# Women V Men



## MaiChi (Jun 20, 2018)

Do you think more men complain about women not wanting sex than women complain about men not wanting sex in the home? 
Does it take two or one to reduce sex in the home? Are there some hidden faults that the complainant does not want to admit, that cause the culprit to deny the complainant some deserved sex?


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## Saibasu (Nov 3, 2016)

From my experience, men have a tendency to openly complain about the lack of sex in the home opposed to women, but im fairly certain just as many women are unhappy with their sex lives too, just for whatever reason they seem to keep it to themselves more.

To answer your other questions, sometimes the lack of sex between partners is the fault of both and other times its just one persons fault. These types of situations are very diverse and there will be no one size fits all cure. Open and honest conversation about expectations, wants and desires is always a good start to get the dialogue ball rolling.

What I see quite often is simply a mismatch of drives honestly. A high drive partner married to a low drive partner can be a miserable experience. I also see a lot of people claim to have known their partners were low drive before getting married and thought some magical sex fairy would sprinkle horny dust on their partners after they put a ring on it. (FYI doesnt happen.)


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## MaiChi (Jun 20, 2018)

Why might women complain less? Are there social reasons that are gender based?


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

If there is someone complaining, you can be almost certain that their complaints will never be resolved! In my experience, it is far easier to find a new relationship than fix this particular issue in an existing one.


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## Tilted 1 (Jul 23, 2019)

MaiChi said:


> Do you think more men complain about women not wanting sex than women complain about men not wanting sex in the home?
> Does it take two or one to reduce sex in the home? Are there some hidden faults that the complainant does not want to admit, that cause the culprit to deny the complainant some deserved sex?


Here, probably men .
But it only take one to stop it.
Hidden faults, I'd say resentment is top 5, but mostly incompatible is the #1 reason.


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## Tilted 1 (Jul 23, 2019)

Saibasu said:


> magical sex fairy would sprinkle horny.)


Theirs no fairy? No special dust? No horny dust?😩🤥


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## Tilted 1 (Jul 23, 2019)

MaiChi said:


> Why might women complain less? Are there social reasons that are gender based?


Men are mostly fixers when they can not fix it becomes #1 on the list of complaints.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

MaiChi said:


> Why might women complain less? Are there social reasons that are gender based?


I think that it is more socially acceptable for men to complain about a sexless, or no sex marriage . It's the woman's fault after all so he can get sympathy. 

When a woman complains that the husband does not want sex with her the assumption is that it's her fault. Oh, boy what's wrong with her? After all want sex all the time, right? So it must be her fault.

Typically, the woman is blamed by society no matter when one of them is withholding.

When i first started posting here on TAM, I tried to talk about my sexless marriage. However it did not go well as the response I got was basically, "Good! It's about time that women know what it feels like." and "So what's wrong with you that he won't have sex with you?" A lot of very mean, unkind things were said to me about this back then. It was apparently not socially acceptable for a woman to complain about this. I did what most women with this problem do... i shut up and stopped talking about it. The "culture" here on TAM as changed over time, thank goodness. That's why I started the thread "The Sex Staved Wife".... so that women who came to TAM know that there is support for them on this topic.

My son's father withheld sex for years. One day, in one of his many angry outbursts he yelled at me that he would never have sex with me again. And he lived up to that promise. Of course his many girlfriends helped him keep that promise. (I found out about the cheating shortly before I filed for divorce.) After i filed for divorce, some of the people who worked with him at the hospital (he's and MD) told me that he was cheating all along and that he would often complain that he cheated because I was withholding sex. Liar....


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## TJW (Mar 20, 2012)

Tilted 1 said:


> incompatible is the #1 reason.


I think this is right. And, I don't know if it's a woman-man conundrum so much as it is a "people" thing. Different people have different perspectives. And, to each person, his perspective is "right", and neither understands why the other doesn't have the same perspective.

Sex, and money. Houses, cars, how fast you drive, how you fold pajamas, how long clothes can stay in the dryer when the cycle ends before they become unacceptably wrinkled.

Resentment usually comes as a result of incompatibility, and people don't change. After a decade, there's not one molecule of oxytocin being secreted anymore. It's either drugs, or divorce.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

MaiChi said:


> Do you think more men complain about women not wanting sex than women complain about men not wanting sex in the home?
> Does it take two or one to reduce sex in the home? Are there some hidden faults that the complainant does not want to admit, that cause the culprit to deny the complainant some deserved sex?


