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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think its mens fault that women are "less up for it"

114 replies

MoanerLeaser · 09/10/2019 07:19

NC.

So I've just had a bloody awful nights sleep and need to rant. I was woken up 3 times in the night by DP pawing me. Dont worry, not in a scary horrible way, just in a 'I want sex' way.

Over the years; with various men and through listening to my girlfriends and stories of them with men; I'm starting to realise or at least think that this whole "Haha, women want sex less than men and it's so frustrating for the men" trope is actually mens own doing.
Collated examples of how men make it so women actually can no longer be arsed:

  • Being bad tempered for a stint and then just expecting you to suddenly forget that in bed
  • Nothing particularly inspiring or exciting happening in day to day life: how about getting up the motivation to actually go out, see each other in a different context, to get the juices flowing? How about trying to seduce me?
  • No real tenderness: How about a massage? How about physical warmth and touch that doesn't necessarily have to lead to sex?
  • Not making a woman feel special. How about some flowers? How about a well placed compliment?
  • Low energy: Quite a few men are actually just lazy in bed. What's in it for me, if it's just about you lying there?
  • Lack of ideas: The above don't necessarily all apply to my own relationship but this one does: after a year or two of instigating role play, dressing up etc, it's like... So are you going to titillate me in any way then?

Sorry for the rant! I just think when you see comics or whatever laughing about "her not being up for it", maybe it's like- because you're not feeling me with desire. It's not women who are somehow low sex drive. I think women's sex drives are maybe more complex.

OP posts:
PerkyPomPoms · 09/10/2019 09:29

5am!! Confused

thesnapandfartisinfallible · 09/10/2019 09:35

He fucking woke me up after being told no the first time, sex would be the last thing on his mind.

ravenmum · 09/10/2019 09:35

The thing is, there are men who do all those things you mentioned, OP.
My bf and I both cook for one another, go out together and each make an effort to come up with interesting things to do together, sit together with a glass of wine and talk rather than just watching TV or something, try to really please the other in bed and not just RORO.
If you had dumped your dp after a few months, he'd probably be making more effort with his next partner (or the partner after next, if they all showed him he wasn't up to scratch) and you'd have chosen your next partner more carefully and also be having more fun.
Instead, you've accepted this one.

Cruddles · 09/10/2019 09:40

Behold! Some mansplainers and some MRAs to tell the OP her own thoughts and experiences are invalid. Fucking marvellous

the OP made a generalisation that it was "mens fault" for her personal situation, some people have countered that

Span1elsRock · 09/10/2019 09:42

My DH woke me once when our 1st DD was around 4/5 months. She hadn't slept through the night as yet, and most nights had me up around half a dozen times at least. I was in a deep sleep and was absolutely furious beyond words he'd been so selfish.

I told him if he wanted sex with an inanimate object to buy a blow up doll and if he ever woke me again, I'd divorce him and tell everyone why. He's never done it again.

HereTheyCome · 09/10/2019 09:46

But it's just like - in my own case for example, why would I always want to have the same sex in a dark room with you waking me up at 2am by playing with my nipples? Hello? Why dont you start by giving me a back rub? If theres no money to go out, why dont I come home from work ibe day to find you've cooked dinner and run me a bath or something? Get me in the fucking mood is what I'm trying to say, stop just waking me up at 4am by slowly grinding against me and expecting me to roll over in my PJs and be like "oooh baby!"

I just dont understand why so many men dont get this

No, I don’t understand it either. I have been trying to communicate the ‘back rub first’ thing I lose count how many times. Mine goes straight for the down below, no preliminaries, no nothing. When I get affronted, he can’t understand it, as he says he certainly wouldn’t mind if I went straight for his package. I guess women are just different. And men often plainly can’t be arsed to do it ‘our way’. They need 5 min start to finish, so should we. But it is sad to have that lack of fulfilment and intimacy. However, we often let this pass if other positive factors outweigh.

I dunno I think it's that for a lot of women there needs to be this sense that you are strongly desired. Not just a handy hole if you'll excuse my crudeness. So an even simpler thing to do, would be after dinner, to hold the woman's face between your hands and say "you are so beautiful you know". Then a long deep kiss. And then we're off!

My DH replies to this that yes, he feels all this, but he struggles to put it into words and actually say it. He is of the opinion that men who are too suave are typically dickheads who only want one thing from you and will tell you whatever you want to hear to get it.
9/10 this smooth talk is not sincere and they don’t mean what they say.

I have resigned myself to thinking women are from Venus, and men are from Mars, as sometimes it feels like we are speaking a different language and will never get each other.

Snog · 09/10/2019 09:47

Women would be less tired if men did 50% of the housework

RegretnaGreen · 09/10/2019 09:48

In general I agree with your list OP. I'm old, I've been around the block and I can see where you are coming from. If my DH woke me for any reason he would be under the patio though. Even he would consider what you have described as sexual assault to be honest!

Shellington5 · 09/10/2019 09:54

Time you taught him..lol. I understand what you mean, there is always the added pressure and thought of them going to strippers, prostitutes and paying for it. In my younger days, I sometimes felt like my body is never my own at times. I wonder why do we bother with them at all? cause so many societal ills with their biological directive. :D

BrokenWing · 09/10/2019 10:01

I just dont understand why so many men dont get this

Because you accept this from your dp?

Not all women accept this and not all men are like this. You can't fix all men, or women, but you have complete control to fix your own relationship issues.

Shellington5 · 09/10/2019 10:03

oh god no...just talking from past experiences. A lot of men will do whatever they can get away with, when their other halves backs are turned. Seen it countless of times..Not all men of course, but the majority.

