These are comments by FlyingKal and Dan on the post “The Truth about Porn and Relationships“.
Dan said:
“Was she wrong to ‘withhold’ sex? What was her reasoning on this? It is not reasonable to withhold sex for no reason. The article never said what the reason was … “
FlyingKal responded:
“That is one of the main problems with this subject, isn’t it? You can’t have a discussion or an argument ‘in good faith’ about this, because most anyone, like in this article, will believe that any woman ‘withholding’ sex must by default have a perfectly good reason for it that is far beyond any discussion. Hence everything must always start at the ‘man being in the wrong’ position.”
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Well given that men in general do not have the privilege of the Benefit Of Doubt …… what would you expect!
I have grown tired of being called names because I act in good faith and give both men and women equal benefit of the doubt – until evidence shows otherwise. The emotional abuse and bullying around the man is always in the wrong and the woman is to be given the Privilege of Benefit of doubt is an old game that I don’t accept. It’s a rational position that protects against many forms of abuse and social manipulation.
As one feminist jokingly pointed out to me years ago – God Is Male – God Created Man in Own Image – God did bad job – It’s all been downhill from there – Women always have the get out of responsibility free card – It’s a factor of Patriarchy…… only men have responsibility.
As a solicitor specialising in divorce, she represented mostly male clients – because that was where she was able to fight for equality of BOTH sexes.
Courts are about evidence and the removal of doubt. The benefit of that is Justice.
I completely disagree with the reasoning. To arbitrarily decide that all individuals feel this way because of how you see the world is insane. Source?
We need to make a VERY important distinction here.
First, “withholding sex” usually implies that someone is using sex as a commodity, to barter. IE “if he doesn’t let me go on that girls’ weekend to Palm Springs, I won’t have sex with him” or “I’m so mad at him for working late, I’m not going to have sex with him for a week!” THAT is withholding sex and it is absolutely wrong in all circumstances because it’s manipulation.
Then there is an issue of a lack of desire on one partner that creates a disparity between the partners as far as desire. There are many, many reasons this happens – hormones, childbirth, pregnancy, parenting, body image issues… And it happens with male partners losing interest, too, and that has terrible side effects.
What we need to remember is that no one should ever, ever be pressured to have sex. I don’t care if you’re married and monogamous, sex is NOT obligatory. Ever.
On the other hand, if one partner is having issues with libido and it’s causing problems in the marriage, that partner has a duty to do what he or she can to resolve it. Be it heading to the doctor for a hormone test, exercising more for endorphins, seeing a therapist on an individual basis, or seeing a sex therapist together.
Sometimes it’s just about waiting until a certain phase is done. I think when it comes to pregnancy, nursing, and new motherhood, most women shake out of that flat line of desire about 6 months after they’ve stopped nursing. That’s when hormones seem to level out. If a woman is done nursing for that long and still feels that flat line and it’s causing problems, I’d encourage her AND the couple to seek help in whatever ways are available.
But before we can even ENTER this conversation, we need to make the distinction between “withholding sex” and a woman having a lack of libido, which are very very separate things.
Beyond that, I think its goofy to say that somehow a woman not wanting to have sex means her partner is doing something wrong and is at fault. I don’t know where that even comes from, except perhaps this individual’s own experience. I think a LOT of shame and blame is put on women who have low sex drives for whatever reason.
A very important distinction here, I agree.
In my experience, though, there are circumstances where this distinction may not be so clear. I don’t think these two things are always distinguishable from each other. She’s mad at him, so she doesn’t feel affectionate towards him, so she’s not interested in having sex with him, because he’s really ruined the mood, and if he’s disappointed, well too bad for him, maybe then she can finally get his attention, and if he wants to continue to have sex with me, then he needs to….
I know _I_ can be passive-aggressive about things without being totally aware of it. It’s plausible that sometimes women (and men) could be withholding sex BOTH on purpose AND not on purpose.
What is certainly the case, and why communication is so important, is that he might interpret the lack of sex as a conscious withholding of sex even when she’s doing nothing of the sort. The lack of sex can look totally different from his perspective than it does from hers.
I think that’s very insightful. Sex in monogamy is really challenging because you have no outside resources and your libidos have to match up. Most of the time people’s libidos don’t match up for whatever reasons, and not always on the side of women having less desire, and most couples just don’t have the skills to communicate about sex in a way that is healthy.
