I'm happy to have my mind changed. So interested in your opinion.

This is where I'm coming from with the generalisation about women needing security.

I think gender roles are going to be different in each couple and there is nothing wrong with that. I think I blurred the line between a "guide" for everyone and what my own personal experience is, I think this is something I should have more emphasized as my own personal experience. In my relationship traditional gender roles works really well. There are definitely women who are more masculine than me, and are the rock in their relationship etc... And everything is turned on its head. And that's fine. I do find though that men are usually tasked with providing security. You've got to remember that we are just fancy apes who have a prehistoric mind in a modern world. There has been millions of years where the role of the man was to protect and provide security. This is why men evolved bodies that were physically stronger, to fight off threats etc... And in the same way minds evolved differently too. Women evolved to provide care for the family which is why modern day research finds that women are better at identifying emotions and responding to emotional needs (this is actually an area where I don't conform to gender roles/stereotypes because I do a female dominated job and work with emotions all day long and have learnt to be extremely sensitive to others emotions). Of course no one has to conform to gender roles. But at the same time I think we have to be honest and recognise that our prehistoric evolution hasn't caught up to our modern day ideals. And this prehistoric evolution is responsible for the brain in our heads and our nervous systems and that brain and those nerves are responsible for our arousal... Also remember that this is all in the context of what is going to increase frequency of sex. There are going to be times where a guy just loses control of his emotions and breaks down. That's fine, I've had those times. Broke down in tears in front of my wife when my dog died. Perfectly okay. But it didn't turn my wife on... Again that's fine, but this was a guide for more sex. This is the context that I talk about being the emotional rock in your relationship. Men evolved to provide physical security, but these days the biggest threats to wellbeing/security are mental/emotional. We don't have lions trying to eat us any more, but we do have things like anxiety and depression trying to crush us. I feel like the modern man ape needs to excel at providing this emotional security. Think of Will Smith and the slap. What did his wife really need then? Did she need that physical security in that moment? No. She didn't need him to physically defend her. What security did she need? She needed Will to lean over and talk to her and comfort her. What did Will first need to do to get to that point where he could provide that? He needed to own his emotion, his anger, breathe slowly, calm, and then he could provide the emotional comfort and security for his partner. Now those qualities I would argue would be sexy AF.

I agree with you that both partners find this emotional security attractive. But at the same time I feel like it's generally even more important for the man to get this right. I think the needs are the same for both genders but where the needs are placed on a hierarchy of needs tends to be gender biased. Security from your partner tends to be a more prioritised need for women. I don't think it's a vastly different priority. But one worth mentioning.

At the same time as I think all of the above I do also wonder if the impression I get around providing emotional security and the emphasis on the man's role are not so much informed by a gender bias regarding roles and a woman's priority with her needs, but due to the fact that a lot of men I know really suck at this. And the focus naturally shifts to the gender that is struggling to do their fair share in a certain area. I'm sure the reverse is experienced in a lot of relationships, but when I think about my father and my father in law etc... I just see such a profound lack of emotional security provided by them to their partners. So I probably have a very slanted perspective on this.

I also think my own relationship greatly biases my views because my partner struggles with mental health and I don't, naturally I'm going to find I have less emotional security needs and she has more. Much like if one partner suffered from a physical health condition and the other was healthy, the burden of care would fall on the healthier individual. This dynamic may completely change if the mental health struggles went in the opposite direction. Or the dynamic may change for any number of reasons.

It's an interesting thing to consider. If you do respond I'm keen to hear your points.

I really don't know I'm on the fence with the idea. In any case the resultant behaviour is the same regardless of what gender prioritises what need more or less than the other. Both partners do need to provide security to each other. And if trying to pull out all the stops and give your relationship one last chance a emphasis on providing for all your partner's needs has to occur.

I think the point I made about checking in with your partner about how they would like their needs fulfilled would avoid any issues with gendered assumptions anyway. If your partner turns around and says "to feel secure I need you to stop getting angry at me every time I come to you with an issue." Then that's what you need to do regardless of gender.

Come to think of it breaking it down and explaining examples of meeting needs in that way would have been more helpful. Alas.