After so many years of blogging, teaching, mentoring, and writing, you find yourself getting the same questions over and over again. (Questions about the wisdom of age-disparate and long-distance relationships, for example, are evergreen.) But there are other topics that come up often as well, like incompatible sexual desire. (See here, for example.) And as is often the case, I get multiple queries on the same topic at the same time from different sources; call it kismet or synchronicity, the topic of what happens when a woman has a stronger libido than her male partner has come up four times this week.
Our myths about sex drive tell us that men are supposed to peak in horniness in their late teens, while women only reach their full libidinousness on the high side of thirty. A lot of us suspect that to the extent there’s any truth to this at all, it has a good deal less to do with biology, and more to do with the long and difficult road so many women have to travel to discover and accept their own sexuality. Slut-shaming and sexualization work together to make girls acutely conscious of others’ wants and expectations while shutting them off from their own desires. It’s hard to hear one’s own “still, small voice” of longing if you’ve been raised to be a people pleaser!
But of course, so many young women don’t fit this model, just as the guys they date often don’t fit the male stereotype of constant randiness. And for many young women, finding themselves in a sexual relationship where they are the higher desire partner can be deeply confusing. One FB email this week from a former student of mine:
Before I had sex, my fantasy was always that a beautiful man would want me so much that he would lose all control, overpowering me. Not a rape fantasy exactly, just the idea of driving some hot guy crazy with lust. I guess you’d say my arousal was tied into how aroused the guy was by me. That was my number one fantasy for years and years. But Tom (name changed, of course) doesn’t seem to want sex nearly as often as I do. I’d like it almost every day, and he’d like it a few times a week. We don’t get much time together as it is, and this is driving me nuts.
I hear variations on that quite often (though rarely several times in one week.) And of course, my former student is hurt and confused. She knows enough to know how much of her own sexuality was shaped by cultural messages about uncontrollable male desire. She’s done a great job of leaving behind the message that “good girls don’t really want sex”. But while she’s given herself permission to want and to have, she’s still got the old tape playing that says that in heterosexual relationships, particularly among young people, the man should always be hornier than the woman.
As I told her, it’s always hard to be the one who wants something more. As therapists have pointed out again and again for years, most of us come into relationships with a “He who cares less, wins” model. The lower-desire partner has the power to grant or deny — and that often leaves the higher-desire partner feeling powerless and rejected, and the lower-desire partner feeling guilty.
And while that’s true when the man is the one with the higher desire, at least in that instance both he and his low-desire female partner are aware that they are following a culturally appropriate script. Because men are “supposed” to want “it” more, men are also “supposed” to be accustomed to rejection: “it’s not me”, a man can tell himself, “it’s just that women naturally aren’t as sexual as men.” When our own experience lines up with the myths, we may be frustrated or resentful — but at least we are reassured that we’re “normal.” Higher-desire women don’t get that reassurance. Neither, for that matter, do their male partners.
I reminded my student that it may be helpful to distinguish her feelings of rejection from her feelings of sexual frustration. In other words, while it’s undeniably upsetting to be the one who “wants it more”, how much of the upset is tied to feeling “like a freak” because women aren’t supposed to have the higher libido? That’s an important distinction to make. Rejection never feels good, just as having to reject isn’t much fun either. (Note: I’ve been both the higher, and the lower desire partner many times over the course of my sexual life.) But clearly, to be a young woman with a consistently higher sexual desire than one’s male partner is always going to be especially painful because of the way in which it contradicts all of our cultural programming. The one comfort that folks in my position can offer — and I do offer it repeatedly – is to remind those who are confused and hurting that this is not nearly as unusual as they think.
Our discourses about desire are toxic. They condition boys to believe that “real men” are in a near-constant state of arousal; they condition girls to believe that their greatest pleasure should come not from their own desires, but from being desired. While a few young people may indeed find that these stereotypes accurately describe their inner realities, most will discover that these myths are cruel straitjackets. And the anguish I read and heard from four separate sources this week drives that point home.
What a great post! Many men engage in sexual acts that they neither need nor want because they believe the myth that something must be wrong with them if they are not ready to engage in sex at any given moment.
I’ve been reading your blog for about a year now, and finally decided it’s time to comment
I really appreciate posts like this, and wish I’d been exposed to more of this a long time ago.
