Female IW
From Ladder Wiki
As far as LT and its enthusiasts are concerned, there is no such thing as a female Intellectual Whore. For this to happen, there must be a woman who is greatly sexually attracted to a man, and that man has to not want her at all physically, yet keep her as a friend because he finds her intellectually or emotionally stimulating.
This is an exceedingly rare, if not impossible case. Chances are that the man is physically attracted to her on at least some level, no matter how small. This meaning that if he ever did have a chance at sex with her, under some extinuating circumstances, he would actually consider having sex with her. Chances are also that the man does not value intellectual or emotional stimulation from a woman, since men's interests tend to be sports, video games, drinking, and the like, and what they are looking for in stimulation and comraderie of the personal kind can be better found in friendships with other men, rather than in a woman.
If a man is not returning a woman's affections, then it can be assumed that either he has other women higher on his ladder and doesn't feel like wasting his time with her, he would like sex with her and now simply isn't the time, or there may be some hidden variable in play.
The closest a woman could ever get to knowing what it's like to be an Intellectual Whore is when a man makes friends with her in an effort to have sex with her friend. But even in this case, he has no real interest in this woman in the middle, and if his true target cannot be accomplished or there is a fall-out with her, one can be assured that he will immediately break contact with both of them. The difference between that and a true IW/IP scenario is that the (female) IP willingly keeps the IW around, or is motivated to want the specific IW in her life, despite the lack of any sex related to him, be it with him or any of his friends. Whereas when a male "IP" would have a female "IW" and there is no sex with either her or her friends, her importance to him drops significantly and there is no loyalty, and he will try to keep them drifting apart. If no close friendship continues between them, then it is a simple case of unrequited attraction, and not a true IP/IW relationship.
A classical female IP works to maintain their personal relationship, a male "IP" never does. And it is this constant effort of maintenance on the IP's part that keeps the IW guessing and thinking he has a chance. Without that maintenance effort on the male "IP's" part, the relationship falls apart, in fact, he may try to push her away. If there is a case where the male "IP" is making efforts to stay friends, yet continually turning down physical advances on the woman's part, then it can be guaranteed that this is a game on the man's part to garner attraction, or keep the woman interested until he finds a more prudent time to have sex with her later. But in both cases, the reality is that she is actually higher on his Good Ladder than she thought, and some circumstance is preventing him from acting on it at the time.
