# Just Whining



## frustr8dhubby (Dec 23, 2010)

OK, I am mainly just venting/whining here but I had to get this off my chest.

Last night I was talking to my wife just to see if she could even come up with a sexual fantasy. Big surprise, she could not. One of her comments though threw me off, she said something to the affect of "I've already done all that..". Now I am pretty sure she hasn't done anything that wild but it kind of set me off.

Not because she did things and I don't think there is really any jealousy at play. But I know she has done anal at least once, in the water, in a car, in a field, that type of stuff. Now she wouldn't consider any of that with me and it kind of pisses me off.

I know we are older/wiser/more self-conscience than when we were younger but she started much earlier than I did and I don't have many adventerous experiences and there are some things I would like to try with her. Hell even a different room in the house would be "adventerous"  A few weeks ago driving home at night I ask if she wanted to pull over and get it on in the SUV, to which I basically got laughed off...

Am I just being childish for letting this even slightly get to me?


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

frustr8dhubby said:


> OK, I am mainly just venting/whining here but I had to get this off my chest.
> 
> Last night I was talking to my wife just to see if she could even come up with a sexual fantasy. Big surprise, she could not. One of her comments though threw me off, she said something to the affect of "I've already done all that..". Now I am pretty sure she hasn't done anything that wild but it kind of set me off.
> 
> ...



Oh, my, no. She might frame it that way, but only as a means to control and belittle you. You aren't being childish for pursuing the things that you need. 

I would have taken a look at that list, went "Well, you didn't do them with me. I want to try all of them -- will that be with you, or without you?" and see what she says. If she isn't willing to "back over" some of the items from her purity test with you, she can't be very invested in the marriage.

And don't worry about "whining". Women want us to communicate, and you should, without fear of judgment. If she ever tries to bust you for whining, ask her "why is it communication when you complain, and whining when I complain?" See how she answers that.


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## Draguna (Jan 13, 2011)

frustr8dhubby said:


> OK, I am mainly just venting/whining here but I had to get this off my chest.
> 
> Last night I was talking to my wife just to see if she could even come up with a sexual fantasy. Big surprise, she could not. One of her comments though threw me off, she said something to the affect of "I've already done all that..". Now I am pretty sure she hasn't done anything that wild but it kind of set me off.
> 
> ...


Just venting, so no advice here. 

No, you are not being childish. You are communicating your needs, that is all. It's not whining and letting her end the discussion with saying it is childish will make you seem less confident as well.


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## Pandakiss (Oct 29, 2010)

i think yes and no.

yes...grow up and get over it..
no...gaasp...she said that...

when i read it my frist thought was...no she didnt say that, it was your imagaination at work...no..no..no, she said she would try in the future...no you heard it completly wrong...

but yea...little hurt..


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Ian,
I definitely remember something that happened about 20 years ago. It was somewhere around the end of the first or second year of marriage. My W looked at me and asked if she was the "best" I had ever had in bed. I was honest and said "pretty close - second best and not by that much". She asked who was better and why. I answered. She ummmm improved until she really was my best. 

While I think your answer below is harsh - it is exactly what I would say if I were FrustratedH. The thing is - this is not an area where I am inclined to be screwed with. I have never broken the sacred plane of fidelity. I have however had some completely honest exchanges with my W where I made it very clear that if she preferred someone else to "take over" her sexual responsibilities I would speedily arrange that without further discussion or fuss. 

The problem most guys have is they are not willing to take this conversation over the cliff if need be. I am. At risk of sounding like a broken record: I would never divorce my W over sex. However if she wants to stop and chooses to divorce me for finding a playmate - that is "her" problem not mine. I am a partner not a serf/slave. 




IanIronwood said:


> Oh, my, no. She might frame it that way, but only as a means to control and belittle you. You aren't being childish for pursuing the things that you need.
> 
> I would have taken a look at that list, went "Well, you didn't do them with me. I want to try all of them -- will that be with you, or without you?" and see what she says. If she isn't willing to "back over" some of the items from her purity test with you, she can't be very invested in the marriage.
> 
> And don't worry about "whining". Women want us to communicate, and you should, without fear of judgment. If she ever tries to bust you for whining, ask her "why is it communication when you complain, and whining when I complain?" See how she answers that.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

I think wanting anal, in a car, in a field, in a restaurant bathroom, yadda yadda is really a sign that you're a healthy guy. I don't think it's strange or even too much to expect your wife to want to do these things with you.

The problem is that it's not your wife's fault either because she just doesn't understand that this actually is a really big want of yours to the degree that it is. Nobody teaches us these things and women get mixed messages.

I think of it like this personally. If you are a good husband and you listen to her and fulfill her needs even when you may not want to, that it's not unfair to deserve the same. Talk to her honestly and don't be afraid to express how important it is to you.

I was sexually abused by my father at 14. When it all came out as I spoke out pretty shortly afterwards, my parents told me it was because my Mom had withheld sex from my dad for 3 years (this came out while in therapy). 

OK, that really screwed me up and the truth is that he should have gone to a prostitute or had an affair with an adult or done anything besides do that to me...but when I grew up I learned one thing from the experience, men need freaking sex and it is how they get a feeling of well being and happiness in a relationship. 

Screwed up that I had to learn it this way, I think men need to begin to speak up and stop being afraid to admit that this is in fact the truth. You can be a good husband, good father and still get your brains screwed out by your wife. Being married should never equate suffering 50 years of boring sex. In fact, it should be a license to safely and happily experience amazing physical things with one another for your entire life.


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## DawnD (Sep 23, 2009)

IanIronwood said:


> I would have taken a look at that list, went "Well, you didn't do them with me. I want to try all of them -- will that be with you, or without you?" and see what she says.


I would be careful with this particular line. I can think of 5 responses and none of them are nice or productive LMAO. That could very well be treading on dangerous grounds, and it almost comes off as an ultimatum. 

I do think you have the right to want her to try some things with you, but I don't think trying to back her into a corner is going to help. I say to make a wager. You both write down 5 things you want to do in the next 30 days and exchange lists. I would start with the smaller and less exotic stuff on the first list. Wait a month or so and do it again.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

F8,
Sorry I lost "context" for a moment. For a while your W had almost totally stopped having sex with you. 

In the spirit of walk before you run - is frequency better these days? Is her "heart" in it when you connect or does it feel like a "hurry up and get it over with" type response?

If she has increased frequency and really is making an effort to be a better W than walk softly here. You can gently ramp stuff up but if she is really making a good faith effort to be more loving you need to be encouraging as opposed to demanding. 




frustr8dhubby said:


> OK, I am mainly just venting/whining here but I had to get this off my chest.
> 
> Last night I was talking to my wife just to see if she could even come up with a sexual fantasy. Big surprise, she could not. One of her comments though threw me off, she said something to the affect of "I've already done all that..". Now I am pretty sure she hasn't done anything that wild but it kind of set me off.
> 
> ...


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> Oh, my, no. She might frame it that way, but only as a means to control and belittle you. You aren't being childish for pursuing the things that you need.
> 
> I would have taken a look at that list, went "Well, you didn't do them with me. I want to try all of them -- will that be with you, or without you?" and see what she says. If she isn't willing to "back over" some of the items from her purity test with you, she can't be very invested in the marriage.
> 
> And don't worry about "whining". Women want us to communicate, and you should, without fear of judgment. If she ever tries to bust you for whining, ask her "why is it communication when you complain, and whining when I complain?" See how she answers that.


Oh Ian, see? I knew you didn't know much about the womenzzz. I doubt his wife is doing it to control and belittle him. She more than likely has no idea that he even feels a sense of rejection or urgency. 

If he communicated in a way that expressed his feelings honestly and sincerely but clearly without placing blame on his wife, her resentment wouldn't grow and he'd be far more likely to get what he wants. 

With Mem I disagree on this as well. I don't feel that a woman can ever hear, "If you don't screw me, I am out of here." Because what she really hears is this, "I only love you if you screw me."

Try this instead, "When I asked you to have sex with me in the SUV you laughed and I want to talk about that because I really want to try a lot of things and I love you and want them to be with you. I actually really, really want to do these things to you. It's really important to me."

Then what she'll hear is exactly what you're saying. Instead of feeling as if she's not enough for you, she'll feel as if it's possible that she could offer you even more.

Us women are emotional creatures that do actually want to please our men. Tread softly with us but don't be afraid to ask for what you want either.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

MEM11363 said:


> F8,
> Sorry I lost "context" for a moment. For a while your W had almost totally stopped having sex with you.
> 
> In the spirit of walk before you run - is frequency better these days? Is her "heart" in it when you connect or does it feel like a "hurry up and get it over with" type response?
> ...


Didn't know his back story so I apologize as well. I guess I have to do some reading up. I agree with Mem completely. Baby steps.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

DawnD said:


> I would be careful with this particular line. I can think of 5 responses and none of them are nice or productive LMAO. That could very well be treading on dangerous grounds, and it almost comes off as an ultimatum.
> 
> I do think you have the right to want her to try some things with you, but I don't think trying to back her into a corner is going to help. I say to make a wager. You both write down 5 things you want to do in the next 30 days and exchange lists. I would start with the smaller and less exotic stuff on the first list. Wait a month or so and do it again.


Love your idea in the last paragraph and think I might just try it with my husband for kicks! That's a great idea!


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

*Stunned - almost speechless*

T,
This is the most powerful post I have read in memory. I lack the means to describe how strong I think you are. I have never read a post by a male that even comes close to this.




Trenton said:


> I think wanting anal, in a car, in a field, in a restaurant bathroom, yadda yadda is really a sign that you're a healthy guy. I don't think it's strange or even too much to expect your wife to want to do these things with you.
> 
> The problem is that it's not your wife's fault either because she just doesn't understand that this actually is a really big want of yours to the degree that it is. Nobody teaches us these things and women get mixed messages.
> 
> ...


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

*Re: Stunned - almost speechless*



MEM11363 said:


> T,
> This is the most powerful post I have read in memory. I lack the means to describe how strong I think you are. I have never read a post by a male that even comes close to this.


That's sweet but I'm just really honest and it's only when we're actually honest and willing to walk in someone else's shoes (and we should absolutely be willing to walk in our spouse's shoes right?) that we can change things because otherwise we're just fooling one another. I'm not sure strength is the right adjective, I prefer determined.


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## frustr8dhubby (Dec 23, 2010)

MEM,

I think she is making an effort, yes. A little hard to tell too much yet since it's only be a few weeks and this last week has been "that time of the month". Though I did get a BJ. 

We actually kind of had "that" conversation last week again. I let it slip that I actually had an opportunity for an affair two years ago and that didn't go over so well. I honestly didn't bring it up to zing her but I suppose subconsciously I probably did. Might have been a kind of wake-up call though, we will see. One thing is for sure, I am standing firm that I am damn tired of being made to feel bad for wanting to have sex with my wife... (or sex at all for that matter but preferably with my wife  )

Trenton,

Thanks. Aye, I am not saying we have to do any or all of them today it just goes to the larger theme of she used to be a sex kitten, now she is anti-sex.  Actually it's kind of funny, anal has been the running "joke" since we have been together.


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## frustr8dhubby (Dec 23, 2010)

Oh and Trenton, I am really sorry to hear about your experience. I have zero tolerance for adults molesting children. For me, it was my brother. Nothing too serious but I think it left some scars. I've never told my mother about it and she wonders to this day why I have so much disdain for him. There have been a couple of times where I have considered telling her but I am pretty well adjusted (with some major esteem issues) and I think it would destroy her and I cannot bring myself to do that to her..


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Frustrated,
Please listen to the approach Trenton mentioned. She is spot on.

Trenton,
I knew about your abuse but I am gobsmacked that that is the reason your parents gave you. Honestly, you are a far far far better person than me.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Trenton said:


> Oh Ian, see? I knew you didn't know much about the womenzzz. I doubt his wife is doing it to control and belittle him. She more than likely has no idea that he even feels a sense of rejection or urgency.
> 
> If he communicated in a way that expressed his feelings honestly and sincerely but clearly without placing blame on his wife, her resentment wouldn't grow and he'd be far more likely to get what he wants.
> 
> ...


Have to agree with you here T. When I read men advising their brothers to use subtle threats of infidelity if they don't get what they want, I am afraid the advice will actually be taken. For this approach to work, a woman would have to have no options in her life and responds because of fear of abandonment. I wonder how satisfying sex with a partner who is coerced can be. What are the possible outcome of these ultimatums - the woman could capitulate out of fear of abandonment, call his bluff, bet him to the punch with her own affair, completely shut down physically and emotionally. Either way where is the up side? 

If it were so easy to go out and find random women, all of men not getting enough at home would go out and grab the woman waiting around to be used for their sexual needs. The default, "I will get it elsewhere" is kind of funny. It sounds they think the would is a toy store with women arrayed around displaying their wears waiting to get their body parts used by some sex-starved married man, who is looking for a play mate. Really?? 

There are two competing themes here - men trying to convince their spouses that sexual contact is important for the emotional connection but a random mouth, vigina or ass will do if the wife does not do her duty. Which is it, is all the emotional talk just so much BS - are the responders saying that the emotional connection with the woman they say love is based on the easy ability to get what ever variety of sex they want. If it so easy to go out side of the marriage, doesn't that confirm that the wife is considered a convient set of sex parts and if her's are not available she can easily be replaced by taking another woman off of the shelf. 

What works for me - my husband has gotten me to try and enjoy things that I would never have thought I would enjoy. I was and still am rather repressed sexually. But my husband let's me know that he wants to experience sexual adventures with ME. I am certain he could find some random woman to do what he likes easily, but he makes me feel as if it is ME he want over the random chicks. 

OP Try that, don't make it about the sex act or the frequency of sex, make it about her. Tell her you want to have these experiences with her because she makes you hot. Any hint that she is exchangable will get you less than what you have now. Contrary to male fantisies, women are not waiting around to sevice men unless they are working the sex trade. Don't say "I'd like to have the experience" makes it sound like the experience is more important than the person you have it with. That may be true so be honest and then she can decide if she wants to be just another notch in your belt.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Catherine602 said:


> Have to agree with you here T. When I read men advising their brothers to use subtle threats of infidelity if they don't get what they want, I am afraid the advice will actually be taken. For this approach to work, a woman would have to have no options in her life and responds because of fear of abandonment. I wonder how satisfying sex with a partner who is coerced can be. What are the possible outcome of these ultimatums - the woman could capitulate out of fear of abandonment, call his bluff, bet him to the punch with her own affair, completely shut down physically and emotionally. Either way where is the up side?
> 
> If it were so easy to go out and find random women, all of men not getting enough at home would go out and grab the woman waiting around to be used for their sexual needs. The default, "I will get it elsewhere" is kind of funny. It sounds they think the would is a toy store with women arrayed around displaying their wears waiting to get their body parts used by some sex-starved married man, who is looking for a play mate. Really??
> 
> ...


Catherine,
I have to say besides Trenton, you are the smartest woman here. Your advice is SOLID GOLD and your posts truly reflect what us women think and feel. Reducing a woman down to her body parts and being replaceable is NOT going to make her want to have sex with you. It is going to make her resentful, angry and bitter. How is that going to pan out for you? :scratchhead:


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> I think wanting anal, in a car, in a field, in a restaurant bathroom, yadda yadda is really a sign that you're a healthy guy. I don't think it's strange or even too much to expect your wife to want to do these things with you.
> 
> The problem is that it's not your wife's fault either because she just doesn't understand that this actually is a really big want of yours to the degree that it is. Nobody teaches us these things and women get mixed messages.
> 
> ...




I'm sorry you had to learn that the way you did. And an excellent summation of a very astute observation. Brava!


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> Oh Ian, see? I knew you didn't know much about the womenzzz. I doubt his wife is doing it to control and belittle him. She more than likely has no idea that he even feels a sense of rejection or urgency.


That's probably not how she would describe the behavior, but that's how it comes across to menz. At this point, if he doesn't do something to demonstrate that this isn't just his problem, but a problem with the relationship, then she isn't going to take him seriously.





Trenton said:


> If he communicated in a way that expressed his feelings honestly and sincerely but clearly without placing blame on his wife, her resentment wouldn't grow and he'd be far more likely to get what he wants.


Um. The majority of women aren't ready to hear any criticism of their sex life without taking it very personally -- in a relationship like the OP describes, I think it's highly likely that she's already prepared to dismiss his feelings (regardless of how eloquently stated) while taking his communications as just one more attempt for him to get what he wants. Stating his feelings honestly and sincerely, even passionately, doesn't get her attention. It's not like this is the first time that this has come up, I can guess, and I'm sure when it does then the discussion invariably turns defensive, she freezes him out for a few days, or "gives in" and then things turn back to normal, with no real growth. He doesn't have her attention, nor has she understood that her relationship is in jeopardy. Until that happens, being reasonable, logical, or persuasive isn't going to get him far.



Trenton said:


> With Mem I disagree on this as well. I don't feel that a woman can ever hear, "If you don't screw me, I am out of here." Because what she really hears is this, "I only love you if you screw me."


Well, for some women it takes the relationship being jeopardized before they realize that this is important enough to a man to even consider leaving. It's not "I only love you if you screw me," it's "I can tell you don't love me very much because you aren't screwing me, and that's an essential part of my life."



Trenton said:


> Try this instead, "When I asked you to have sex with me in the SUV you laughed and I want to talk about that because I really want to try a lot of things and I love you and want them to be with you. I actually really, really want to do these things to you. It's really important to me."
> 
> Then what she'll hear is exactly what you're saying. Instead of feeling as if she's not enough for you, she'll feel as if it's possible that she could offer you even more.


Or, more likely scenario, he says all that and she gives a snort and says "God, you'll say anything to get laid, won't you? If you really loved me, you wouldn't ask me to do those things in the first place. I can tell you're obsessing about this . . . I think you're a sex addict."

Hopefully, she be more tactful, but "this is really important to me" only really works if it's implicit that "this is important enough to me to make some serious waves if it isn't addressed -- and I can't guarantee the outcome."

She has the security of the relationship without having sex -- why on earth would she want to do more than the absolute minimum to maintain it?



Trenton said:


> Us women are emotional creatures that do actually want to please our men. Tread softly with us but don't be afraid to ask for what you want either.



Some of you. And some of you think you know what we're thinking so much better than we do that you dismiss what we say even as we're saying it. Not accusing you, T, just providing some insight into this particular kind of relationship.


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## Draguna (Jan 13, 2011)

Trenton said:


> I think wanting anal, in a car, in a field, in a restaurant bathroom, yadda yadda is really a sign that you're a healthy guy. I don't think it's strange or even too much to expect your wife to want to do these things with you.
> 
> The problem is that it's not your wife's fault either because she just doesn't understand that this actually is a really big want of yours to the degree that it is. Nobody teaches us these things and women get mixed messages.
> 
> ...


You know, it angers me, hate when this stuff happens to women. I... You are a strong woman Trenton. I really admire you and and a few of the other women here. This makes me feel like a jackass by discussing porn stuff with you.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Ian,

All good points. I still think Trenton is right though, coming from a woman giving advice to a man about women. If my spouse said in essence "do me" or I will find someone else, I would view it as a threat. I think the way she phrased handling the SUV situation was spot on. I would go wild if my spouse said that to me. Sadly, he is more of a in the bedroom kind of guy and not a "Hey let's screw in the treehouse" kind of guy. Booo. I like the treehouse.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Ian, when you wrote this:
"Some of you. And some of you think you know what we're thinking so much better than we do that you dismiss what we say even as we're saying it. Not accusing you, T, just providing some insight into this particular kind of relationship."

I just want to say, reverse that for men and you have yourself a big fat ditto. So it's communication and understanding that's lacking in most difficult relationships. For you to expect a woman to be understanding and communicate in a way that is understood, the same must be expected of the man. What I am trying to point out to you is that the way you are wording it will not be a good way to communicate with a woman. Not if you want a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship anyway. So if a man were to do that his behavior would be the same as her behavior and tit for tat rarely ends well.

Draguna, No worries, ever! I am a very open person. I enjoy discussing many topics and none of them leave me in tears or in a puddle on the floor. I'm no stronger than anyone else here. We all carry the burdens and joys of our lives.

Frustr8dhubby, sorry to hear about your past. Stinks. It sounds as if your wife is really trying. Take it slow and voice your opinion in a way that is considerate of her feelings, don't allow your needs to be ignored and I do hope it works out for the both of you!


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> Have to agree with you here T. When I read men advising their brothers to use subtle threats of infidelity if they don't get what they want, I am afraid the advice will actually be taken. For this approach to work, a woman would have to have no options in her life and responds because of fear of abandonment. I wonder how satisfying sex with a partner who is coerced can be. What are the possible outcome of these ultimatums - the woman could capitulate out of fear of abandonment, call his bluff, bet him to the punch with her own affair, completely shut down physically and emotionally. Either way where is the up side?


Well, the upside of saying "I want more sex, really really bad, but I don't want it so much that I want to upset you, so even though I think it's important to me, it isn't that important to the relationship so you can safely ignore pretty much anything I have to say on the subject because, let's face it, no matter what you do about it I'm still going to be here for you. The fact that I'm so seething with misery you can just dismiss as me not understanding my proper place. I'm sure it will pass by my late 50s, when you're suddenly interested and I'm a bitter husk of an old man who resents a couple of decades of frigidity and has nothing really left to live for. Then we can discuss it again," isn't going to be real positive, either. 

Sex and security. Those are the two major factors of exchange in a marital relationship. 




Catherine602 said:


> If it were so easy to go out and find random women, all of men not getting enough at home would go out and grab the woman waiting around to be used for their sexual needs. The default, "I will get it elsewhere" is kind of funny. It sounds they think the would is a toy store with women arrayed around displaying their wears waiting to get their body parts used by some sex-starved married man, who is looking for a play mate. Really??


I could name you about thirty sites off the top of my head where you can essentially do just that. Plenty of sex-starved women in bad relationships or no relationships. It's never, ever been easier for a man to have an affair and successfully conceal it.



