Double Standards regarding intimacy

[DoubleStandardsISee]

I've become increasingly aware of the double standards that women in particular are held to over the last year. What saddens me is that this seems to be the case even for some of my long standing male friends. I've decided that I will challenge this whenever I can and would like to ask the community for their input on how to effect meaningful change.

The below examples are both true, and I personally know all the people I'm talking about. Trigger warning of SA.
Example 1: married couple. Husband has a serious accident 3 years into the marriage and ends up in a wheelchair. Physical limitations caused by the trauma he has suffered make intimacy really difficult for 10+ years after the accident. Wife does all she can to look after and care for husband, and because she loves him, she accepts that intimacy may look different moving forward. She gives him time to heal, and their relationship becomes stronger than ever. Male friends think this is no more than the husband is entitled to and praise the wife for standing by him no matter what.
Example 2: different married couple. Wife survived SA in childhood. Husband aware of this for 6 years prior to marriage and seems supportive. A year before the wedding unforeseen circumstances bring the SA that the wife has suffered back into the spotlight. Wife has a trauma response to this, and intimacy suffers between the couple. She arranges and takes part in counselling to try to deal with this before the wedding. Intimacy improves, and children enter the equation. Fast forward to 3 years after the wedding and the husband starts to tell his wife that he feels hard done by and that he sees the lack of intimacy prior to the wedding as the wife "withholding" sex. This is in his mind justification for treating her badly. Male friends see this very differently to my female friends and think that the man is justifiably angry, and that she should have just made herself do the deed regardless of the CPTSD she was suffering.
I find it inconceivable that anyone would think in this way and really want the words to make them understand how wrong this is. Any ideas?

@DoubleStandardsISee

Example 2 husband is obviously a selfish man child 🙄 who needs validations on how feels about being a man on via doing anything with sex

He sounds like he feels inadequate and confuses intimacy as something else instead

I think 🤔 he needs to re-evaluate his thoughts on intimacy entirely as this marriage will not last for sure,

Is he man enough or too much of a man child to be able to address this issue effectively
Such as genuinely apologising to her ect

He really needs to back off totally with pressuring arising attitudes around this subject

I don't hold up much hope for this marriage

I think wife could be better off whithout him ...

So how do I explain this to my male friends? Is there any hope they'd ever get it? Or am I wasting my time?!

Does the friendship group know the full story? That she's a survivor of abuse? It's not often openly discussed that's all. I think everybody should STFU and let the couple work through it themselves.

Yes they do, she was quite open about it. And just as horrified as I was with their reaction.

@DoubleStandardsISee

I 🤔 think just maybe just a few of or just one or two of them male friends more like it,
may just get it
, the word intimacy, "
as in they might be able to have the ability to reflect and think in a more consistent considered more emotionally mature insightful way,
the thing is they are so often so insecure or and are desperate to feel part of boys are just will boys group",
Society's infamous social Straight Jacket,

Time for a Dear John letter me thinks 🤔 and the same for @DoubleStandardsISee DP too..

So in example 1, a woman does what a man wants and male friends praise her.
In example 2, a woman doesn't do what a man wants and male friends criticise her.

Do you really find this inconceivable? Does it really seem so strange and hard to explain?

For men, life is not about logic or equality. It's about getting what they want. Usually at the expense of women.

Regarding example 1, how do you feel she should have handled the situation?
It sounds like you feel she does too much. Would you not want the same from your partner (regardless of sex)?

there are lots of studies comparing cases where husband has a long-term illness (cancer etc) or wife has a long term illness. wives are more likely to stay in the relationship and care for ill partner, husbands are more likely to leave.

it is not right but it does happen.

I’ve just been watching Instagram reels by a woman whose husband lives in a care home type facility (in the US). He has MS and they got to the stage where together they decided he would move there, enabling her to work to help pay for their 6 kids. The videos are her visiting him with their kids or her taking him out to see family/friends. The comments are either full of outrage that she isn’t caring for her husband full-time or men saying that’s she definitely cheating on him. Which is slightly different to your examples but similar attitudes.

Not specifically related to your examples but with regards to your title, I have seen the exact opposite frequently on MN

1. Woman no longer wants sex. Man is blamed for not pulling his weight, being a sex pest, should just masturbate (but not around her. God no.) and if he has a problem then his a bastard to thinks sex is more important than everything else in the marriage
2. Man no longer wants sex. Woman has every right to feel upset. Man needs to seek counselling and medication. It's everyone's right to have an intimate life. LTB.

When it comes to ideas for changing opinions, it is important to emphasize your feelings and beliefs, but also be open to open discussion and dialogue with your friends. Try to share with them your thoughts and feelings about these situations. It can also be helpful to offer your personal experiences or examples from other situations that can support your point. Try asking questions that might help your friends think about their beliefs and reconsider their positions.

It's very simple. Your male friends see women as there to provide a service and not as real fully fledged people. The "withholding" language isn't accidental, they see sex as a resource and the woman as fundamentally an object. The husband of the woman is a complete twat.

The first couple sound like what you would expect. If you love each other you wouldn't leave just for sex would you? Especially in the case of an accident.

In the same way women can't control the impact their hormones have on their mood / behaviour at times men can't control the fact their hormones lead to a need for physical release.

Women are the gatekeepers of intimacy in relationships and based on talking with friends it seems quite common for them to unilaterally to decide to end a the physical side of a relationship with little effort to resolve this.

For me a healthy relationship has a physical and spiritual aspect and without one its hard to have the other.

Take that incels shit somewhere else. So much ignorance in one post.

