DQ's Sex Blog

[SillyOldBear]

You're right, and I did it myself--you can see it in my signature: Married 8 years, Together 12, Sex-Starved 10. It doesn't add up, does it?

But--in my own defense--the thing is, we'd had great passion for each other before, and by the time we were talking about marriage I thought there were all these "temporary" things putting her under pressure. I thought we'd get married, the pressure of student teaching and dealing with the wedding would come off, and I'd be able to make changes back to the way we'd been before. I knew I was no sex-crazed weirdo, because she'd had a lot more sex than I had. She was my first, and I'd even made her wait quite awhile; I wanted to be sure we wanted to be together for good before we had sex. I was not her first--or her third--and I thought to myself, well, obviously the desire is there. She had these other guys before she met me, and she used to tear my clothes off, so even though we're going through a dry spell right now, that's not the real relationship.

Now I know it wasn't a dry spell. It was like I was planting corn in the desert because there'd been flash floods the first season. She tried to tell me; I told her I didn't want to have a sexless marriage, and she told me she would try very hard, but "there are no guarantees. I can't promise you I'm going to want to have sex."

Maybe I should have walked away then, but I didn't. And if I had, I would have missed my sons, her laughing at my jokes, all the things I love about her. It's not quite as simple as running a checksum to see if the numbers match.

[Cinco]

Yeah the point I was making with the matchmaking example was: If we assume that for whatever reason (physiological differences between the men & women?) there are 80% HDmales, 20% LDmales, 40% HDfemales and 60% LDfemales. In an ideal world we would teach young people to find their mates being sure that their sex drives matched before committing long term.

Ok so all the HD's get together and all the LD's get together. So the 40% HDf get a match and the 20% LDm get a match. Well that makes 60% of the marrying population happy but what about those poor leftover 40% mismatched people? Well at least would could improve the divorce rate from 50% to maybe 40%, that's better than nothing!

Obviously this is an over simlification of the problem. There is much more to this than just numbers. People change as we all know and child birth throws a wrench in the works sometimes. As Dance said HDf find they are with LDm and can't figure out what happened.

I thought I had married an HDf. Knowing what I know now, she is not HD. But the differences are subtle when you have fallen in love and are in the throws of passion together in those early years of a realtionship.

Cinco

[Sara]

When I was dating, I had a VHD boyfriend who wanted sex all day and all night. At least 3X/day. That was too much for me, so I thought I was LD because once or twice a day was good for me. Well, now I know that is not LD, but back then I thought it was.

[DanceQueen]

Yes, Silly, so many of us made the same mistake. But YOU are going to fix your SSM, as evidenced on your other thread and the updates you've been giving. :0)

I have another topic ....

AM I FLATTERED BECAUSE A MAN WANTS TO HAVE SEX WITH ME?

I am hoping to let some men see a woman's thoughts on this, and maybe get some men's opinions about what I'm about to say.

First off, I'm not talking about my specific man when I say "a man" who wants to have sex with me. I am talking about all the men in my entire life, up until I meet the man of my dreams...and therefore, I have been shaped by my thoughts and opinions on this before I meet my husband.

OK, so first off, you are a young girl coming into adolescence. Your mother, other female relatives, and all your friends, begin talking about sex - in various ways. Your mother and other relatives are talking about it because they want you to know that ANY MAN will have sex with you if you let him, so don't listen to his sweet words - they are only designed to get into your pants. Your friends are talking about sex because you and they are getting close to the age when you actually will have sex, so you are all just trying to learn what you can from each other. Amongst you, you share what your mothers and other female relatives have told you: that ANY MAN will do you if you let him. You banter about this point, but you really have no clue what it means.

Then you start dating.

You find out very quickly that ANY MAN really will want to have sex with you if you are willing.

It doesn't mean you are special.

It doesn't mean you are smart.

It doesn't mean you are pretty.

It just means he wants to have sex - with ANYONE.

Now, please guys, don't think I am trying to bash you. I am just telling you what it is like from the young woman's point of view.

You get hurt over and over at first, because you give sex to these young men you are dating, and to you it means something special - a gift you gave them, one which you thought they wanted very badly. However, to them it means nothing. They dump you the next day because now that they've had sex with you, they just want to have sex with someone else.

