, but he’s got nothing of his own? Anchor tied to your leg.

Emotional Dead Weight

If you’re constantly explaining your feelings, justifying your needs, or begging for basic respect, guess what? He’s dead weight.

If you feel more alone in your relationship than when you’re actually alone — he’s taking up space that could be filled with someone (or something) better.

Sexual Dead Weight

If you have to fake enthusiasm, initiate everything, or explain intimacy like you’re teaching a seminar, congratulations, you’re carrying around a human participation trophy who thinks lying there is “effort.”

If your pleasure is an afterthought — or worse, a foreign concept — you already know: dead weight.

The Fix: Drop Them, Delete Them, Detox From Them

• Stop “waiting for them to change.” They won’t.
• Stop “being patient.” You’re not a rehab center.
• Stop “compromising.” It’s not compromise if you’re the only one bending.

Why Do Women Carry Dead Weight? Because Society Programmed Them To.

Women don’t just wake up one day and decide, You know what would be fun? Sacrificing my happiness, financial security, and sexual fulfillment for a man who barely puts in effort. No, this is programming.

From birth, women are conditioned to be nurturers, fixers, and emotional shock absorbers. They are trained to accept less, to expect struggle in relationships, and to see suffering as a badge of honor (Gilligan, 1982).

The Cultural Lies Women Are Sold

1. “Good women stand by their man.” Translation: Even if he’s emotionally unavailable, financially useless, and bad in bed, it’s your job to make it work. Women are fed this “ride or die” garbage from Disney movies to reality TV, reinforcing the idea that leaving a man makes you disloyal, selfish, or “too picky” (Coontz, 2005).

2. “A man’s success is a woman’s success.” Translation: His dreams come first. Your role is to support them.Women are conditioned to attach their worth to their partner’s achievements, even when that man contributes nothing to her success (Hochschild & Machung, 1989).

3. “Marriage is the ultimate goal.” Translation: It doesn’t matter if you’re unhappy, unfulfilled, or losing yourself in the process — just get the ring.
The myth that marriage equals success has been drilled into women for centuries, creating generations of trapped wives who didn’t realize they could have been thriving on their own (Friedan, 1963).

4. “Your sexuality should be about pleasing him.”
Translation: Your desires don’t matter — his do. From mainstream porn to outdated “sex advice” columns, women are programmed to prioritize male pleasure, often at the cost of their own (Wolf, 1991). If she’s unsatisfied, the message isn’t “Leave.” It’s “Try harder.”

Breaking the Program: Opting Out of the System

Women are finally realizing the scam and making radical choices:

• Leaving dead-end marriages.
• Earning and controlling their own money.
• Demanding sex that actually satisfies them — or refusing bad sex entirely.
• Rejecting the idea that a man’s presence is required for happiness.

This isn’t “man-hating” — it’s man-escaping. It’s opting out of a system that was never designed for women to win.

Citations

• Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage.
• Friedan, B. (1963). The Feminine Mystique.
• Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.
• Hochschild, A., & Machung, A. (1989). The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home.
• Wolf, N. (1991). The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women.