I’m home from some happy family time in Northern California. Yesterday, while driving down Interstate 5 through the Central Valley, the temperature gauge in my Solara registered 113 degrees. ‘Twas a toasty day, and I did my best to expand my carbon footprint by keeping the inside of my car at a comfy 65.
A reader named “Bob” writes:
I’m wondering though what you think about the concept of sexual frequency “normalcy” in marriage or committed relationships. In other words, if one partner has a higher sex drive than the other, what are the responsibilities (if any) of one to the other?
I know how the Church generally feels about this issue. The feelings range from glorified body ownership (a wife should submit to her husband’s sexual “needs” no matter what) to lessons of “thorns in the flesh” (repressing sexual “needs” are a good sign of spiritual discipline).
But how does a feminist feel about this? What do you do (if anything should be done) about unequal libido within a committed relationship? As the partner with a higher drive in my marriage, I constantly question my desires. Am I too dependent on my wife for sexual fulfillment? Maybe I should show more restraint as an independent person and a Christ follower. Perhaps this is my thorn in my flesh, a test from God. But then the Christian ideal of marriage seems to say much of “two becoming one,” some kind of mysterious interdependence, or even a combined identity. To have two different ideals of sexual unity, or any other ideal for that matter, seems counterproductive to the married unit.
Obviously, my first recommendation to Bob and his wife is that they seek counseling. That doesn’t mean I’m pathologizing his wife’s low sex drive or Bob’s more boisterous one. I am a great believer, however, in the marvelous progress that can be made with a good marital therapist. There are increasing numbers of Christians who work as marital therapists, and they integrate spiritual and psychological insights very effectively. Most married couples could benefit from a periodic therapeutic “tune-up”, even if no burning problem seems to be presenting itself.
Too often, we do tend to over-analyze incongruent libidos. It’s a staple of pop psychology that the partner with the lower drive is “repressed” or perhaps dealing with abuse issues from his or her childhood. Similarly, we often assume that the partner with the stronger drive is emotionally needy, or someone who seeks to soothe their anxiety and stress through sexual activity rather than a more appropriate outlet. Too often, partners can get into a tail-spin; the more the one with the higher drive presses, the more the one with the lower drive resists. The one with the higher drive feels neglected, unattractive, anxiety-ridden, frustrated; the one with the lower drive feels pressured, nagged, frustrated. Most people who’ve been in long-term relationships can recognize themselves in one (or both) of those roles!
It is by no means always the case in heterosexual marriages that it is always the man with the lower sex drive. But that’s Bob’s situation, and that matches up with our stereotype, so I’ll say a little about it here. I’m not going to rehash the great and mysterious words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7. I will note that the New International Version says:
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
In the context of a chapter on marital sex, that does make clear that a married couple do have sexual obligations to each other. But it would be a huge mistake to assume that Paul means that the lower-drive partner must always acquiesce to the one who’s hornier. I like how the Message version handles this same passage:
The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to “stand up for your rights.” Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out.
That’s really good, especially the bit about marriage not being a place to “stand up for your rights.” The mystery lies in how we each serve the other without ever insisting on those rights. For the higher-sexed person to demand that his or her partner provide sex on some sort of a schedule is clearly not what Paul is suggesting. At the same time, each partner is called to be deeply concerned with the well-being of the other — and of the partnership itself. That concern will manifest itself in the higher-sexed partner practicing self-control, not only in terms of physical restriction but also by refraining from nagging and pestering. The higher-sexed partner can’t come from a place of entitlement.
Similarly, the spouse with the lower drive has the obligation to be alert to the various ways in which he or she can provide emotional reassurance; the spouse with the lower drive is also, I think, obligated to honestly explore whether some dynamic within the relationship is causing a lack of interest. There’s a huge difference, after all, between genuinely not being “in the mood” and withholding sex as a passive-aggressive technique to gain the upper hand in the relationship. I’ve known plenty of men and women who’ve pulled the latter trick. They know the ugly old rule most of us first learn in adolescence: “He who wants it less, wins.”