I was a virgin when I got married and one of the most frustrating and painful parts of my first two years of marriage was discovering and learning to deal with the fact that I have a stronger libido than my husband.
So, thanks for spreading reality!
Hugo,
I can’t help but feeling that you are missing the other side of this equation. While in the traditional relationship both men and women receive the social carrot for performing as expected in the non-traditional relationship this strongly affects both men and women. Even in the traditional relationship however it can be very painful to not be wanted especially if you are not a strong outgoing personality anyway that can shake it off as just the norm.
In the non-traditional relationship men also get no support and are considered abnormal. Being in this place myself I can honestly say that when you talk to people about it you don’t get sympathy or nice compassionate looks but rather people saying how much they would love their SO to be hornier than them, that you aren’t a man if you can’t perform on demand. A lot of the issues come down to the fact that as a man you can’t / aren’t really expected to say no, but rather to be there on demand. I think that while this piece is good it needs to consider both sides of the issue when we don’t conform to our gender roles because there is no support on either side and (yeah yeah WATMz or whatever) men do get hit due to the fact that we have no one fighting our corner for acknowledgement of this.
I’ve been both the higher and the lower desire partner too, depending on which relationship it was. Both situation caused problems, but for me being the lower desire partner actually caused much worse ones. I was the lower desire partner with my first husband, which besides making me feel guilty, made me feel constantly hunted, pressured and completely unable to relax because the moment I would get aroused, he would pounce and initiate penetration, boom! Killing that urge. It became far better to either not allow myself any arousal at all (as it would be crushed out of existence anyway and I would feel worse after that happened) or to go somewhere alone and work myself up to the point of near-orgasm without other lifeforms present before I got anywhere near him. As you can imagine, this was not conducive to either his and my emotional and sexual closeness or in teaching me how to actually take advantage of and increase the desire I did have.
lisa, I’m with you. I think Auden got it right:
If equal affection cannot be
Let the more loving one
be me.
2ndin, I’m not ignoring the difficult position many men who experience themselves as being the lower-desire partner find themselves in. Heck, that was the point of this:
“When our own experience lines up with the myths, we may be frustrated or resentful — but at least we are reassured that we’re “normal.” Higher-desire women don’t get that reassurance. Neither, for that matter, do their male partners.“
It’s a tribute to you, Hugo, that so many of these women feel comfortable bringing this painful issue to you.
I don’t have much to bring to this discussion. I’ve always been the lower-desire partner, but I have had girlfriends who are very much like your students. It is very bruising to a woman’s self-esteem to always want “IT” more. I’ve seen that with my friends.
I just wanted to say thanks for writing this, and for being the very rare sort of straight man who can be so safe and approachable and non-judgmental. You’re honestly the only older, heterosexual man I’ve ever heard lecture and write so openly about sex without coming across as a creeper or a perv. Keep it up! And don’t leave PCC!
Hugo, I am not saying you didn’t acknowledge that both sides feel pain at this merely that I think you are making a fairly evenly two sided pain seem rather one sided.
[blockquote]“But clearly, to be a young woman with a consistently higher sexual desire than one’s male partner is always going to be especially painful because of the way in which it contradicts all of our cultural programming.”[blockquote]
2ndnin, I got four notes from four different women in one week. I got zero notes from zero different men on this subject. When I’ve 30 minutes to crank out a post, I respond to where the need seems greatest.
Anna, thank you.
Hugo please don’t feel that I am criticising you for responding to the needs of your students, I don’t have access to information on what you are doing offline so can only base comments on your online presence.
Speaking as a low drive man though I can honestly say it would never occur to me to talk to a teacher or similar about this subject. Growing up with the traditional view as the norm you simply accept that you are abnormal and at least personally just bury it because people don’t understand and don’t generally accept it. This links heavily to the idea of toxic masculinity and similar that you and others have expressed so when I see a post online that does cover it and comes up prominently in google because of your works then seeing your group minimised again is painful. You have the opportunity and voice as a male feminist to interact with both groups and bridge this gap so easily and give both young women and men outside the traditional a feeling of normality and acceptance.
Anyway. Shutting up since this is starting to ramble.
A sad correlate of this is that women faced with a lower desire partner are enabled by the script to shame and pressure him. Whether stated or implied, a woman may communicate a “what’s wrong with you?” message.