I know a marriage where the husband lost all interest in his wife sexually, and she was beautiful, barely 40 years old. I mean beautiful, like a showstopper. But their marriage was horrible and he just felt nothing for her in that way… His inattentions caused her to have multiple affairs and they eventually divorced. Thing is, he never communicated in a healthy way about what she was doing that was so terrible and unattractive (they weren’t physical things), he just insulted her. No one can change in that circumstance.
If you’re not having sex at all when one person wants to, and you’re not communicating on how to make it better in the future (even if the future is a year or so off, when a mom is done nursing or something), your marriage WILL suffer.
Joanna and wellokaythen, great comments. When I think of the word “withhold,” I think of it as purposeful and a punishment. Simply not being able to or comfortable with having sex or a certain sex act is a different animal.
It’s also about perspective. What looks like one thing to one party can look like something else to the other. A woman who catches her husband looking at porn of 18 year olds or staring at other women denies him sex. In his eyes, she’s punishing him by withholding because he did something wrong. In her eyes, her self-esteem is shot. She no longer feels sexy to him, so sex feels uncomfortable and not fun. She retreats into fantasy, a loss of libido, or outside sources depending on her style. She can’t concentrate on having good sex because she doesn’t feel good enough for him. A woman asks her husband to wash the dishes, then comes home from work and finds out he hasn’t. In his eyes, she’s punishing him for not doing chores. In her eyes, she’s exhausted and upset and it takes her a lot longer to get in the mood for sex. This could go the other way too, gender wise. I had a partner deny me sex because he was angry with me or too tired. I’ve also been on the other side, where a partner lowered my self-esteem and sex started to feel like a chore instead of the fun thing that I was used to.
“sex is NOT obligatory. Ever.”
But, then, nothing is ever truly obligatory. An accident victim can be brought into the ER bleeding to death and refuse a blood transfusion. Just don’t expect a good outcome.
Fidelity is not obligatory. Neither is common courtesy to the people in your day to day life. I’m not going to try to say whether any of these things are just in any sort of cosmic sense. Simply… going by what one could reasonably expect to happen, given their actions.
I apologize if that previous comment came across as mean-spirited. Only some one in a foul mood would be reading and commenting on these sorts of articles after 3 am.
@Joanna Schroeder:
First: Wow, I’ve been selected “comment of the day”. My mind is blown!
Second Thank you for answering
Third: Yes there is a very important distinction there. I agree about that. If you don’t think I can see that distinction, I can only advice you to go back and see the context of the article and where the particular answer was given.
Four: Beyond that, I think its goofy to say that somehow a woman not wanting to have sex means her partner is doing something wrong and is at fault. I don’t know where that even comes from, except perhaps this individual’s own experience
Oh, please. Just pick up and read any thread on any forum on the subject! Any man asking what he can do about his girlfriend’s low libido will immediately be told in unison by half the men and (almost) all the women that *he* need to get his act together, regarding hygiene, attention, caring, work-sharing, etc…
Hi again, my answer for yesterday wasn’t the most thoughtful, I’m sorry for that but I was in kind of a hurry. Maybe I shouldn’t have answered at all at the time.
But anyway. One example of what I’m talking is the article itself. “The truth about porn and relationships”. All we know is that the couple are not having sex, and that the man have “been caught” looking at porn. It is just assumed that the lack of sex is caused by him looking. But it seems at least to me that they weren’t having a lot of it before that either, yet the chain of events seems to be turned backwards.
In order to solve a situation like this, wouldn’t it be more fruitful to look at why they were unhappy with their relationship in the first place, instead of trying to find out what brain damage he will receive from looking at porn…?
That is an interesting meme – that withholding is presumed to be due to a wrong being done by the male partner. Along with the assumption of the “wrong”, there is the parallel assumption that a woman’s desire is selfless, for if there was no wrong, it would be given freely and often. It goes to the heart of the ethics of well-being and how it is assumed to be altruistic and more in the domain of the womanly essence. Mother nature.
Great point, Elissa. There is a parallel assumption at play here. Even if it did hold true that in every case, it’s assumed that the man did something wrong to not *get* sex, it assumes that sex is *all* for the man’s pleasure. That the woman gets nothing out of it and that sex is something she gives away for good behavior or, as you said, out of altruism.
haha, if men witholding sex, most women always assumed that they :
1. Cheating
2. Addictied to Porn
3. Gay
Never women ask this , ” well maybe he just tired, maybe you dont treat him well, you dont make him feel like a men, bla bla bla ” like they always did when women witholding sex
Bullshit