There is a book reference below that reports on a study done with over 4,000 men who had stopped having sex with their wives. Here are is why the men said they stopped.

*WHY MEN SAID THEY STOPPED*

68%……She isn’t sexually adventurous enough for me.
(This lack of newness, energy, and emotion translates for many men into a lack of adventure and sexual enjoyment on the part of their partners, transferring the problem and ignoring the fact that they [the men] are not bringing any originality to bed, either.)

61%……She doesn’t seem to enjoy sex.
48%……I am interested in sex with others, but not with my wife.
44%……I am angry at her.
41%……I’m bored. 
40%……She is depressed.
38%……She has gained a significant amount of weight.
34%……I am depressed.
32%……I no longer find her physically attractive.
30%……I suffer from erectile dysfunction.
28%……I lost interest and I don’t know why.
25%……I prefer to masturbate, but not online.
25%……I prefer to watch pornography online and masturbate.
21%……I am on medication that lowered my libido.
20%……I am/was having an affair.
16%……I suffer from premature ejaculation.
15%……I have difficulty achieving orgasm.
14%……I am too tired.
09%……She is/was having an affair.
06%……I don’t have the time.
03%……I wasn’t interested in sex to begin with.
<1%……I am gay.

Although the men know (or at least think they know) the reasons for their voluntary celibacy but the women are only guessing, either way the situation is embarrassing and painful. *It is therefore not surprising that both men and women agree most with statements that shift responsibility away from themselves.* Indeed, men indicate a lack of sexual adventure (hers, not his) as primary. It is difficult to believe that this lack of erotic excitement is completely one-sided, and that these men who identify their wives as unadventurous are themselves imaginatively passionate guys, just somehow mysteriously unable to inspire the one woman they chose to marry. Both men and women agree most with statements that shift responsibility away from themselves. After all, they probably knew her acceptable level of tolerance for erotic exploration before the vows were exchanged. We suspect that boredom or other factors is closer to the truth, or they are confusing the pornography they see on DVDs or the Internet with reality.

Berkowitz, Bob; Yager-Berkowitz, Susan. He's Just Not Up for It Anymore: Why Men Stop Having Sex, and What You Can Do About It (pp. 13-15). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 









The Sex Starved Wife


I would like this thread to be a resource for women who are in sexless, or near sexless marriages in which it is their husbands who don’t want sex. I’m hoping that women dealing with this issue will post and talk about what they are going through. About 20% of marriages are sexless. A sexless...




www.talkaboutmarriage.com


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## FeministInPink (Sep 13, 2012)

It's socially acceptable for men to complain about a sexless marriage, because that's a common trope in western/American culture. People joke about it all the time.

There's also toxic masculinity in our culture that implies a real man should want sex all the time, so if a marriage is sexless and the man is the one refusing/at fault, then there is a lot of shame involved for both partners. 

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk


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## MaiChi (Jun 20, 2018)

I worked for a marriage counselling service for 6 years. I might go back at some point if I can sort my hours. The phrase "He has not touched me in a long time" was very common and could be interpreted in different ways:
1 Is she sitting there waiting for him to touch her?
2 Is she asking and he is refusing? 

In my experience there are a lot of men who withhold sex because of seemingly unrelated circumstances and the same can be said about women. The end result is that there is no sex in the home. The cause may not be incompatibility but a point one of the two is trying to make about some issue he/she is not happy about. If the issue were to be solved, sex would resume. 
But this is just one out of many reasons. Incompatibility ranks high still, i would say.


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## Laurentium (May 21, 2017)

MaiChi said:


> In my experience there are a lot of men who withhold sex because of seemingly unrelated circumstances and the same can be said about women. The end result is that there is no sex in the home. The cause may not be incompatibility but a point one of the two is trying to make about some issue he/she is not happy about.


Very true. (I am also a MC). 



> If the issue were to be solved, sex would resume.


Maybe, but only if they can break the habit of using the withholding of sex to "make a point", and start communicating their points a little more directly.


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## Laurentium (May 21, 2017)

EleGirl said:


> Here are is why the men said they stopped.
> 
> *WHY MEN SAID THEY STOPPED*


I am glad you phrased it that way. There is usually quite a difference between what people *say *are their reasons for acting as they do, and the real (usually complex) reasons.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

I've observed that men feel more comfortable voicing their dissatisfaction though there are still many who stay quiet a long time.