Guys have few defenses and probably are pressured (culturally, or personally) into performing unwanted sex acts more often that we’d like to think.
If we are all about seeking enthusiastic consent, we need to kill the meme that men are all horndogs all the time.
Randomizer, the whole “guys have few defenses” line is the myth of male weakness writ large. You’re right that it is immensely difficult to be the lower-desire partner in a sexual relationship, but we miss the mark badly if we don’t see that it’s no tougher than being the higher desire female partner. Cultural pressure works on all of us. We need to direct our ire at the culture, not at women’s imagined “shaming tactics.”
I do not think Randomizer made the argument you suggest. Rather, the argument is that there are tools available to women that many women use to shame and pressure men who have lower sexual desires than them.
However, if one did make the above a comparison, the two situations are not equal. While the personal reaction may feel the same, there is a greater social and cultural toll men with lower sexual desires face that women with higher sexual desires do not, including challenges to their masculinity, sexual abilities, and sexuality.
“Guys have few defenses and probably are pressured (culturally, or personally) into performing unwanted sex acts more often that we’d like to think.”
It’s hard to imagine that it’s more often than women are pressured into performing unwanted sex acts when they are the lower desire partner, though. Speaking from experience, I had sex I didn’t want to have at least two or three times a week for years, and I was pushed into this by shaming and pressure: “You’re withholding sex to punish me!” “You’re thinking about someone else and that’s why you don’t want me!” “I know what happened to you when you were a kid, but *I* didn’t do it, what’s wrong with you that you can’t separate *him* from *me?*” on and on and on.
It’s not about who it’s *worse* for, it’s about teaching people to not engage in these destructive tactics, and one of the best ways to do that is to figure out why they are doing it in the first place; that’s the only area gender should enter into, the analysis–not the “whose fault is it??” mess.
I agree with lisakansas that being the lower desire partner seems harder. I admittedly only experienced being the higher desire partner once, when a friend and I developed feelings for each other which I were ready to pursue and he wasn’t, but I remember thinking how remarkably easy it was to handle, because I knew what I felt and what to do (I had to respect his boundaries and wait for him to make it clear when/if he was ready to become sexual), and I wasn’t plagued with guilt and doubt.
I’m not sure if women are more enabled by the script to shame and pressure a low desire man, since a women desiring more sex than her partner is likely to feel and/or be seen as abnormal, slutty, and extremely undesirable (since, as a woman, men are supposed to want to have sex with her, and if they don’t, she must a whole different level of unattractive), further amplified by how much women are told their value lies in being sexually attractive, all of which her partner can use to shame her back.
And if the tables are turned, the man can still shame her, as lisakansas illustrated. Besides the accusations of withholding sex as a manipulative tactic, not loving him enough/loving someone else, and being somehow damaged, I’ve also experienced accusations of being a tease and tempting him. I suspect men might be more vulnerable to the second accusation, since they’re supposed to want sex with every woman they’re remotely attracted to, but the first seem to hit women harder, because of the existing stereotypes of women being manipulative and trying to control the relationships.
It seems to me like the main difference is that when people stick to the script (with men being the higher desire partner) only women are shamed, but when they stray, the shame goes both ways. That doesn’t make it better for anyone of course.
AB: If the female partner is feeling abnormal, slutty and undesirable then these are just as likely to be a contributing factor for her shaming and pressuring a man into sex. What better way to dispell those feelings than to remove the underlying cause which is “He doesn’t want ot have sex with me now” by shaming, needling, nagging and/or pressuring him into sex? When the partners give in and have sex with the woman she no longer needs to feel abnormal, slutty or undesirable. And that’s a pretty strong incentive. And when society by large does not acknowledge that men can be pressured into sex (because they should always want it) the female partner probably is not even aware of the fact that what she does amounts to shaming and pressuring – the true nature of her actions are invisible to her because such an act can not exist within the narrative about men’s unabated lust. And this is exactly why Randomizer’s point is important. With the extension of the definition of rape and sexual assault together with a increasing in sexual agency for women (all good things I might add) also comes a greater responsibility for women and women have no more excuses to shirk that responsibility than men have. As the myth of male weakness needs to be dispelled so do also the myth of female innocence which allows many women to be blind to the fact that what they do can amount to sexual abuse. Being aware of the fact that one is not by definition excluded from being a perpetrator is an important tool one need to make sure one doesn’t end up being a perpetrator.