1. Why have you singled out women regarding affects of hormones? Every human being has hormones. Women absolutely can control the effect that their hormones have on their behaviour. Did you think that women are just poor emotional hormone driven irrational creatures of nature?

1. "men can't control the fact their hormones lead to a need for physical release" - men never "need a physical release" from having unwanted sex with women. They might want it, they do not need it. Ever. There are no exceptions to this, and never have been. What's the implication, that women like the one in the post should subject themselves to trauma so that men can have a physical release?

1. You're talking as if women don't also like having sex. Men like having sex, women like having sex, fine. Women aren't the "gatekeepers of intimacy", women are human beings who can decide whether to have sex. In the case described here, the woman is "gatekeeping" (disgusting term in this context) because of sexual assault related trauma. Men unhappy with their relationship can leave. In the examples given by the OP, the husband knew full well that the wife had trauma due to her sexual assault.

1. I clearly state both men and women are driven by hormones? Not sure what this is about.
2. I'm not sure how we jump straight to unwanted sex?
3. As a man, I can say for me and others sex is a need that plays a big part in mood, stress, forming bonds etc.
4. It's the woman who decides when / if a couple has sex in the vast majority of cases.
5. The cases listed are pretty uncommon, where as losing interest in intimacy (for whatever reason) is a standard grip from men.
6. Men can leave relationships but the bias in family law / society makes it very unappealing for them to do so. This is supported by facts rather than feelings.

I won't engage with you further. Sex isn't a need. What would happen to you, would you die?

It's cool to have different opinions, I support you in having yours.

I'm a bit confused by your definition of need regardless.

@DoubleStandardsISee, sorry to write as a man.
It was in middle age that I have been struck by many things that I was oblivious to.
That said, I think of women who act selflessly in relationships and in my male group, it has been seen as exemplary. When one of my friends had a brother commit suicide and he headed back to the family, he cancelled a weekend away with his girlfriend. That the gf understood and actually went and supported him was news that spread fast as an exceptional thing.
I knew a man whose wife stayed with him when his neck was broken during rugby. That she stayed was genuinely admired.

I have in my later years encountered men whose attitudes hit me as predatory and entitled. That said, the second case would be up there (although not the worst).
I hear these cases, and I wonder how we can live in such different worlds. And I as that as a genuine question.

@Sweden99 There are men like that too. Norman Tebbit of all people is a striking example of a man who basically gave up a high powered career to care for his wife - as far as I can see he did an exemplary job until her death. That being said it is much rarer - divorces are 6 times more likely to happen when the woman gets cancer than when the man gets cancer. What is more... icky is that the type of cancer with the highest chance of divorce for women is cervical cancer (probably not a coincidence that cervical cancer makes sex extremely painful). So definitely not all men! But a much greater portion of men than women are much more likely to bail if the relationship shifts into one where they need to take on caring responsibilities - especially if it means their "needs" aren't being met. Which is one thing. Its more annoying when you get others trying to justify the difference/refusing to see the disparity as in the OPs example. Or insisting that women are in the wrong for "gatekeeping" sex and that men can't be expected to live without it, even when the woman they supposedly love is sick/suffering extreme trauma. I think its easier for the men you mention to feel genuine admiration but it doesn't always mean they would do the same.

I think its linked to this phenomenon (I was looking for the article for another thread) The hero tax: Why 'selfless' workers are professionally exploited - BBC Worklife

Basically, you can admire someone for being selfless but that doesn't always translate into seeing their needs as equal to yours, or expecting other people to act in a similarly selfless way.

@anothernamitynamenamechange, That was the hospital in Seattle? It was a horrific case.
We also see many cases in teh UK, where statistically men are less able to hold their marriage together if they lose their job or fall ill, where women are even more likely to hold their marriage together if they fall ill or lose their job.
These things seem to change by generation and nation. My question was more about the perception of things.
If I may, MN seems incredibly shocked and outraged than I think most men in my social circle woudl find disappointing but not at all unusutal.

@Sweden99 It isn't just the Seattle hospital study - is fairly consistent Men Leave: Separation And Divorce Far More Common When The Wife Is The Patient | ScienceDaily (Seattle) . Cancer and Relationship Dissolution: Perspective of Partners of Cancer Patients - PMC (nih.gov) (german study, shows gender disparity but theres less of one) A Systematic Review: The Effect of Cancer on the Divorce Rate - PMC (nih.gov) (mentions cervical cancer). The men who leave their spouses when they have a life-threatening illness | Women | The Guardian (unscientific graniad article with anecdotes and clickbaity title). I didn't bring it up to start a "men bad, women good- no men good, women bad" war. (but I showed you mine now you show me yours). Just that it is something seen reasonably often so it wouldn't be a surprise that those attitudes exist in the wild. Its weird because its like you want to correct me/disagree with me but what I was saying corresponds to what you were saying really.
But I don't think people are necessarily outraged at the one man having that attitude - its the fact that its shared by the whole social circle.

@anothernamitynamenamechange thanks for sharing that, I didn’t know that about Norman Tebbit. I’m too young to remember him as a politician but vaguely knew the name. I’ve just read a fascinating interview about him talking about the carers etc.

@afternoonoflife its interesting because a lot of his politics (the closure of the mines etc) I really wouldn't agree with (and even he said years later it had had massive downsides particularly for working class young men). But stuff like that humanises politicians. John Lyndon/Johnny Rotten is another one who was married to the same woman for 45 years and nursed her full time through dementia at the end. I do think that how people act in those situations shows more about their central character/decency/loyalty than anything else really.

Yes I’d agree. I also knew someone of similar age, background and politics to NT who did the same for his wife. I didn’t particularly get on with this person but it does make you see them in a new light.