Catherine602 said:


> There are two competing themes here - men trying to convince their spouses that sexual contact is important for the emotional connection but a random mouth, vigina or ass will do if the wife does not do her duty. Which is it, is all the emotional talk just so much BS - are the responders saying that the emotional connection with the woman they say love is based on the easy ability to get what ever variety of sex they want. If it so easy to go out side of the marriage, doesn't that confirm that the wife is considered a convient set of sex parts and if her's are not available she can easily be replaced by taking another woman off of the shelf.
> [/quote
> 
> It's more complicated than that. This is the factor that is terribly, terribly difficult to relate between the genders, as difficult as it is for women to communicate just how much their menstrual cycle or pregnancy changes their bodies and emotions. For men, sex is the ultimate personal validation, and for him to be in love with a woman who does not give him that validation is a special kind of hell. When she protests that she loves him -- just not enough to freely share her body with him -- then all other professions of love and adoration lose their potency, and over time he'll stop believing them altogether because she's proven by her actions what she denies with her words. That might not be her intention, but that's what a man in that situation sees. If the problem persists and she becomes intractable, then the psychological pressure to do something about it is powerful. To ignore it is to, in man-speak, voluntarily let yourself keep getting kicked in the balls on a daily basis.
> ...


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## frustr8dhubby (Dec 23, 2010)

Catherine602 said:


> If it were so easy to go out and find random women, all of men not getting enough at home would go out and grab the woman waiting around to be used for their sexual needs. The default, "I will get it elsewhere" is kind of funny. It sounds they think the would is a toy store with women arrayed around displaying their wears waiting to get their body parts used by some sex-starved married man, who is looking for a play mate. Really??


Actually it is fairly easy these days and we could. However, contrary to womens' beliefs, some of us would rather be with our wives.



Catherine602 said:


> There are two competing themes here - men trying to convince their spouses that sexual contact is important for the emotional connection but a random mouth, vigina or ass will do if the wife does not do her duty. Which is it, is all the emotional talk just so much BS - are the responders saying that the emotional connection with the woman they say love is based on the easy ability to get what ever variety of sex they want. If it so easy to go out side of the marriage, doesn't that confirm that the wife is considered a convient set of sex parts and if her's are not available she can easily be replaced by taking another woman off of the shelf.


Unfortunately it is both. It is my preferred way of connecting with my wife and feeling closer to her. However, when she is uninterested, sadly, "any ass will do" to meet the physical need.

I would ask the same thing of a woman having an emotional affair because her husband doesn't meet her needs...



Catherine602 said:


> What works for me - my husband has gotten me to try and enjoy things that I would never have thought I would enjoy. I was and still am rather repressed sexually. But my husband let's me know that he wants to experience sexual adventures with ME. I am certain he could find some random woman to do what he likes easily, but he makes me feel as if it is ME he want over the random chicks.


And I do but she has basically become anti-sex much less "adventurous".



Catherine602 said:


> OP Try that, don't make it about the sex act or the frequency of sex, make it about her. Tell her you want to have these experiences with her because she makes you hot. Any hint that she is exchangable will get you less than what you have now. Contrary to male fantisies, women are not waiting around to sevice men unless they are working the sex trade. Don't say "I'd like to have the experience" makes it sound like the experience is more important than the person you have it with. That may be true so be honest and then she can decide if she wants to be just another notch in your belt.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I don't mean to downplay your input, I appreciate it! She tells me I meet all of her needs and I basically have one primary one I ask to have met and it isn't. I have said on my other posts in 99/100 ways I couldn't ask for a better wife and mother for my kids but the 1% is, unfortunately, a biggie for me. I kind of hate that it is as important as it is, but it is...


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

You don't have a clue about women. The way you describe women is like the male porn fantasy of women, not real women. You want to think there are chicks waiting to service married men and ask nothing in return. Sound familiar - I'l give you a hint - porn. 

Actually it is easier for women to conceal affairs. The latest stats from the the last 5 years - 40 - 45% of women cheat. The proportion is increasing exponentially every year. A surprising finding of a DNA study of families shows that 15 - 17% of children are not genetically related to the husband. The man is apparently unaware of the deception. Besides who do you think all of those men are having affairs with? 

Judging this the painful post from men with cheating wives, there is an utter sense of disbelief that the wife would cheat. The husband is completely blind-sided. 

In aggregate, female infidelity if such a blow to the very core of men that it's safer to bury the heads in the sand. It is the nature of men to posture, and brag. If you knew women, you would know that we are deep, we don't reveal all, there is no reason to posture. 

While the men utter the common refrain - "I can easily go elsewhere I am doing you a favor by staying", - at lest 45% of women hearing this are saying "yeah tell me about it". You will never hear a woman brag to her husband.


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## frustr8dhubby (Dec 23, 2010)

Whoa, was that at me or Ian?? I don't want to fly off if that wasn't directed at me.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

frustr8dhubby said:


> I don't mean to downplay your input, I appreciate it! She tells me I meet all of her needs and I basically have one primary one I ask to have met and it isn't. I have said on my other posts in 99/100 ways I couldn't ask for a better wife and mother for my kids but the 1% is, unfortunately, a biggie for me. I kind of hate that it is as important as it is, but it is...


No not you F. 

This is an intractable problem for some women. I think it may be the women who feel entitled and who are self centered, lack the capacity for empathy. You rarely hear from women who successfully overcome the problem. I am one of them.

Due to long term problems in our relationship, I completely lost interest in having sex with my H. He does not take no for an answer, so we never went longer that 10 days without sex, but he is HD and preferred 4 - 5 times a week. 

I researched love men and marriage to try to understand what happened. I came to know how emotions are locked up with sex for a man when he falls in love and the devastation of rejection. 

Did not know and that is not unusual. My whole frame of reference changed and we started on the road to recovery. I saw him in a completely different light. I don't think my reaction of change is unusual. But you usually don't hear from us. 

Can only say that try to see if your wife is interested in learning about relationships - if not you know where you stand. Let her know that her husband is so miserable that he on the brink of leaving the marriage she may take notice. She may feel she does not want to take the time. 

Your options are to be less available ( I don't mean for chores and child care those are fixed duties for two adults who live together and have kids), find activities that take you out of the house, take special interest in your appearance, have a boys night out, separation ....... May seem hard hearted but it is better than cheating.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Brennan said:


> Catherine,
> I have to say besides Trenton, you are the smartest woman here. Your advice is SOLID GOLD and your posts truly reflect what us women think and feel. Reducing a woman down to her body parts and being replaceable is NOT going to make her want to have sex with you. It is going to make her resentful, angry and bitter. How is that going to pan out for you? :scratchhead:


Thank you Brennan . My love language is words of affirmation so your compliment means boost my confidence. 

But, I am wrong in my thinking about 70% of the time so don't take what I say with a grain of salt. I am trying to figure things out and write what I think for discussion. 

I have changed the majority of my fixed views jut from the reactions to my post and from the discussions. Especially the ones that are kind and patient even when I am inflammatory.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> Ian, when you wrote this:
> "Some of you. And some of you think you know what we're thinking so much better than we do that you dismiss what we say even as we're saying it. Not accusing you, T, just providing some insight into this particular kind of relationship."
> 
> I just want to say, reverse that for men and you have yourself a big fat ditto. So it's communication and understanding that's lacking in most difficult relationships. For you to expect a woman to be understanding and communicate in a way that is understood, the same must be expected of the man. What I am trying to point out to you is that the way you are wording it will not be a good way to communicate with a woman. Not if you want a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship anyway. So if a man were to do that his behavior would be the same as her behavior and tit for tat rarely ends well.


Note that I was communicating from one man to another ABOUT a woman, not communicating directly to the woman. Big difference. When guys communicate to each other, we use different language. We only have to pretty things up with a lot of tactful BS when we're talking to women. Man-to-man is a lot higher signal-to-noise than man-to-woman.

And while tit for tat rarely ends well, if she isn't hearing his words then taking some bold action to make her understand the gravity and significance of the situation TO HIM is really the only way she's going to take him seriously. Unless she knows that he's pissed off, upset, and is considering taking some action, then she's got no reason to vary her response one bit.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> You don't have a clue about women. The way you describe women is like the male porn fantasy of women, not real women. You want to think there are chicks waiting to service married men and ask nothing in return. Sound familiar - I'l give you a hint - porn.
> 
> Actually it is easier for women to conceal affairs. The latest stats from the the last 5 years - 40 - 45% of women cheat. The proportion is increasing exponentially every year. A surprising finding of a DNA study of families shows that 15 - 17% of children are not genetically related to the husband. The man is apparently unaware of the deception. Besides who do you think all of those men are having affairs with?
> 
> ...


In either case the infidelity is a devastating blow. I don't think it matters which one does it. The key is to reveal that you're feeling so uncomfortable in the relationship that you are considering such a thing a possibility beforehand, and therefore are trying to fix the relationship. I'm not advocating cheating. I'm also not advocating tolerating an intolerable relationship.

As far as me "not knowing about women", the fact is I know a great deal about women -- much more than most men, and more than the majority of women -- but I also understand male sexual psychology much better than most men and far than most women (most of whom haven't given it much thought at all). I'm advocating from the male position for male interests in this case, not trying to get him to "understand" his woman. Men often make the mistake to think that understanding their women will get them what they want, but id doesn't. Men get what they want when women understand them, and the fact is that she just doesn't have much incentive to do that.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> No not you F.
> 
> This is an intractable problem for some women. I think it may be the women who feel entitled and who are self centered, lack the capacity for empathy. You rarely hear from women who successfully overcome the problem. I am one of them.
> 
> ...


Bravo for you. You are an exception, and likely this realization came late in life. What would have happened if you understood this important, vital fact at the outset of your relationship, not in its decline? You likely would have had a much different -- and arguably happier -- marriage. 

But most women don't care to learn even the simplest things about their husbands' sexuality, and demean and diminish it when it doesn't conform to their ideas of what is acceptable. They just don't place enough stock in their own husband's happiness to a) listen to him when he makes his needs known and b) respect those needs when they are brought to their attention. And even if they do clue in, as you did, then it happens later in life after a significant amount of damage has been done. It's sad.



Catherine602 said:


> Your options are to be less available ( I don't mean for chores and child care those are fixed duties for two adults who live together and have kids), find activities that take you out of the house, take special interest in your appearance, have a boys night out, separation ....... May seem hard hearted but it is better than cheating.


I concur. She needs to suffer some, realize what life would be like without you. Otherwise . . . status quo.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> Bravo for you. You are an exception, and likely this realization came late in life.


No in fact , we are not at all at a late stage of our lives. Wisdom comes in it own time, it does not have to age - sometimes it is as fresh and bubbly as a Moscato d’Asti or as dark and deep as an aged Chianti. But it comes at it own accord. 



IanIronwood said:


> But most women don't care to learn even the simplest things about their husbands' sexuality, and demean and diminish it when it doesn't conform to their ideas of what is acceptable. They just don't place enough stock in their own husband's happiness to a) listen to him when he makes his needs known and b) respect those needs when they are brought to their attention. And even if they do clue in, as you did, then it happens later in life after a significant amount of damage has been done. It's sad.


I know enough to know that both men and woman are guilty of not understanding each other. Many woman have gripes that they are not heard, appreciated, and given enough non sexual affection and attention. 

I know enough to realize that men will never get what they want/need from women if the don't make the effort to know the mind of a woman and the corollary is true, women will never get what they need from men if they don't know their mind. 

I know enough to recognize the ineffectiveness of your message. In advocating for men only, you ignore one very obvious condition - we men and women are coupled. When one is hurt they both are hurt and you cannot castigate one without injuring the other. The message must be gentle, underplayed and emotionally appealing. I know enough of women to know that force, demands and coercion will never work. 

I know enough to know that I must advocate for men as well as women but especially for men. Women are more likely to hear me than they are you. If just a few woman change their attitude and see a concomitant change in a good man then I feel good. 

I sometimes say divisive things when I get steamed but, I hope I will be forgiven for them. My message is that it is possible to reframe our ideas about each other - but it takes a balanced approach to do so. Since I know things from the woman's point of view that's what I tell. 

You are right in one point but unfortunately misguided in another. You are right that woman in general will never understand men fully, It a waste of time that could be spent leaning the differences in the way they think and feel. The same goes for men. I don't understand how the the internet works but I can use it. 

There is no male side or female side, their is US.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

*constructive sequence*

For the sex starved man the "fair" and transparent sequence is typically something like this:
1. Identify, list and eliminate behaviors that turn your partner off in and out the bedroom. This requires no conversation with your W as you already know what they are. BTW - one big turn off may be that when she "fitness tests" you, you get upset/aggressive and fail the tests. 
2. Perform the same process with the stuff that turns her on. Shared positive experience can be very powerful. What non-sexual activities leave you BOTH feeling that glow of happiness?
3. Lower the temperature in the marriage (see my post on the thermostat setting). Lower the temp until she is initiating a lot of loving acts - that reflects her being comfortable/cool with the temp. 

Those 3 things can be done in parallel and done well in 30 days. If at the end of that time you are not converging on a sex life that you find acceptable you have the "talk" which is completely "misnamed". It is better described as the "interview" because you "don't" want to do much talking. Instead you want to ask very specific questions about when she is willing to teach you how to get her "in the mood" when she starts out in "neutral". 

IF and only IF she deliberately stonewalls you during the "interview" you end it with a statement that goes like this:
I am not willing to create a situation where you feel pressured to have sex when clearly you have no interest. It simply is not fair to you. That said, I am no longer willing to remain celibate. So we are going to need to come up with an arrangement where I can get my physical needs met, and you don't have to feel pressured to do something you apparently dislike. 

And you don't try to "solve" it right there. She will likely react. She may get really angry - or get really pissy and tell you to go screw whoever you want. The best response to that is "I really want US to have intimacy however you have made it clear that is not an option, so for now I am going to need to discreetly take care of my needs outside the marriage. 

And then ideally you leave the house and turn your cell phone off for the rest of the day. And when you return home you will have your answer. 

BTW - I have actually done EXACTLY this except I didn't need to leave the house / turn off my phone. My approach to this conversation took a total of 1 hour and worked like magic. 




Catherine602 said:


> No in fact , we are not at all at a late stage of our lives. Wisdom comes in it own time, it does not have to age - sometimes it is as fresh and bubbly as a Moscato d’Asti or as dark and deep as an aged Chianti. But it comes at it own accord.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## jezza (Jan 12, 2011)

Trenton - I am also sorry to hear about what happened, but I am also a firm believer in 'moving on'....which is something you certainly seem to have done! Whilst it was a dreadful experience you appear to have been able to draw some good from it. All credit to you!

You are right - men don't express themselves enough or clearly. Women get mixed messages from us. However, society has a lot to answer for. Women get 'told' that all men want is sex, that sex is dirty, should not be enjoyed etc, that they should make us 'pay' (washing her car, ironing, chores etc) for sex as it is the most powerful weapon they have 'against' us.

I would love to be 'adventurous' with my wife - we are in a virtually sexless marriage anyway - I would love to ask her to massage my prostate as I hear it can be mind-blowing but I simply daren't ask her because she thinks 'missionary at night with the lights out' is already too 'kinky'.

I know it is wrong to tarnish all people with the same brush, but I think the reason that men are bad communicators has alot to do with the way women treat us sexually. I think alot of husbands would get a very negative response to suggesting anal sex, prostate massage etc...so we just sit and stew.....and stewing builds resentment. 

Men need to learn better communication skills and women need to learn more about our needs and accept that it really IS OK to enjoy sex...if you both enjoy anal then do it...if you both enjoy underwater sex then do it (!)...


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> I know enough to recognize the ineffectiveness of your message. In advocating for men only, you ignore one very obvious condition - we men and women are coupled. When one is hurt they both are hurt and you cannot castigate one without injuring the other. The message must be gentle, underplayed and emotionally appealing. I know enough of women to know that force, demands and coercion will never work.


Depends entirely on the woman. But for the record, I advocate for men because there are so few clear, concise, and cogent advocates for male sexuality, although there are gazillions for female sexuality. We've heard all about the importance of communication in a relationship for the last four decades, now, and we got the message. Sure, plenty of men could use a refresher course in how their wives' sexuality works -- or has radically changed since your introduction -- but you can go to Amazon and find dozens of books on the subject. If I seem to castigate women more than men, it's usually because when a man makes a bone-headed statement on this forum, there is a wealth of ladies ready to correct him, but few operating in the opposite direction.




Catherine602 said:


> I know enough to know that I must advocate for men as well as women but especially for men. Women are more likely to hear me than they are you. If just a few woman change their attitude and see a concomitant change in a good man then I feel good.
> 
> I sometimes say divisive things when I get steamed but, I hope I will be forgiven for them. My message is that it is possible to reframe our ideas about each other - but it takes a balanced approach to do so. Since I know things from the woman's point of view that's what I tell.


And I truly appreciate that -- because I know women dismiss me out of hand, despite the wisdom of what I say. My message is aimed at men who have been bullied into sacrificing their sexuality in unfulfilling relationships without need. I can preach to women all day that "men need sex", but since I'm "merely male" my opinion can be safely dismissed. The men, on the other hand, have rarely had someone tell them, "You know, you can stand up to her about this without being disloyal to the relationship". That's part of my mission.



Catherine602 said:


> You are right in one point but unfortunately misguided in another. You are right that woman in general will never understand men fully, It a waste of time that could be spent leaning the differences in the way they think and feel. The same goes for men. I don't understand how the the internet works but I can use it.
> 
> There is no male side or female side, their is US.


But the fact that women in general make very feeble attempts to understand male sexuality, beyond some initial "what do boys want?" stuff in high school, and almost completely give up the idea of further study after marriage in most cases, then the US often dissolves into "What's good for the relationship (i.e., the woman's interests)" and "What's good for the man" (which should rightly also be part of the relationship, but is all too often treated as an amusing option, at best, by many women). 

Now, I could preach all day about how women should learn and respect male sexuality, but again, they won't listen. So maybe if enough men start saying and acting on what is most important about the relationship TO THEM, then the control issues involved won't be so one-sided.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

IanIronwood; (kind of long)

This is what I am trying to tell you. I don't mean to seem hostile to your mesage I am not - I think your tone is wrong if you are talking to women about men. think you are exactly right. The way you express the message invites a resistant from women. 

You have a right to express anger and resentment, those are natural emotions given the the subject matter of the suffering of members of the human race. You say that no woman can tell you about men that's true, only you as a man really understand and know your emotions. I am not telling you how to talk about men but how to talk to women to get the message across. 

I am going to make a generilzation - men don't understand their own feeling and can't express them. The post by men are so full of emotion and dispair but most say things like "I need sex" "I need my needs met". But that seems to be only part of the story. The conventional wisdom is that is a woman loves a man she should want to meets his "needs". But it is not so simple. 

Women hear "men need sex" their whole adult lives. The mesage has some negative conotations - woman who give into a mans need are s/a/n/ks, w/h/o/r/es and s/l/u/ts. Men use woman to get their needs met and boost boost the ego. Women are objects a collection of holes used for penis pleasure. 

Women try to avoid being used by men but it's difficult to tell who the users are because they lie. Men in general know that most women need an emotional connection especially when they say so up front, they want to be loved cared for and secure a commitment. The whole maleness numbers game is predicated on the male knowledge of the needs of women and ways of denying them. 

Sound familiar? Unfortunately, men inevitably fall in love and need the very thing that this culture tells them to deny women, they need and emotional connection. SNow the sex needs are not frivolous and usurious but tied to love and affection and he wants to please the woman sexually. 

Can you see that talking about a mans needs is missing the point - a good man who is in love and committed to the woman he loves. It's how the meaning of sex changes when he is in love. It is the adrift feeling that he feels when he is rejected. Do you think that if woman were aware of this transition that they could hurt their man? 

You message needs to take this into account. the average woman is still operation under the mistaken notion that sex is pleasure only for men and that when he marries he carries the same get as much sex as possible now that there is a convenient set of holes to pleasure the penis. "you just want me for sex" sound familiar? 

it's easy to treat sex as unimportant if the only accceted modle is an ugly portrayal of male sexuality and not the beautiful and welcomed transformation that loves brings. We as women should understand those emotions because we have them so easily. We should help men to accept them as part of maturing process in an indirect way by welcoming and enjoying them

Who cares what happened before, its the now that counts, why turn away such a lovely gift of love. 

Thats the message.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> IanIronwood; (kind of long)
> 
> This is what I am trying to tell you. I don't mean to seem hostile to your mesage I am not - I think your tone is wrong if you are talking to women about men. think you are exactly right. The way you express the message invites a resistant from women.
> 
> ...


I agree with you, and if my message was intended for women, I would have written it much more differently. I write persuasive advertising copy for a living (among other things) and I know how to target my audience. You use different tones, styles, and word choices when appealing to women than you do to men. 

My message is for the men, not the women. I've given up trying to talk to the women. Most of the women are going to go "Ick! Misogyny!" no matter how nicely I try to state my case without trying to understand the deeper meaning of what I'm saying anyway, so I'm not talking to them directly anymore. The few that will get over their prejudices and read what I'm saying for what I intended are already half-way towards understanding. The others aren't going to hear what I say on the subject because they don't trust what any men say on the subject of sex, for the reasons you've outlined above. So I'm focusing on retraining men not to see themselves in the same stereotypical context that is imposed upon them by women, as well as finding the strength to stand up for their interests without being made to feel guilty about doing so. If the workplace and the social life of our culture should be an even playing field between men and women, then the bedroom should be no different. I just don't want a bunch of guys, mostly ignorant of their own sexuality beyond the absolute basics, to get steamrolled into misery because they didn't know how to ask for what they needed properly.

