While she may act sexually responsive and aroused, hers is a fragile interest in sex that can easily be made a low priority. Being loved, not being sexually desired, is her motive
Any person in a SSM may do this, not just women. Both men and women Want to be loved. There is love between my H and I much more so than there is sexual desire. It drives me nutty at times but I stay just the same. I would Not stay if I felt unloved.
I don't think you would find one person on this board that would say they would rather be sexually desired than loved. And that includes those with the highest sex drives.
I'm not so sure that most people seek love. I think most people seek approval. And we confuse that good feeling of being approved of as love. Hence, the 'honeymoon' stage. Who wouldn't feel good when someone is telling you that you are the greatest thing they've ever met?
THAT is what we miss when the honeymoon wanes. The constant positive feedback and approval. Since most people don't approve of themselves, first, when that goes away... you don't feel so good in the R anymore. Sound familiar to anyone?
Also for me since I was definitely attracted to Raven a lot during our initial courtship ( ) I feel that it is as much my responsibility as his to keep myself attracted to him in the long term. I consistently look to all his great qualities and remind him and myself as often as I can of WHY I find him so incredibly attractive. When I look at him or think about him, I focus on his best qualities. I remind myself of what I love about him and what I find attractive about him. I don't focus on his faults (which are very few ). I know I don't like when people focus on mine!! (To be clear I don't mean ignoring faults or issues and not dealing with them; I just mean that I don't dwell on them or make them larger than life)
While I do not believe that I could will myself into finding any man attractive, I do believe it is possible to maintain and build your attraction for your partner (assuming it was there at some point) as it is possible to eliminate the attraction. I think it really depends on where you focus your energy and thoughts.
fearless, you're my heroine!!!
I have actually found that this kind of thinking does continually refuel my passion for my husband ... not just general desire, but my desire to continue to express my sexuality *with him*.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
Of additional interest, he claims that women who consider themselves "in touch" via feministic qualities, are actually out-of-touch in many ways, one of them is particularly interesting; "She is out-of-touch with her sexism, which is every bit as intense as men's objectification of women. Men are attractive, sexy and desirable to her to the degree that they are powerful and successful. A man is a success object, who is attractive to the extent that he can be a rescuer, a protector, and a provider. None of these necessarily have any connection to his qualities as a person-the thing that most women believe is the major priority." (p48) -NOPkins-
Assuming he meant his above assessment to apply to what *all or most* women find desirable in men -- that's what is sounds like but I realize I'm only seeing an excerpt -- the following is my opinion.
No offense NOP and choc, but I am sick unto death of seeing this egregious overgeneralized offal paraded forth by so-called experts. Sure, there may well be many women like this ... to a degree, we're still somewhat socialized to seek alpha males. But there are just as many women, IMHO, who have been burned by the less admirable qualities that sometimes attend "powerful, successful" men and who are inherently wary of alphas. Or who themselves crave the dominant role. Or who may predominantly be drawn to kind, gentle, stable men for their fitness as potential fathers. Or who, like me, get a lot more mileage out of intellect and/or a sense of sexual awareness that has *nothing* to do with how "powerful and successful" the man may be.
Martelo made a wonderful post awhile back ... to quote: "While you may think that women are only sexually attracted to jerks its not necessarily the jerkiness that they may be attracted too but other aspects of the behavior.
Confidence, speaking ones mind, not looking for others approval, being direct, valuing oneself and "taking up space in the world" are all very attractive things that jerks do by accident. You can have all these qualities and be a good man."
I thought that was spot on and much more accurate about what attracts many women than facile labels like "powerful and successful". Powerful and successful men *also* tend to project the above, but do not have the monopoly on those qualities.
(Not intending to equate powerful, successful men with jerks, at all, btw. That was just the context of Martelo's post.)
Just my very-opinionated opinion.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
Back to Trust, many..most? all? reasonably clued in marriage counselors recommend not trusting your Spouse.
Really? Wow. Well... I've only been to one shrink, and he definitely advocates trust in Ms.
Quote:
Respect is earned. Giving it to someone because of your attraction for them is pretty dishonest to them and yourself. MO as a man.
I agree with this. I suppose that is where congruency comes into play. But if you never speak truth, I guess you don't have to worry about your actions being congruent. You simply monitor action. If we were any animal other than human, that would work for me. But the thing with humans is, we can monitor ourselves, contemplate ourselves and our own actions. We can change.