The bottom line is that the “Yes” or the “I will” of the wedding vow is not a permanent disavowal of the right to say “No” in the future. Whether we are married to our sexual partners or not, none of us has the right to demand that another human being please us. In practical terms, it’s safe to say that the greatest enemies of true eros are entitlement and expectation. Nothing is a greater turn-off than a petulant insistence that someone “owes” us an orgasm (or even a kiss).
Sex drives have a way of fluctuating over time, of course. Most of us will go through periods in our lives (or in our months) in which we are hornier than at other times. That’s true for one of us in our solitude; it’s all the more true for a couple over time. Some couples stay at the same level of frequency in terms of sex for years and years; others start off fast and furious and taper off; still others go through various fluctuations depending on any number of circumstances (ranging from children to job stress to, heck, you get the idea.) Having spent lots of time with religious and secular couples, I note that these anxieties about unequal sex drives show up equally in partnerships where the two “waited” and where they didn’t. Refraining from pre-marital sex is no guarantor of post-marital sexual bliss; by the same token, lots and lots of “experience” prior to marriage doesn’t make anyone an expert on how to have great sex for years and years after the wedding day.
So, to Bob: there’s nothing wrong with having the higher sex drive. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your wife more often than she wants you. I understand that it feels disempowering and scary to be the one who “wants it more.” But you’re not wrong for wanting what you want, and your wife is not wrong for not wanting what you want. The test of your marriage is not the equality of your passion, it’s the prayerful, courageous honesty with which you both work through this disparity together. It’s a hard thing to talk about, even with (and, I think, especially with) a spouse; our fears and resentments and anxieties can come up so quickly. But there’s no way to work through this without that kind of radical honesty, which is why having a patient therapist to facilitate is often a really good idea.
Look, I’m not quite two years into my fourth marriage, so I’m hardly a relationship guru. But I’ve been around the block a time or nineteen, and I’ve done a lot of listening and living in my time. And I know some great marriages where there isn’t a lot of sex; I’ve seen some marriages fall apart even while the spouses within them were getting it on nearly daily. This I can say based on my own experience and on that of countless friends of mine: the absence of regular sex is not an automatic indicator of trouble, and a regular and mutually enthusiastic erotic life is no prophylaxis against marital misery. What makes a healthy marriage is the way in which the two partners deal with their incongruent desires. If they each practice radical mutual submission, remembering that marriage is not a place to assert one’s rights, they’re probably well on their way.
Interesting that you posted this today, Hugo. The same subject came up with me today.
I was at a family party today. When I walked in the kitchen for some snacks, I overheard my cousin talking about how marriage therapy did not work for her and her husband. My heart started to beat a little faster. Then she said, “We’ve been separated since May.” She went on to explain to a friend of the family that Brian* never wanted to do anything the marriage therapist suggested. In her words, he said that, “he was tired of talking about the same things all the time.” Bottom line: he wasn’t interested in “saving” their marriage, and didn’t seem to care whether she stayed or left him. I gave her a hug, and said a little later, “Whoever wants it less has all the power. My aunt (and her mother) turned around from doing some dishes and asked, “What’s that, Sarah?” “Whoever wants it less has all the power.” My aunt said, “That’s profound.” You should become a marriage counselor.”
(I’m not being self-congratulatory here. Those were your words straight outta Humanities 1).
I am heartbroken for them. I was their flower girl, my brother their ring bear, in the summer of 1993. I’m honestly not surprised, because Brian* forgot her birthday a couple times, never showed up for family functions, and when he did show up for funerals and such, he seemed uncomfortable hugging people. He was generally indifferent about a lot of things. Indeed, there is no greater sin than laziness and indifference. Nihilism is poison.
*name changed, of course.
Whoever wants it less has power, but only to the degree that the person who wants it more is willing to give up power to get what they want.
That said, Hugo, I’m completely creeped out by the idea that marriage is ‘not a place to assert one’s rights’. That kind of talk is exactly the mentality that gets pushed onto people whose partners are dysfunctional and/or who are victims of various degrees of abuse.
Mythago, you have to read Scripture in context here — Paul is saying that we don’t get to use our status as husbands or wives to assert a “right” to sex, not saying that we surrender all our human dignity and autonomy when we wed.
Sarah, I am sorry about your cousin — and glad that you are there for your family.
