Opinions on sex - bear with me

I think we should be careful of excusing shitty behaviours because of different sex drives. In an ideal world couples would both want sex at the same time but that doesn't happen often. If someone is unhappy with their sex life they should leave if it's that important to them. Well after talking to their partner.

I also think the way your wording the threat sparrow is off. I'm sure their are people who say "if we don't have sex then I'm leaving you" but if your not happy with the amount of sex in a relationship and it's making you unhappy why would you stay?

Sorry HowBadisthisPlease crossed posts. I am a slow typer. You say you don't want to make this thread about you. But you have shared a lot of details already. I see that you have now realised that your own marriage is over.

"
The relationship sites are full of complaints (?) about men failing to commit (settle down to monogamy and marriage etc). Those that then do commit are then told (here) that initiating sex is acting like a pest and then it could lead to being accused of coercion and even rape."

Could you point me to where anyone has said anything of the sort please?

Is it your opinion Slow, that regardless of changing sex drives, tiredness, illness, etc, the person who wants more sex in a relationship should get it?

It'llallbefine

I am 100% with you.

The relationship sites are full of complaints (?) about men failing to commit (settle down to monogamy and marriage etc). Those that then do commit are then told (here) that initiating sex is acting like a pest and then it could lead to being accused of coercion and even rape.

There is a thing called sex drive. Life on Earth wouldn't exist if this was not so. It would be wonderful wouldn't it if the sex drives of two people in a marriage / relationship were exactly aligned ar all times.

So what should a person do if that drive is not wanted / appreciated by the partner they have "committed" to? Just accept it?

The term "Wanker" is widely used on MN s a term of insult specifically against men. I'd be more worried if anyone (between say puberty and extreme old age or ill health) were not a wanker.

On this same site we then have a tirade of "anti-porn" anger and rage against affairs and adultery.

Those like HowBadisthisPlease , what is your realistic prognosis for your marriage? Were you honest with your husband / partner before you got married/ entered into the relationship and had a child abou your view "this is the ONE thing I can do to put my foot down" . Do you think he would have entered into the relationship if you had been honest with him before the commitment and children.

The fact is, there are plenty of men out there willing to have sex with a partner who clearly is just going along with it. Heck, it used to be a sketch in Harry Enfield - the husband pumping away while the wife reads a book or chats on the phone. It's an accepted underlying assumption I society - that men will look for sex and women will give it to them, not necessarily because they want sex themselves.

If you're right next to someone, kissing them, touching them, chatting to them it is blatantly obvious to any normal living human being whether that person is responding and interested or not. This notion that a person can't tell whether their partner really wants sex or not is ludicrous. And if a partner isn't sure, what's to stop them from asking? There's no definition of 'really' wanting sex, it just happens in the moment and it is not hard to tell if someone is actually enjoying jt or if they're just giving in.

I was repeating what I said it'll. I never said anything about your posts.

And yes, any person who has sex with someone when they know that person doesn't really want it is the lowest of the low

Define "really want" then - is that the same as "sort of" ??

Sex you actually want is pleasurable. Sex you have because you think your partner will leave is a chore.

I'm not reading your posts !? Where the f* did I suggest that a woman should let her self be raped to keep her husband ??

I don't know if you're actually reading my posts it'll. Where did I say a man can't initiate sex, or that the woman has to ripping her partner's clothes off? If you scroll up you will see that I said there's a distinct difference between having sex you're sort of in the mood for (which everyone does from time to time) and having sex because you believe your partner will leave if you don't.

I don't really want to talk about me on this thread but actually he doesn't seem to want sex either. He never makes a move anyway. I don't want to punish him, I just want to sleep in peace.

We are still together because he won't leave. He thinks I should leave but I won't. Eventually I will force him to leave by whatever legal means there are (?) and buy him out of the house. This will be when the dcs are a bit older and more self sufficient.

I'm going to find a way to get as much money as I can over the next 7 or 8 years and boost my earning power as much as I can. My aim is to be able to get him out and be at home 3 or 4 after school times out of 5 by the time both are in secondary school.

If he wants to have a relationship with me instead I would be open to that but he doesn't.

I wondered how long it would take for some nutter to come on here to claim that unless we're ripping our husbands clothes off prior to having sex we're being raped...

In simple terms so that you can understand it.

You do not have to have sex you do not want.

If you never want to have sex with your partner then wtf are you doing with them ?

If you never want to have sex with anyone then this will have an impact on which people will choose to have a relationship with you.

If you find yourself in a relationship with someone you love who generally wants to have sex a bit more often that you do, you can either try and reach a compromise by agreeing to have sex more often, or you can control the dynamic of the relationship by refusing it every time they ask. This (as MN is full of) breeds resentment and causes all sorts of issues. Is it not the case in most relationships that one person will ask the other if they fancy a bit ? Apparently on planet sparrowhawk, the correct response would be "if i were in the mood I would have asked you."

Sex with someone you love is generally pleasurable, it's totally unreasonable to paint this act as submitting to be raped for the sake of keeping the evil man happy. What a load of bullshit.

HowBadisthisPlease ?

Pretty bad I'd say. It sounds like you "use" not having sex as a weapon to punish him for a lot of wider resentment you hold (about work, about cooking, his mother, his laziness, his inability to clean the bathroom etc. etc.)

So while you live together, it sounds like the arrangement is far worse than if you simply had a platonic housemate or lodger. Or even just decided to go it alone.