You make some very valid and compelling points about how a man's sexual needs eventually change. I'm not blind to them at all -- but as astute as your observations were, they're still (however slightly) canted in favor of the feminine perspective. I'm not faulting you for it, don't get me wrong. 

here's an example: you talk about "it's easy to treat sex as unimportant if the only accceted modle is an ugly portrayal of male sexuality and not the beautiful and welcomed transformation that loves brings", and that's a lovely, noble, and unabashedly beautiful sentiment that I can appreciate as both a sex nerd and as a husband of nearly 20 years. However, no matter how eloquently said, it still implies that the pre-marriage male sexuality is somehow deserved of the ugly reputation that it gets. I contend that our pre-marital behavior is a natural and (yes) beautiful expression of male sexuality. Sure, the "numbers game" does not favor the needs or values of female sexual culture -- but it's not supposed to. It's our genetically programmed response to a massive dose of testosterone coupled 
with ample opportunity to invite women to sexually compete against each other. When a woman becomes pregnant or even menstruates for the first time, then those occasions are cause for celebration (usually) because she's filled her genetic destiny and her societal role. Pregnancy is beautiful, and we rightly place women in a protected place when they are with child. Menstruation is treated with healthy respect, at least. Yet if a dude accomplishes his genetic destiny in his early years, or at least accounts for many opportunities where he could have (i.e. hooking up), then he's a "bad boy", and a "PUA" and a "boy s1ut", "man-ho", etc. The fact is, he's trying to do what his body is pushing him to do. It's an essential part of male sexuality to be able to socially interact with a wide variety of females in order to give himself the widest possible opportunity for sex and/or mating. Denigrating this experience while celebrating marriage as a "fulfillment" or part of a beautiful and welcomed transformation is just not fair to me.

Flip it around: just as the pre-marital "hooking up" in our culture favors male sexual values, marriage and long-term relationships fulfill female sexual values. Men place high value on sexual variety and frequency, especially early in the relationship. Women place greater value overall on sexual security and quality of experience, both of which are hallmarks of marriage. Marriage is heavily slanted to favor women's sexuality, while (in some cases) completely obliterating a man's control over his own sexual destiny, in contradiction to his natural genetic inclinations.

I get that both sides have value. Men need to feel the desire to "sow their wild oats" to fulfill their genetic destiny, ensuring a splendid amount of genetic diversity in the species. Therefore male sexuality is an important thing to the species. Women need to feel connected and secure in order to fulfill their genetic destiny, the propagation and protection of our young, which includes securing access to a good provider for those young. therefore female sexuality is an important thing in the species.

When a man falls in love, his strong natural inclination to stray is mitigated by the power of this emotion, and sex resulting from that love often leads to intense pair bonding exercises, a period wherein the female attempts to monopolize the attention of the male until a satisfactory relationship is forged. You say men lie, and I won't argue: but women have employed deceit as part of this process for thousands of years, everything from cosmetics to breast implants, in an effort to captivate male attention. It used to be that most marriages occurred when a girl got a boy worked up enough to have a single sexual experience, then turn up pregnant. 

In agricultural societies where inheritance is a big deal that meant immediate marriage, as much to protect the rights of the man as the welfare of the woman. In essence, girls used the lust of boys against them as they captivated the boys' attention until "love" sets in. Then they can either use their withholding of sex to impel a marriage proposal, or their granting of sex to compel a marriage proposal, but either way a commitment (which has high female sexual value) was forthcoming in most cases. After the commitment, there is usually a shot period in which frantic coupling occurs, as the female tries to establish a permanent and unbreakable pairbond with her fella, so he'll provide her with security. This usually involves a lot of oxytocin, which usually means lots of sex. 

Until there isn't. Traditionally, female post-marriage sexuality is governed by different values than female pre-marriage sexuality. If pre-marriage is about attraction and commitment, then post-marriage is all about security and fidelity. Love enters into it, but love in service of the relationship. That "transformative" experience of love in a man is his transformation from a fully-functioning male to a husband. Yes, he develops a deep psychological and emotional need for his partner, but he also is utterly sexually dependent upon her. 

Way back when, that worked out fine. Fidelity was an easy trade for sexual security because a) people didn't travel a lot and you wouldn't really be meeting anyone else anyway and b) pre-electricity mean there was no cable and not much else to do for entertainment but screw. "Marital duties" implied sex, pretty much on demand (menstruation permitting) as part of a deal in which a husband would provide shelter, clothing, food, and social security (not the government program) with his position. Sure, things sucked for women when it came to the bedroom, but the social contract was intact and as unpleasant as it may have been it beat the shame and loss of security of the alternative.

Then industrialization, birth control, and feminism changed the rules. No more sex-for-security. Women made their own money. Now it was marriage-for-security, with sex as an issue to be negotiated lated. Modern marriage implicitly denies a husband's right to demand sex, the way he did in the agricultural period. Women are equal partners, providing their own income and otherwise able to exist, socially and financially, without the necessity of men. And while certain atavistic members of our society want to turn back the clock to that simpler age, I'm not one of them.

But that doesn't mean I'm happy with the status quo when it comes to men and sexuality in our society. Deprived of our best leverage -- security -- to secure a long term sex partner, we're reduced to actually having to talk to women, one-on-one, to negotiate the terms of what was once automatically expected. That sounds great to women, of course: women like to talk, especially about love, feelings, and relationships. But it isn't natural for men, nor is it in their best sexual interest, anthropologically speaking, to have to negotiate about sex.

Yes, some of us find it fulfilling, and deeply meaningful, a transformative experience. But we are largely in the minority. Men are entering into relationships where they misunderstand the rules and the dynamics, and they're getting their @$$ handed to them as women not only suddenly have all the security they need without us, but also retain the full force of the social power to regulate sexuality across our culture. 

So what's happening is that men are either under-valuing their own sexual worth, thus fulfilling the "all men are pigs and will lay anything" prophecy, and end up poor partners for long term relationships where they find their sex life dwindling and eventually dying, or they double down and spend most of their lives as bachelors, fulfilling their sexual destiny with gay abandon among each new generation of cute young things that come along that hasn't already heard all the lies he's memorized.

That paints a pretty bleak picture for men: life as a perpetual Player or life as a sexually-controlled husband. Of the two, which do you think is more appealing to his forebrain? A third option -- stay home and play video games and masturbate to porn and screw all of y'all evil women -- is currently working to suck the rank and file off the market for all practical purposes. Even with "love" in the equation, modern women have high (some would say unrealistic) standards for the men in their lives, and even if you measured up, why bother? 

The marital horror stories are all too real -- we've known divorced guys who married for love and lost everything, including their self respect. Why on earth would you voluntarily do that to yourself unless you knew you wanted kids? Unless you were absolutely certain that you could spend the rest of your life with this woman, there is no powerful social compulsion or even a social benefit to getting married. With the advent of internet porn, internet dating, mail-order brides and anonymous hook-ups, there just isn't much attraction to marriage for the modern man, and an awful lot of danger signs. Marriage does not favor the male sexual value. It punishes it. Love isn't good for men, despite how good it feels at the time, because it puts us in situations where we betray our interests and values for the sake of a promise that is usually not kept. Better to stay at home, whack off, and die alone -- we're going to die first anyway already, aren't we?

But I can't accept "Women are trained to be suspicious of men about sex and they can't help it!" as a valid excuse for their purposeful misunderstanding of male sexuality. That's as bad as saying "boys will be boys". That attitude, the "all men are pigs" meme, is in large part responsible for the ugly portrayal of male sexuality. It leaves little to no room for a more realistic approach, and it really undercuts any serious dialog about the new negotiated sexual roles by denying male values any legitimacy. So I encourage men to stand up and demand their right to define and express their sexuality independent of their wives/girlfriends, and not feel shamed into betraying themselves out of a sense of duty or anxiety that their women won't love them any more if they don't submit to her sexual control. When both parties in the relationship are truly equal, and both sets of sexual values can be safely addressed without fear of judgement or scorn, then we will have progressed to the point where happy marriages aren't rare and accidental.


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Ian

You are probably not aware but research shows that marriage favors men - your info is not up to date. Married men are more successful in their work, live longer, report being happier. How do you explain that. How is that women have gotten so powerful that they control a man's access to 100s of willing hot chicks waiting to service their penis?? 

If men were really able to attract the variety they want, marriage would indeed be rare. 

In a society dominated by freewheeling male sexuality, where the number of sexual partners goes to the most sexually attractive man, the distribution of woman would go to the men with the most sexual appeal, good looking men or ugly men with lots of money and not too repugnant. But the great majority of men are not attractive enough to attract more that 1 or 2 woman in their lifetime. 

There are societies that are dominated by male sexuality and power. The renegade LDS sects that practice plural marriage. What has developed over time is that the powerful men gain ascendancy and amass the women. Young men who actually have more sexually value and more potency are abandoned on the side of the rode because they are a sexual threat to the less attractive old men. A perversion of the natural order.

Lets look at the animal kingdom that men who have problems getting a woman to have sex with them are so fond of idolizing. In non-human primates societies, like monkeys and apes our closest relatives, competition for females is fierce. The victors are young and probably have the highest levels of testosterone. 

As you say it confers the male need to have variety of females but, you may be unaware of other factors - the level of testosterone varies and males primate with the highest levels of the hormone are the most aggressive, amass more resources, bolder, muscular and hornier. This is the most natural system truly dominated by male testosterone. Quite different from the human perversion. 

The human system would be perverted from a natural survival of the fittest based on sexual drawing power and value, to the highest of the richest and powerful. They would scarf up all of those hot chicks that belong to you!! 

So which is it? Do you want the human model or the animal model. Either way you are unlikely to make the cut. 

For your "man take back your balls" movement to work, women would have to loose control over their sexuality. How do you imagine that happening. You say that you advocate for men, but address only one half of the power struggle. When men take their sexuality back, who will they have sex with? 

This female domination and control of male sexuality is a smoke screen. Men have control of their sexuality. The real problem is that woman now have control of theirs too. Men want it woman have it. 

That's your problem, why don't you own it? Your biggest problem is that groups never give up power voluntarily. You will need to stop talking and mount a coup d'état. It will not be bloodless though.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> Ian
> 
> You are probably not aware but research shows that marriage favors men - your info is not up to date. Married men are more successful in their work, live longer, report being happier. How do you explain that. How is that women have gotten so powerful that they control a man's access to 100s of willing hot chicks waiting to service their penis??


I'm quite aware of the research, but don't necessarily agree with the conclusions. I suppose it depends upon which criteria are being used to determine "success". If a longer life is the criteria, then yes, men have it better. If being "more successful in their work" is the criteria, then perhaps (although the data on that is a lot shakier than the straight-forward lifespan metric). And that measure particularly irks me, since measuring a man's success like that is like measuring a woman's attractiveness -- I wonder if married women are more attractive than unmarried women, perhaps? 

Happiness is, perhaps, a legitimate measure of whether marriage is "better" for men. But again the data breaks down: how many of the married men in the survey were on their first marriages? How many married later in life? How many were parents as well? Were their parents successfully married for life? What factors constitute "happiness", and did the men compile them or did the researchers? 

Sociological data is notoriously soft, which is why I like to lean on market data. People will fill out a survey and compare themselves unconsciously to an expected ideal to the point where it alters their perspective on the answers. But when people spend money they reveal their true desires, goals, status, and aspirations. But on to your next point . . . 



Catherine602 said:


> If men were really able to attract the variety they want, marriage would indeed be rare.


That's my point. It's getting rare. At least, marriage the way it used to be. 

Once upon a time, you grew up in a village and married a village girl and then proceeded to spend the rest of your life seeing and interacting with the same 250 people because you were unlikely to travel more than 50 miles from the place of your birth. Since there were a limited number of village girls available, you made your selection from a very limited pool and lived with it because, realistically, there wasn't an alternative. Think of this as the *Fiddler On The Roof *mode of marriage.

Then transportation and commerce brought urbanization and by 1800 it was likely that you would travel up to 200 miles away from the place of your birth. Suddenly you could marry someone from your village or any number of other villages, hundreds of candidates, which brought the competition for available husbands into sharp focus. That's why the real fashion industry dates from this time. Think of this as *The Waltons* mode of marriage: Pa marries Ma, the prettiest girl in the county.

Things were even better (from a male perspective) with urbanization, because your potential mate selection went from a few dozen to a few hundred to thousands. Not just thousands, but thousands eager to compete for the most highly-success husbands they could attract. Plus transportation made accessing other urban areas trivial -- a man could be expected to travel a thousand miles from his birthplace by 1940. That provided great emphasis on commercial success (in agricultural times you distinguished yourself on your strength and ability to be a good worker, in urban industrial times you distinguish by being a good earner) and increased competition among males. Think of this as the *Mad Men* mode of marriage.

But even if a female successfully married a male, the temptation to add a mistress to the equation was too tempting, thus the de-urbanization/suburbanization effect: by moving the family back to the country, or into a suburban zone, you could accrue the benefits of urban civilization while draining your husband's ability to interact with competitive females by the expedient of a long commute and potent social obligations. While the expectation was that you could travel five thousand miles away, from your birthplace in your lifetime, and provided a much wider latitude of competition for initial mate selection, once you got married you rarely had opportunity for dalliance. Men stay more faithful in suburban economies (not so much with the women . . .)Think of this as the ***** Van ***** form of marriage -- or the format for virtually every successful sitcom of the last 30 years.

But we're now in a post-industrial information based economy, where earning potential and success are no longer limited by physical location. Thanks to dating sites and Facebook and such, every man reading this has the potential to mate with virtually any woman also online. It's not the girl-next-door, the girl from the village, the girl from the yonder village, or the girl from Kansas you met in college . . . suddenly you have the opportunity to meet just about anyone in humanity over the internet. A couple of phone calls, some texts, a plane ride, and it's all over: your husband divorces you for a younger Korean girl he met in a World of Warcraft chatroom and you never even suspected that she existed. The question looms: sure, you love your wife, but what if you settled and Match.com has Ms. Wonderful who does all those things you can't get your wife to do -- and loves your World of Warcraft hobby, too? Suddenly women aren't just competing with the girl across the bar for available mates (and the competitive side changed dramatically when women became financially able to provide for themselves, removing security from the table as a practical consideration) you're _competing with every other woman on Earth_.

We're already starting to see the effects of this type of social development as 1 in 5 people find their mate online, the number of clandestine anonymous affairs begun on the internet has skyrocketed, and the number of foreign-born wives took a leap in the US this last decade. For a relatively low investment, you, too, can find the perfect woman who's not your wife but still wants to sleep with you. That makes hanging in there and toughing it out with the woman who's currently to blame (in your mind) for your misery not that appealing. Not when there's a sexy 25 year old Korean girl who loves gaming who would love to visit you and shack up while she sees America out there.



Catherine602 said:


> In a society dominated by freewheeling male sexuality, where the number of sexual partners goes to the most sexually attractive man, the distribution of woman would go to the men with the most sexual appeal, good looking men or ugly men with lots of money and not too repugnant. But the great majority of men are not attractive enough to attract more that 1 or 2 woman in their lifetime.


You make a number of assumptions here. Firstly, the number of sexual partners goes to the most attractive man security-wise, not purely sexually. While the big-penis Alpha male certainly gets his share of play, thanks to a number of women who are willing to overlook his low IQ and penchant for bartending jobs, women go to men on the basis of security, success, and social status, not sexuality. "It's amazing how attractive he is when he's wearing his credit card". Since there are a limited number of these high-status, highly successful rich men (most of whom have no problem attracting high-status beautiful women), the remainder of the female dating pool sorts out the remainder -- the "leftovers" -- into descending social levels and individuals tailor their ambitions to what is at hand. Success and security are relative issues, not absolutes, so competition for these second tier guys is actually pretty fierce. It slows down with the third and fourth tier, until you're left with a relatively small pool of superlow-status males. Of course, a man can immediately raise his status by having lots of money, so there is an element of risk in making a selection, and an element of hope for the dregs.

But apart from those guys, competition is pretty fierce even for the middle of the pack. As women get older, their standards start falling, until "not married or gay" starts to sound attractive, not just a baseline requirement. As the cycles of serial monogamy roll on, with men marrying younger, the pool of older available women (who are often financially secure) willing to dip lower into the male dating pool gets larger and larger. Add to that the economic pressure in the third world that makes a marital alliance with an American dude highly favorable, and there are, indeed, a large pool of young women in the world who are willing to do just about anything (and that includes sexual -- and that includes _anything_) to marry pretty much any American male for the economic and social advantage. 



Catherine602 said:


> There are societies that are dominated by male sexuality and power. The renegade LDS sects that practice plural marriage. What has developed over time is that the powerful men gain ascendancy and amass the women. Young men who actually have more sexually value and more potency are abandoned on the side of the rode because they are a sexual threat to the less attractive old men. A perversion of the natural order.


No argument -- that's well documented. However, those are CLOSED societies, with stringent internal social rules that enforce artificial codes of sexual conduct designed to favor not males, in general, but a core group of males in particular. If you throw a society like that open -- say, give everyone unrestricted internet access -- then their control over the sexual rules erodes and they lose their established positions over time. When equal access is given to all available males and females, then maintaining such artificial social structures just isn't feasible in an open society.



Catherine602 said:


> Lets look at the animal kingdom that men who have problems getting a woman to have sex with them are so fond of idolizing. In non-human primates societies, like monkeys and apes our closest relatives, competition for females is fierce. The victors are young and probably have the highest levels of testosterone.


Actually, in Goodall's studies of Chimpanzee social behavior and in Fossey's studies of Gorilla social behavior, when it came to mating the results were very interesting: the victors are not the young, during mating contests, but the older, more experienced "silverbacks". The young, high-testosterone males almost inevitably lose out in competition to the older males, until the older male's age eventually causes him to lose a challenge -- but almost never to the youngest, high-testosterone males, usually other silverbacks competing for dominance. The young turks usually flit around the edges of the troop and engage in clandestine affairs with whatever female they can get away with. Which makes it sound a lot more like the Mormon Strip in Nevada, and other such male-dominated societies.



Catherine602 said:


> As you say it confers the male need to have variety of females but, you may be unaware of other factors - the level of testosterone varies and males primate with the highest levels of the hormone are the most aggressive, amass more resources, bolder, muscular and hornier. This is the most natural system truly dominated by male testosterone. Quite different from the human perversion.
> 
> The human system would be perverted from a natural survival of the fittest based on sexual drawing power and value, to the highest of the richest and powerful. They would scarf up all of those hot chicks that belong to you!!


You're forgetting some key aspects of human sexuality that do not conform to our fellow primates: specifically, the ability of women to mate at any point in their cycle, without having to go "in season". Instead of going several months a year in non-sexually available mode, as apes and monkeys do, human females are sexually unavailable only for a week or so every month, which dramatically changes the mating dynamic. 

Because of this key fact, the human system as it evolved isn't a "perversion" of the natural selection system, but a refinement of it designed to meet our specific mating needs. Females that don't go "in season" can't be controlled with the same authority as others. This means that it's far more likely for their declared mate to actually be the father of their child, since he likely aggressively dominates her company during her fertile periods. When he's done breeding and she's successfully pregnant, he can safely ignore her and move on to the next female in season.

But not humans. Women can breed successfully any ol' time, which give us a much wider latitude for genetic diversity as human females are able to conceive outside of the declared mating much more easily. That puts the male-female mating dynamic on a much different footing -- once a man successfully impregnates a woman, while he can walk away and ignore her (which happens plenty), if he's going to ensure the survival of his offspring and the availability of sex then he has to maintain a nearly constant relationship with her in order to ensure that he, and he alone, has sexual contact with her.

Further, our survival hasn't been dependent on our individual strength for thousands of years. Once we developed tool-using and fire and such, the nature of security changed and therefore the means by which it is measured. Strength didn't amass as much resources as cleverness, which gave the small and puny (and smart) a means of competing with the Alpha studs -- because females set the nature of the sexual equation, not males. Women will value that in males which is perceived as the means of gathering and protecting resources. If that's strength, then strong dudes get first pick. If it's a more complex society, though, money and other physical resources become far more important than physical security and prowess. You can turn a woman's head with bulging biceps, and you'll get laid plenty -- once. Maybe twice. To entertain a female's long-term attention (at least long enough to produce and raise offspring) then a flashy display of resource gathering ability --say, a Porsche -- works better.




Catherine602 said:


> So which is it? Do you want the human model or the animal model. Either way you are unlikely to make the cut.


Don't be so certain. I've a rare knack to be a good resource provider, and my cleverness has led to a very secure environment for my wife and children. Even in relatively closed society, I'd scheme a way into someone's pants. Charm is also a survival skill. So is obfuscation.



Catherine602 said:


> For your "man take back your balls" movement to work, women would have to loose control over their sexuality. How do you imagine that happening. You say that you advocate for men, but address only one half of the power struggle. When men take their sexuality back, who will they have sex with?


If women were monolithic and united, you might have a point. Luckily for us, they're betrayed from such united behavior by their own sexuality, namely, the need to secure high-status, high-providing males. As long as there are young, horny, and ambitious women out there willing to be second or third wives (or even a pampered golddigging girlfriend), women can't provide the united front to shut down those willing to betray their sisters for a more advantageous position. PLUS, now you have First Wives who are financial secure but lonely, and who have no problem either poaching a currently-married man or just engaging in casual sex. Plus there are plenty of opportunistic, bored married women who are happy to dally. And we aren't talking just a few, either. Women are competing sexually for men, now, far more than men are competing for women. Think about it: Fifteen years ago, there wasn't such a thing as a Cougar. Now they're everywhere. I get hit on frequently, despite (or perhaps because of) my wedding ring. It's never been easier to cheat or hookup for guys outside of a relationship. 

So when men take back their power and rediscover their actual value, they can have sex with all sorts of people. Even butt-ugly dudes can get laid in an environment like this. If he wants to pursue it, a guy can find five or six girls a week who are desperate enough to give him a try. But it's an awful lot of effort. These days, mostly they just go home and whack off and play video games, because it's just easier and less pressure. Which means that there are even more girls left un-paired out there, in competition with each other. And every year they make a new model.