Yeah, but having sex when you want it just isn’t a right. At all. For anyone. Euphemism-izing “don’t demand sex” as “don’t ‘assert your rights’” sounds like it’s implying that sex is a marital right, just one that it’s boorish and counterproductive to demand outright. As you might say it’s rude to assert your right to free speech within your marriage by telling your spouse to go to hell. Which would certainly have a detrimental effect on the relationship if frequently exercised. Except, free speech really is a right, and sex with them isn’t.
Like this: Nothing is a greater turn-off than a petulant insistence that someone “owes” us an orgasm (or even a kiss)
- you can see how it reads like tactical advice (don’t nag her or she’ll never get in the mood) rather than an outright declaration that a mistaken notion of entitlement is not just likely to be unsuccessful but flat-out morally wrong.
(Not that I don’t think you understand that, just that your wording was a little sketchy.)
Sophonisba, remember that I’m writing as a corrective to a specific understanding — historically common among Christians — that sex IS a right. The church only recently accepted that marital rape was a reality rather than an oxymoron, after all.
Sophonisba: If a husband completely refused to have sex with his wife and also refused to give an explanation or seek counselling don’t you think she would have some “right” to feel somewhat aggrieved?
Seems to me sex is one the things one might “reasonably expect” within a marriage and so in that sense it can be considered a “right” just like emotional support and mutually acceptable handling of financial responsibilities and household chores and so on.
So yeah, I understand that people are uncomfortable with the notion of “entitlement” but at least some degree of “reasonable expectation” seems pretty unavoidable.
Well, Hugo, there’s a lot of other context from Paul that you dislike and that isn’t about mutuality, so there’s that context to consider.
Seems to me sex is one the things one might “reasonably expect” within a marriage and so in that sense it can be considered a “right”
That’s not what rights are.
I have a reasonable expectation that my boyfriend will love me tomorrow, since he loves me today. But I don’t have a right to his love. This is not a hard distinction to make and it’s frankly scary to think that anyone might have a hard time with it. Nobody has a right to fuck you. Ever.
If a husband completely refused to have sex with his wife and also refused to give an explanation or seek counselling don’t you think she would have some “right” to feel somewhat aggrieved?
You seem to be drawing some sort of connection between the unquestioned right of every human being to feel any emotion, reasonable or not, and the ‘right’ to do something with someone else’s body. Could you explain that?
How does a wife’s right to feel aggrieved translate into her right to f*ck her husband against his will? I think I know where you want to go, which is to say that you have a right to divorce someone who won’t sleep with you. Well, of course you do. You have the right to leave someone who doesn’t sleep with you on demand, and you may even be right to do so. You still don’t have the right to have sex with them.
Plus, Benny, in Hugo’s original scenario, he was not discussing a person who “completely refused” to have sex. It was, rather, a woman who wanted to have sex when she was aroused, attracted, and in the mood. You know, just like her husband does. So, no thank you to the bait-and-switch.
Sophonisba: As I expected you mean something completely different from what I mean with “right.”
I was interpreting the word “right” to mean “a reasonable expectation that a person might have” especially with regard to mutually beneficial voluntary agreements(e.g I have a “right” to expect my room mate to keep the apartment tidy but that doesn’t mean its OK for me to force him to clean at gunpoint whenever I feel like it).
But you are right that people often mean something stronger when they talk about “rights” so I won’t argue that point anymore(i.e perhaps the word “right” is not the best one to use considering the accepted connotations of that word).
Essentially, what I understood Hugo to be saying with his talk of “rights” is that even though spouses are “justified” in “expecting” sex from each other, they are not “justified” in “demanding” it.
I actually don’t read Paul as talking about mutual submission here in the sense in which Hugo is arguing (though I certainly wouldn’t mind finding him to be saying that, and will allow that it’s possible to read stuff about mutual submission elsewhere in the NT to support this sort of line of thinking). That is, I don’t think he’s saying anything against mutual submission, but it doesn’t really strike me that there’s anything here encouraging the more highly sexed partner to back off and make sure the less highly sexed partner is really in the mood.