You know, during my M at the height of our sex arguments, my xH said, according to our marriage vows, I should have sex with him whenever he wanted it. I said I did not make any promise, implied or otherwise, to have sex with him. Never recalled ever, ever hearing the world 'sex' in any marriage vow.
My actions then, were congruent with my above statement.
But. I did vow to respect and cherish him. And you know, that never ONCE came up in any of our arguments... because it was always about SEX. We argued, for years, about the wrong thing. It was no wonder we couldn't solve our problem.
Serious lack of honesty going on there, I'd say. Respect was no where in sight, and cherish? Ugh. Please.
And you are right. I didn't trust my spouse. I didn't respect him. I didn't cherish him. Honest? Why would I be honest and make myself vulnerable to someone I don't trust, respect or cherish?
It went both ways.
And we are now D. Shrug. Not sure your theory holds any more water than my own. Just my opinion. As a woman.
You know, during my M at the height of our sex arguments, my xH said, according to our marriage vows, I should have sex with him whenever he wanted it. I said I did not make any promise, implied or otherwise, to have sex with him.
Can't resist. Our marriage vows had the vague "I promise to honor you with my body." I brought it up once to Ms.Hdog, and you can guess how that ended up. It seems that, since we both promised to honor each other with our bodies, I needed to honor her with my body by keeping it to myself. Or some other illogical gobbledygook. And believe me, I wasn't arguing that she had to have sex with me whenever I wanted it.
And as far as the dichotomy between what women say they want and what women really want, it rings true for some women, and yet it falls short of being an expansive definition for all of them. Just like many men say they want a porn star in the bedroom, but then are just as likely to to be turned off by such behavior and entirely smitten by a loving, demure, appreciative, gentle woman.
Great thread, by the way. It's a shame Lil's too drugged out to participate. And hey, does anyone else wish Cobra would come out of hiding to participate in this?
No offense NOP and choc, but I am sick unto death of seeing this egregious overgeneralized offal paraded forth by so-called experts.
I haven't stated my opinion of the author's claims. I will say that his claims are observable phenomena in a large portion of the female gender, and even more so among strong feminists.
I will also add that while I agree with the basics of feminism, I do NOT believe in *special* rights or treatment because of one's gender.
-NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
Gosh I am tired of the constant re-hash of "Women marry for love. Men marry for sex." I see why you asked the question Nop and I will say this.....one could infer from by behavior that I value love (which I receive from H) over sex (which I don't receive) but...............from my history the real story is that I value marriage (my faith committment to God, and yes, God as embodied in my husband failings and all) over sex. However, that doesn't mean that I will happily live in a sexless marriage that has love. H and I will probably continue to fight this one out forever since I intend for us to be married forever. In my view, I am duty bound to continue this marriage.
If I am so pro-marriage then how did I leave my other marriage??? After all, it was not a sex starved marriage. Well, turns out I value my self respect, my safety, my emotional well being and that of my children (demonstration of lack of love in action if you think that love is a verb) over sex.
In all fairness, I can't say I wouldn't have used my Corri powers to turn the argument any way I wanted to benefit myself, if needed. But I believe I addressed this point earlier. I wasn't being honest. With him or myself.
And again... respect was missing and so was trust. It had dwindled. I remember the exact moment is left for me... but I just didn't know, then... how critical that loss was, and how it was going to affect the rest of my M.
I married him knowing he didn't trust me. That was incredibly naive on my part. Sigh. Ah well. 20/20 hindsight and all.
I started pulling myself out of LD land when I found empathy for my H. I understood what he must have been feeling, and I HATED that he was feeling that because of me. I didn't like how that made me feel about me. So I worked on changing.
There is a difference between what a lot of people say (or think) they want, and what they really want. And I'd say a majority of those people are those people who don't bother to really figure it out. Test it out.
) I feel that it is as much my responsibility as his to keep myself attracted to him in the long term. I consistently look to all his great qualities and remind him and myself as often as I can of WHY I find him so incredibly attractive. When I look at him or think about him, I focus on his best qualities. I remind myself of what I love about him and what I find attractive about him. I don't focus on his faults (which are very few 
). I know I don't like when people focus on mine!! (To be clear I don't mean ignoring faults or issues and not dealing with them; I just mean that I don't dwell on them or make them larger than life)