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?

@anothernamitynamenamechange, thank you!
You are quite right. I am shocked.
I was being pulled up about seven years regarding stats showing that illness and jobless in a husband were positively associated with divorce and negatively associated with the wife. This was not a misogynistic point, the argument was that women cope with these things whereas men fall to pieces. I woudl say this was specifically regarding the UK, but I cannot find the references I was shown then. Thanks! I needed the update.

Was it this? (PDF) Why does unemployment lead to divorce? Male-breadwinner norms and divorce risk in 30 countries (researchgate.net)

@anothernamitynamenamechange, There are dozens in Google including grown up ones. And we have seen it ourselves I am sure.

You are wrong because your perspective excludes any concept of men or what normal men want. You look at it from the privileged feminine perspective, a product of decades of toxic feminity which says men are bad and only want one thing. Which is nonsense, of course.

Of course the guy is upset - who would want to be in that situation? Why no compassion for him? He's with a woman for whom sex is a problem. He loved her and put up with it for that reason, but it is still a problem now. People can't always know what they can tolerate before it comes to the test.

They feel men are entitled to sex but women are not. They also feel men are entitled to caring support and women are not.
There are no words which will change these men into decent human beings. They suck. Get them out of your life if at all possible.

That's the best example of unintentional irony I've seen in quite some time. Kudos on your tone deafness and inability to read a room as well. You're on a roll. Perhaps I should add a t in front of roll.

My entirely unscientific observation is that men tend to vaguely endorse other men’s poor behaviour by just ignoring it and talking about other stuff, while women tend to act in accordance with their value system and be much more black/white about right/wrong ways to act.

There is definitely an imbalance of how men and women treat each other when the other is incapacitated. Men are much worse.

That said, I think the above is probably also about a lack of understanding/ sympathy for trauma, and the fact she "knew about it beforehand".

I'd be interested what your male friends said if you reversed the sexes but kept the stories, eg a man with battle PTSD that flares up again unexpectedly, or a woman who is physically incapacitated.

This is what I observe too.

Women tend to police within their own in group more harshly as well. So women will judge other female friends behaviour if anything more harshly than they would a stranger and "hold each other to account" more. Whereas men are the opposite - very judgemental off other groups bad behaviour, will tolerate and turn a blind eye to much worse behaviour in their friends. Their are negatives to both these traits at their most extreme**. But it also means that at the lower end of the scale yeah, men will just endorse their other friends bad behaviour rather than challenge it in a way which women find incredibly frustrating.

**The extremes being the toxic purity spiral of doom. And some of the worst things that can happen in e;g brutal war.zones

There is another thread on MN at the moment where a woman is considering cheating on her incapacitated husband due to no sex for 10 years and no likelihood of it in future.
A good number of women are telling her to go for it, that it's selfish for him to expect her not to.
Plenty telling her not to as well, might be an even split.

People on MN hold women to massively higher standards than they would generally hold themselves to or their friends IRL.

That's because its an internet forum so everything is more exaggerated/heightened (and often why the internet is so toxic. Think 4chan versus tumblr). But in real life, to a lesser degree, the pattern still holds. Ordinarily it isn't as extreme (and therefore healthier) but you are still way more likely to find purity spirals among women, or women harshly judging/gossiping about Susan's affair even if they wouldn't say it to Susan's face. Whereas men at their worst are more likely to egg each other on to do bad stuff. Or at least not reign their friends in. Obviously there is a healthy middle ground most people sit in. But toxic female group dynamics and toxic male group dynamics look different.

Would you say the same if the genders were reversed in that scenario. Because there are plenty of men for whom sex is a problem

@Sweden99 There are some notable exceptions to this rule: Hugh Thompson Jr. - Wikipedia

@anothernamitynamenamechange , .
Yes, that seems right. You specifying that male dynamics at their worst is appreciated, as I think my general experiences would surprised MN with how sensitive nad benevolent they are. Affairs are certainly not generally egged on. We had a very self centered man who did not consider his wife and he has been excluded (with contact kept with the wife to try and support her). I am not sure it is typical, but it is not untypical.

That said, I was once in a marriage where my wife did not work, did not do housework, did not want children and did not want sex (she could, but used porn while I was at work). I was struggling to fix it, but I was shocked that I had friends who made it clear they would turn a blind eye when a woman expressed interest in me (MN said I was being abusive to my wife in contrast). It is has some similarities to this situation, other than my ex-wife creating the situation by choice and her being better off on her own.

I like the phrase "purity spiral" though. I think it might be patriarchy in action, demanding the perfect victim and an imperfect victim is excluded. I can recognise, with men, that when most decide to be an asshat, those that do not conform shame and thus anger the others. I think we find this everywhere (I have found myself failing like this).

Men might be much worse but people are more ready to believe the worst about women. Including before they have all the facts. The thread about Ruth Langsford and Eamon Holmes is a good example. Quite a few posters assuming and insisting she was leaving him due to his health problems and because of his lack of mobility. Radio silence from them once the truth came out that he had been messaging another woman.

I have no doubt in my mind about the way i would be viewed if i were to leave DH. He became disabled after a heart attack in 2006 but we havent had a physical relationship since 1996. People see what they want to see especially when it involves womens needs!

See what i mean

BeaTagger · Today 00:04
Ruth has tossed him to the side, poor fella can barely walk. Meanwhile she hawks overpriced sweat shop tat on QVC. I've gone right off her.