Catherine602 said:


> This female domination and control of male sexuality is a smoke screen. Men have control of their sexuality. The real problem is that woman now have control of theirs too. Men want it woman have it.
> 
> That's your problem, why don't you own it? Your biggest problem is that groups never give up power voluntarily. You will need to stop talking and mount a coup d'état. It will not be bloodless though.


No need. It's already happening, slowly but surely. I agree that groups don't give up power voluntarily, but the fact is that the nature of the power has shifted, now, and for women the sexual power they used to compel has evaporated under a sea of internet porn and casual hook-ups. That's just starting to dawn on guys, in a societal sort of way. In Japan they've accepted it already, and the birthrate and marriage rate have plummeted. Same thing in Europe. Thanks to legalized prostitution, porn, and strong official social structures, an entire generation of young men is turning its back on the traditional mating structures because they just don't matter, on a social level, anymore. The social contract has been broken and is in the process of being renegotiated, but the guys are barely showing up for it. They can get their primary sexual needs fulfilled (or at least temporarily placated) without a wife or even a girlfriend, if they so desire, so their primary motivation to date and marry is gone. Without it, there are going to be a whole lot of lonely girls out there, unless American women, as a class, can find some way to be more alluring than the alternatives.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Ian,
Holy shiiieeet - I have finally met Atholk's twin brother. This is absolutely brilliant. This isn't just worthy of a doctoral thesis, this would be "the" doctoral thesis of the year in sociology / human sexuality at an Ivy league school. 




IanIronwood said:


> I'm quite aware of the research, but don't necessarily agree with the conclusions. I suppose it depends upon which criteria are being used to determine "success". If a longer life is the criteria, then yes, men have it better. If being "more successful in their work" is the criteria, then perhaps (although the data on that is a lot shakier than the straight-forward lifespan metric). And that measure particularly irks me, since measuring a man's success like that is like measuring a woman's attractiveness -- I wonder if married women are more attractive than unmarried women, perhaps?
> 
> Happiness is, perhaps, a legitimate measure of whether marriage is "better" for men. But again the data breaks down: how many of the married men in the survey were on their first marriages? How many married later in life? How many were parents as well? Were their parents successfully married for life? What factors constitute "happiness", and did the men compile them or did the researchers?
> 
> ...


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Ian

You have persuaded me that such a society would favor the male. It is so favorable for men that I fear that a male freedom movement is not long in coming. If woman can mount a feminine revolution then men can certainly answer it with an male revolution. I became so fearful that I called my girlfriends to warn them to be more servile to their husbands lest they be discarded.

I am saving for plastic surgery to prolong my sexual appeal, reading all the books I can get my hands on, to improve my bj and other sexual skills, I have watched at lest 5 hrs of porn and plan to emulate the actresses stating tonight. I went out and brought sexy underwear, and impossibly high-heal F//k me shoes. All of this to stave off the inevitable day that the Japanese societal norm will storm America. 

I now know for sure that men will take back a superior place in society. Since it's laws and customs are at the root of male enslavement, any statue favoring women or children will be struck down. To handle customs, men will instruct their sons in the ways of the new order. Women will teach their daughters the fine art of being concubines and in subtle techniques of subterfuge to unseat a rival sister. Prostitutes will have no work. 

The new and natural, I might add, order of testosterone ascendancy promises males a life filled with sexual conquest with as little out lay of emotional or monitory resources as is possible. That alone will make the coming revolution a complete success. 

I must admit that I feel sad for my daughters and granddaughters for the marginal lives they will live buffeted by their sexual usefulness to men. After their lives of sexual servitude slowly seeing their usefulness slip away as they age, They will be discarded at 40 years-old like so much detritus by the time they are 40. 

Laws favoring equal work having been struck from the book of laws, the best jobs will go to attractive young woman and played out woman will be fired. Higher education will be out-lawed to prevent independence from a life of service. Old woman will live out their lives in desperation and poverty, sadly pining for the men who discarded them. 

That type of society is so attractive to the testosterone-driven male psyche that it will be irresistible to men as marriage becomes more and more draconian and woman threaten to control everything especially access to their bodies. 

What a utopian vision, but a sad one for woman. Their are still some things that you have not worked into your vision. Men are even more competitive than women and in such a free wheeling society, the renegade LDS model may well develop. I will leave that to men to figure out. 

I am surprised at your revelation of how men really feel about woman. I appreciate your honesty. I was almost convinced that men were capable of forming emotional attachments to women. You seem to be angry and you obviously don't like woman. Are you sure that you have not fallen into a Walter Mitty state of mind and your dreams and convictions are wishful thinking? I leave that up to you.

It further surprises me that your dislike of woman has not pushed you to escaped the bonds of your wife who is no longer young and surely not worthy of binding a sexually alluring man such as yourself in an unnatural monogamy. It is early for you I guess. You may at lest take advantage of all of the free sex you are offered, in anticipation of the coming apocalypse. 

Nonetheless, I bow to your superior intelligence, masterful apprehension of the facts and compelling vision. I tremble at the prospect of aging and being discarded by the man I love. I will be an old woman when this comes to be. I will have the pain knowing that he will be is banging 20 yr old women 2 X 2 while I am bereft of love and sexual value.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Catherine,
It isn't the gender flavor but the economics of this that are so interesting. Higher income women have been attracting more attractive males that way for a while now. If you look at education/income demographics that trend will continue. 




Catherine602 said:


> Ian
> 
> You have persuaded me that such a society would favor the male. It is so favorable for men that I fear that a male freedom movement is not long in coming. If woman can mount a feminine revolution then men can certainly answer it with an male revolution. I became so fearful that I called my girlfriends to warn them to be more servile to their husbands lest they be discarded.
> 
> ...


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

I don't find any of it interesting at all. It's the narcissistic ramblings of an angry man who can't grasp that his fear of women's sexuality, and the power within this, will never allow men the upper hand. He has a big brain so his ramblings come seemingly close to sounding reasonable but they're not reasonable at all. I could counter, point for point, but I think Catherine did a lovely and very funny job of doing this already.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton said:


> I don't find any of it interesting at all. It's the narcissistic ramblings of an angry man who can't grasp that his fear of women's sexuality, and the power within this, will never allow men the upper hand. He has a big brain so his ramblings come seemingly close to sounding reasonable but they're not reasonable at all. I could counter, point for point, but I think Catherine did a lovely and very funny job of doing this already.


Funny you mention that. On our date last Saturday night I mentioned female robots taking over the world, sexually. We were at a bar and the noise was loud but I managed to ask him otherwise. I half yelled "Would a female robot ever take the place of a live human woman?". To date, I have never seen a man snort and shoot out Scotch from his nose but apparently it is possible. His response? "Um, no......who the hell told you that?"


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

Most men have the upperhand already. I could leave right now and crush her.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Tool said:


> Most men have the upperhand already. I could leave right now and crush her.


Then leave. If your desire is to crush her, why stay?


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

We have a great marriage, she is a wonderful person.. I don't want to crush her.. but I could if she wasn't good to me..


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

Trenton said:


> I don't find any of it interesting at all. It's the narcissistic ramblings of an angry man who can't grasp that his fear of women's sexuality, and the power within this, will never allow men the upper hand. He has a big brain so his ramblings come seemingly close to sounding reasonable but they're not reasonable at all. I could counter, point for point, but I think Catherine did a lovely and very funny job of doing this already.


Many men still haven't been able to find their own footing in post-feminism circumstances. Women still have the upper hand, yeah. For centuries men had the upper hand over us. The difference between those two scenarios is that unlike women, men haven't been denied or restricted by anything in order to get on even level with modern day women ("even level" being the operative phrase here).

Personally, I think that's what angers Ian, if anything.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

reachingshore said:


> Many men still haven't been able to find their own footing in post-feminism circumstances. Women still have the upper hand, yeah. For centuries men had the upper hand over us. The difference between those two scenarios is that unlike women, men haven't been denied or restricted by anything in order to get on even level with modern day women ("even level" being the operative phrase here).
> 
> Personally, I think that's what angers Ian, if anything.


I think women biologically always had the upper hand and always will but it works against us. An example are the current laws in Afghanistan that work to oppress women and make them property rather than individuals. What Ian keeps writing about is how it's in a woman's best interest to practice these types of laws (behaviors) without any laws being in place or else she risks losing her husband to the barrage of choices out there. This type of thinking is born out of a fear of losing something one covets. Ironically, in coveting it, a man is revealing he is attached to it and wants it. The problem is that women are not an "it".

Here is an excerpt taken from Afghan law. Read it and tell me that this is not what Ian keeps saying...

_A woman would not be allowed to decline having sexual intercourse with her husband unless she had a valid "excuse," or was sick. Specifically, Article 132 reads: "As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night. Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."_


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

Please explain why you think women biologically always had the upper hand..


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool said:


> Please explain why you think women biologically always had the upper hand..


Men are unmistakably charmed by the female form and have a great longing for it. This will never change whereas we've seen that women, when given rights, are more than capable of creating their own financial security and ascertaining their own provisions. Unfortunately, both lose a lot by limiting this simple makeup in its simplicity as I think that both are happier with the other than they are alone regardless of wants and needs.


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

So are you saying that Women don't find men charming.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool said:


> So are you saying that Women don't find men charming.


Not at all. I'm saying what I just said. On average men have a greater desire to covet and be with women than women do for men.


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

And on average a lot more men cheat then women do.. and many just dont know about it..


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool said:


> And on average a lot more men cheat then women do.. and many just dont know about it..


Given equal opportunities, it turns out that is not true.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

Bull crap, I know lots of guys that cheat..


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Tool said:


> Bull crap, I know lots of guys that cheat..


Plenty of women do too, they are just better at hiding it and don't brag to their friends.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

*Power - men and women in a postindustrial world*

T,
I have given this subject a lot of thought over time. I believe there is a solid evolutionary basis for Women being emotionally stronger than men. When I have time I will post in more detail but for the moment I will summarize with this. Before the recent advent (in the first world) of laws that protected women from UNequal treatment and from spousal abuse their primary source of power was - themselves. That said, women who were able to "manage or even over power" their male mates had a giant evolutionary advantage (in terms of natural selection) when their environment became hostile for various reasons. For example during millions of years of evolution food frequently became scarce?

Lets take Jane, who married Tar. They had two kids, T1 and T2 and then Tar got stomped to death during a mastodon hunt. Jane then paired up with Zan. She and Zan had 2 kids Z1 and Z2. Jane is 110 pounds and Zan is 160 pounds. 

Food just got scarce. How does Jane get Zan to share enough food with herself, and the kids? She has to get him to "want" to because she sure as heck cannot physically force him to do anything. There are 2 scenarios here:

The powerful Jane. She is emotionally dominant. Zan shares his food equally with her, and the 4 kids until a Saber tooth tiger eats him at which point she pairs up with Billybob and they have 2 more kids. When she dies - she has left behind 6 healthy offspring carrying her genes forward. 

The "average" Jane doesn't fair so well. Zan shares his food with her and HIS bio kids Z1 and Z2, but basically starves her offspring from Tar T1 and T2 and doesn't share enough calories with her for her to stay healthy. T1 and T2 die. When the saber tooth tiger eats Zan the process repeats with Billybob. When average Jane dies she only leaves behind 2 offspring. 





Trenton said:


> Given equal opportunities, it turns out that is not true.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

MEM,
Of course women are emotionally dominant! I don't think that is being disputed. So what are you trying to prove here? Biology? 
In Ian's case, he is essentially saying that marriage by nature "starves" a man of his biology. So I ask, why get married then? What's the point? He seems to want to point out often that marriage benefits a woman more and he points to stats of Japan and the men there not wanting to. What he fails to mention is that in Japan, more WOMEN are deciding to stay single. They don't want to have to work a full time job and then come home and cook and clean and take care of children while he is out at a bar. TIME magazine did a fascinating article on this. The men are staying single by default. No wonder the sexbot was invented there. It isn't because these men are fending off suitors, it is because nobody is "suiting" them. Wonder why he didn't mention this part. Perhaps it is all in his scare tactic that women need to be afraid of their men leaving them and this info wouldn't play in to that too well, now would it?


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Tool said:


> Bull crap, I know lots of guys that cheat..


Tool think about it, the man who you know are cheating who are they cheating with? You may not be aware of the latest statistics, although the numbers changed based on the way the survey is conducted by every measure female infidelity has steadily increased over time and the rate is almost equal to that of men. it is a difficult pill to swallow for men because it hits them right where they are the most vulnerable. 

I think but if you have a spouse who works, the opportunities to cheat are overwhelming. If a woman wants to have sex she will have no problems finding a willing partner, he can be younger, older, ugly, rich blahh blahh blahh. When a woman want to get laid she can get it. That is because there are so many willing men to provide fun when and if she pleases. Even stay at home Moms are cheating more. 

Of course you know a lot of men who cheat, do you expect a woman to come and talk to you about cheating? Men brag women act. This is the last bastion of male privilege that is virtually fallen - the willingness and opportunity to cheat if the marital relationship is not satisfactory. It astounds me that men are so clueless, you can never be sure that your spouse has not cheated or will not cheat. I work in a large facility, lots of people and the woman who cheat are never the ones you think would. The quiet, unassuming, unflashy, sweet,t comfortable looking woman who is warm and nice to talk to, are probably more common than men think. Women are much better at hiding an affair, they fly under the radar because men lick Tool think that woman don't cheat. 

I hate cheating it destroys families and annihilates the psyche of children. I think it is better to divorce with honesty than to cheat. I am however glad to see that woman are just as tempted as men and act on temptation because it takes cheating out of a male bag of tricks and puts it where it belongs a problem of human relationships, honesty and empathy. It seems that women strain under monogamy as well so the myth of the happy little woman who never thinks of sex with another man is ridiculous. Even women in a sexless marriages are sexual, just not with her spouse under the conditions of the relationship. 

Since it is a relationship problem, i am certain that as a society we will be able to discuss it openly and try to find solutions. When it was just a male thing, men would point to the stats as proof that women were happy with monogamy and men were not. Cheating was a badge of male sexual freedom and control. Thats BS, Cheating is a selfish, undermining act, hostile strike at the heart of a family and shows a terrible lack of compassion. It is a transgression of opportunity, men had more of it 40 years ago when woman were excluded from the workplace and higher education. Now woman have caught up. I am certain this is part of the angst that men like Ian suffer, one the one had they want to cheat but could not bear the thought of their wives cheating. They are so certain she would not find a partner, any clean woman with personality and warmth, can find a man to have sex with. 

There is reason for men to be angry and anxious but this a society that we created. when enough men realize that cheating is not just a male option and that the little lady is just as likely to get some extra fun on the side, they will drop the posturing and want solutions because it will hurt them as much or more than woman. 

Contrary to my humorous sendup in response to Ian's post, I think this is a serious topic. We are in a period of transition, more woman are perusing higher education and gaining economic independence. The stigma of remaining single is less, the pressure to marry is much less now for women. I read many women in their 20's are opting out in favor of the freedom of a career. Who knows how things are going to shake out but, to imagine that woman have to fail so men can succeed is an outward sign of the struggles that many men and women are dealing with. 

I think if we stop wasting time fighting against each other and fight for each other we will finally be content. The men and woman who don't want to marry will not. I dont think there is any reason that a man who feels his sexuality is stifled by matrimony should marry or stay married. we may be able to deal more honestly with each other as men and women because we have more similarities than we admit. 

Ian seemed to imply that I was a simpleton in the way I thought of male sexuality, I am not jaded, I still have hope and dreams for better things. That may not be the same reality that Ian is facing but my vision is no less valid than his.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

(I just skim read some posts, so I will probably add something later once I sit down and read properly)

Honestly, given equal opportunities and lack of some religious/social laws put in place in order to limit/deny rights to people of different genders, what does it matter who is stronger in general, men or women? 

To every action there is a reaction. When one gains, someone else has to lose in the process.

In short, it's always been about survival of the fittest, must cunning, most street-smart etc. If I want something, I will use every weapon in my arsenal to get it, within the scope of law and decency/morality of course. I really have no problem admitting that if I want to keep "it" (or if it's in my best interest to keep "it"), I will use non-malevolent tactics, such as manipulation, cajoling or whatever, even what quite possibly would be considered by other women as "beneath" me as a woman myself.

It's not out of fear, it's out of MY best interest. Honestly, if it wasn't in my own best interest (whether material or emotional or whatever, you name it) to be with my man, then probably I wouldn't be with that man in the first place.

Maybe I am wrong here, but I tend to read Ian's posts and apply whatever he writes as a message to men (he even wrote here and there that if he had meant to direct some particular post to women folk, he would have used different wording).. As in "listen, men, this is what has been happening. Women don't need you anymore for the same reasons they needed you before, because of this and this and this. There is no point sitting around and trying to "wait it out", because everything's changed and it will never go back to how it used to be. This is fool's hope. So if you now want similar things from "before", you have to figure out a different way to get it".


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

In general Women adapt much faster and much better to new circumstances than men. 

Using myself and my husband as an example. My husband is a spectacularly well traveled man. He lived permanently in many different countries before he met me. After we met we decided to move to my country. After EIGHT years he still hasn't been able to adapt. I am not talking about him not being able to integrate - he did that within first 3 months he's been here. It's not my fault or my country's fault that he has problems. He feels that he is incapable of using 100% of his abilities here. He feels emasculated by circumstances. Nothing and no one has been keeping him/us here (and I have been very much willing to move elsewhere), however this feeling of emasculation/helplessness caused this subconscious resentment. He knows it is not my fault. However I still have been paying for it by the way of no/very little sex. 

Recently we've been talking about possibly moving to his country. One of the aspects of the move we discussed was his worry that I will go through similar things he's been going through in my country. I tell him this is BS. I gave him the guarantee that I will be 100% adapted/integrated/happy within a year, if not sooner.

Women are capable of successfully adapting fast, men - not so much, judging by the fact alone that the majority still hasn't figured out how to deal with us, post-feminism women. Add to this a right and access to equal opportunities and "women inherit the earth". Hopefully, soon the US will bite the bullet and finally elect a woman-president


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

With evolution came an evolved sense of self awareness and the ability to form emotional connections to one another, with that came complexity and the more we evolved, the more complex all of our systems. The harder to understand and the more to grapple with.

I don't buy the whole "survival of the fittest" thing anymore. _You most likely think I'm insane_ but I feel wealthy societies have blown past that need and so it has settled into something we hardly recognize and been replaced with entitlements, enthusiasm for winning/power and neurosis. Yet, each of these are choices and are fully changeable. In other words, Tarzan & Jane are outdated and no longer apply, they are just humanity at its simplest so you might be able to understand the basics but it won't help you with a subject it doesn't address.

What is happening today is what happens to the 30% of the world's human population that does not live in poverty. Yes, very few of us will even think to help the 80% still struggling with "survival of the fittest" and will instead fester and moan about our own lives, connections and state of affairs. I wish we could evolve past this as well! I know it sounds like I'm on my soapbox, but I am continually frustrated by our non-evolved ability to empathize with others that live beyond our own neighborhood for more than a moment or without the prompting of some high priced advertising campaign like "Save the boobies". 

Now the answer to the female/male problem was given by Catherine in her post but no one will recognize it long enough to change that either. It is to communicate until understood, to establish a sense of empathy through relentless communication. To do this we need blunt honesty. If that honesty is that men want to have sex more than anything else than so be it. It has to be heard, looked at and solved, incorporated. Men have gone about how to get it all wrong through the years (and Ian is in his post as well) because they are frustrated by their own longings and emotions and their lack of understanding.

What is it women want now? You see, because saying "I don't know" doesn't work. We can't keep discounting our emotions and thoughts to that of men and expect to be satisfied. We have to investigate ourselves, be honest with ourselves and talk about our needs and wants. Society and things like religion make this topic even more complex. Media outlets, entertainment that caters to men alone and women alone cloud it even more. It is hard to know oneself when we are told who we are all day in our societies. That doesn't mean it's OK to become what the advertising industry wants you to be either. Self responsibility. Self responsibility and a desire for something better are crucial.


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

Trenton you are a social worker, helping others is what drives you. I get it.  You is you 

I do not think about say, kids in Africa. I will selfishly worry about myself first, then those that I care about. If someone comes to me and asks for help I will give it. But it's not in my nature to go out there and seek out people who might need help. I know - bad, bad, bad reachingshore :/

Nevertheless I will be telling my kids (once I have them) to eat up all that's on their plates and how lucky they are compared to poor children say in Africa. Again, I am willing to, in essence, use manipulation - it's in my own best interest to make sure I keep an eye on my kids' best interest. 

With survival of the fittest: Yes, we evolved past the who's got bigger muscles, who's got better aim with a spear. But that doesn't mean we evolved past the necessity to compete. It's necessary because there are so many of us, humans, and we are aware of our "I". We want the best for our "I". In order to attract the other "I", I need to "offer" something.

With relationships between men and women it's also about competing, whether we realize it or not. Let's forget emotions for a moment. I am who I am and because of who I am, this is what I "offer". I "offer" my looks, I "offer" my sex-appeal, I "offer" my education, I "offer" my money or my money-earning potential, right? It's not about the money, it's about the sense of security. Just like I need to feel emotionally secure with my man, I also need the sense of that security that pertains to the matters of my/our survival. If bananas offered sense of security, it would be bananas on "offer".



> If that honesty is that men want to have sex more than anything else than so be it. It has to be heard, looked at and solved, incorporated. Men have gone about how to get it all wrong through the years (and Ian is in his post as well) because they are frustrated by their own longings and emotions and their lack of understanding.


