Anti-marital sex conspiracy?

[specialmagiclady]

Recently I have noticed myself and friends almost boasting about how little sex we "let" our husbands do "at" us.

"if he thinks he's getting any, he's got another think coming"
"Marital unpleasantness"
"Oooh I can't be bothered with all that any more"

I thought this attitude went out with the ark - or at least with reliable contraception.

I actually really like having sex with my husband. It's fun. But - like the ironing - it does take a bit of effort to get into the mood. Also like the ironing, it's really worth doing and I always feel "i should do that more..."

But look! Here I am comparing the glorious union of two people who love each other to the world's most hated household task.

When we were in our twenties we were all "ladettes" boasting about how much, how often, who with etc. Now in our late 30s early 40s we've reverted to the Les Dawson stereotype. What went wrong???

Is it that married women "aren't allowed" to enjoy sex? If so, who made that rule?

Maybe it's a combination of the truth, for some, that their sex drives (or that of their husbands) has plunged as they older, with a more general feeling of resentment. I am wondering if the ones who "don't let" their husbands have sex with them, are also the ones who express "but what can you expect from a man?" type feelings, or have husbands who refuse to participate in childcare/housework?

actually elephants, I read in Wifework that the more wifey things a woman does for her husband, the less regularly they have sex. It's probably a mix of resentment on the part of the woman, and possibly the man not feeling sexy around a woman who treats him like his mother did (ironing his shirts, making his breakfast etc)
I can see there being some truth in that. It could be that the less housework a woman does, the better her sex life.

My house-keeping is appalling and I have very little sex.

Not sure what that proves .

it's far better than spending loads of time on housework and having very little sex

I think it's tiredness, I really do.

And also, women are conditioned to believe that having their own sex drive, ANY sex drive, is abnormal and dirty, so when their sexdrive drops, instead of trying to find out why, they just feel relieved.

Domesticity can get you down too. I don't live with my boyfriend, he lives 40 miles away and when he visits, he brings his stuff in a bag. His stuff = not my problem. I always look forward to seeing him, as the only demands he makes on me are for my company.

My Wife married me because she loves me.

I married my Wife because I love her.

It's not a quait set-up with a white picket fence and cookies baking in the oven.

Grabbing company when you want it might suit some but it certainly doesn't suit the majority.

Each to their own ehh?

Hmmm

I think it is one of those "girls in-joke" type things - yes it is like rolling your eyes about a man who can't cook baked beans - the same sort of conversation.

I think that these things are "girls in-jokes" to enable women to talk about things that they actually feel bad about, but without having to face up to them. The rolly-eyes about men being useless amongst a group of women enables them to share with other women their frustration that their DH won't cook (or whatever it might be) without having to actually confront it properly. The rolly-eyes about sex serves the same purpose. Women feel guilty if they don't have sex as much as their partner would like, there are various reasons for the guilt. Making a joke out of it with the girls takes the pressure off, normalises it, means they don't have to actually do anything about it.

POssibly... That was a bit off teh top of my head

SardineQueen - I think you're right. It is our way of discussing it in a light fashion.

That said, I feel disappointed that our generation who part of the reclaiming sex and enjoying it thing are now so proud not to be doing it.

Do you think it's part of the whole 50s housewife revival? At the cute end, Cath Kidston, at the scary end, repression of women's sexuality?

"Do you think it's part of the whole 50s housewife revival? At the cute end, Cath Kidston, at the scary end, repression of women's sexuality?"

I dont think it's that sinister. I think it's just that sex in a long term relationship requires work and there are many factors that get in the way of a good sex life- tiredness, stress, money worries, kids up all night. I think the less you do it, the more platonic the relationship becomes and the harder it becomes to kick start it again.

My pissed anecdotal fact finding (people only admit this stuff when drunk) suggests that most people in 10+ yr relationships are not doing it much at all.

How about a sex strike?

So, in Belgium to you can refuse to have sex and help save the country all at once!

I've noticed this too and I agree it's about a power struggle, but one that is astonishingly self-defeating for women who previously loved sex. Some of it seems to be borne out of resentment that their male partners don't share the load and there is a parent-child dynamic pervading the relationship, but giving out sex as a "reward" for "good behaviour" is simply perpetuating that dynamic and means that women lose out on a source of pleasure.

I agree that these light-hearted conversations are a way of letting off steam about deeper resentments, but this sort of low-level disrespect is actually very damaging to relationships. These conversations rarely portray the real source of the resentment either, or pave the way for honest discussions about how to stop the rot and equalise the power within the relationship.

I might understand why a lazy male partner can kill a woman's libido, but so often, it is about unpicking why a woman is enabling that laziness and thinking that sex is the only "weapon" she has - a weapon that she inversely uses on herself by denying herself a sex life. It is that sort of flawed thinking that I'm interested in challenging.

If it helps, OP, I resolved a long time ago not to join in with conversations like this and to give my contrary experience and point of view. This has on occasions, led to a few private conversations with friends who were intrigued about my different stance on this issue. I don't think it helps at all to collude in these jokey conversations, because it perpetuates it as a new "norm", when it really shouldn't be.

Well it would be in my case Dittany and the OP seems to confirming this too, about her own desires and those of her friends, when she knew them years ago. Very few human beings are truly asexual, although there are some. If these women's relationships are monogamous and they have, in the past enjoyed sex then yes, I assume they will want to have fulfilling sex lives again at some point.

