I agree that there are plenty of people who appreciate this but it's the public orthodoxy – that sex is the be-all and end-all, that a normal loving relationship will always include regular sex – that both concerns me and props up the sex and porn trade.
Exactly. The wife in that letter could easily have been me. I always had a low libido but any desire I had dropped off completely the moment I had children, and never returned. I consider this a natural development, I find it so sad that many women are then encouraged to seek therapy to regain desire, or feel obliged to role-play the sexy temptress to keep the husband, or think of themselves as dried up prunes -- because our culture tells us that to be a full human being you have to have an active and enjoyable sex life.
I am fortunate, though, in that for the past 40 years or so I have been deeply involved in a culture that sees sexuality both male and female as a phase and not necessarily the be all and end all -- that there is life after sex, and it might even by better. For me it is definitely better. I practice meditation, and over the years the joy that has developed slowly over time is far deeper and more permanent than any pleasure I have ever gained from sex.
And I know men who feel the same. One of my closest friends is a man I've known most of my adult life -- I met him in India. He was a virile, good looking, very attractive man who could really have any woman he wanted. Back in the had several girlfriends, one after the other, who all wanted to marry him. I was so jealous of them!
He could have had me, as I was secretly in love with him, but he chose for us to be just close friends, and now he is perhaps the closest friend I have, who knows me best. He remained a bachelor, and eventually chose a celibate life, as he believes, as Vedantic philosophy teaches, that sexuality can by sublimated into a different, and superior, kind of experience. So now we chat long and often, about sex and Corona and everything else. He lives a quiet and sexless life in India, and has done so now for decades. He phones me regularly to chat. Last Saturday, most recently.
In the meantime I married someone else and had two children. As in the OP, my husband continued to desire me physically and it grew really tiring. As in one of the comments in the Guardian article said, it was like being coerced into playing something you'd long grown out of, like Barbies or something. The physical act which I'd once enjoyed now seemed just silly and and even gross.
I was prepared to let my husband fulfill his needs elsewhere, and I told him so, but he only ever wanted me, which made it difficult... I loved him, and I knew he'd always be true to me in his heart, but if I couldn't fulfill this desire then why not; I was confident of his love. But he wanted me.
Then he got very ill. I was his carer for years, until the work became too much for me. He went into a care home and I visited every day, talked to him, loved him, held his hand until he died.
I only wish he had found a way, like the other man mentioned above, to move on from sexual desire. This "moving on" is very much a part in some Eastern cultures, where gaining control of sexual urges is regarded as way of gaining enormous inner strength, and is admired -- while being in thrall to one's penis is regarded as a weakness.
It's all a matter of perspective. Our reverence of sexual desire and sexual fulfillment in the West, seeing it as the height of a fully lived life, is cultural. There is life after sex, and it can be very good indeed. Once you start to believe that, even if you are a man, it's a step forward. You are no longer led by your penis, and sexual desire is something you can divert into something else that leaves you less needy.