Honestly I think that if men in general want to have more sex with women, and like Ian said, they are unable to because they lost the upper hand in the "social contract", they need to stop twiddling their hands aka playing xbox or looking for woman replacements (porn, fleshlights, etc) and figure out a way to do something about it. A man who is complacent/content with watching porn instead of "fighting" to be with me, really has nothing to "offer" to me in that department. No offense intended, but in my view, many men are lost, in the sense that since onset of feminism lots of "constraints" have been put on them where they can no longer deal with women in their "customary" ways and so men don't really know how to deal with us now. I would really love to see some sort of a "manilism" movement. A movement that would specifically address and cater to men's need and necessity to adjust to the new circumstances. Men need to adapt their approach toward modern day women in such a way that there is still be space to allow themselves (and be allowed) to be men.


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

I still don't think women actually have the upper hand. They may think they do, and they can abuse the weapons they have at their disposal to try and control things.

But then all I need to do is to disrupt her security in the relationship and I have pulled all the control back.

Dealing with Women today is about not acknowledging bad behavior and rewarding good behavior.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Tool said:


> I still don't think women actually have the upper hand. They may think they do, and they can abuse the weapons they have at their disposal to try and control things.
> 
> But then all I need to do is to disrupt her security in the relationship and I have pulled all the control back.
> 
> Dealing with Women today is about not acknowledging bad behavior and rewarding good behavior.


I agree that women don't have the upper hand, yet. Would you explain though why you think women use abuse and control as their weapons? I disagree with that statement flat out.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

My point is that we are consciously creating the world around us and are responsible for it. To say our biology in any way guarantees a specific outcome is easy but not correct.

If you manipulate your children to eat rather than understand why they're not eating, they will eat for the wrong reasons. Saying something like..."There are starving children in Africa." doesn't do anything for a child but the message will get through..."You are entitled and you should suck each drop up, lavish in your entitlement and be grateful you're not a starving child in Africa. You are better than them." Unfortunately, there are still starving children in Africa and your own children will not appreciate any more the food you're serving.

We all want a better world, better relationships between men and women, happiness and good things around us, but very few want to do the work it takes to create this and so we evolve in a crappy way. Then no one wants to take their share in blame. 

I can't reiterate enough that at this point in history, we are fully responsible for the way we evolve because of our conscious awareness and ability to reason.

I am not a social worker, rather an idealist. It's irritating to most. I get that no one wants to hear it or do anything about it, but it in no way excuses any of us from the responsibility for the world around us or the repetitive problems in our relationships (I have plenty of my own!). Think about being married to an idealist. Ewwww.

_There are two quotes that I fashion my life by and both apply to all things, including relationships between males and females._

"Be the change you want to see in the world." -Ghandi

Ah yes, I wear a necklace with this inscribed around my neck, given to me by my Mom and I believe these words.

"‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" -Edmund Burke

Granted, _ideally _I would have loved for Burke to recognize (wo)men but hey, nothing is perfect. I could excuse him in thinking that "men" in this case is short for "human" but I also like the idea that we are striving for better but can't expect to be perfect.

Men and women want to find out how to make relationships work for both. It's in our best interest and it's the only way to really make it work. Otherwise, men very well might evolve into robot screwing idiots that pursue financial wealth for their own demise and women will evolve to not need men for anything but will sit back and watch as the world evolves into a passionless cesspool only defined by the amount of our greed and poverty in all things.


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

Perfect example would be using sex as a weapon. Another thing my Wife would do to try and gain control is to hit me or throw things at me. Knowing I wouldn't fight back physically.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Might I ask when are we all going to get together? Trenton, Catherine, Reaching, VT and me? We can call ourselves "The First Wives Club of TAM", since in a few years we will all be disgarded for robots and younger women from foreign countries. I vote Trenton for President, Catherine for Vice President, Reaching for Treasurer, VT as Secretary and me, well I will just sit back in awe but I promise to bring the booze. We will sit around drinking wine out of a box moaning about how sad and pathetic we all are since our husbands left us. Bon bons will be standard fair and Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey will be desert. After desert we will have a rousing conversation about breast implants, Botox, anal bleaching, tummy tucks and the pros and cons of if we did this earlier, would our husbands have stuck around. Then we will all be reduced to tears over our sad, sad lives and have a group hug for support. After we dry our eyes, we will hatch a plan to snare a new man to support us, since we cannot on our own. We talk about cosmetic surgery again. After surgery talk is over, we read from the 1950's manual of How to Be a Good Wife where we learn that it is essential to bite our tongues and harness our voice as to not offend a man. We must make certain that we do not challenge them in any way. No man would want us if we did. More tears are shead but we all swear that we will uphold this new way of thinking. We all agree to remove Jezebel as our "favorite" and use Vivid instead. 
After our meeting is over, we all get in our cars and drive home sad and lonely quietly thinking that if only we had done this in our marriages, our husbands would have stayed with us and not run off with a 22 year old woman from Venezuela. We pull up to our garages and try to take stock of our pathetic being. Our husbands left us, that is all that matters. Nothing else matters. Not our well raised children, our successful careers, our leadership in charities, our staying at home to teach our children, our political action, our voice and what we do with it, our belief and how we stand by it steadfast. None of that matters. Our husbands left us and we only feel shame and humiliation. 
Whose in? 
**Crickets**


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Brennan said:


> Might I ask when are we all going to get together? Trenton, Catherine, Reaching, VT and me? We can call ourselves "The First Wives Club of TAM", since in a few years we will all be disgarded for robots and younger women from foreign countries. I vote Trenton for President, Catherine for Vice President, Reaching for Treasurer, VT as Secretary and me, well I will just sit back in awe but I promise to bring the booze. We will sit around drinking wine out of a box moaning about how sad and pathetic we all are since our husbands left us. Bon bons will be standard fair and Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey will be desert. After desert we will have a rousing conversation about breast implants, Botox, anal bleaching, tummy tucks and the pros and cons of if we did this earlier, would our husbands have stuck around. Then we will all be reduced to tears over our sad, sad lives and have a group hug for support. After we dry our eyes, we will hatch a plan to snare a new man to support us, since we cannot on our own. We talk about cosmetic surgery again. After surgery talk is over, we read from the 1950's manual of How to Be a Good Wife where we learn that it is essential to bite our tongues and harness our voice as to not offend a man. We must make certain that we do not challenge them in any way. No man would want us if we did. More tears are shead but we all swear that we will uphold this new way of thinking. We all agree to remove Jezebel as our "favorite" and use Vivid instead.
> After our meeting is over, we all get in our cars and drive home sad and lonely quietly thinking that if only we had done this in our marriages, our husbands would have stayed with us and not run off with a 22 year old woman from Venezuela. We pull up to our garages and try to take stock of our pathetic being. Our husbands left us, that is all that matters. Nothing else matters. Not our well raised children, our successful careers, our leadership in charities, our staying at home to teach our children, our political action, our voice and what we do with it, our belief and how we stand by it steadfast. None of that matters. Our husbands left us and we only feel shame and humiliation.
> Whose in?
> **Crickets**


Teeehehe it's a woman's club, we don't need to dote on silly things like titles...we just need to know that our children are being babysat and that there's enough wine to open us up enough to freely whine!

I'm in!


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

By the way, Brennan, I love your writing there. It is really, really funny and wrought with black irony.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool said:


> Perfect example would be using sex as a weapon. Another thing my Wife would do to try and gain control is to hit me or throw things at me. Knowing I wouldn't fight back physically.


Why not use silence and distance as your own weapon? I hear that has been fashionable for men for years! You could also stock up on cotton balls and fight back fair by launching your own equally stunning attack on your relationship!


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

I have found what works best in these situations is to take the power back.

Last time she hit me, I picked up the phone to call the police. That put an end to that power play for good.

Basically any power play she makes results in me taking back the power away. Then when she comes to me in a good way I reward her with love and emotion.

Sometimes though ignoring her is the best course of action, because if I acknowledge her bad behavior she knows that whatever she did worked and I cannot grant her that.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool said:


> I have found what works best in these situations is to take the power back.
> 
> Last time she hit me, I picked up the phone to call the police. That put an end to that power play for good.
> 
> ...


Nah, I prefer you launch a cotton ball attack. Then again, I like the absurd.

I will warn you that taking the power back and calling the police won't solve the problem in my opinion. You are escalating her resentments to you rather than addressing what the resentments are.

Communication, start talking and do so without only listening to yourself and your points while talking. It's so hard to do but it's the only way you're going to get to the bottom so that you can rebuild from the bottom up.

I do have to ask, have you had an affair and gotten away with it without her finding out? You mentioned this in this thread so I thought it might be in regards to yourself. Secondly, why do you stay with your wife?


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

No I have not had an affair, if it came to that I would have just left her. And she did face that situation with me that last time she verbally abused me. That stopped her in her tracks and she finally communicated with me.

Why do I stay with my Wife? Because she loves me and we both agreed to change our ways and we both did.

These power struggles we had are in our past now. But if they ever come up again, I know how to handle myself and not let her control me.

She thought she had the upper hand in the relationship and that she could control me. She learned that was not the case.

And the beauty of this all, is that I am not a controlling person. I want us to be equals and now we are.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool said:


> No I have not had an affair, if it came to that I would have just left her. And she did face that situation with me that last time she verbally abused me. That stopped her in her tracks and she finally communicated with me.
> 
> Why do I stay with my Wife? Because she loves me and we both agreed to change our ways and we both did.
> 
> ...


OK, so you used the traditional man up thing and it worked for you. Whatever works for both in the relationship is great as certainly we are all individuals. What you did would not work for me in my relationship though. 

I thought I sensed some resentment towards women in your words but I'm sure that was me inferring what wasn't there.


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

What is the problem in your relationship..


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton said:


> Teeehehe it's a woman's club, we don't need to dote on silly things like titles...we just need to know that our children are being babysat and that there's enough wine to open us up enough to freely whine!
> 
> I'm in!


That's "wine" my dear, not "whine". Us womenz are simple folk afterall.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton said:


> By the way, Brennan, I love your writing there. It is really, really funny and wrought with black irony.


I call it like I see it. BTW, my husband approved my message prior to me posting it. Gotta get the approval from the "upper hand" afterall.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Tool, most likely I'm the problem but don't tell him that.

Brennan, at least he's not a robot  
lol


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

Heee heeee  Brennan, I am all in. However you all would probably boot me out on the first meeting as I am the "younger woman from a foreign country"


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

reachingshore said:


> Heee heeee  Brennan, I am all in. However you all would probably boot me out on the first meeting as I am the "younger woman from a foreign country"


Nah, we like'em young and foreign. We can indoctrinate you and if you won't be indoctrinated we can put you to work with some older gentleman who is willing to pay. Reachingshore, you can be our ticket to the *eassssy *life. So, what's your feeling about wrinkly old balls when you're first being introduced? Sexy or Not? :rofl:


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Oooh I just deleted my first message. I feel like a born again virgin but now I'm wondering if I should delete this too.


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

Trenton said:


> Nah, we like'em young and foreign. We can indoctrinate you and if you won't be indoctrinated we can put you to work with some older gentleman who is willing to pay. Reachingshore, you can be our ticket to the *eassssy *life. So, what's your feeling about wrinkly old balls when you're first being introduced? Sexy or Not? :rofl:


You know this might actually work, business plan wise???    (me being the treasurer and all )

I've always been somewhat complaining that the only men that seem to have been hitting on me are those much older.  I figure, for some reason men my age seem to feel too intimidated by me  



Why born again virgin, Trenton?


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Ah ya know, deleting words I meant but then realizing maybe I didn't mean them so much...usually I just lay it all on the line like a penny waiting to be smothered for someone else's enjoyment but by deleting I was all born again.

Know what I'm saying young hot thang from a foreign country? hahaha


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Brennan said:


> Might I ask when are we all going to get together? Trenton, Catherine, Reaching, VT and me? We can call ourselves "The First Wives Club of TAM", since in a few years we will all be disgarded for robots and younger women from foreign countries. I vote Trenton for President, Catherine for Vice President, Reaching for Treasurer, VT as Secretary and me, well I will just sit back in awe but I promise to bring the booze. We will sit around drinking wine out of a box moaning about how sad and pathetic we all are since our husbands left us. Bon bons will be standard fair and Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey will be desert. After desert we will have a rousing conversation about breast implants, Botox, anal bleaching, tummy tucks and the pros and cons of if we did this earlier, would our husbands have stuck around. Then we will all be reduced to tears over our sad, sad lives and have a group hug for support. After we dry our eyes, we will hatch a plan to snare a new man to support us, since we cannot on our own. We talk about cosmetic surgery again. After surgery talk is over, we read from the 1950's manual of How to Be a Good Wife where we learn that it is essential to bite our tongues and harness our voice as to not offend a man. We must make certain that we do not challenge them in any way. No man would want us if we did. More tears are shead but we all swear that we will uphold this new way of thinking. We all agree to remove Jezebel as our "favorite" and use Vivid instead.
> After our meeting is over, we all get in our cars and drive home sad and lonely quietly thinking that if only we had done this in our marriages, our husbands would have stayed with us and not run off with a 22 year old woman from Venezuela. We pull up to our garages and try to take stock of our pathetic being. Our husbands left us, that is all that matters. Nothing else matters. Not our well raised children, our successful careers, our leadership in charities, our staying at home to teach our children, our political action, our voice and what we do with it, our belief and how we stand by it steadfast. None of that matters. Our husbands left us and we only feel shame and humiliation.
> Whose in?
> **Crickets**


yes yes yes. :smthumbup::yay::bounce: 

It can be a virtual - club we meet here once a month decide on a topic to research or a book to read and discuss it via this forum. something pertinent to relationships, sexuality, current treads, discussion of threads and post that are interesting or instructive (like Ian's) 

We can drink ample amounts of wine, share opinions on vintages etc. What do you think ladies not kidding...

PS whats anal bleaching?


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## reachingshore (Jun 10, 2010)

Trenton said:


> Ah ya know, deleting words I meant but then realizing maybe I didn't mean them so much...usually I just lay it all on the line like a penny waiting to be smothered for someone else's enjoyment but by deleting I was all born again.
> 
> Know what I'm saying young hot thang from a foreign country? hahaha


Ahh  I get it now LOL Kind of like plastic surgery. You no like, you go "correct" LOL Which BTW would be our very first investment in this joint venture - just force feed me high calorie foods for a week; extra 5 kgs increases my market value from B/C to C/D 

 

Remember, this particular bait holds the purse strings


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Catherine602 said:


> yes yes yes. :smthumbup::yay::bounce:
> 
> It can be a virtual - club we meet here once a month decide on a topic to research or a book to read and discuss it via this forum. something pertinent to relationships, sexuality, current treads, discussion of threads and post that are interesting or instructive (like Ian's)
> 
> ...


I'm totally down with this and think _What Dreams May Come_ is a great starter book along with white wine, you all decide the variety! We can move onto red when we're working on our hearts!

PS Anal bleaching is when you bleach and wax your a$$ to make it more alluring and charming for the penis to penetrate.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> What is it women want now? You see, because saying "I don't know" doesn't work. We can't keep discounting our emotions and thoughts to that of men and expect to be satisfied. We have to investigate ourselves, be honest with ourselves and talk about our needs and wants. Society and things like religion make this topic even more complex. Media outlets, entertainment that caters to men alone and women alone cloud it even more. It is hard to know oneself when we are told who we are all day in our societies. That doesn't mean it's OK to become what the advertising industry wants you to be either. Self responsibility. Self responsibility and a desire for something better are crucial.


The ironic thing is that I do, indeed, agree with you and Catherine, just from a different perspective. Men and women do need to relentlessly communicate, but they need to do so in ways that the other party can hear. That means an effort by each gender within a relationship to attempt to understand not just one's own spouse, but the complexities of the entire opposite gender. It also means an acceptance of things we don't understand, even if there is no intuitive comprehension, and a willingness to do so without judgement. 

I harp on sex because, well, I'm a Sex Nerd, and this is a sex forum, and that narrow focus is what we're discussing, but the fact is that sex is just the core of a much greater discussion. Sex, and our attitudes about it, influence just about everything else. Yes, men want more sex, always more sex. Women want security, always more security. Those are the unchangeable facts. The changeable fact is that our society provides both a level of security and a level of sexual access that allow both genders access to their desires. That complex, sophisticated civilization is delicate and ephemeral, however, and imagining that we have somehow suddenly evolved past the need for primal sexual/social drives and fulfillments is premature.

We've seen our society shift profoundly in the last century, sociologically and technically, and while I agree that we've "evolved" the ability to consciously change our environment and our society to better meet our ideals, all the sociological and cultural stuff doesn't evolve in a vacuum. We're a lot closer to the "survival of the fittest" model than we're all willing to admit to, and those skills are invaluable in crisis situations. They determine who makes the cut, genetically speaking, and who doesn't. 

But it's important to remember that conditions are always liable to change: the "fittest" metrosexual success story in Manhattan might have three houses and a boat, but that only makes him "fittest" relative to his society. Take him out and put him in the middle of a Katrina-level disaster, and he's going to be a casualty more than likely. Likewise if you took a South Carolina backwoods ******* and thrust him into the chaos of Los Angeles, he's unlikely to become "the fittest" in that brutal society -- but when there's an earthquake or a riot, he's going to thrive on those more basic skills.

I suppose my point, in regards to sex and evolution, is that our societal and cultural evolutions, however sophisticated, can't endure for long without the powerful "less evolved" drives for sex and security we all manifest; at best, they're clever and temporary interpretations of the current environment, designed to maximize the benefit to the powerful and control and retard the benefit to the less powerful. But they always express those more primal drives, even in all of their sophistication.

By all means, I encourage men and women to relentlessly communicate. But that doesn't just mean women talk and men listen. My perspective, as an advocate for male sexuality, is that it is a husband's duty to not only study female sexuality as embodied by his spouse, but also passionately advocate for his own desires without shame or fear of judgement. 

And you're absolutely right: it's really difficult to "give women what they want" when the answer to that question has been "I don't know" for so long that it's become institutional. Y'all need to think of something quick.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

My W understands English very well. And yet I have found that when we have a priority conflict and I "just" use words I might as well not bother. 

If however I use:
20 percent words
30 percent tone
50 percent body language 

That works amazingly well. And certain tone/body posture promises an imminent cold front if not addressed promptly. 




IanIronwood said:


> The ironic thing is that I do, indeed, agree with you and Catherine, just from a different perspective. Men and women do need to relentlessly communicate, but they need to do so in ways that the other party can hear. That means an effort by each gender within a relationship to attempt to understand not just one's own spouse, but the complexities of the entire opposite gender. It also means an acceptance of things we don't understand, even if there is no intuitive comprehension, and a willingness to do so without judgement.
> 
> I harp on sex because, well, I'm a Sex Nerd, and this is a sex forum, and that narrow focus is what we're discussing, but the fact is that sex is just the core of a much greater discussion. Sex, and our attitudes about it, influence just about everything else. Yes, men want more sex, always more sex. Women want security, always more security. Those are the unchangeable facts. The changeable fact is that our society provides both a level of security and a level of sexual access that allow both genders access to their desires. That complex, sophisticated civilization is delicate and ephemeral, however, and imagining that we have somehow suddenly evolved past the need for primal sexual/social drives and fulfillments is premature.
> 
> ...


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Ian I thought you would never come back!! I was about to send you a PI promising not to bite you (virtually) if you came back. 

I could not agree more with the above. We are not enamies men an woman. I do not know what I would be with the profound effect of men in my life most especially my husband. I have written many times that we are getting on so much better now but honestly I don't really understand him I just know how he "works". A case in point - he recently purchased an old car for 35K, he is now working to fix said car - he calls it restoration.

I keep thinking of the number of trips to Italy that we could have taken as a family and all of the wonderful family memories that would have been created. Instead, we all get to watch a very happy man working on a car that he has dreamed of having for decades. A few yrs ago our competing visions would have cause me to fume now we all grab his dream and lern all we can about the care the era. We are looking for vintage clothing etc. I would never have gotten a stupid car for all of that money to fix if it were not for this man that I cannot for the life of me understand. We would have missed out on this adventure of pluming the past, helping realize his dream. He told me things that he had not shared with me before, about his thoughts and dreams. I sit still and listen while he works on the car and talks once in a while - it he spent 350K it would have been too little. 

He knows i dream of trips to Italy and i know my dreams are as important to him as his are to me. We will go someday to I and enjoy it more because we are closer than ever. So I not sure why this car and fixing it is so important it has something to do with having something he could not get as a teen and bringing it back to life. The car came up for sale and if he passed it up no telling when another would be available. He could have let it pass so we could go on a trip but he needed this dream thing now and the trip can wait. 

The car is all him but he invited me in to enjoy it with him and I did jump in with both feet because I enjoyed his boyish joy. BTW he is not selfish he works hard and gives us his all. All of this to say thIs is a man thing this car and I love it because it is so not like me. Who wants to be married to a guy to just reads novels and goes to the opera. Nothing like a greasy sweaty man taking a shower and .... 

Anyway men should accept women the way they are without the contempt and impatience so frequently displayed on this very forum. I was able to accept what I can not understand but I learned to enjoy because it was all him. Women can't think like men, we should not be expected to - we have some common characteristic needs in a relationship, but many men resist the validity of our needs because they are not important to THEM or they don't understand or they hold them in contempt. It does not matter who started it or who is the worse offender. Both are in different ways and we have to recognized the ways we negate each other in all it's perturbations and work towards fixing it. 

The attitudes you express Ian in some you post are very mean towards women. You know our fears and anxieties about age beauty and sexual appeal and your message to men is to play on these fears to gain an advantage. You seem to be telling men that they should realize how useless women are in all instances excepts those in which she services him. You seem to further remind men that he sacrifices himself by allowing himself to live with one woman giving up a chance to spread his seed and he should remind her that at any time he could move on to the next panting eggar chick. 