Your are not alone to think that women don’t have the tools or ability to shame or pressure their lower libido partners. See this thread at Feministe on how some feminists are being called rape apologists over this subject: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/02/24/but-women-dont-rape/
Lisakansas: I am sorry for what you’ve experienced. I trust you also would agree than no-one should have to experience that regardless of gender. There exists a pretty strong ethical narrative in the culture that the male partner should not pressure his lower libido partner into sex. The most common dispensed advice I suspect is that he should step up on his housework and that this might free up her energy levels. Since women with higher libidos than their partners are not a part of the common narrative there also exists no ethical guidelines on how to handle this. And if one has no guidelines on how to handle a situation the risk of handling it wrong is in my opinion higher. This necessitate the inclusion of a caution directed at female with higer libidos than their partners. It doesn’t have to be at the exclusion for a caution directed at any male with higher libidos than their partner.
Hugo:
I’ll have to take issue with this. I’ll state the obvious (for everyone I hope!) that regardless of genders being pressured or shamed into sex you don’t want IS WORSE than feeling abnormal, slutty and/or undesirable any day. And to dismiss men who’ve been shamed and pressured into sex by calling what they’ve experienced for “imagined” is appaling to me.
Randomaizer brought up an important point which deserved much more than your brush-off.
I’ve been both and even though both roles had their somewhat different emotinal cost to me it is very clear which role has the greatest responsibillity.
As for the post itself I think it was good advice to tell her to try to separate the feeling of rejection from the feeling fo sexual frustration. It probably comes as no surprise that I feel you could’ve added some caution to be careful to not shame or pressure her partner into more sex than he really wants. As you point out, there is not much of a social narrative handling this situation and as I’ve pointed out earlier in this comment that also means that there is not much of a narrative on how to behave ethical in such a situation.
Hugo,
Again I have to disagree with you about male weakness. While the traditional trope of men being barely restrained beasts constantly aroused who cannot help themselves is obviously false the fact that men as a group are not socialised to talk to each other about issues does lead to a very real male weakness in this regard. It might be a case of PHMT however men and boys are not generally as talkative about problems we are having as women are. This means that when the low desire man is shamed he doesn’t really have many socially acceptable ways to turn to get help.
It isn’t necessarily worse for the low desire man but decrying this as a myth of male weakness is really denying the lived experiences of men and a look at privilege. Being ‘normal’ means society backs you up a lot even if this is simply through subliminal reinforcement. You likely haven’t lived a lot of this (at least from what you have described of your past) and will see a lot more from the female perspective (you aren’t the kind of guy most non-typical guys would see as being sympathetic to their cause) because of your work environment.
Tamen, while I agree with much of your post, I have to disagree with this. Why would this dispel those feelings? She’s still a woman who had to beg a man to have sex with her, meaning she’s abnormal, slutty and undesirable, only now she’s manipulative and desperate, too, because if she were the least bit attractive men everywhere would want to have sex with her. And of course that’s an avenue for a man who is not interested in sex to shame and needle her right back: it’s her fault for being fat/ugly/lazy/not keeping herself up/a whore.
Mythago: I assume you acknowledge that it happens that women says things to lower libido men which amounts to shaming them, such as “Are you gay or what?”, “So you can’t get it up”.
Exactly what do you think is the underlying conscious or sub-conscious reason for those women to do that? This is not mean as a rethorical question, I would really like to know what you think.
I would be very surprised if a need to dispell the negative feelings of undesirability, sluttiness or abnormality was not one of the motivation behind this behaviour. Those feelings rose from the fact that the man rejected her combined with the social narrative that men (should) always want sex with anything that moves. If things are restored to the “natural order” of the man always ready for sex with her she no longer need to have those feelings. Shaming is very effective in this regard as it has a double effect: it pushes the man to comply to the social script and it also places the blame of the disruption of the social script away from the woman onto the man.
The second part of your argument where you say that the woman would still feel abnormal, slutty and undesirable as well as manipulative and desperate rests on the assumption that the woman in question is consciously aware that what she did constituted manipulation. And as I pointed out above, shaming also work as a blame shifter.