At the same time, I also don’t read Paul, here, as advancing some sort of right for a spouse to expect sex on demand. Rather, I see him as balancing the other things he says in the same epistle in praise of celibacy: abstaining from sex isn’t a virtue in a married person. He’ll allow that by mutual consent a couple may choose a temporary abstinence to devote themselves to prayer, but otherwise you shouldn’t deprive your partner in the name of some sort of greater spiritual devotion. That’s what I get from the context of the passage.
It’s hard for me to think of a modern analog (in this country, anyway - elsewhere there’s the example of Gandhi, who did choose to give up sex entirely while married and consider it a more virtuous path). But if I put it in the context of the stereotypical husband wanting sex that his wife refuses, I’d picture not so much a wife who just plain isn’t in the mood for sex right now as one who treats her husband’s sexual desires as something dirty and shameful (or the same sort of deal with the sexes reversed, of course). Or at least less pure and pious than he or she is. Which is a different sort of thing from wanting the sex to be pleasing to you, too, and to happen when you’re at least somewhat in the mood for it.
Although that needs to be in the context of Paul’s seeing marriage as a distant second to celibacy, but necessary for those who can’t bring themselves to put aside sex entirely–better to marry than to sin.
Yes, it would be mitigating the other parts of the epistle where he makes celibacy sound preferable to marriage, not getting rid of them. He’s still decidedly the most celibacy-friendly of the authors of the Bible.
65 is comfy? Wear fewer clothes.
I’m curious why you didn’t bring up the fact that sex when you’re not “in the mood” can be quite physically uncomfortable for the female…
Carla, perhaps because I made the mistake of assuming that that would be obvious to any married person.
In all this, I personally believe that there’s A Line. A certain point where a refusal to engage in sex stops being about hormones, or not being in the mood, or deep issues that you can’t even really articulate but maybe several thousands of dollars worth of therapy might drag out of you. Barring an accident or illness that actually makes sex physically impossible there comes a point where denying your partner stops being about anything else and starts being about passive-aggressive spite. And The Line is especially pronounced when you had no problem staying on the good side of it prior to marrying your partner, and actually legally committing him or her to seek sex from you and only you.
Personally, I believe once that Line has been crossed the woman (or, much less frequently, man) who keeps crossing his or her legs has in a very real way betrayed the marriage and the partner who wants the sex should feel free to discretely seek it elsewhere. I call it the Allman Brothers Principal…”if you won’t love me somebody else will.”
And it’s a good reason to never enter into any legal agreement which gives another person unilateral veto power over your sex life in the first place.
Ok, perhaps I’m coming out of this from left field here, but does “sex” have to be (in a heterosexual angle here, since homosexual marriage is not allowed) penis in vagina?
Mind you, I’m not married yet, but when my fiance and I have problems with one wanting it more (and it tends to go back in forth dependent on our various stresses) we normally compromise by doing what is normally considered less than sex. We masturbate, or sometimes watch the other person masturbate (which is surprisingly sexy, for us at least). Occasionally, I have given bjs when I’ve been less than interested (as he has). YMMV, but if you have disparate sex drives, there is taking matters into your own hands.
But, ours match up more or less right now, so maybe I can’t contribute.
Brace yourself, Antigone, we’re about to agree on something. Exploring alternatives to penetration should be part of the give and take IMO (and can make you and your partner become a lot more creative, again IMO).
Sure it’s obvious. It just seems a bit lopsided that mutual submission can involve discomfort for one partner but not the other.
Antigone: More power to you. I wish that worked for everybody.
Point taken, carla. As for alternatives to penetration, yay. As for mutual masturbation, yay. As for solitary masturbation, less of a yay, particularly because it can — sometimes but not always — become a way to hide out from each other.
I call it the Allman Brothers Principal…”if you won’t love me somebody else will
That’s a handy excuse for the person who wants to cheat, and isn’t willing to consider why the other person has lost interest in sex. When there’s strong temptation to cheat, don’t you think it can also be very tempting to decide that there’s “A Line” and by gum, stepping out is the right thing to do?
And it seems to me that choosing to remain married in the situation you described is the very definition of passive-aggressive. “You won’t love me, but I won’t leave you for it. I’ll just spite you by fucking around on the side.”
