Does a more equal marriage mean less sex?

[ashesgirl]

www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/does-a-more-equal-marriage-mean-less-sex.html

This article is irking me on a number of levels. Let's discuss!

I started reading it but got quite annoyed by it and gave up. Sorry!

Not that I've noticed, it means either of us is free to initiate or say no and work on improving the experience for both of us.
But then that article covered all sorts of stuff, including spousal nagging because of clothing left on the floor after exercise. She should have joined him in the shower, appreciated his muscles and then afterwards he could have done a load of laundry including his sweats.

I find working impacts far more on our sex life, and being tired as a consequence. What with being old as well.

I gave up.

I don't like the writer's smug boyfriend.

I don't think equal relationships are a bad thing and if they lead to less sex, I suspect it's because the man isn't the sort to pressure someone in to doing what he wants regardless of what she wants.

And unlike some of the women on MN who think you need to "provide sex" to your partner a woman in equal relationship thinks you have sex when you want to.

I didn't get to the end but I thought the statistics I did read were fairly interesting but not surprising.

In partnerships with very traditional roles, sex is possibly more frequent because you are being a bad wife if you decline and an unmanly man if you're not always up for it.

That said, the difference is only 1.5 times a month.

Having less sex isn't a bad thing if you are happier and more equal in other aspects of your relationship.

I gave up because I felt the tone of the article was criticising equality because it lead to less sex...and that's a negative, bullshit message I couldn't be arsed with. But, I didn't get to the end so maybe I'm wrong to say that.

The thing I read that surprised was women in traditional-role-relationships reported increased sexual satisfaction. Without knowing the method and sample size etc. I don't know what to think about this. But the cynic in me speaks from personal experience in saying that it's easier to have lower standards of sexual satisfaction when you are in a sexist/unequal relationship; you don't expect as much thus are pleased with the bare minimum.

Could it be that in an equal relationship, one of the partners feels more able to refuse sex and not feel coerced?

And is the frequency of sex the barometer of the quality of a relationship anyway?

This is what annoyed me the most, how if sex is reducing (slightly) then that's a bad thing and these women chasing equality are to blame.

Bloody annoying.

I would of said the kind of woman that put up with an unequal marriage are the kind that have poor quality sex to please their partner.

Is this the sandwiches article?

What a simplistic assumption on the writer's part - that more sex = better sex.

TBH though she might not be saying that. After a third of the way through I lost the will to live.

Agree with everyone else

I managed about 1/3 and skimmed the rest. Way too long and not interesting enough to keep me at it. The dinner party anecdotes were really annoying, something about the way she related them really grated.

Anyway.

Yes to why assume more sex is the best outcome.
I don't know whether she covered the coercion / not wanting feeling able to say no argument. She says in her article that men tend to want to have more sex than women, on average. So is it not the obvious answer that when a woman is in an equal relationship, she feels able to say no when she doesn't fancy it?

Ah, no.

So these article says to me that it's hard to have the energy - emotional or physical - for sex when life is so busy with kids, work, commuting etc.

Yup.

There have been articles claiming the reverse in the recent past - "Feminist men get more sex" or something like that.

I was confused by the description of the study - and I think it was just one study - as some data seemed to be from the 90s and some more recent.

Also I have no idea if it was corrected for number and age of children, for example.

Well TBF I think she made the whole thing up and grabbed a couple of stats that supported what she wanted to say. And even then they didn't support them very well

She certainly didn't verify her dinner party conjectures.nor did she mention the sex:chores ratio in her own relatuonship with smug boyf.

Let's say you are in an "equal" relationship and having the stereotypical "two shags a week", that's 104 a year. Is it worth giving up equality to get to 122 shags?

I think the extra time you'd be spending on chores is more than the extra time you'd be spending in bed...

I assume this was a peer reviewed study so the results were statistically significant but I would love to know what the random difference between two groups of couples is (say those sitting on the left and those on the right of a restaurant)...

It probably means less crap sex

Or more sinisterly, less rape :(