Women and their sexuality have been miscategorized for generations so any problems they have had have been hidden or mostly brushed over.

This is in general with many caveats and exceptions.

There is no villain gender here.


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## Tilted 1 (Jul 23, 2019)

Laurentium said:


> Very true. (I am also a MC).
> 
> 
> Maybe, but only if they can break the habit of using the withholding of sex to "make a point", and start communicating their points a little more directly.


Did you mean like talking to their spouses until they are blue in the face, when the other does not give a hoot? Please explain.


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## CharlieParker (Aug 15, 2012)

Laurentium said:


> Maybe, but only if they can break the habit of using the withholding of sex to "make a point"


I know that happens but yuck, just yuck. That would be a deal breaker for both of us and was something we discussed prior to marriage.


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## Hiner112 (Nov 17, 2019)

It is a lot more common that the woman has unorgasmic sex. Whether it is biology, socialization, former abuse, lack of concern and attention from the partner, resentment for problems in the relationship, or other reasons unsatisfying sex is more common for women. Having lackluster sex would lead to less motivation to have it or pursue it. Why complain about not having to do yet another chore for your spouse?

Whether women would like sex as much and as often without these external factors is mostly moot because the external factors are so common. 

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

Married but Happy said:


> If there is someone complaining, you can be almost certain that their complaints will never be resolved! In my experience, it is far easier to find a new relationship than fix this particular issue in an existing one.


I would say, in cases where it will eventually be fixed, most get fixed very quickly. In many or most cases, it never gets fixed and the only "cure" is to split up and find new partners. In a few cases it gets fixed years or decades after the initial complaint. In those cases, both would have likely been better off splitting up and fixing it years or decades earlier with someone else.


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

As for the genders, I would say it is fairly even as to frequency of refusing, but the motivations differ. I think more women than men refuse over not being attracted to their partner in the first place, or the sex being consistently lousy. I think more men than women refuse over performance anxiety (ED, PE or fear of not satisfying their partner). I think both genders refuse to maintain power / control in the relationship.


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## Fozzy (Jul 20, 2013)

I do think it's more socially accepted when men talk about lack of sex in a marriage. I also think it's more socially accepted for women to complain about the perceived 'obligation' of having sex with their partner (conversations at the coffee shop of "why won't he leave me alone"). This gives an impression to both sexes of an even wider divide than is probably true on the whole.


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## Girl_power (Aug 11, 2018)

MaiChi said:


> Do you think more men complain about women not wanting sex than women complain about men not wanting sex in the home?
> Does it take two or one to reduce sex in the home? Are there some hidden faults that the complainant does not want to admit, that cause the culprit to deny the complainant some deserved sex?


I think men typically complain about it more. However times are changing and I see the opposite with the newer generation.

Does it take 2 or 1 to reduce sex within the home. This is a great question but I think it depends on many things. How people view their role with sex is the distinction here. 
I for example don’t believe in refusing your partner (except occasional circumstances). I believe it’s your partners job to be available for sex in some capacity. It is not your job to do everything they ever fantasied about or to turn yourself into a different person to please them. But you should be available for sex at the very least. 
A lot of people don’t believe this. They believe that they have the right to say no, and if they don’t want to do something they shouldn’t do it period. If that’s the case, ONE person reduces the amount of sex they have. 

Are there some hidden faults that the complainant does not want to admit, that cause the culprit to deny the complainant some deserved sex?

Of course. Sometimes people are just too stubborn and refuse to bend.


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## Always Learning (Oct 2, 2013)

I can only tell you why I stopped
Having sex with a partner that laid there like a dead person, legs open, hands by her side, palms down on the bed was a massive turn off. She slowly elimated her participation with excuses.

Attempted rendom hugs were met with - "your to clingy or needy"
Kiss hello or goodbye met with a turned cheek.
Kiss good night met with a grunt.
Her attempt to meet my needs "want to have some quick fun? hurry up i am going out! oh and by the way my stomach is bothering me so good luck to you"
I'd ask her to play witn my penis during sex, "My hands are hurting" an hour later she is outside raking leaves.
How about a BJ, my mouth is hurting so I'm not feeling it.
On the last night of a 10 day vacation tour in Europe (we had sex jsut once) I curl up in bed with her and she starts getting upset that i was trying for sex (I wasn't) I had to explain that i was exhausted as well and was just holding till we fell asleep.

That was the last time I touched her.

There's more but you and I get the message!


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