Mythago, if the marriage is fairly new and/or there are few assets to fight over and/or there’s a good prenup and ESPECIALLY if there are no kids I would encourage divorce, for the man at least. Hell, I’m the world’s biggest fan of early divorce for a guy, wish I’d done it myself. Some in the MRA world refer to it as “doing an Ernest Borgnine.” Borgnine divorced Ethel Mermann after five weeks of marriage and then later went on to a 30+ years-and-counting marriage with Tovia Borgnine, a woman with whom he obviously shares more compatibility. Whatever went wrong in that marriage to Mermann, Borgnine was smart enough to cut his losses early, before he had children to lose, before Ethel would be entitled to any alimony.
But after a couple have been together long enough for a wife to “cash in?” And especially after the man has had children he loves whom he’ll now get to see every other weekend, if he’s lucky and she doesn’t interfere with the visitation? No. Best to grit his teeth, conduct a quiet, discreet affair to get his itch scratched and hang in there, at least until the kids are off to college.
See, Chief, this is why I get on your case about your attitude. You can’t talk about marriage or interpersonal relationships without sliding into the-woman-is-the-evil-bitch mentality.
That aside, an affair is a really terrible way to fix a marriage, set a good example for your children, or insure that you’ll have a fair custody division after a divorce (because you think that the cheated-on spouse will never, ever figure it out?). In your world, where women are predators who will suck a man dry of cash and keep him from his children, how much more able to do so will she be if she can portray herself as wronged?
Oh, and I think you’re also assuming that the itch here is going to be scratched with another female. Isn’t the poor man now risking another harpy sinking her money-draining claws into him? Or were you just suggesting the guy hang around bathhouses?
Bathhouse? No. I’m pro-prostitution (EVERYBODY pays for sex, whether with actual cash or some other coin) but not when there’s a high likelihood that the prostitute is a sex slave. But call girls, or a trip to Amsterdam or Nevada if you have the means? Sure.
In the interest of full disclosure, and because I’m betting you now want to accuse me of it, I never cheated on my wife, even at her worst (and “her worst” involved a lot more than just no sex), with a prostitute or otherwise. Didn’t have a lot of money at that point, I was working two jobs trying to keep us from going totally insolvent while simultaneously trying to keep my wife from drinking and passing out while alone with our kids. But if I’d had more time and better options? Perhaps.
But you’re right, Mythago, an affair is a far from perfect situation. Then again, once your spouse has stopped having sex with you–and again, we’ve ruled out hormonal problems, deep seated “issues,” etc, etc, it’s just down to pure spite now–you’re in the DEFINITION of a far from perfect situation no matter what you do. You rolls the dice, you takes your chances. Or better yet, you do what I’ve been advocating all along. Don’t put yourself in that situation to begin with, and stay away from the altar.
Mythago has her model of reality - that women don’t “marry up” more frequently than men, that there is no net flow of money from men to women in society and that everyone is situated equally (except that women are oppressed, I guess) - and she has a remarkable lack of empathy that men may have a different situation in general than women. No, men have to act like women, and since women don’t usually have to pay anything in a divorce, then men probably don’t either. Or something like that.
Why not give a little leeway, Mythago, and consider that some men (far more so than women) may have a difficult choice to make between staying in a bad marriage or having everything taken away from them? It really does happen. And it is really the case that men have a different situation in life with regard to marriage, divorce etc. A different set of problems than women, and a set of problems you don’t want to acknowledge.
you’re in the DEFINITION of a far from perfect situation no matter what you do.
A good test for whether something, which you normally might not want to do, would be an acceptable thing to do, once you’re already in some far from perfect situation, is whether both A and B would agree that X is an OK thing to do, if they’d had to choose in advance, not knowing which one would wind up in which circumstance. For example, A and B might agree that it is normally a bad thing for B to call the cops on A, but also agree that such a normally non-optimal thing is OK if, due to some unanticipated brain disorder or something, A becomes unexpectedly violent. People who’d consider divorce non-optimal might nevertheless agree that certain circumstances would warrant it.