Ian there is a reason men have evolved to temper the seed spreading thing - humans, unlike non-human primates, build things, change the raw environment, farm, manufacture that puts a dent in the seed spreading activity. there is one other thing, monkeys don't fall in love but men and women do. That is unique to us. Drop the animal stuff it is beneath you - why not make you message one advocating enjoying the differences sexual and otherwise. Read my car experience over again that's what I am talking about.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

MEM You are so on target I think if a man is too wordy there is too much room for misinterpretation and sometimes seem like they are justifying a stance. My husband is not a big talker things kind of come out at odd times like when we are walking or he is working on a project and I am sitting there holding some stupid vital part. Sometimes I think he has not been listening but if I give him room he does what I request now. He does not like being told what to do and although he likes me to defy him or say cheeky things. he does not care for yelling and extream anger. Of course I do it anyway ) just to see what he will do, havent been able to ruffle him yet. Sometimes fun to do he he.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Catherine602 said:


> Ian I thought you would never come back!! I was about to send you a PI promising not to bite you (virtually) if you came back.
> {...}
> 
> Anyway men should accept women the way they are without the contempt and impatience so frequently displayed on this very forum. I was able to accept what I can not understand but I learned to enjoy because it was all him. Women can't think like men, we should not be expected to - we have some common characteristic needs in a relationship, but many men resist the validity of our needs because they are not important to THEM or they don't understand or they hold them in contempt. It does not matter who started it or who is the worse offender. Both are in different ways and we have to recognized the ways we negate each other in all it's perturbations and work towards fixing it.
> ...


Actually, I'd like to respond to this for clarification.

You might consider my posts "mean", but I've given my position a lot of thought, study, and consideration. When a woman refuses sex with a man, even though she knows how important it is to him, is that likewise "mean"? Women use our sex drive against us constantly, from waving boobs in the face of a police officer to get out of a ticket (even my wife has done this) to dressing provocatively on a date they KNOW they aren't going to have sex after, just to convince themselves that they're attractive without actually consummating the deal.

Women use the power of their sexuality to skew things in their favor constantly in our society. And they use the knowledge that we, as men, are largely driven by this sexual impulse to do pretty much whatever they want. Believe me, I know the power of a pretty girl to make a man do something he might not want to do under ordinary circumstances -- my livelihood currently depends upon it. 

So is that "mean" of these women? Of all women? 

When I take men to task, it's usually over this issue: we live in an era of equality between the genders -- I'm all in favor of that. But instead of partial equality, where women get equal access to education, finances, employment, legal protection, etc. PLUS they still get to dictate, as a class, what the sexual rules should be, I get upset. For there to be true and respectable equality, it has to extend to the realm of sex. And in that arena, we are largely still playing by the rules our ancestors wrote for us. I aim to help change that.

Sure, it might be "mean" by pointing out the very real issue of female insecurities, but "mean" doesn't mean "unfair" in this context. It's not "nice", but we aren't talking about a game of Monopoly, here. We're talking about one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives. "Nice" doesn't get you what you want, no matter how many women tell you it will. "Nice" tells a guy that it's okay to put his needs, wants, desires and feelings on hold indefinitely, as long as the woman in his life isn't complaining. It tells him that it's okay for his wife to cut back sex to once a month and he shouldn't complain. 

In short, the way the sexual rules work here-and-now, men are trained from birth to undervalue their sexuality, and their intrinsic value in a relationship. Some parts of this are culturally ingrained, some are just the prevailing societal mores of years past, but the fact is that men are taught to demean and despise our own sexuality while glorifying that of women as more important. Too tired? That's all right. Headache? Okay. Not feeling fresh? Of course I'll wait. Over and over and over, he takes it until he's about to burst, because he's been taught that what he feels and wants is trivial next to her needs for security.

When a man undervalues himself and his sexuality in a relationship, then the path towards his woman doing the same is pretty short. 




Catherine602 said:


> Ian there is a reason men have evolved to temper the seed spreading thing - humans, unlike non-human primates, build things, change the raw environment, farm, manufacture that puts a dent in the seed spreading activity. there is one other thing, monkeys don't fall in love but men and women do. That is unique to us. Drop the animal stuff it is beneath you - why not make you message one advocating enjoying the differences sexual and otherwise. Read my car experience over again that's what I am talking about.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


And that's a very compelling story . . . from your side. I applaud the fact that you accept and support your husband's hobby, even if you don't understand it. It just points out the vast difference in relative values men and women place on different things. But the very way you had to come to accept it, and the route you took to get there, shows that you didn't have an intuitive understanding or appreciation for what he was doing. Not knocking you -- you do better than 95% of the women out there -- but I wonder how different everyone's life would be if there was some sort of "Care and Feeding Of The Male Psyche" or "Care and feeding of the Female Psyche" class that was mandatory before getting a marriage license? Something under "Why my mate cares so damn much about cars/sports/shoes/celebrities" would go a long way to explain some of these differences -- or at least lend them enough credence so that they were not dismissed out of hand.

I can't "drop the animal stuff", nor do I consider it "beneath me" -- and that's a very female perspective on sexuality in general and male sexuality in particular. Indeed, I'm proud of my gender's sexuality and won't apologize for it. As I tell my wife when I'm doing something "wrong", it's not that I'm doing it wrong, I'm doing it _differently than you_, and that's what's bugging you. Your husband expressed his happiness with a car, while you'd prefer to go to Italy -- which one is "right"? The same holds true to the different perspective on sexuality.

According to standard female sexual doctrine, sex is supposed to me romantic and intimate and caring and loving. That's great. But that's not all of sex, nor should it be. That's the FEMALE perception and appreciation for sex. And that's the one that's dominated the conversation for the last few hundred years. 

Again, that's great -- but it's not a MALE perception or appreciation. I believe males have a better appreciation for the primal, animalistic drive for sex that women, all too often, dismiss, demean and deride. They tell us it's "beneath" us, that we're "unworthy" of such "unwholesome" thoughts, that we are somehow "dirtier" or more bestial, because we dare enjoy our sexuality on our own terms. 

That bugs me. I'm not dismissing the romantic/feminine ideals of love, romance and sex within that context. I just want equal treatment, respect, and consideration for the male side of things. And the male side is far more quick to acknowledge our legacy of 100,000 years as tribal peoples who approached sex very differently than our modern considerations. We have to contend with the hormonal "spreading your seed/constant sex buzz" issue the same way y'all have to deal with menstruation and menopause. But the way the conversation has been going, that perspective has not been given equal consideration.

Vive la differance -- oh, mais ouis! There's plenty of folks yelling about how we should all just get along and appreciate our differences. I could be one of them, and get lost in the crowd. But that would be intellectually dishonest of me, not to mention ineffectual. When the rubber meets the road and women have to face -- and be forced to respect -- our sexual differences without judging, taking offense, or seeking to change them (and make us feel bad about them in the process) then I'll relax.


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## tobio (Nov 30, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> According to standard female sexual doctrine, sex is supposed to me romantic and intimate and caring and loving. That's great. But that's not all of sex, nor should it be. That's the FEMALE perception and appreciation for sex. And that's the one that's dominated the conversation for the last few hundred years.
> 
> *Again, that's great -- but it's not a MALE perception or appreciation. I believe males have a better appreciation for the primal, animalistic drive for sex that women, all too often, dismiss, demean and deride. They tell us it's "beneath" us, that we're "unworthy" of such "unwholesome" thoughts, that we are somehow "dirtier" or more bestial, because we dare enjoy our sexuality on our own terms. *


This bit stood out to me. I can't speak for all women, but I know how I translate this into my life. I don't "dismiss" this drive you talk about because of the reasons you say exactly. For me, it's more the "premise" around this drive that objectifies me as a woman, implies that my primary "value" is in sexual terms, rather than in a more holistic sense and the many other aspects of "me" there are in my many different functions in my life, that makes me uncomfortable with it.

It is intimidating to feel myself judged solely on my sexual worth, I feel it puts me in a position of less power, I have less control in this context. I don't like the idea of being viewed in a primal sexual way and nothing else. I understand the differences emerging here, I just don't have to like it.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

tobio said:


> This bit stood out to me. I can't speak for all women, but I know how I translate this into my life. I don't "dismiss" this drive you talk about because of the reasons you say exactly. For me, it's more the "premise" around this drive that objectifies me as a woman, implies that my primary "value" is in sexual terms, rather than in a more holistic sense and the many other aspects of "me" there are in my many different functions in my life, that makes me uncomfortable with it.
> 
> It is intimidating to feel myself judged solely on my sexual worth, I feel it puts me in a position of less power, I have less control in this context. I don't like the idea of being viewed in a primal sexual way and nothing else. I understand the differences emerging here, I just don't have to like it.


I can appreciate that. It sounds akin to what men feel like when women are sizing them up at the beginning of a relationship -- is he a "loser"? Does he have a good job? Drive a good car? Live at home with his folks? Own his own home? Prospects for advancement in his career? It's very intimidating to be judged solely on your ability as a producer when you clearly have a lot more to offer a woman. You feel . . . objectified, as if you don't have any value beyond that of a support system for the woman in question. 

I appreciate that you feel powerless about this, but I'd say rather you feel less powerful in your sexual relationship, not power-less. Yes, you have less control, and you've ceded it to the male. He sees your sexuality (not as your totality, BTW) as a (perhaps _the_) key to pursuing and maintaining the relationship. Sex -- and your sex in particular -- is now front-and-center as a prime characteristic of the relationship, in all of it's glory. 

If you're talking about the workplace, the social arena, or cultural affairs, your sexuality isn't (and shouldn't be) an issue for your relations with males. But once you bring the issue to a more intimate level, then your sexuality -- and our desire for sex in general -- are in play. You may feel uncomfortable about it and don't like it, but I can guarantee that there are plenty of dudes out there on the opposite side who feel just as powerless and objectified by women.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

I can't speak on behalf of Catherine, but I can speak on behalf of myself and I am not one of these women you keep referring to and I am fully aware of my husband's sexual drive and have a desire to fulfill it. I have never, ever used the sexual manipulation of withholding sex to get what I want because I recognize that it doesn't actually work to do anything besides slowly destroy a relationship. The other form of manipulation that you described with your example using a police officer works far better.

My husband's car recently needed tires and he asked me to handle it because he knew that the person I'd be dealing with would most likely be a man and that I'd be more likely to get the best price and service using light flirting. I have no problem doing this. I have no problem using the damsel in distress either. I have learned very well what men like to see and hear from women and how I can use this to benefit me. It is a conscious choice to understand how the opposite sex works and use this information to easier communicate with positive end results.

Still, I would never want this type of relationship with my husband because it has to be deeper and mutually satisfying to last. We still do the sexual dance but I don't look at it as manipulation on either part because both of us really enjoy it. We both feel safe to express our wants and desires and when we got to this point, ah me, the sexual gratification is immense.

Perhaps it is more about teaching the dance of sexuality than it is communicating on a basic level the needs and wants of each sex. I agree with you that "I don't know" is not a sufficient answer but I will add that I think this answer has come from teaching women that they don't know and men are better able to tell them. Women are in an uncomfortable position where they may feel they know but don't feel entitled to this information and so they flux and confuse even themselves to the point of not knowing.

Also, what you are describing in regards to evolution is more closely related to adaptive abilities. Given our conscious awareness and ability to think and communicate, adaption can happen within days rather than hundreds of years.

I will also add that just because you have studied in depth using a particular model or belief system, doesn't in any way guarantee that it is 100% correct. In fact, the room for error is very vast.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> I can't speak on behalf of Catherine, but I can speak on behalf of myself and I am not one of these women you keep referring to and I am fully aware of my husband's sexual drive and have a desire to fulfill it. I have never, ever used the sexual manipulation of withholding sex to get what I want because I recognize that it doesn't actually work to do anything besides slowly destroy a relationship. The other form of manipulation that you described with your example using a police officer works far better.
> 
> My husband's car recently needed tires and he asked me to handle it because he knew that the person I'd be dealing with would most likely be a man and that I'd be more likely to get the best price and service using light flirting. I have no problem doing this. I have no problem using the damsel in distress either. I have learned very well what men like to see and hear from women and how I can use this to benefit me. It is a conscious choice to understand how the opposite sex works and use this information to easier communicate with positive end results.
> 
> ...


I actually agree with you, for the most part. Firstly, my wife and I moved past the "sex as manipulation" stage a long time ago, and are in the "fiercely determined partners against the world who have more sex than any of our friends, married or single". We're mutually supportive, attentive to each others needs (sexual and non-sexual) and the best of friends. Oh, we still fight and have relationship discussions, but thanks to our unique characteristics and a set of Rules Of Engagement for fighting, those occasions are fewer and fewer every year.

I'm all for better sex/love/relationship education for women (and men), hopefully without any kind of dose of religion. And I don't expect women to suddenly know what they really want any more than I expect them to go to one shoe store, buy the first pair of shoes that fit, and get on with their day. 

I understand your position, and respect it. But you are, unfortunately, a minority, and an enlightened minority at that. Rank-and-file American Womanhood has been taught sexual manipulation literally at their mother's knee, and not only see nothing wrong with it but turn and attack each other when that ability to manipulate is threatened. Between the extremes of the Good Girl Wife And Mother meme and the Feminist Empowerment To Cast Off The Chains Of Chattel Marriage meme, there's not a whole lot of role models that lead to healthy relationships.

And I'll admit, I don't have a corner on this intellectual market. I may well be wrong. But like any researcher, I form my hypothesis based on the available data, and from my perspective I calls 'em likes I sees 'em. Your marriage is the exception. The others are the rule.

Just trying to change the rule . . .


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> I actually agree with you, for the most part. Firstly, my wife and I moved past the "sex as manipulation" stage a long time ago, and are in the "fiercely determined partners against the world who have more sex than any of our friends, married or single". We're mutually supportive, attentive to each others needs (sexual and non-sexual) and the best of friends. Oh, we still fight and have relationship discussions, but thanks to our unique characteristics and a set of Rules Of Engagement for fighting, those occasions are fewer and fewer every year.
> 
> I'm all for better sex/love/relationship education for women (and men), hopefully without any kind of dose of religion. And I don't expect women to suddenly know what they really want any more than I expect them to go to one shoe store, buy the first pair of shoes that fit, and get on with their day.
> 
> ...


What do you base this on "at the hand of their mothers"? My mom never taught me any of that. In fact, I am so against using my sexuality to get what I want and have never in my life tried to get out of a ticket. 
Ian, I think you are making some vast generalities here based on your anger. I understand where you anger comes from but please also understand where I come from. A feminist who believes in equality so much that I would never use my sexuality to "get ahead" of a guy and wouldn't even think to use my sexuality as a weapon either.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> What do you base this on "at the hand of their mothers"? My mom never taught me any of that. In fact, I am so against using my sexuality to get what I want and have never in my life tried to get out of a ticket.
> Ian, I think you are making some vast generalities here based on your anger. I understand where you anger comes from but please also understand where I come from. A feminist who believes in equality so much that I would never use my sexuality to "get ahead" of a guy and wouldn't even think to use my sexuality as a weapon either.


I do appreciate it, but you are in the minority. My comment about their mothers has little to do with my personal anger, and a lot to do with the facts on the ground. 

And the fact is, there is a significant pluarality in this country who have supported my vast generalities. The mainstream culture norm is tacit acceptance of female sexual manipulation -- almost a celebration of it. I could name examples, if you like. And if you don't think that there are a whole lot of people who ernestly believe that that's the way it's supposed to be, like it or not, then consider just how many people in this country a) don't believe in evolution b) do believe Wrestling is real and c) know more about Brangelina than they do geopolitics. 

While I respect your opinion and your perspective -- heck, I encourage it -- saying that female sexual manipulation is the exception, not the rule in our culture is like saying that sexual harassment and unequal pay went away because we passed a law. As idealistic as we would like to be about such things, they just don't match the facts. You would be quite justified in being angry about how women are currently treated in the workforce -- would I therefore call your hatred chavenism, or righteous anger? While the two aren't mutually exclusive, I don't think you'd appreciate me dismissing righteous indignation about an injustice as "your personal anger", and point out that perhaps you had faced such treatment in the past and how that was, of course, inflating your perspective.

I'm not pissed off or anything, just making a point. Things get complicated, and there aren't easy answers. Personal hurt and societal injustice both happen, they both propel us to action, they both are passionate emotions. But if a woman complains about society-wide problems with sexual harassment/unequal pay, she's not patted on the head and told to go put a cold cloth on her head anymore. She's listened to seriously. 

If a man makes a complaint about women in society using sexual manipulation, he's written off as a disgruntled misogynist, safe to ignore and invalidate. Because our pattern of sexual manipulation in our society has dictated that that's acceptable practice. Guys get pissed off all the time. They're just being guys.  If it's about sex, they can be dismissed that much more quickly.

But ask to be taken seriously . . .


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> I do appreciate it, but you are in the minority. My comment about their mothers has little to do with my personal anger, and a lot to do with the facts on the ground.
> 
> And the fact is, there is a significant pluarality in this country who have supported my vast generalities. The mainstream culture norm is tacit acceptance of female sexual manipulation -- almost a celebration of it. I could name examples, if you like. And if you don't think that there are a whole lot of people who ernestly believe that that's the way it's supposed to be, like it or not, then consider just how many people in this country a) don't believe in evolution b) do believe Wrestling is real and c) know more about Brangelina than they do geopolitics.
> 
> ...


I guess we have our own experiences and that is how we form our opinions. I can only look within me and know that I do not, will not, have not, nor will I ever use/abuse my sexuality to get what I want out of a man or worse, withhold sex from the person I pledged it to for my own personal gain. 
Like I said, I believe in equality. It is ridiculous for women to be seen as equals to men if we use our eyelashes, tits and long hair to get what we want. Then we are reduced down to nothing more than a sexual being and not a "whole" being which is what women have fought so hard to be treated as. Like you, it infuriates me when a women uses sex to get her way. It is completely opposite of what the womens rights movement was all about, sexual freedom among other things. There is nothing "free" to us women if we use sex as a weapon and a form of control. It's what men have done for years and us women despised so much and rose up accordingly. 
Now, having said that, that doesn't give my husband free reign over my body any time he wants it. If I don't feel like having sex, I will tell him. It's not because I have some larger agenda other than I was not in the mood or not feeling so groovy. If I am angry at him, I will flat out say so. Sort of a "This is what you did to make me mad and I don't like having sex when I am angry and once we resolve this, I will be up for it again". I will not hold that anger in and quietly ooze resentment towards him and ignore him sexually or tell him I have a headache when in reality I want to tear his head off. Where would that get either of us? Nowhere. 
I hear what you are saying Ian and I also go back our own experiences forming our opinions. I do want to point out though that there are many women on this board who have husbands who withhold sex and use it as a weapon. I was one of them. Additionally, many of the women have husbands who have turned to porn and turned away from their wives, thus holding them sexually hostage. Using sex as a weapon isn't exclusive to women, at least not to those women being denied. Maybe your "world view" is that women have that market cornered but then my "world view" is men use money to control women. Read through some of these forums and there is sort of evidence to support my feelings. Lot's of SAHM's dependent on their husbands and lot's of men talking about how they could "crush" their wives by leaving. Same M.O, different weapon. Either way, using anything as a weapon to get what we want is just inexcusable and has no place in a marriage.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Brennan I get that you might disagree with me on this, perhaps Ian will as well but I want to be honest here. It is my opinion that this dance of flirting and small manipulations between female sexuality and men is actually welcomed and enjoyed by men and women. I'm not talking about the turning off of a woman's sexuality as punishment rather the turning on of her sexuality as a way to entertain a man and gain confidence in herself. 

I'm not talking about becoming a stripper. I'm talking about smiling in a certain way or feigning innocence or ignorance in a way that is attractive to a man.

I don't think women have the same need to be right or the same fragile ego as men. I know these are gross assumptions but they are coming from my experience. A confident woman is confident enough in herself so much so that she doesn't have to display her knowledge or strengths. Her happiness comes from being appreciated for the roles she takes on and not seeming invisible, but does not have the same edge that requires her to prove it to the world like is the case for men.

Getting rid of this dance of manipulation entirely kills passion and excitement in my honest opinion just as easily as turning off a woman's sexuality entirely will.

What the women receives in return for learning this dance with her husband and continuing to do it is the admiration and lust of her husband.

Ian, I will also add here and I've said it often, aiming your focus on educating men alone will do little to solve the overall problem. Women and men have to learn to communicate and share in a way that facilitates understanding together. If there is a theory that works for only one sex and it disgusts the other, there is a part missing to that practice. It might solve something temporarily or might even solve it all together but it will not solve it as well as a practice that speaks to and resounds with both will.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> Brennan I get that you might disagree with me on this, perhaps Ian will as well but I want to be honest here. It is my opinion that this dance of flirting and small manipulations between female sexuality and men is actually welcomed and enjoyed by men and women. I'm not talking about the turning off of a woman's sexuality as punishment rather the turning on of her sexuality as a way to entertain a man and gain confidence in herself.
> 
> I'm not talking about becoming a stripper. I'm talking about smiling in a certain way or feigning innocence or ignorance in a way that is attractive to a man.
> 
> ...



The problem is the genders speak two different languages, and when they hear the same words they understand it two different ways. That's why I target men: I can speak ManSpeak well enough to not only communicate to them, but also to prompt them to action -- or at least considerable thought about the subject. 

I could try (and have tried) educating women, too -- I was a Women's Studies minor, believe me, I've tried -- but the fact of the matter is that whether feminist or conservative, the women I address all have vested interests in the status quo in one way or another. And they find it very, very easy to dismiss me because I'm a man talking about sex and relationships, and I'm not all fuzzy-wuzzy-Doctor Phil. But getting up in front of a group of women and trying to convince them that their husband's sexual needs are more than just a sadistic whim, that men have hormones and feelings too, and that our society is on the cusp of some serious retrenchment and . . . well, they all get defensive. "I'm not that way," they tell themselves. "My Herbert would never get that upset over something as silly and unimportant as sex." And then Herbert offs himself in the garage, no note.

So I'm in favor of a genderless approach, but I've yet to see anything which addresses the interests and issues of men and women with the same degree of dignity and respect.