It takes a few lessons like this to get it through your thick female skull that although you DO have this massive sexual power over men, you can't actually give them what they appear to want so badly (sex), or else they don't want YOU anymore.

Later you find out that as men age, this problem does get a bit better and some men figure out that they don't want sex with just anyone. (Also, lucky for you, young woman, the men hopefully get better lover skills as they get older, too).

But by now, the message is planted. *Any man will have sex with any willing woman.* I am not saying this is 100% true, but really, isn't it pretty close to being true? I'm not talking about married men going outside their marriage, I'm talking about single men. ANY of them will have sex with any willing woman. Yeah, ok, so narrow it down to be, any willing woman he is even remotely attracted to. But that's still nearly any woman.

And by now, as an older adult, you can actually hear men talk about things like "all men look" and "all men picture you naked, no matter what you look like" and "all men will fantasize about doing your sister, so just get used to it, its no big deal, its just how we are". I used to be so fascinated by this I would deliberately solicit men to talk about it, to see whether it was really true or not. I had one man who I had only met maybe twice, (not a date, just a friend/associate). He opened up to me about being very sexual the second time I met him. So I asked him lots of questions. He confirmed the whole "I'd do any willing woman" thing. He even told me that the first time we had met, he had pictured me laying naked on the table we were having coffee at. I was a young married woman at the time with literally ZERO sexual interest in him. But ... I was attractive, so to him, I was fair game to picture laying naked on the table.

I just did my best over time to really understand that men don't mean anything when they want to have sex with you. It is biological and isn't meant to be insulting to us, at all.

I have a guy friend. He was my boyfriend when I was 14 years old, but I hesitate to call him an ex, as we were literally just children. We have been able to retain a somewhat strained friendship over the many many years since then. I helped him through his divorce, he helped me through mine. At one point, we were both single at the same time. He wanted us to try going out. I was not attracted to him and wanted to only remain friends. So he asked for at least just a one-time sex tryst.

I said "no".

He said "well, are you at least flattered that I would want to?"

I said "ugh...NO. Any man would want to f*ck me".

He said "wow, you sure are full of yourself, aren't you?"

I said "well, it you want to look at it that way, but I haven't met a man to date that hasn't made that clear to me, so I'm not being conceded, I'm just telling you what I've learned in my life".

He said "gosh, if I thought any woman would want to f*ck me, you would say I was totally full of myself".

I said "but its totally different, don't you get that? Women usually don't just want sex, but men can and do just want sex sometimes. They want relationships too, but in between relationships they are perfectly happy with just sex...just like what YOU are trying to talk ME into. Why in the world would I be flattered? You would want one-time sex with any other attractive woman in the world, too."

He didn't see my point.

Do any of you guys here see what I am getting at?

Can you relate to it at all?

Can you at least see how it must feel to be a woman? You have this enormous power over men, yet, you only have power over what THEY want from you. You don't have power over them for what WE want from them, ie: love, committment, emotional intimacy, romance, a strong shoulder to lean on, etc.

Yes of course there are ways to manipulate either sex to get what you want. I am just pointing out that as a woman, by the time you reach adulthood, you really do feel like a piece of meat.

Others mileage may vary, but this is my view. Any man would have sex with me. Big whoop. It means nothing special about me at all.

So now enter a woman with similar experiences to mine into a marriage...can you see why she may find it hard to believe that her husband wants sex with her because he loves her? Because he wants to feel his love for her and express it? Because he wants to bond with her? Because when he has sex with her he feels her love for him? This goes against everything she has ever learned. Most women at this point have only learned that men will have sex with anyone who is willing, not that they "feel their love" for her during the act.

Now guys, I have learned my lesson and am with the man of my dreams and it has all worked out wonderfully (I got sex 3 times this weekend, for instance - woo hoo!) But just trying to get into each other's heads and understand the opposite sex, I thought I would try to show you inside my mind.

Am I flattered that a man wants to have sex with me? Well, my own man, yes. Any other man, no.

DanceQueen

[DanceQueen]

Just to help out with my point...here is a question written in the on-line version of MensHealth magazine in the sex/relationships Q&A section...