Affairs fail this test. Nobody says, it would be OK for someone to cheat on me, because I’m being a rotten spouse and yet would screw you over in a divorce. Some people might say, and some couples even agree explicitly, that A could seek sex elsewhere because B is incurably ill, beyond being able to have sex, and A doesn’t want to abandon B. But nobody says that it’s OK for himself or herself to be “discreetly” cheated on because his or her spouse is just plain fed up.
And it is really the case that men have a different situation
Oh, men and women on average have different situations, sure. But here’s how they don’t differ:
1) It’s not the case that women lose nothing financially in a divorce, and men lose everything.
2) It’s not the case that only men, and never women, feel trapped and without alternatives, in a bad marriage.
3) It’s not the case that only men, and never women, find themselves gritting their teeth and trying to hold a household solvent while a spouse passes out drunk regularly (or otherwise shows problem behavior that gravely jeopardizes the household).
4) It’s not the case that only men, and never women, have spouses that absolutely and totally refuse to ever have sex again. (What one should do in that situation, man or woman, may depend on the couple, but whatever it is, it should be honest.)
I sympathize with anyone, man or woman, stuck in the kind of situation Chief describes, really I do; as the wife of a husband with bipolar disorder (both of us involved in support groups with others in our situation) I’ve seen some marriages where people make things work despite the hands they’ve been dealt, but I’ve also seen marriages that, from my point of view, look as if they should be taken out and shot. And I know how much it can suck to have such a marriage, not know any way to fix it, and still feel trapped. But anyone who wants to turn the existence of such marriages into an argument why men in particular, being so much more trapped than women, should get a free pass if they’re drive to cheat, will get no agreement from me.
Or better yet, you do what I’ve been advocating all along. Don’t put yourself in that situation to begin with, and stay away from the altar.
Staying away from the altar is certainly a better option than going to the altar and later scratching the itch elsewhere.
“2) It’s not the case that only men, and never women, feel trapped and without alternatives, in a bad marriage.”
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What’s interesting is that men are more likely to feel trapped because the house, assets, children etc. may go to the woman, whereas women feel trapped because they aren’t sure they can dredge enough out of the man to get by. In other words (for some of the long-term housewives) they may have to get a job and get out into the fearsome real world.
That’s an asymmetry. And if you don’t believe it, look at some of the message boards where people are asking specific questions about a divorce relevant to their own situations. The questions from people who identify as women revolve around how much money they can get.
I was in court on a different matter, but sat through a bunch of family law crap first. The SAME judge - an older, apparently chivalrous man - treated a sit-at-home man and a sit-at-home woman completely differently from one case to another, and I don’t think a whole lot of judges are much different. The sit-at-home man better get off his lazy ass and finally get a job (which I feel is right). Welcome to the real world, cowboy. That’s NOT the case with women.
I think things may finally be changing - Kevin Federline is the new paradigm for the sit-at-home leech - but in years gone by the few men who dared ask for money were mocked, humiliated and then denied any money. Peter Holm and Ms. Collins come to mind. Most men won’t humiliate themselves by even requesting it (although, as I said, I think that’s starting to change today).
JG:
Do you think that stay-at-home spouses don’t do labor? Do you think that having gaps in your work history make it EASY to find a job? Do you think that staying in a craptacular marriage because you’re afraid you won’t have enough money to dredge by is living in a fantasy world?
You know, I tend to agree with that second paragraph, and come to the exact opposite conclusion because of it.
Come back to the topic at hand, what makes anybody here think that “he who wants it less, wins” theory is right? Sex is great, and quite frankly I get more upset than my partner on days when my body is just not cooperating with my mind on sex. Days that I want to relax, be intimate, unwind (and, goddess forbid, get a nice orgasm) and my body WILL NOT become aroused? That isn’t winning, that’s losing hardcore.
“Do you think that stay-at-home spouses don’t do labor?”
————-
No. If you’re really asking for my opinion, I don’t think they do a whole lot. At all. Microwaves and vacuum cleaners today, and Oprah and The View sure do get good ratings.
I personally have no respect for the sit-on-your-ass crowd, but I realize the rest of society would give these people a medal for “sacrificing themselves”.