On a personal front, I aspire to the same sorts of ideals in my marriage that apparently you do in yours. I don't demand sex from my wife. We flirt and play outrageously -- I work in porn, so there's no end to the fascinating conversations we can have and be flirtatious about it. We have developed our own little body of rituals and communication, and we both have a powerful intuitive understanding of the other gender. 

But that's Us and not Them. Them is screwed in the head. So I talk to the menfolk, because a few of them will listen to me. WOmenfolk, y'all excepted, not so much, due to their gender biases.

But I don't mind. Things are reaching closer to an equilibrium every day . . . until the sexbots show up and screw it all up again.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton,
I respectfully disagree. I will not feign innocence or ignorance to a man or a woman. You mention his fragile ego. Why would I silence myself or pretend even in a small way to be something or act a way to tend to his "fragileness"? To me, that isn't seduction, that is fraud and at my expense. 
I am glad that you wrote that "these are gross assumptions" because my confidence doesn't come from being appreciated for my role. To me that sounds like a pat on the head or a cookie. The former industry that I worked in is male dominated (finance). I was one of 2 women out of a firm of 37. If I were to ever stop displaying my knowledge and strength, I would have been steamrolled over by the men I worked with or worse, sexually harassed, viewed as only tits and a$$ or the "token chick". My confidence came from and still comes from being genuine to myself not by manipulating a situation. 
As I have stated before, the one thing (despite ALL our ups and downs) that my husband loves most about my personality, is that it is strong. That doesn't mean argue for the sake of arguing but rather not backing down when it is something I believe in or rather, when somebody is trying to manipulate me. Since I despise being manipulated, I make certain not to do it to others. This "dance" that you speak of? Well the judges came back with my score and I got a big fat zero but they really liked my footwear.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> I do want to point out though that there are many women on this board who have husbands who withhold sex and use it as a weapon. I was one of them. Additionally, many of the women have husbands who have turned to porn and turned away from their wives, thus holding them sexually hostage. Using sex as a weapon isn't exclusive to women, at least not to those women being denied. Maybe your "world view" is that women have that market cornered but then my "world view" is men use money to control women.


We're both correct -- although for the last thirty years women have largely slipped those bonds of control by being able to provide their own incomes. At this point men control women with money only if a) the women are unwilling to work or b) the women want a "traditional" marriage and to be a SAHM. Both are choices on the part of the women. The same choices you wanted to support them in having as equal members of the workforce. 

The sex/power(money) equation is well known, and so deeply engrained in our society that no matter how enlightened we are we will never ultimately escape it. If you substitute "security" for "money" in the equation, you can follow the custom back to the paleolithic. It's how we balance things -- rightly or wrongly. For a long time women were denied equal place in the workforce, making them de facto dependents upon men. Now there's some equality there, but (until recently) a massive inequality in the American bedroom as women had the best of both worlds for a while. And while your point about men using sex as a weapon is also well-taken, in my experience the woman is the one most often doing this by a factor of about 2:1. Again, just my own experience observing marital counseling sessions, but men do, indeed, use sex to gain power in a relationship. Just as a woman can and often does use money as power in a relationship.





Brennan said:


> Read through some of these forums and there is sort of evidence to support my feelings. Lot's of SAHM's dependent on their husbands and lot's of men talking about how they could "crush" their wives by leaving. Same M.O, different weapon. Either way, using anything as a weapon to get what we want is just inexcusable and has no place in a marriage.



I agree -- and it doesn't in mine, anymore. It took a while, a lot of communication, and a lot of understanding, but we've reached a happy place few of our friends have. I'm not going to say I get all the sex I want, but . . . and she's got as much security (emotional more than financial -- but also domestic, since I do most of the housekeeping) as I can give her. It balances.

For every SAHM (and they're rare on the ground in most places) I can guarantee there's five wives who feel that "putting out" after working as hard as her husband all week and -- if they're lucky -- a share of the domestic responsibilities is just unreasonable until Saturday night, if then, and only if the lawn is mowed and the garbage is taken out and the Christmas ornaments are down. Maybe. And whether or not they're justified in that aside, to their husbands it feels like they just used sex as a weapon. Especially if it becomes a common enough refrain.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Ian, a common language is then the only way. Here you and I basically agree but I find myself struggling to agree with you because I feel your opinion is so one sided and embitter.

Brennan, I could be on my own if I wanted to. That's where most women are today. Even women who stay because they feel they have no options do have options they just don't want to take them. No human being has the ability to crush another human being permanently unless they physically kill them. Even women 50 years ago had a choice. Women 100 years ago wrote their peace in literature. I think what many don't understand is that we do have choices and maybe we like to misplace blame out of anger that none of the choices speak to our ideal choice and so we tolerate injustice.

Women were denied equal place in the workplace because they allowed it. They were not given a choice to vote because they allowed it. It wasn't until they empowered themselves as a group and decided it was worth fighting for that it changed. Well, this is true in all things. We only see change when a majority rises up to the challenge. Hence my whole post on how our world views dictate even our relationships.

In saying all this, what works for my husband and I may or may not work for your husband and you or the majority of all relationships. This is why I'm admitting that I'm speaking from my experience. I totally get this. 

I have no desire to impress anyone else with my abilities or be titled one thing or another. I have a desire to experience a wonderful life and love and admire each individual for who they are and what I can inevitably learn from them. I love our connections to one another, even the difficult ones for me that I struggle to understand. I really have no idea if I'm right or wrong most of the time. I'm feeling my way through it, taking it in and taking the time to process it.

I admire your strength of character.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Ian,
Blah! I still don't know how to quote single texts so I will respond to what you wrote in your last paragraph. Women not "putting out" unless A,B and C are done. I have posted about this before but here goes. 
A woman who doesn't want to have sex because the trash isn't taken out or the lawn isn't trimmed is already RESENTFUL as all hell with her husband. It isn't the garbage or the green, it is what it represents to her. The "typical" wife having to "nag" her husband to do basic things around the house. He then (in her eyes) becomes her man-child. Another responsibility for her on top of the children she already has. He is no longer viewed as an equal partner, because he doesn't behave like one. He behaves like a child. A child who has to be told what to do....often. That is not attractive to ANY woman, let alone a woman who has spent the day picking his socks and stained underwear off the bedroom floor. She harbors deep resentment that he treats her this way. When night time falls and the kids are tucked in bed and he plays grab a$$ with her, all she wants to do at that point is knock his hand away and go to sleep. Is it because she truly has no sex drive? No, not even close. It is because she views him as less than a man and has no desire to have sex with anything other than a man. In her eyes she is being approached by a "man" who couldn't manage to find the laundry hamper, a "man" who had to be reminded for days to cut the lawn, a "man" who took out the trash after being asked multiple times or worse, she did it herself after waiting. All she sees now is her own kids. Having to repeatedly tell them to do the same task. How is this remotely sexy to her? It isn't and now he wants a blow job? 
Short story. We have lived in our house for 9 years now. Every Sunday we clean the house as a family. Fun? No. Necessary? Yes. So every Sunday we start to clean. All the supplies are brought out from under the kitchen sink and we all have our duties. I clean the kitchen, laundry room, family room and living room. Our boys clean their rooms and their bathroom and take out the trash. My husband cleans our bathroom and our bedroom. We flip a coin for who is going to dust and vaccum the hallways. So we all go about our business and our sons clean their room, clean their bathroom and they usually loose the coin toss and end up with the hallways. My husband up until 4 years ago? He would clean our toilet and then come out and say "What's next?" Oh, I don't know.....the bathroom countertop, the shower, the tile floor. The bedroom. After I would tell him these things, he would come back out after each task was done. "What's next?" Well now, the shower, the tile floor and the bedroom. Really? Just really? This guy isn't dim by any stretch but for whatever reason, I was being treated as "Mom". He needed me to "tell" him what to do and it pissed me off to no end. I finally told him that he is a grown man, intelligent and could figure out what needed to be done and that if he wants a Mother, move back home. I told him that I married a man, so act like one. He hasn't asked since and goes about his business very well. 
Had I have been a low drive partner, I could totally see how I would not have wanted sex with him. It isn't that their sex drive is non-existent as so many of these wives claim, it is that their attraction to man children doesn't exist. No woman on earth would find those traits sexy, let alone worthy of staying up late for sex. 
For every man out there who says they have a "sexless marriage", there is a reason for it and it sure as hell isn't because she isn't horny. It is because she isn't horny for you. Change your approach, change your attitude and change your behavior and you will have a tiger.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton said:


> Ian, a common language is then the only way. Here you and I basically agree but I find myself struggling to agree with you because I feel your opinion is so one sided and embitter.
> 
> Brennan, I could be on my own if I wanted to. That's where most women are today. Even women who stay because they feel they have no options do have options they just don't want to take them. No human being has the ability to crush another human being permanently unless they physically kill them. Even women 50 years ago had a choice. Women 100 years ago wrote their peace in literature. I think what many don't understand is that we do have choices and maybe we like to misplace blame out of anger that none of the choices speak to our ideal choice and so we tolerate injustice.
> 
> ...


Eh, not much to admire. I am deeply insecure to tell you the truth. I fear getting older and I fear lots of things. My voice however, came from a lifetime of verbal, emotional and sometimes physical abuse at the hands of my parents who in essence told me I was nothing and didn't matter. I will never allow somebody to treat me like that again. Not a man and not a woman.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Brennan said:


> Eh, not much to admire. I am deeply insecure to tell you the truth. I fear getting older and I fear lots of things. My voice however, came from a lifetime of verbal, emotional and sometimes physical abuse at the hands of my parents who in essence told me I was nothing and didn't matter. I will never allow somebody to treat me like that again. Not a man and not a woman.


Hmmm what I read is a woman who has sacrificed much for her family, who is intelligent, funny, opinionated and passionate in her beliefs. Who is willing and anxious to to have fun in the bedroom and really wants to understand her world. There is much to admire in this!

We're all insecure in some things so that doesn't much matter. I know you're turning 40 soon, I'm 36 and can relate to the getting old thing.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton said:


> Hmmm what I read is a woman who has sacrificed much for her family, who is intelligent, funny, opinionated and passionate in her beliefs. Who is willing and anxious to to have fun in the bedroom and really wants to understand her world. There is much to admire in this!
> 
> We're all insecure in some things so that doesn't much matter. I know you're turning 40 soon, I'm 36 and can relate to the getting old thing.


Awe, thanks Trenton! What's worse is my husband turns 40 one week from tomorrow. I am still digesting an article I read that a man's mid life crisis isn't because HE is getting older, it is because he sees his WIFE getting older and that reinforces his fears of age and death. That is the cause of my panic. I think I look great but let's face it, I am not getting any younger and my insecurities are sky high right now and will be no doubt for the rest of my life. Me turning 27? Not a big deal.  Him turning 40, yeah, I worry. Gah! 
Maybe I should start a new topic on this? I would love to ask what men REALLY think about their wives getting older. It scares the **** out of me but I need to know because right now my hubby tells me I am the most gorgeous woman on the planet but I know he is blowing smoke up my *******.


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## Tool (Feb 14, 2011)

I admit I used money as a weapon, but in reality I didn't even need to use that weapon. It's like having a nuke, just by having it is enough to force her to have peace talks.

For the longest time she thought I would never leave her. I had to take away that security. It sucked to go there, but I want my marriage to work.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Tool said:


> I admit I used money as a weapon, but in reality I didn't even need to use that weapon. It's like having a nuke, just by having it is enough to force her to have peace talks.
> 
> For the longest time she thought I would never leave her. I had to take away that security. It sucked to go there, but I want my marriage to work.



What I was trying to point out in my post to Ian is that women don't have the weapons market cornered. Men use money as the ultimate trump. A SAHM is totally dependent on her husband in that situation. Now, the fine SAHM's here on TAM are awesome and would leave their husbands in a heartbeat if they felt mistreated but for the vast majority of women, that is not the case. They stay in a marriage and take abuse because they have no where else to go. A woman with 3 children who is totally dependent on her husband and little skills has very little options. The husband is using his money as his weapon. She stays because she has no choice and he knows this. 
Yes, you have a nuke, happy now? :scratchhead:


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## Catherine602 (Oct 14, 2010)

Wow i go away for a couple of hrs and look what happens. Great discussion. I have to read it over again to understand every thing but I wanted to handle the sex-as-weapon dynamic. In my marriage as an example - it took me 4 years of extream exhaustion before I finally shut down sexually. After the babies my work load increased but my H did not. He did as much as he did before the babies and left the extra stuff to me. 

I requested help repeatedly and he would respond by telling how to be more efficient. I worked full time in a profession as demanding as his. it took 4 years of this for me to shut down sexually, the resentment and anger was so extream and my exhaustion reached a level that I thought I would be better off in a small house with just me and my kids to worry about. He could find someone who would be willing to do what I was doing with no complaints. 

The point is, it was a 4 years lag time from the start of this problems to me having had enough - this very common - women try and try for a long time and then reach a tipping point and the switch trips to off. If you spoke to my husband at the time, he would say that I suddenly and for no reason stopped loving him and being attracted to him. He would contend that he helped me by telling how to be more efficient but I did not take his advice. I don't see where I used sex as a weapon, I was exhausted and loss my desire to keep up with the status quo and that included having sex, affection, spending any time with him. I was done and on the verge of walking away. Some of the men who are in sexless marriages don't remember ignoring their wives or being lazy or considering simple request as nagging because it existed for a long time and he thinks everything is OK. his wife has not been OK just hoping he will see the light. 

It typically takes a woman a long time to give up. The events that started the road to withdrawal are forgotten by the man and the proximal events don't seem to warrant a withdrawal. Sex is the barometer of a relationship not a weapon. Withdrawal of sex is sometimes justified. Frankly, some men think that as long as the wife has sex then everything is fine, no matter how unhappy she is, it's her problem, it does not bother him. There is no better way to get the attention of a man who persistantly over long periods of time ignores problems. If the woman is unhappy it is difficult to continue to allow him to use her body to maintain his happiness. Sex does not, in and of itself, make a women happy the way it does a man. If this is the definition of sex-as-weapon well then so be it. I call it gender differences with regards to sex in the emotional well being. We both have to know what keeps the fires burning and it is not just sex, at lest in a relationship with a woman. I can't speak for relationship where both partners are male. It would be interesting to find out. 
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Brennan said:


> Awe, thanks Trenton! What's worse is my husband turns 40 one week from tomorrow. I am still digesting an article I read that a man's mid life crisis isn't because HE is getting older, it is because he sees his WIFE getting older and that reinforces his fears of age and death. That is the cause of my panic. I think I look great but let's face it, I am not getting any younger and my insecurities are sky high right now and will be no doubt for the rest of my life. Me turning 27? Not a big deal.  Him turning 40, yeah, I worry. Gah!
> Maybe I should start a new topic on this? I would love to ask what men REALLY think about their wives getting older. It scares the **** out of me but I need to know because right now my hubby tells me I am the most gorgeous woman on the planet but I know he is blowing smoke up my *******.


You should start that thread! 

My husband is in advertising...it is filled with young account manager's in their 20's and in great shape. It has always caused me insecurities but it also prompts me to stay in shape but you're right...there comes a time when love has to be somewhat blind because we age and our bodies age too. Of course, I like to think of these things as examples that I have lived life and done amazing things...haha! But of course it does create insecurities and I think they are justified really.

There are times my husband picks out lingerie for me and I'm thinking in my head...are you f'ing kidding me?! 

The truth is though, if your husband is telling you he thinks your beautiful it most likely is because he does. My husband tells me this almost daily and it isn't enough. He will say things like...I hate when you go out dressed like that because I have to watch other men check you out or that someone he introduced me to at work told him he had a hot wife. I think, gooooood...Tellll meeee mooooore!!! Tellll meeee moooreeee!

No doubt it will be hard to grasp that there will come a time when men will no longer look. When what we have together will have to sustain. It is scary stuff. This is why we should be extra kinky now...enjoy it while it's still there and in the right places! :rofl:


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## less_disgruntled (Oct 16, 2010)

:soapbox:

I just wanted to stop in to say... Hey, *my marriage isn't doing great right now*. That doesn't have anything to do with, say, me having been emotionally abusive and negligent, working too much overtime, never tending to my wife's needs, being too tight-fisted to lighten up enough to enjoy a vacation. It doesn't have anything to do with not imposing strict enough consequences for boundary violations. It doesn't have anything to do with my wife having lived through two of her mother's divorces. So what can I know?

And I'll admit *I'm a misogynist*. I'll tell you for nothing this has damaged my marriage before I was even married. I don't like the way they interact with one another and I don't like the 'girl's locker room' talk. I think women are pushy and play a lot of games needlessly. I think they're always keeping their eye out for someone better than whoever they're with. I think it's also really easy to get them to have sex with you. I use a woman's repeated eye contact as a sign to introduce myself, be all smiles and feed her all sorts of "edgy" lines showing her how interested-not interested-is he interested I am while I make all sort of violations of her personal space and concentrate intently on vag. I never had problems having sex with a girl that's obviously got feelings for me, then leaving her place, taking a shower and ignoring her because I'm at someone else's place, biting her collarbone and pulling her hair instead. My wife is the only woman I've ever been faithful to. But I'm not going to pretend any of this is "natural" (b/c natural = true = good, right?).


But I've got to ask:

What universe do you guys live in? Is CERN selling tickets? And why is it that everything that happens in a marriage always relates back to some ancient genetic man-woman-ness-thing? Oh, wait, *an imaginary one*:



> Women use the power of their sexuality to skew things in their favor constantly in our society. And they use the knowledge that we, as men, are largely driven by this sexual impulse to do pretty much whatever they want.



*If it's corporately correct, it's not misogyny, it's "reality"*, right? B/c women have been so successful in skewing so much stuff in their favor, right? So much stuff is skewed in woman's favor. You know, b/c only about *one in five of them have been sexually assaulted as adults*. Because only one out of every three pregnancies ends in *abortion*. Because college administrations aren't scrambling every Monday morning to keep stories of rapes quiet. Because no woman is ever badly hurt through *domestic abuse*. Because going through *labor* is so much fun. Because they love being *overcharged* of by auto mechanics and repairmen. To quote a real woman: "You know what it's like to walk through a bad neighborhood? Imagine if that *bad neighborhood was called 'outside'*". And they earn on average* 70-80% what a man doing identical work *earns (OTOH, women in construction earn almost the same). And because the average woman in a straight couple where *both partners work full-time still does* *ten more hours of housework per week* than her husband (but only five less than her unmarried boyfriend she cohabitates w/, b/c she must be out looking for Alpha Males those other five hours), for free--oh, sorry, I meant b/c she feels genetically "secure" in an economy where both parties have to work so it's loving 'service'. For a self-described "nerd" you don't seem very conversant with data, but then again, all that data is so damn politically correct (like Genesis 1:27?) it's like basing conclusions off data, rather than inventing a dataset to match conclusions, is part of the corporately incorrect feminist agenda, or something.

And if I'm so smart, why is my marriage in trouble? Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, *intimacy is complicated*?

Why am I going on about this crap? Because I want the women I know to feel safe in their homes and outside them. Because wrapping up an ideology of male superiority hidden in some confused ideas about male and female social roles wrapped up inside some questionable ideas about gender wrapped up inside some some otherwise *vanilla and useful advice* only makes that lie that much more prevalent and that much more hidden. Because I dated a woman I never caused any physical harm to who curled up into a submissive ball and *asked me with a frightened little voice if I was going to beat her* one time when we argued. Because saying women have an "advantage" when two of my dad's sisters had *less than 50 teeth between the both of them* before either one was thirty is disgusting. Because out of three of my wife's female cousins (across three families), two have been raped. Because ignoring all those realities just so you can tell someone to be "more alpha" because women have "an advantage" isn't a mistake, *it's a lie* to make your *clingy, weak-willed dude-bra * feel better about himself, and that lie costs in blood and hurt.

Don't come back with some nonsense about how 'real men' don't commit violence against women. Men attack women. Full stop, no qualifications. Wealthy men attack women. Poor men attack women. You don't even have an operational definition of "alpha" *because there isn't one*. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, in one of the posts here some *"man up" proponent advocated using physical intimidation* in an "edgy" way to "man up" to a woman's "fitness test". It's just a joke, right? Because I'm sure that it makes all women everywhere at all times, what with one in five having been raped, *feel "secure" when her man gestures towards assault*, right? *Backpedaling*, are we? What's next, "well that's why women always need an alpha male around"? I'd totally love it if I had to tear some rapist's shoulder out of socket every time my wife and I went to the grocery store, that's definitely a world I aspire to live in. "Gee officer, sorry you had to come out to clean this up, between *roving zombie hordes* and all the beta males, good thing we can be here to protect the women-folk." Great, good job, dude, *I heard that the Taliban has been cooperating a lot more with US forces now*, there'll probably be some openings overseas soon.

But *forget all my high-horse moralizing*. Like I said, I'm just a would-be recovering misogynist who neglected my wife's needs and my own.

But for men who "understand" women... have any of you ever *bothered to ask* them a question? Or listened to one of them talk about something outside of a heavily-sexualized sphere like marriage? Or read something one wrote ("NO!! Woman tell strong man what she want then he no give it to her, then she go to weak man who ask woman what she want and he give it to her after they make the **** and strong man pay for weak man baby colleje twoishun!!")?

And we know that men never seek to make themselves more visually appealing to influence others, right? Fitted shirt? Tailored suit? Nah. You know, shaving is what women do to their pubic hair to earn male approval, not because skin-on-skin feels better, and shaving is definitely not what *men do to their faces to look younger*, right? Wait, what was that about "V-shape" somewhere on page 3 of this thread? How exactly is that V-shaped torso an "evolutionary" secret in fat-ass America, but "normal" in every country in the developing world? And what's up with *chicks who have sex with fat dudes*? You do realize that "evolutionarily speaking" being fat in today's environment would indicate a physical advantage in any environment where food was scarce, right? Does that mean lifting weights is gay?

Here's a question: Why is the book "How To Win Friends and Influence *People*?" Is it possible that *the same manipulations *work on both male and female? Maybe even on those queers OMG AIDS!!!