Bibidy · 09/10/2019 10:14

Yep I'm with you OP.

My OH can be so inconsiderate...he will try it on when I've been at home all day struggling with a cold, or when I'm clearly not in the mood.

He's always giving me grief about not wanting sex in the mornings too. Every day he's pawing at me when he wakes up, even though I don't need to get up until after him.

It's very frustrating and selfish.

HereTheyCome · 09/10/2019 10:29

For example, we would have more sex if he didn't stay up really late watching TV then expect it when he got into bed. I need more sleep than him generally so I suggested we go to bed slightly earlier. He doesn't want to do this as he 'doesn't feel tired then'

Yep, this too. I have also invited my DH into bed earlier (10-ish), but he is not ‘ready’ until all the crap TV has been watched and it is going on midnight. Then I am just too tired to make any effort in bed and sleep becomes a much more pressing priority. What can you do?

And then he moans he gets shunned. So I moan back at him that I don’t get it enough! I wonder how long it is going to take for the penny to drop???

Never

SimonJT · 09/10/2019 10:33

If it was me being woken up it is almost guaranteed to be a yes please, but if I said no it wouldn’t then result in another wake up.

You shouldn’t really have to, but have you explained the next why you don’t want him to do it etc and has he actually listened properly or just listened so it looks like he cares?

JacquesHammer · 09/10/2019 10:36

but have you explained the next why you don’t want him to do it etc

Why should she have to?

There is never a time when "no is a complete sentence" should apply more than when someone turns down someone making unwanted sexual overtures!

SimonJT · 09/10/2019 10:39

Did you not see bit where I wrote “You shouldn’t really have to”?

Zaphodsotherhead · 09/10/2019 10:43

I've always put this down to the way men and women seem to be differently aroused.

For the men I've known (quite a few, I'm knocking on a bit), arousal has been purely physical, separate from their mindstate and, often, their physical state. They can want sex if they've got flu, a broken leg, have been upset or thwarted or are broke and don't know how to pay the bills. They can 'cold start' from nothing to full blown erection and begging for it within moments with no kind of stimulation other than their imaginations.

Whereas I need things to be 'right'. If my mind is elsewhere then sex is off the table. I can't be 'in the mood' if my head isn't there. But men haven't understood this disconnect, and they've wanted sex when I've been poorly, unhappy or otherwise distressed. Not their fault, but they were putting their experience of easy arousal and sex being almost a mechanical thing onto me, and imagining that, because they didn't see a nasty headache as a barrier to sex, the why should I?

Babdoc · 09/10/2019 10:45

So many sex problems boil down to the same old issues.

  1. Communication. Tell (or show) your DH what sort of foreplay you need and like. He’s not a mind reader.
  2. Male entitlement. Some porn obsessed, selfish shits of men think that: a) only their own needs matter and b) they own the rights to their wife’s body and can paw it whenever. They need rapidly disabused of these notions - or divorced.
  3. Female lack of assertiveness, boundaries, or knowledge of what works for their own sexual pleasure. My own generation of radical feminists made good progress on all these fronts, but I fear the present generation are losing ground. Our own boyfriends, back in the 70’s, earnestly bought books on how to please women in bed. Magazines ran articles helping women to locate their clitoris or achieve regular orgasms etc. Nowadays it’s all about how to endure anal sex or please your man. And mass exposure to violent internet porn has produced a generation of selfish, ignorant and potentially abusive men.
    Young women today desperately need a resurgence of old style feminism.
JacquesHammer · 09/10/2019 10:47

Did you not see bit where I wrote “You shouldn’t really have to”?

Yes, I also saw the next word which was "but"... which kind of always renders the first point with a little less importance.

She absolutely shouldn't even have to think about doing so.

powershowerforanhour · 09/10/2019 10:53

Our own boyfriends, back in the 70’s, earnestly bought books on how to please women in bed. Magazines ran articles helping women to locate their clitoris or achieve regular orgasms etc. Nowadays it’s all about how to endure anal sex or please your man.
Yep

MarianaMoatedGrange · 09/10/2019 11:02

Double yep! I was young in the 70s and my BF's took time to please me, and I learned how to please myself from mags.

Now it's all anal and BJs and wanting you to gag on it, apparently.

Ponoka7 · 09/10/2019 11:04

"Young women today desperately need a resurgence of old style feminism."

Except it would now be rejected because they also fought to prove that gender was a socially constructed myth. Now it's everything and young women are being brainwashed into thinking their experiences, life chances etc are equal.

AngelsSins · 09/10/2019 11:04

I can’t believe there are actually women on here defending men and pretending that an awful lot of them aren’t selfish in bed and think sex is something women should do for them. Wake up! You don’t need to rush to mens defence in every situation, you think they’d do it for you?!!

The facts speak for themselves 85% of women orgasm during lesbian sex. Only 61% of women climax with a man.

How many women have given a blow job or hand job to a guy and received nothing in return? How many men go down on a woman and expect nothing in return?

Sex, at least in this country, is very male centric, and that creates dissatisfaction for women. I don’t know why some women feel the need to defend this.

ravenmum · 09/10/2019 11:21

In case it came across differently, when I say that there are men who do think of women in bed (and out), I'm not defending men. I'm saying that women with a man who can't be arsed should keep looking.
Yes, point out that men can be shit at this, sure. But don't act like that simply can't be changed, so you should just accept it.

AngelsSins · 09/10/2019 11:30

I agree @Ravenmum, but you need to keep in mind that women, especially young women, are being conditioned by society and porn to also believe that this is their role, and that there is something wrong with them if they’re not happy about it. We need to acknowledge that.

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