Shaming is not begging. Saying for instance: “Are you gay or something?” is shaming and any “begging” subtext often is hidden from both the sender as well as the receipient.
I have no doubt that men often try to shame back – attacking back is a very common defense mechanism. And even though I frame it as a defense mechanism (because you qualified it with “…her right back”) it does not mean that I think it’s a-ok or right in any way..
It boils down to two things which I tried to convey in my previous comment:
1) This often is not a conscious behaviour and in order to prevent this to happen women needs to know that the social script of “men always want sex” is wrong and they need to be told that that kind of behaviour from their side is unacceptable, that they in fact can be perpetrator of sexual abuse. It is hard to change those for whom this is a conscious behaviour, but I believe that the majority of the one’s where this is an sub-conscious behaviour would recognize the behaviour as wrong and stop doing that if they became consciously aware of what that behaviour really is and what is wrong with the social script the motivation behind that behaviour rose from. And to become consciously aware of this one needs to be educated/told sbout it.
Not acknowledging that behaviour to an extent of even calling it “imagined” only serves as enabling that behaviour.
2) I would be called fat any day over being shamed/pressured into sex I didn’t really want and because of that it’s pretty clear to me on whom the greater responsibility lies.
I am a woman in a relationship with a lower desire partner and the biggest problem is trying to understand why on earth he would want to be with me if he is not interested in sex all the time. I still don’t totally understand it as it seems like he would want to be with someone who turns him on more than i do. In my experience, sex is the primary reason men seek relationships with women. Not the only reason of course but its hard to know what makes him want to see me if not that. The insecurity kills me sometimes.
Hugo,
I can’t agree more. My current relationship is the first relationship I’ve been in where I am the higher desire partner; I am FtM (transsexual) and growing up in my assigned gender role (as a female) I was given quite the impression about the libido of the male being higher than the libido of the female, whether it was through my relationships or cultural conditioning I can’t say. But in this relationship, I am the female bodied person and my SO is the male; I had a lot of presumption about his libido when we first started going out and I had to re-learn the dynamics from scratch, because they were different than anything I had experienced dating a man before.
I think an issue that is somewhat tied into this is the fact that so many Americans (like my SO) are now on SSRIs, which lower desire in a high percentage of users, both male and female. This crushes the confidence of men because they feel as though they are impotent when they are unable to perform on command. I think analyzing why confidence in men is so tied into sexuality – hell, why is confidence tied so much into sexuality for females as well? Our society simultaneously tells us that sex is dirty and that it’s one of the biggest ways of validating ourselves. It causes so much pain for all involved in this complicated social dance.
Sarah: Believing that the primary reasons why men, including your partner enters relationships is because of sex is not only underselling your self-worth as something more than a sex object, but it is also, to be frank, quite insulting to your partner and men in general. The sad part is that I believe a likely outcome will be that your insecurities regarding this will end up with you pushing him away and that this will only serve to reinforce your simplistic view of men and their motives. And your view of men and your partner is the underlying reason for this particular insecurity you’re feeling.
Let’s say a person behaves in this way, not realizing what she’s doing, and then after the fact comes to understand her behavior is wrong (say, from reading articles like this, and others of a more severe nature). Is there anything she can beyond changing future behavior? Any way to properly apologize? What does it mean to properly take responsibility for your past actions in this kind of scenario?
You know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is, yes?
EliT: There is only one way to properly apologize and that is being sincere. Secondly one should recognize that the person one apologize to in no way owe you anything because of that, least of all forgivness.
If one is able to give a sincere apology without feeling entitled to anything in return for that apology one should apologize if it’s feasible. In particular in cases like these which goes against the common social narrative because that can be helpful for the other person to process that it wasn’t their fault for not adhering to the “script”.
Regardless of whether one ends up apologizing or not it’s pretty clear that the most important thing to do is to try one’s best to avoid behaving in that mannner in the future. Becoming aware is the first step in assuring that one changes.
Trigger Warning for discussions of non-consensual sex.
Hugo:
I have immense respect for your contributions to the elaboration of a new sexual script (or actually the elimination of scripts) for the 21st century. I do find though that your latent guilt about past “rapey” behaviour (which I understand and share) and your commitment to improving the lot of women pushes you past the point of equilibrium sometimes. While I acknowledge that you recognize that uneven desire sucks for both partners regardless of gender, I think you lost the plot a bit in responding to my arguement.