I agree with WWIFN to some extent.

And everyone else as well.

Sex is still seen as the one area where women actually have some power - in many relationships, the only area. This horrible gatekeeper role, is one which is forced on them and in which many collude. I think a lot of women would prefer to have a healthy happy sex life and a man who does his fair share of child care and housework than to have the power of with-holdins sex, which is a pretty joyless power IMO. Unfortunately, for many women the option of a man who does his fair share of housework and treates them with respect, isn't on offer, so they revert to that gatekeeper role often against their will, but not being able to see any other option.

And of course, for many women - shockingly many - sex just isn't that good. How many threads have I read on MN from women much younger than me, who believe they can't have orgasms, or that sex isn't that good. It's like the sexual revolution never happened. And if sex is a boring intrusion, rather than a fantastic joy, then of course you're going to find it easier to use it as a negotiation tool than you would, if you wanted it as much as your partner did, because you are getting just as much pleasure from it.

Yes HerBex and I think it's better to look at why for some women, sex is her only perceived source of power and examine the root causes of that perception - or reality, in some cases. Like you, I often despair about the bargains younger women seem to make on MN, about all sorts of issues in their romantic relationships.

I also agree with WWIFN overall too. However, I think that "unpicking why a woman is enabling that laziness" takes the onus away from the man improving his behaviour. It once more puts the onus on the woman either changing her behaviour or her outlook, when the man is at fault.

I do agree that using sex as a weapon isn't good for anyone but I genuinely think in some cases that the woman doesn't want sex with her partner because of the way he is treating her. So in that scenario is it a bargaining tool or is it a real state of affairs?

Oh yes, often the reason women lose desire for the men they are with, is because the men treat them like shit.

They don't think the men treat them like shit and the men certainly don't think they treat them ike shit; but let's face it, if you are doing 80% of the shitwork in the house and he has 15 hours a week more leisure time than you do, even if you tell yourself that he does far more housework than your friends' husbands, he is still treating you like shit and I think that at some deep unconscious level, women are aware of this and deeply resentful of it.

And that's a massive passion-killer. Who feels desire and lust and the urge to play nicely with someone who is exploiting them?

And it's not discussed because housework is loudly deemed to be far too trivial to discuss as a real issue. Because women do most of it. The three things which were always quoted as the cause of marital conflict were: money, sex, children. Housework is simply ignored, but I really strongly believe that that should be added to the list, because IME and IMO, it's the single biggest resentment that most women have in their relationships. And it goes unrecognised both by themselves and by the men they're with.

"Is it that married women "aren't allowed" to enjoy sex? "

Who made the rules that women, married or otherwise, have to want lots of sex? I think that pretending that a woman's libido alway stays as active and lively as it was when she was a 20 yr old (assuming it was even then) is a kind of tyranny that suits men very well. Then if your partner doesn't want sex you can put it down to something being wrong and it being her fault.

Yes that's also true OI.

But also, men suffer the same tyranny. Not every bloke wants sex every day in his thirties either. But the myth is that they're always desperate for it.

i think its definitely true that the more a man does around the house the more sex his wife/girlfriend will want to have with him.

my ex did bugger all round the house and i felt like his mum or carer - not sexy and probably as a result i just didn't fancy him and sex always felt like a chore.

DH in contrast does a lot, despite working ft and me being at home, and it just makes me love and appreciate him more, which naturally = more sex.

i don't think women would "withhold" sex if they were 100% happy in the relationship.

Orm I must stress, I am responding to the OP's initial post and not wider issues about age-related low libidoes or asexuality. I agree with HerBex though that men also suffer from the stereotype (and social conditioning) that they must be ever-ready for sex.

As we have also seen from the Relationships board, there are lots of women living in sexless relationships with men who won't have intimacy. Usually, those women are told by several posters that they are suffering a form of abuse, when I think it is far more complex.

WRT the issues in this thread, what's the effect of that resentment, if it results in sex being used as a bartering mechanism? It's not the adult way of expressing dissatisfaction with the relationship, is it? It's a very passive-aggressive tool and if a woman actually wants to have a fulfilling sex life at some point, ultimately self-defeating. However, if either party doesn't actually want to have sex again, but would prefer not to be open about that choice, there is some pay-off in letting the source and the cause of the resentment continue.

It frustrates me that relationships get to this point, when it should be perfectly obvious without having to be told, that work should be shared evenly, or else there will be resentment. It's not rocket science, but equally there is nothing to be gained from putting up with this and expressing the resentment indirectly, unless it is hiding a very different choice or pay-off.

In the UK, sex is never the only power a woman can enact in a relationship. The power to leave a lazy, selfish, sexually inadequate man, is a far greater power.

I'm so glad I brought this up!

I'm completely ok with people's libidos dropping and rising depending on how exhausted they are.

I just wonder why we have to have this apparent pride in fending off the advances of one's husband.

For the record, my very DH is a wonderful dad, comes home after a full day's work and deals with the washing, does jobs that need doing round the house** without having to be asked yet sometimes I still think "Ha!" when I have successfully deflected a tentative advance.

Then I go "doh!" 'cos actually sex with him is FUN.

**That said, perhaps the "don't want to shag your mother" thing goes both ways! Watching your husband iron is not the most arousing foreplay!