And that* suburbanite BS* about how LA or NYC aren't the "real" evolved environment is just that, BS. Every person everywhere lives in a society. Every society manipulates its environment. Every society is itself "environmental" as far as "fitness" is concerned. And, sorry, tool use appears millions and millions of years ago among non-primates, meaning that all this "evolutionary environment" thing might need *some serious re-appraisal*. You know what happened during Katrina? People banded together for mutual self-assistance before the cops (alpha males, right?) dispersed them and then set up the Superbowl Concentration Camp. I know, the Road Warrior was an awesome movie, it'd be kind of cool to* prove my Triumph of the Will* by living out some *nutjob Rugged Individualist Meets God And Kicks His Ass fantasy*, except it's a _fantasy_. You know what they call a rugged individual in a combat zone? A *posthumous Medal of Honor winner*. His 'fitness'? *Exactly ZERO*. It wasn't your South Carolina Alpha-male-ness that keeps you alive--it was you and all your damn friends looking out for each other. *Some of those friends might even be hot chicks!* What happened in Tahrir Square? Did one Alpha Male rise to organize the crowds and get all the girls? Was it about thousands of people cooperating in largely spontaneous organizations pushing out some senile old guy and curb-stomping royalist thugs? Why don't I see people posting here about how *"Oedipal" *that is and *how "Oedipal urges" fuel* all marital struggle? Is it maybe, just maybe, b/c that idea was a *fad, just like this "evolutionary psychology" and the repurposed pick-up artist crap?*

Why do gays and lesbians have co-dependent relationships? (OMG CANCERAIDS) Why do the same dynamics that apply here called "manning up" *apply to homosexuals*? Did they "evolve" that way through sexual reproduction? Like back when *space aliens were teaching lesbians how to use genetic engineering* on the African Savannah to reproduce more fitness, or something? I had a couple butch gym teachers in grade school, so I guess that proves the *****-fitness connection.

And speaking of anal sex, so, women will do whatever their manned-up partner wants in the sack, which must always include taking it in the butt, which is a survival of the fittest thing b/c, uh, why? I mean, it can't be that *women might themselves also be interested* in anal independently of reproductive scenarios? Or do Fallopian tubes connect to the rectum? You all should* contact John Hopkins Medical *about that now, that's the anatomical discovery of the decade for sure.

And what about girl-on-girl-on-guy action? He's an Alpha male, right? Two for one deal, he's that good? What, why are those *girls touching each other*, too? Wait... it almost looks like they're ignoring him! NOOO!!! Call Domestic Violence Man to straighten this situation out NOW!

You do know that the male-female split happens *before vertebrates* develop spinal cords, right? So what's up with all the male bees sitting around doing nothing sharing the same female who sits around and just squirts out babies? Is it b/c there was never any Clinton-era welfare reform in the bee world to get rid of blac--I mean, "welfare queens"? Is *global climate change Jesus' punishment against male penguins* being gay, because they share exactly half the responsibilities of their female partners keeping the babies warm?

Why does the word "dominatrix" end with an -ix? Why do we *hear about them all the time* but rarely hear about a "dominator" for hire? What's up with men who enjoy playing submissive roles? Is it possible that both men and women sometimes enjoy gross power imbalances in one-on-one relationships on *both ends* of the seesaw? Is it possible that there's a playful element to sex?

I really just don't get the need to try to view every damn thing on the planet and in history as *one big naturalized power struggle* in some archetypal evolutionary male-female intimate couple. I don't even really understand the need to assign sex or gender to the roles people tend to take when IN THE POSTS IN THIS VERY FORUM both *men and women routinely complain about the exact same things* regardless of their sex. *EXACTLY the same problems*. Not enough sex, not enough respect, not enough attention, not enough contributions to the relationship, cheating, taking the kids, etc. *Good thing there ain't no queers* here yet, might make our pet theories look all silly.

Exactly the same, except for one: "My husband comes in about two minutes I am so unsatisfied and feel neglected and want to be touched". "Honey, he *came in ninety seconds because he was thinking about being chased by a lion during a hurricane*. It's in his genetic make-up. You should be lucky you're married to an Alpha Male, not some *'sensitive' beta who is going to tie you to the bedposts and waste time with foreplay and full, long, slow, deep strokes and some phony coital alignment technique* when he could be out gathering berries and killing rodents for dinner while you wash the dishes!"

I'm not going to convince anyone. The real shame is that the *solid advice gets filtered* through this overheated and misogynistic nonsense about "evolution", where you can't tell the African veldt from an episode of Father Knows Best from the Book of Genesis from Tom Cruise's monologues in Magnolia. Where suddenly, you have people posting on the internet with worries about *whether or not it's okay to get your spouse a damn glass* of water when he or she asks (Answer: Women: Always. Men: Never).

Seriously, NOTHING is gained by *deploying this frame*. If anything it only obscures context even more.

But that's exactly what some long-winded beta male would say, right? Reading and *arguing shows weakness and lack of self-confidence and is for *****, like downtown Manhattan lawyers! SMASH!!!

And dude, if you want to start telling yourself that by respecting your boundaries, being in a good mood, grabbing your wife's ass and playing little everyday head-games with your spouse to keep her interested that the reason your marriage is more solid is because you've DIY genetic engineered yourself more "Fit" in the Aryan Prehistorical Safari sense of that word... go ahead, but that's a *long-ass detour *through the history's garbage can.

and *thx 4 teh lulz*


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

Wow...Ok, Ok, Ok. I...am...at...a...loss...for...words. No wait, that never happens, well I'll give you the words I have at this moment reading your post...

I must process this. At first I thought...hubby is that you? Then I thought...this is what all the GREAT men are made of. The men who don't feel worthy but are most worthy of all. Yes, here, I read it. Of course, I live it as well. This message must get out but first I have to think about it, toss it around and try to understand it. Give me tonight and I'll be back tomorrow.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

less_disgruntled said:


> :soapbox:
> 
> I just wanted to stop in to say... Hey, *my marriage isn't doing great right now*. That doesn't have anything to do with, say, me having been emotionally abusive and negligent, working too much overtime, never tending to my wife's needs, being too tight-fisted to lighten up enough to enjoy a vacation. It doesn't have anything to do with not imposing strict enough consequences for boundary violations. It doesn't have anything to do with my wife having lived through two of her mother's divorces. So what can I know?
> 
> ...


Thanks. It's taken me two weeks, but you just gave me exactly what I was looking for. In all seriousness, gratitude. I was starting to think it would never happen. You wouldn't have a science background, would you?


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> Thanks. It's taken me two weeks, but you just gave me exactly what I was looking for. In all seriousness, gratitude. I was starting to think it would never happen. You wouldn't have a science background, would you?


Is this what an Alpha male says to a Beta male when the Beta male outsmarts him?  I kid, I kid.

I would guess from his post...that he's a writer. His writing was far more creative than scientific but creativity and its ability to shape and change our world is often underestimated when compared to science. Which is ironic when you think about it because the Beta male is often underestimated when compared to the Alpha male as well. Oh the ironies, they are everywhere and have a lot to teach us but more to teach us if we stopped creating these self limiting ideals to begin with.


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

So less_disgruntled it's hard to reply to a post that I think is spot on because there's nothing to argue with. So I've re-read it a few times and I've drawn this conclusion...we will all struggle with ourselves and in relationships with others and in our struggles we will always seek to understand them and remedy them. That's it.

I'm not sure if I'm depressed or comforted by this revelation.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> Is this what an Alpha male says to a Beta male when the Beta male outsmarts him?  I kid, I kid.
> 
> I would guess from his post...that he's a writer. His writing was far more creative than scientific but creativity and its ability to shape and change our world is often underestimated when compared to science. Which is ironic when you think about it because the Beta male is often underestimated when compared to the Alpha male as well. Oh the ironies, they are everywhere and have a lot to teach us but more to teach us if we stopped creating these self limiting ideals to begin with.


No, that's when a sex nerd researcher finds the material he's been looking for for his next book. Once I break that down and point out the inherent biases and common misconceptions, it proves my contentions admirably, and in some ways better than I could due to the passionate nature of the response. Far from being beat out by a Beta (and we're all both Alpha and Beta, BTW, some of us are just more adept at making the transition smoothly than others), the Beta gave me just what I wanted.

Beyond the science and raw creativity, there is the art of writing to elicit a desired response. Think of it as journalistic judo. I do it all the time in marketing to get a simple response -- and I did it to elicit a more sophisticated response this time. It has to do with invoking particular word choices and such, not to mention tone and style, but I've always been good at it. Sometimes Beta traits like strategy and planning can work well in service to Alpha-inspired goals and ambitions. 

"To Know Thyself is the ultimate form of aggression."


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> No, that's when a sex nerd researcher finds the material he's been looking for for his next book. Once I break that down and point out the inherent biases and common misconceptions, it proves my contentions admirably, and in some ways better than I could due to the passionate nature of the response. Far from being beat out by a Beta (and we're all both Alpha and Beta, BTW, some of us are just more adept at making the transition smoothly than others), the Beta gave me just what I wanted.
> 
> Beyond the science and raw creativity, there is the art of writing to elicit a desired response. Think of it as journalistic judo. I do it all the time in marketing to get a simple response -- and I did it to elicit a more sophisticated response this time. It has to do with invoking particular word choices and such, not to mention tone and style, but I've always been good at it. Sometimes Beta traits like strategy and planning can work well in service to Alpha-inspired goals and ambitions.
> 
> "To Know Thyself is the ultimate form of aggression."


I bet $50 he's a journalist.

This art is seen all the time in President speeches written by someone other than the President. I told you, I enjoy the irony and can't stand the hypocrisy.

This is not that. He is impassioned and sincere, authentic, genuine, honest, raw. If you want to take that, break it down and use it for your own efforts, that speaks volumes on your behalf.

I knew we could find something to argue about.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> I bet $50 he's a journalist.
> 
> This art is seen all the time in President speeches written by someone other than the President. I told you, I enjoy the irony and can't stand the hypocrisy.
> 
> ...


Just because I used a little persuasive writing doesn't mean I'm insincere, passionless, and inauthentic. And if you haven't seen genuine and honest, you haven't been looking. I'm as sincere about my position as he is about his -- heck, I could have _written that_, ten years ago -- and such discussions as this mean more when they're directed towards a concrete goal than when it's mental masturbation. 

For the record, I'm not a journalist, _per se_. You lose $50. 

I'm a writer, and I write books, among other things. A journalist observes and reports. I'm more of a researcher, discovering the hidden areas of American sexuality and offering hypothesis. Sometimes a researcher has to poke and prod a subject to get a response. And while I meant every word I said (allowing a certain latitude for humor, exaggeration, and sarcasm), don't think that I've shared the entirety of my work, or my complicated beliefs on the subject, on this forum. Indeed, any attempt to pin down the scope of what I'm working on is likely to be wide of the mark. 

But I'm not a hypocrite. I use a pseudonym for professional reasons, but that doesn't mean I don't stand behind my position. Indeed, if anything, this discussion has allowed me to be more refined in how I approach the subject, and has given me several new and interesting leads for further research. It hasn't done much to erode my position, and on the contrary, it's supported it. So the gratitude is sincere, as is the respect and appreciation. And the various attacks on my character and motive have been entertaining. I've got a pretty thick skin (try being me in a Womyn's Studies class).


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## Trenton (Aug 25, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> Just because I used a little persuasive writing doesn't mean I'm insincere, passionless, and inauthentic. And if you haven't seen genuine and honest, you haven't been looking. I'm as sincere about my position as he is about his -- heck, I could have _written that_, ten years ago -- and such discussions as this mean more when they're directed towards a concrete goal than when it's mental masturbation.
> 
> For the record, I'm not a journalist, _per se_. You lose $50.
> 
> ...


You misunderstood me. I was saying less_disgruntled must be a journalist, not you. You've already stated your resume. I'm not paying the $50 yet!

I am just honest so when I say that when I read you I feel I am reading the ramblings of a narcissist, it's not to be cruel, it's really how I feel. I get that I could be wrong but to me you seem permeable and wordy but not authentic or believable.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Trenton said:


> You misunderstood me. I was saying less_disgruntled must be a journalist, not you. You've already stated your resume. I'm not paying the $50 yet!
> 
> I am just honest so when I say that when I read you I feel I am reading the ramblings of a narcissist, it's not to be cruel, it's really how I feel. I get that I could be wrong but to me you seem permeable and wordy but not authentic or believable.


Thanks for the clarification, it makes me feel better.

And while the persona of narcissism is, in truth, a little affected, I can't deny that I've got an ego. Part of the whole Alpha thing. More importantly, it's essential to being a good writer. When you're slapping your words on a page for paid consumption, then you'd better have the ego to do so with authority if you want to keep working. All creative people are egoists, and a little narcissism is necessary.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

Trenton,
I think he was referring to me and what I said to him a while back. I still apologize for that, Ian. Flew off the handle and let it get the better of me.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> Trenton,
> I think he was referring to me and what I said to him a while back. I still apologize for that, Ian. Flew off the handle and let it get the better of me.


It happens. Sex is an inherently passionate subject. I give folks a lot of lee-way. Like I said, I have a thick skin -- you talk about people's sex lives, you're gonna get poked in the nose upon occasion. Occupational hazard.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> It happens. Sex is an inherently passionate subject. I give folks a lot of lee-way. Like I said, I have a thick skin -- you talk about people's sex lives, you're gonna get poked in the nose upon occasion. Occupational hazard.


Ahem, we were talking about commerical porn, fembots and prostitution not garden variety sex.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> Ahem, we were talking about commerical porn, fembots and prostitution not garden variety sex.


For some people, that is garden variety sex. I guess it just depends upon where you are hanging out.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> For some people, that is garden variety sex. I guess it just depends upon where you are hanging out.


This is true. Sad, but true.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> This is true. Sad, but true.


Well, I always encourage folks to get out and try new things. Sticking to mainstream "garden variety" vanilla is pretty sad.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> Well, I always encourage folks to get out and try new things. Sticking to mainstream "garden variety" vanilla is pretty sad.


Hmmm, I am curious about what constitutes "new"?


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## tobio (Nov 30, 2010)

Just wondering on a couple of things...

Ian, you said a bit back that men want sex and women want security. About this... what do you define as "security"? are you talking about emotional security, as in the confirmation of a monogamous relationship, knowing the man is dedicated to that? Or are you talking more of financial security, the man as the provider?

So are you saying that women don't want sex? Or that women who want sex are rarer than women that do? Or that sex is lower down the list of priorities for women than men? I find it interesting that you are obviously talking from a male POV to men IYSWIM, but what do you make of a woman's need for sex? From a personal POV, I absolutely cannot imagine living in a sexless marriage by my choice. I'm kinda speculating in a way because I am not married yet, but hope to be, I don't know if that changes the rules? I desire sex just as much as my OH does, and I know there are women on the boards who feel the same; what evolutionary theory do you have for that as a comparison, if you like, to men wanting sex? How does a woman's want for sex compare? Would you say her "want" is different?


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> Hmmm, I am curious about what constitutes "new"?



For most people, sadly, anything racier than oral would be new.

As far as what is ACTUALLY new . . . let's put it this way: in all my research, there is only ONE modern sexual variation (not counting electronics) that the ancient Greeks didn't have a specific word for. 

Any guesses?


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> For most people, sadly, anything racier than oral would be new.
> 
> As far as what is ACTUALLY new . . . let's put it this way: in all my research, there is only ONE modern sexual variation (not counting electronics) that the ancient Greeks didn't have a specific word for.
> 
> Any guesses?


I'm afraid to.....but now I am dying to know! Anything I can try out tonight?


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> I'm afraid to.....but now I am dying to know! Anything I can try out tonight?


Better get the Crisco. Fisting. It seems to be unknown as a kink, at least officially, in the Classical age.

Apart from that, we haven't done anything that Hercules didn't do first.


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> Better get the Crisco. Fisting. It seems to be unknown as a kink, at least officially, in the Classical age.
> 
> Apart from that, we haven't done anything that Hercules didn't do first.


I know it's late in the afternoon but I had just settled in to my second cup of coffee for the day and then read your response. I managed to sputter coffee out of my mouth, missed the keyboard and promtly delivered hot coffee on to my jeans.
Crisco, fisting and Hercules. Holy **** that was funny. 

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

tobio said:


> Just wondering on a couple of things...
> 
> Ian, you said a bit back that men want sex and women want security. About this... what do you define as "security"? are you talking about emotional security, as in the confirmation of a monogamous relationship, knowing the man is dedicated to that? Or are you talking more of financial security, the man as the provider?


Yes, emotional security has come to the fore now that women can largely create their own financial security. This is a lot tougher on men, of course -- bringing home the bacon is a lot easier than talking about your feelings -- but both (heck, ALL) issues of security seem to be the prime motivators for female sexuality. It makes sense, once you understand the intracacies of human reproductive biology.

Of course, there are those who think that evolutionary biology is just silly, and we get all of our sexual instincts and habits from our culture, but . . . 



tobio said:


> So are you saying that women don't want sex? Or that women who want sex are rarer than women that do? Or that sex is lower down the list of priorities for women than men?


Rather I'd say that men and women's sexualities are predicated on widely differing foundations. 

For women, biologically speaking sex is a means to an end, a method for establishing security sufficient to raise offspring. In hunter-gatherer times this usually meant continuing sexual activity well past pregnancy as a method of ensuring long-term pair-bonding (see: oxytocin) and providing security through a male (not necessarily the offsprings' father) for her children and herself. Trying to categorically state that women don't want sex more than men is difficult, because it really depends upon the individual physiology, psychology, and age of the woman in question -- for women, this factor changes over time in a more-or-less predictable way. It may go from being a means-to-an-end to being a prime motivator, late in life, especially near to menopause. This is Evolution's reward for her living so long, hyping up her sex drive to use the last few eggs in her ovaries before she can't have a viable pregnancy anymore. Since she probably doesn't have the same social value as she did in her prime, Evolution makes up for it by making her biologically more sexually available -- hence the "Mid 50s Hot Pants" phenomenon.



tobio said:


> I find it interesting that you are obviously talking from a male POV to men IYSWIM, but what do you make of a woman's need for sex? From a personal POV, I absolutely cannot imagine living in a sexless marriage by my choice. I'm kinda speculating in a way because I am not married yet, but hope to be, I don't know if that changes the rules? I desire sex just as much as my OH does, and I know there are women on the boards who feel the same; what evolutionary theory do you have for that as a comparison, if you like, to men wanting sex? How does a woman's want for sex compare? Would you say her "want" is different?


Yes, yes I would. Women become far more sexually available in certain crisis situations, as a survival response. And women who are more sexually available of their own accord tend to have a higher social success rate than those women who tend towards celibacy. But under stable circumstances, conventional wisdom (and empirical data) suggest that the average woman's sex drive is heavily related to her feelings of security.

That doesn't necessarily mean a secure (financially, emotionally, physically) secure woman will automatically want more sex, but it is true that an insecure woman (financially, emotionally, or physically) tends to prioritize sex towards the bottom of her list in favor of other issues. Even when security is restored, unless there is a compelling reason to do so many women may feel confident and secure enough to enjoy sex, but choose not to because it has been consistently de-prioritized in their lives.

Men, on the other hand, have sex as a primary drive. Success is a secondary drive, dependent upon the primary, but a primary attraction characteristic in early courtship. Male sexuality is a powerful but relatively simple thing, compared to female sexuality. One of the big differences is the powerful compulsion towards sexual thoughts that comes part and parcel with testosterone. While women have this sex hormone too, they don't have it nearly as much as men do, and it's mitigated by their other hormones, too.

There's also the focus of the sex. For men the focus is on orgasm, which is pretty straight-forward; for women, the focus tends to be on the process towards orgasm, the intimacy and security-building aspects of it that can ramp up her dopamine levels.

But don't forget that there are extraordinary individuals on both sides, men who aren't fond of sex and women who want sex as much as most men. The difference is that Evolution tends to reward high-sex individuals more than low-sex individuals of either gender, since high-sex individuals tend to breed, which makes them more socially involved, which increases their group security and likelihood of a useful pairbond. 

Hope that helped!


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> I know it's late in the afternoon but I had just settled in to my second cup of coffee for the day and then read your response. I managed to sputter coffee out of my mouth, missed the keyboard and promtly delivered hot coffee on to my jeans.
> Crisco, fisting and Hercules. Holy **** that was funny.
> 
> :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:


That's why they pay me the big bucks . . . 

(headline for a recent foot-fetish video I wrote:

"These are the pretties toes you've ever come across!"


(*sigh*) I love my job! )


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> That's why they pay me the big bucks . . .
> 
> (headline for a recent foot-fetish video I wrote:
> 
> ...


Ahem, should that have read "cum across"?


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## Therealbrighteyes (Feb 11, 2010)

IanIronwood said:


> That's why they pay me the big bucks . . .
> 
> (headline for a recent foot-fetish video I wrote:
> 
> ...


How does one even get in to that line of work? I know of only one other person that does this and he did it by default with a lousy journalism degree and the market tanking. Actually, he is all over the board. He writes for fetish sites and oddly "advertisements" for independant escorts. Really odd stuff.


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## IanIronwood (Jan 7, 2011)

Brennan said:


> How does one even get in to that line of work? I know of only one other person that does this and he did it by default with a lousy journalism degree and the market tanking. Actually, he is all over the board. He writes for fetish sites and oddly "advertisements" for independant escorts. Really odd stuff.


Being in the right place at the right time with a New York Times best selling novel under my belt helped, but my passion for the subject helped a lot, too. And I've learned all sorts of things about writing for the XXX market. For one thing, when you sell the steak, the sizzle is hard to make alluring. And due to company standards there are vast amounts of terminology that we just can't use -- the f word among them. It makes it a challenge. 

But I'm very good at what I do. I once wrote an entire girl-girl package in haiku form. Did well, too.


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