Antigone–attitude says a lot. If a spouse communicates that she genuinely wants to “get in the game” but can’t because of something going on with her body you can forgive the occasional “rain delay” (or at least I could). I will say that if a woman’s body isn’t cooperating with her mind on a regular basis she needs to see a physician, for her sake and her partner’s. As the old internet meme says, “seventeen months of a nightly headache is a real problem, GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR.”
Thank you JG, you just illistrated that you don’t have a clue.
The Chief, I’m not entirely positive that you can gauge a person’s attitude a hundred percent.
“Thank you JG, you just illistrated that you don’t have a clue.”
————
Why’d you ask me then if you don’t care about my answer?
In the end analysis, I don’t have to pay for your lazy ass, so I’m not all that concerned about your toiling and hard labor.
Hey, Antigone, I worked my way through college as a roofer. Try that if you want to take a break and cycle down from the horrors of housewifery. It should be a piece of cake.
JG, I think you’re done commenting here.
“JG, I think you’re done commenting here.”
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Hugo, you made me feel sad.
Bathhouse? No. I’m pro-prostitution (EVERYBODY pays for sex, whether with actual cash or some other coin) but not when there’s a high likelihood that the prostitute is a sex slave.
While I agree with you wholeheartedly, what I was referring to was an establishment where gay men go to have anonymous sex with one another, rather than institutions where the pretense is that female prostitutes are providing ‘bathing’ or ‘massage’ services.
And no, Chief, I wasn’t about to accuse you of adultery; I’m just not following the logic that says if you’re in a marriage with somebody who hates you and wants to hurt you, that the smartest alternative is to do something spiteful right back that will make the marriage worse and reduce your chances of a fair result in divorce even further.
As for attitude, again, you seem to be of the opinion that if one person doesn’t want to have sex as often as the other, the only possible reasons are a medical condition or pure vindictiveness.
JG, my reality is one where men and women are human beings, rather than one where men are innocent martyrs to the grasping, greedy claws of lazy females who hate sex and live to deprive men of it. If that’s your reality, I think you need to figure out why.
“If that’s your reality, I think you need to figure out why.”
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That’s called “shaming language”. I’m pretty much immune to it now, but I wanted to point that out for your benefit.
I see society as it really is. Women really do “marry up” more than men. That’s not necessarily good or bad, I mean someone has to “marry up” in every relationship, LOL, but it creates a distinct set of problems for men vis-a-vis women.
There are also things to look at with regard to sexual interest / manipulation in society. Just something to look at, the situations are NOT symmetric for men and women.
That’s called “shaming language”.
I don’t see how, as I don’t actually expect people who enjoy seeing the other sex as Teh Enemy to be ashamed of it.
Chief, I’d highly recommend the blog Why Your Wife Won’t Have Sex With You. It’s non-blaming, positive and optimistic, so you can leave the chip off your shoulder when you go over there. ;)
JG writes:
I mean someone has to “marry up” in every relationship.
I couldn’t disagree more. It’s true that in the past, lack of access to economic opportunity and education meant that women’s social status was inextricably linked to their choice in husbands. But thanks to our feminist foremothers, many women today do have the ability to thrive economically without reliance on a man. That’s a good thing for women, who are less likely to be trapped in bad marriages by financial insecurity, and a good thing for men — who are less likely to be the targets of those who only want security.
My wife and I have equal earning power. I know she, a successful businesswoman, didn’t marry a college professor for his vast sums. She married me for my charm and my fashion sense, and I married her for her laugh.
Hugo, if this is ot, please feel to delete this, but I feel like defending myself with JG.
JG, you presume quite a lot about me. Like that I’m a housewife. Or that I am (will) marry up. For your narrow-minded information, I am an aviation major currently working my way through college as a technician. My fiance? Also an aviation major. If anything, I’m marrying “down” because he’s maxed out with loans.
But that’s neither here nor there: my mother for most of my life was a stay-at-home-wife and mother. I would have taken my dad’s very exhausting, very respectable federal agent job any damn day of the week over the labor she put in keep that house running. My dad would come home, sit down and drink a few beers. If was the weekend, he might do some minor maintence and lawn work. My mom was the one up first, and the last to go to sleep. If she ever watched “Oprah” there was socks matched, or clothes ironed while she was watching it. She was also the one who kept my dad from getting fired, the one who did the networking and made sure the boss was invited for dinner (and cooked that dinner). Amazing on how after my mom got a career of her own, my dad’s career started to peter off, isn’t it?