Q:My girlfriend has extremely hot friends, and we're going on a beach trip. I'm worried about getting an erection. Is there anything I can do to control it?
Digo, Miami, FL
Sex Professor answers

It's best to have a multipronged approach: baggy swim trunks, dips in cool water, Jedi mind tricks (think about work), and a preregistered excuse: Tell your girlfriend you're worried about driftwood because you can't stop thinking about how hot she looks in a swimsuit.

- - - -

So in other words, the answer is basically "of course you will get an erection, because you would have sex with anyone who is remotely attractive to you, so just lie to your girlfriend and tell her the erection is about her, meanwhile, every man in the world who reads this knows that you will never have erections only for her".

Guys, can you try to imagine what this feels like to a woman reading it? We are basically being told that his being turned on by anyone and everyone shouldn't matter to us, because we women really dont matter to him. He wants sex with anyone. We individually are nothing special and no matter who you are or what you look like or how much he loves you, he will still want to have sex with all your hot girlfriends.

Again, I know this is over-simplifying. But this is a big problem within the world of men and women and trying to come to understanding about things.

[Bagheera]

I'll bite DQ, especially since I've turned into the spokesman for the Intimacy Dilemma all too often around here.

Your description of male sexuality is correct up to a point, and it's a point that isn't at all obvious to women (nor to most young men, either).

Thanks to the relatively new high levels of testosterone their bodies are producing, all young men experience a sexual arousal 'high' during their teens and early twenties. Arousal (and erections) lurk just below the surface, within easy reach and very little mental effort. Given a little bit of visual stimulation and one stray thought, you can easily embarrass yourself (and sometimes do). So your description is correct, as far as this goes --> most young men are fully into the mode of exploring and enjoying this newfound source of pleasure, with little to no interest in emotional intimacy.

However, lurking within each young man, and usually unbeknownst to him, is a great capacity for emotional intimacy accompanying and, especially, just after lovemaking. Most young men don't even experience this until they fall in love for the first time, and then physical intimacy becomes oh-so-much better: skyrockets! And the more mature the man becomes, the more pronounced this connection becomes, and the more obvious it becomes to HIM. Somewhere along the way, he realizes that casual sex with a stranger leaves him feeling empty and disappointed, and wanting for something more. Sure, there will always be those playboys who never 'grow up,' and are able to maintain a separation between physical and emotional intimacy. There are some guys, as you describe, who can be 'bi-modal,' enjoying casual sex between serious relationships. And there are a few of us who left the one-night stands behind long ago.

When I was a young man I learned pretty quickly that casual sex was not really for me, despite how much I might want it at the time. I would suffer bouts of post-coital depression following casual lovemaking, which is what occurs when your mind wants that emotional connection to be there afterwards, and it isn't. I would come away feeling very empty, alone, and disappointed, when all my buddies would rave about how great and carefree it was supposed to be. Call me a sap or a romantic if you will, but I just could never get into the joy of sex for the sake of sex.

So while I agree with your post in large part, it's important to realize that those young men, who ARE pretty shallow and generally interested only in 'one thing,' do eventually grow and mature --> developing a great capacity for emotional intimacy in addition to their strong drive for physical intimacy.

Unfortunately, most women don't notice this growth.


One final observation (and being really simplistic myself):

I think that women are born with an innate ability for emotional intimacy, and then learn to develop the desire for and enjoyment of physical intimacy from men.

I think that men are born with an innate ability for physical intimacy, and then learn to develop the desire for and enjoyment of emotional intimacy from women.

Unfortunately, in the sex-starved marriage, each spouse tends to down-play (and stymie) the growth and development of the other. The man bemoans his wife's apparent lack of interest in the physical, while the wife bemoans her husband's apparent lack of interest in the emotional. And round and round they go.....

I am SO glad to be off THAT particular merry-go-round!

Bagheera

[Cinco]

Hey, DQ I tend to concur with Bagheera here. As a young man I tended to want the intimate relationship along with the sex. My 1st was actually a fairly long relationship at one year. Yes, I had my share of "one nighters", but I much preferred to get into a relationship over just the sex alone.

I even had one relationship where we never had sex at all (even though admittedly I did want it, but never pushed it). It was not platonic either we did plenty of kissing, hugging, petting and lying together. It ended not because of a lack of sex but because of my lack of finishing college, she had graduated and I was still in school. She was ready to find someone to settle down with and well... it just wasn't me. I absolutely adored her and loved spending time with her. It just didn't work out for us. I could have waited for her until we were married if that had been our road together.