To wit, lets see how your comments parse with the genders reversed:
When women cave to pressure to perform sex acts they really don’t want: “…we miss the mark badly if we don’t see that it’s no tougher than being the higher desire male partner. Cultural pressure works on all of us. We need to direct our ire at the culture, not at men’s imagined “shaming tactics.”
Is that really your point?
I recall a more nuanced discussion here about consenting to sex you don’t really want out of generosity of spirit and compassion/affection for a partner. I think, truth be told, most of us do that and in most cases what starts as an act of kindness arrives at a point of enthusiasm once a body warms to the experience at hand.
Sex can be simple but more often, especially I would contest in an intimate relationship, it is complicated by experience, expectations, vulnerability, the fickleness of desire, etc. all wrapped in blinding layers of cultural scripts.
Only open, honest communication can ensure that you are actually having the sex you think you are having when you are having it. It is particularly tough to look back at instances where you cajoled, shamed, persisted and otherwise pressured a partner and to admit that the behaviour may have been, at least “not rape.”
I refer to the term coined by Latoya Peterson in her essay the “Not-Rape Epidemic.” More here:
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/reviews-endorsements/
I have owned my own “not rapes” even going so far as to apolgize to a girl I knew in my teens for making her the sex gatekeeper while mindlessly crashing through her immaturely maintained boundaries.
But then, as I guy, I am a member of the raping class and it is therefore easier for me (though actually disturbing when the realization hit) that I have engineered sexual experiences with less than enthusiastic partners. Am I / have I been (sorta, kinda…) a rapist? Are you?
Women are not members of the raping class and therefore are not as likely to reflect on these behaviours in quite the same way and admit to themselves that they have indulged in rapey sex with their less enthusiastic partners at some time or other and for lack of self-awareness, perhaps continue to do so.
Thanks Tamen for reminding me of the discussion: on how some feminists are being called rape apologists over this subject:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/02/24/but-women-dont-rape/
While I loved this post, and I agree with the things you’ve said here, Hugo, I had a hard time relating. In my current relationship, I’m in the position of having less desire than my partner, and it has had some damaging effects on our relationship. We’re all right for the moment, but I’m not sure how to address the problem in the long run. Are there any posts on this site that can help out a rather “stereotypical” woman who can’t keep up with her partner’s libido?
Birdie, as the research is showing, that stereotype is at best true only half the time — but all that matters is one’s own relationship, not what’s going on for others. I’ve written about this subject a few times, so do a search for “disparate libido” in the search box at upper right…
Hugo – to what research are you referring? This is not to disagree that what matters is one’s own relationship and that there’s nothing wrong with the female partner being the one with the higher libido, but a review paper I found on the subject (http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/71520.pdf) cited a fairly substantial amount of evidence that men in heterosexual relationships tend to be the partner more desiring of sex.
I am this person in my relationship. I want sex all the time, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is that I come, and my partner doesn’t always. I have been conditioned forEVER that women are hard to orgasm (I finally am having sex with my partner that REALLY pleases me; thought I was frigid for YEARS..) but he doesn’t always come for me. A little voice in my head tells me how unattractive I must be, how he must not be enjoying himself. I try hard not to shame him, because I never want him to feel inadequate, after all, I am VERY happy. He notices that I get quiet, though, and he IS into sex, it’s not me, it’s just how his body works sometimes. He always initiates things….And I would do ANYTHING to give back the pleasure I’m getting…It’s hard for me to silence the voice that voice in my head that berates me. I mean, everyone hears that a guy comes no matter what, right?! I must be a natural boner killer. I bet his ex was more sexy than I am…. All that bullshit. I wouldn’t say it out loud, or ask him(I’m not THAT insecure) but…sigh.
Tamen, I hear what you are saying, and no I don’t like thinking of myself as a sex object, but in my experience in relationships wi a number of different men in my life (I’m 44), I came to the unpleasant realization that for many men, it really is fundamentally about sex. Go read the comments on some of Hugh’s sex and relationship articles on the Good Men Project and you will find a depressing number of comments arguing that male-female relationships are about sex and nothing but sex. In fact I just read one comment from a guy who implied that a man would have to be brain damaged to want sex with a menopausal woman since from an evolutionary perspective he should only want sex with women at peak fertility.