Why are you still in the relationship? Would you even consider it to be a "relationship" ?

There is a distinct difference between going ahead and having sex you're sort of in the mood for and having sex purely because you feel your partner will leave if you don't.

Personally I don't think having a partner of either sex who gives you sex because you want it means the person getting what they want is similar to a rapist at all. Plenty of husbands and wives do things every day yes including sex to keep the other person happy - the man might not be that keen on oral sex or have a lower sex drive than his wife or not be bothered about diong it in a particular way but does so because that is what love and giving is about and vice versa. I don't think we should baulk from saying in most marriages with small children in many cases one or other is not that up for sex but they give it. I don't think sex is that big a deal that that is a problem at all whatever your gender. Look at sex drive - sometimes you want it every day. sometimes less often and in all relationships almost every day of the year you are compromising over who wants it and how and when and how long it will last. it's fine.

Obviously there may come a time when someone never wants it at all but is giving it regularly and that's because he or she is subject to coercive and possibly illegal control and separately if it's forced it's always illegal but the idea that every day mumsnetters only have sex because they both have found the perfectly conditions and level of desire to have sex is cloud cuckoo land - the reality is one of you is up for it and the other just about in the mood and you get on with it before the baby starts crying and chances are you'll be interrupted in the middle or one of you might fall asleep.

(It was Palmer above who mentioned rape apologism which is why I mentioned it.)

Sorry to kill the thread with that little outburst, it's fine really and I don't want to go on about me me me me me

I do however think that the idea that the majority of marriages are between mutually respecting supportive couples is a bit optimistic, I don't think marriage as an institution originated in that basis and I don't think (judging by statistics on housework for instance) individual men and women have found a way to transcend its origins. And, in my opinion, that is what I think is at the basis of the shared assumption among some women, voiced on here, that sex is a chore and that men who want that AS WELL AS EVERYTHING ELSE can be agreed to be pests

If your life is different, then great, but the above is reality, statistically

And yes, any person who has sex with someone when they know that person doesn't really want it is the lowest of the low.

Please - sounds like it's time to leave.

I used to love sex but I don't want it any more and I never have it. I dream about it and I sometimes think I should force myself to have it functionally, and try to enjoy it. but I can't because I am not emotionally in that place. I have never had a one night stand. I have never had sex without feeling something. and I don't feel like it. I don't feel like my partner "sees" me. I don't feel like I exist to him as an actual human. He resents me because I work long hours. I resent him because I work long hours but mainly because he's a lazy self centred idiot who has no idea how I live and what I do to keep this family going. If I try to tell him he goes mental with rage. I am closed to him. I can't communicate with him (and I have tried) so we just live in the same house. He means nothing to me because he has decided to massively undersestimate and disrespect me. He is able to do this because he has been fed the beliefs all his life that a. men are better than women and b. men deserve to be allocated a woman to make their lives easier. I do not make his life easy enough, in his opinion (and what mine is like is of no interest to him). So we will probably never have sex again. I don't care.

Amen Please.

It's all context isn't it. I feel like this is a predominantly female site so women feel freer to post about some things than they would elsewhere, or talk about in person.

I feel like this context for impatience for men suggesting (or over-suggesting) sex is probably a marriage which is, however marginally, arranged more for the man's convenience than the woman's, and in the man's head (subconsciously) this is exactly what relationships with women are for - domestic and sexual convenience. this is not really discussed in society at large - marriages are statistically better for men than women. Now that women are generally expected to WOH as well, without losing much if any domestic respsonbility, most women are exhausted and burnt out and they KNOW their husband has a better deal and they KNOW he doesn't see it that way at all and just accepts it and they KNOW society at large doesn't know or care and so they come on here to have a moan and get some fellowship in refusing the one damn thing they're allowed to say no to (thank goodness) - sex. It's something like: ok I will get up half an hour earlier than you, ok I will be woken up whenever the baby needs something, ok I will be disturbed by your snoring as you sleep through it, I will do all the school admin, I will arrange all the play dates, I will do all the healthy cooking and accept that on your one night to get dinner on the table you will sling pizzas on the table (which means that I NEVER can), I will listen to your mum rabbit on because she only talks to women, I will clean the bathroom 5 times the number of times you do it, and when you do it I will still end up putting the bucket away which you left there - BUT! - I do not have to LIKE it, and this is the ONE thing I can do to put my foot down,

And this is basically the only place where women can be honest and so they do, and they get empathy from other women who feel the same

"It is up to each spouse to decide if they will have sex they might not be in the mood for if that keeps the other partner happy. That is totally different from rape."
If you are willing to have sex with someone who you know doesn't really want it, but is only doing it to shut you up/try to keep you happy/stop you leaving them and the kids destitute, then even if you think this is totally different from rape, it actually makes you very similar to a rapist, in that you are actually willing (if not eager) to have sex with someone that you know doesn't really want it.

Let's cut the crap, that is rape! May be very difficult to prosecute or convict, but morally it is rape, making anyone who does it a rapist.

Sometimes All of the time I'm really, really glad I'm a dyke and that I don't have to put up with this seemingly endless male entitlement to female bodies.............

I never mentioned the word rape. Putting out the rubbish is hardly an onerous task, but having and unwanted child or putting up with a partner being awful is not something I'd advise a friend to do to prevent divorce. Would you?