If you are under the impression that housewives don’t do work, you are sadly mistaken. That why I say you haven’t a clue on the level it take for a house to run smoothly.
Mythago, you’ve given that link before. Some of it I like, some not so much, plan to do a song-and-dance on my own blog about it at some point.
Look, if I’ve made myself unclear let me try again. I know that it’s not always the woman who is holding out on the sex, though plenty of anecdotal evidence indicates it’s her a significant majority of the time (I know of no actual study that has been done on the subject and I believe people lie on sex surveys anyway, even anonymous ones). I know that it’s not always done out of spite or because somebody is trying to be a bitch (or a bastard)–there are sometimes real physical or emotional problems in play. I believe two people should try to work it out when they can.
But it seems like our culture often puts the sexual needs of a hetero married man off the stove entirely, never mind the backburner. Women seem amazed and sometimes even amused that men are frustrated and angry over it. Fuck that. If I make a promise to buy my diabetes medicine from only one supplier that supplier had better come through regularly or the deal is off and I’m finding another. If at some point the pharmacy on the corner starts holding out on me–and especially if they refuse to give me a good reason why–I’m going to the pharmacy the next block over. Better yet, I’m not signing some insane contract with my pharmacist that legally binds me to buy glucotrol from him and only him and yet allows him to stop providing if he goes through a long stretch of “just not feeling like filling orders tonight.” Same goes for my sex life.
The Chief:
I am usually, or almost always, in agreement with the things your write.
In this case, though, there is something that really jumps out at me: That’s what marriage IS - the man commits himself to a woman with regard to finances, and the woman doesn’t make any tangible commitment at all. The man can literally be subject to imprisonment if he doesn’t follow the court’s instructions upon divorce, there is nothing I can think of that a woman can be forced to do. The courts are certainly not going to order her to clean his house and have sex with him in return for the (post-divorce) money that he forks over to her.
In that respect, there is a very easy solution, and a solution that I have always followed: Don’t get married if you don’t want to have your nuts put in her handbag.
You can live with women for years. Sex is readily available, even with the “real girlfriend experience”. There is simply no point in marrying.
Chief, you will die if you’re a diabetic who doesn’t get insulin; I doubt people actually die by not having sex enough.
That said, again, you turn right around and make it men vs. women again, relying on your own perceptions about marriage (not even ‘anecdotal evidence’) to gripe about how women not only won’t put out for hubby, but get a perverse pleasure out of saying no. (Women, apparently, having no interested in sex except as a weapon.)
I imagine that if I offered ‘anecdotal evidence’ that ‘often’ married men use “she doesn’t put out when I say, how I say, whenever I say” as an excuse to go sniffing after fresh tail, you’d be outraged that I’m making sexist and overbroad generalizations about men. I’m willing to be told I’m wrong, but I suspect you’d be equally suspicious if I suggested that some of that ‘anecdotal evidence’ about Mrs. Spiteful Bitch might come from men whose wives have reasons other than spite for shutting down.
Again, I’d suggest you go read that blog, which is not about blaming men, portraying women as angels, or telling anyone to suck it up; it’s a very personal blog by a woman who (in her words) was “the frigid wife”, and how she and her husband worked through the things that got in the way of their having a love life.
Some of it I like, some not so much,
Don’t tell me: the parts where it’s suggested that women are the problem, you like, the parts where it’s suggested that the wife’s libido might be affected by her husband’s behavior, you don’t. ;)
JG,
Dunno where you’re from, but in most of my married friends are dual-income, where the wife pays into the bills as much as the guy. I know several wives who are currently breadwinners so their hubbies can get graduate degrees or so their husband can pursue a career they “enjoy’ rather than ones that bring home the dough.
In fact, I know 2 guys that receive alimony from their more successful ex-wives.
I’m sorry that you keep running into women that aren’t compatible with you. Maybe you would do best to see why you’re attracted to/attract these the types of women you gloriously complain about?