Like B says, when there is that emotional connection and you really care for the woman it takes it to a completely different level. Instead of a fleeting exciting moment that seems so empty when it is over, it becomes a special time that the two of you share with true passion, fireworks, euphoria, etc. and like my above experience, doesn't always have to include sex either.

Guys like us take it very personally when we have found "the one" that we want to spend our lives with, be intimate with and make love with and they later reject us (lose interest in sex) because______(life got in the way, kids, too tired... take your pick). We looked long and hard to find that special person that we fell in love with. Once the love was there we just assumed that the sex part would always be a natural extension of that love that we would share.

For me the love came first between my wife and myself, then the love making came after as a gift to one another.

[SillyOldBear]

Dancequeen, I can understand that. Really. It's simple supply and demand. You have all the supply and we have all the demand. The catch is that we don't have the currency you want--you want to be that one special woman we want, the unique one we want even though we don't want the other women.
We are biologically incapable of not wanting the other women, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. Controlling our *behavior* is the best we have to offer, and it's not good enough.

Can you understand that for a man who controlled those impulses, waited for "the One" and did everything right, it's frustrating to be told that all his effort counts for nothing with his wife because he "wanted to" do this or "would have" done that with other women? It's like the fact that he *didn't* do it doesn't matter. And the fact that "The One" means her, the love of his life, doesn't count for anything, either.

I'm not in a great mood this morning; maybe I'm not being fair here, but that's how it looks to me right now.
(Ha, I didn't even notice until just now that Cinco also used the "The One" language. Great minds.)

[DanceQueen]

You know, all three of you, Baggy, Cinco and Silly, are a cut above in many respects. Your stories are somewhat "usual", but you as men are not usual...hopefully you three do know that about yourselves, as you should take pride in being a cut above.

And the three of you being a cut above is WHY you will all three likely solve your SSM's. You will be proactive and you will fight for your "one". I know you all suffered for a long time, so I'm not trying to make it seem like it was all a bed of roses.

I can tell you, as a woman, that your feelings are somewhat in the minority, at least as far as what most men will wear on their sleeve. Meaning that, you have all described the difference between yourselves and "those other guys" who are busy running from one woman to the next, and you've done it with pride in yourselves as men. This is why you are a cut above. Other men, the ones who I was talking about in my post, who run from one woman to the next, are the ones who will likely not reach mature adulthood until much later in life, if ever.

But they are the majority, and as a woman, that is usually what we are dealing with. Yes, we do see you, the ones who are more about relationships and feeling connected, but you are the quiet minority. The REST of the men out there very LOUDLY make it clear to us women that we are meat to them, and we are supposed to be flattered by that fact.

Thank goodness for you minority or there would be literally no hope for women!

Your wives will one day figure it out. They really will. I hope you will remain patient until then.

But as far as general discussion and not about the three of you specifically...I stand by my point. As a woman, I've been hurt over and over by this "fact" and it doesn't change just because there are decent men out there. Its so hard to find those decent ones.

I'm very happy and lucky to have found one myself. And I will go out on a limb here and say something that I know just about anyone, man or woman, will think I am insane if I believe this but here it goes: my man doesn't want anyone but me.

:0)

It feels great to know this, even though I know no one else would think I was being very smart to believe this, they would just think that I bought the line of yet another man who just wants the prize.

But thanks again Baggy, Cinco, and Silly...you three are a treat for me. I love men, and I love meeting good examples of men, such as you.

DanceQueen

[Cinco]

DQ I think it is very unlikely if not impossible that we will ever meet one of "those other guys" on this board. Those are the kind of guys that would just cut and run at the first sign of trouble, assuming that they ever got married in the first place. They would never put any thought into trying to make things work out.

I have an old friend of mine I've known since high school. He is that frog jumping from one lily pad to the next, a confirmed bachelor. Granted his youth was very exciting for him, but now he is very sad and lonely. The conquests don't come very often if at all any more. His attitude has not changed either, he is stuck at that immature level and any women that might now be interested in him can see right through to how he really is.

The really sad part is that he grew up in a home with parents that were committed to each other. They had a very solid and happy marriage until the mother died. He had the perfect model of happiness to follow and he chose to ignore it.