So here I am at 44 with a guy who is not terribly interested in sex although he claims he loves me. You have to understand how devastating that is to my self-esteem as a woman. Is it really just a natural variation of male desire or maybe I just don’t do it for him, in which case, why are we in a relationship at all? Doesn’t he owe it to himself to find someone who is really exciting to him, if I’m not? P.s. I would never pressure him to have sex with me “against his will” so to speak. If a man’s not attracted to me, it kills my desire immediately. The thought of having sex with a man who is basically faking it is embarrassing and even a bit disgusting.
im so glad 2C the issue of greater female desire finally addressed–there’s no way id go 2 a church mtg & admit that im watching porn because my husband wont touch me–theyd look @ me like i was from mars–really, the core problem is that people R so selfish–the high desire and the low desire partner both need 2 realize that once UR married its not about just U anymore–and im sorry, but i dont think “im not in the mood” is a good excuse–nor do i think the hornier partner has a right 2 pressure and nag, or worse–moods R changeable, and one might ask–seductively–”what can i do 2 help U get in the mood”–just a thought
“condition girls to believe that their greatest pleasure should come not from their own desires, but from being desired.” This one statement resonated with me, and I have been thinking about it for days. Actually, I’ve been planning my own blog entry about it for days.
I found your site through Jezebel (just when I was giving up on them) and I appreciate how clearly articulated your points of view are. I’m sure I appreciate them all the more because I agree with most of them! Thank you.
Sarah: First thing first; it’s really not healthy to attribute the worst of some comments on some blog to all members of the perceived gender of said commenters.
Secondly: I am not sure whether you on a conscious level can see the contradiction in what you’re saying or if you can see it, but find it difficult to align your feelings to the reality you want.
You complain that in you experience from relationships that for many men relationships are primarily about sex, in other words that’s the main thing that they desire/want of the relationship – anything else is just inconsequential “nice-to-haves”. And now you have a partner who doesn’t seem to be like this – he doesn’t want sex as much you’d expect from someone who thinks that sex is the primary reason for a relationship. So now you’ve got a contradiction on your hand. And it’s really sad that the way you’re solving that contradiction is the exact way that will ensure your unhappiness. You’ve made up your mind that he really is bad like your previous partners. The consequence is that you think lower of yourself (“I just don’t do it for him”) and that you distrust him and his intentions (“he claims he loves me”). If he is like you think then he’ll leave sooner rather than later (and probably would have left some time ago if that was the case) and if he really loves you and just have a lower sex drive compared to you or your stereotyped expectations he will pick up on your self-doubt and more importantly on your distrust of him (which will of probably lead him to conclude that you neither know nor love him). Or you could resolve it by trying to make him the exception from your bad experience of previous partners, either by fiat or better still by communicating with him and learn to know him well enough to find out what kind of man he really is – not what you think he should be.
I once dated a woman who often would relay stories about earlier partners and how they only were interested in sex, how she’d never had an orgasms and how used she’d felt by many men. Many stories about sex, but not one positive one. Yet she was one of the most persistent of all women I’ve dated when it came to push for or initiate sex. I declined and we stopped dating and even though that might’ve hurt her self esteem I refused to play the part of villain she expected me to be.
Margaret: I’ll have to say this. Not accepting “I’m not in the mood” as a valid excuse reeks of entitlement and is a dangerous path to take. Saying an excuse is not good is basically saying that it’s not valid. Moods are changeable to some extent but certainly not always. And that doesn’t mean that one partner is obligated to alter their mood on their partners whim.
The seductive line “what can i do 2 help U get in the mood” albeit seemingly innocuous is not really so when combined with the attitude that “not in the mood” is not a valid excuse because that combination preclude the acceptance of the possible answer “nothing”. So if the partner doesn’t want to alter their mood they find themselves in a no-win situation, either they fake the mood to please their partner although they really don’t want to have sex now or they are “awarded” with their partner’s disapproval. Neither is healthy for the relationship or the persons involved in the long run because one must look at this as a cumulative thing where although one incident isolated may not register as shaming/nagging/pressuring the cumulative effect over time may very well be.
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