Ok, I have to respond to this because .... well, because you (and DanceQueen) made me remember this.
A long, long time ago, I was in a relationship and living in a third story apt. on a nice quiet little street. The boyfriend had just refinished the wood floors and we had hardly any furniture. It had a large living room with a steeple window in the front and a long, deep window on the side. I had recently been to Mexico and bought a black and white Mexican blanket. I went to (probably K-mart or some such store) and purchased see-through liner curtains. I also owned the Time-Life Photograpy black and white Encyclopedias.
When the BF came home that day, he walked up the stairs and had a bird's eye veiw of a nude woman, lying on this Mexican blanket (looking at one of these black and white photograpy encyclopedias, opened to an appropiate page of nude women) with arms folded under her chin, and legs folded and bent at the knees, and feet flexed and pointed. The windows were open and the curtains were flowing in the breeze.
Of course, you can imagine his reaction. But his comment, when he came up for air was, "This is a picture of a memory I will never forget. My point being ...
"Have you thought about having nude and or semi/nude and suggestive pictures taken of YOU?"
I invite heather, poet and Silverado (and everyone else) to take a look at my "Blog #2" post and read my rant about porn on the last past and comment.
But as far as the pictures...
Well, there is a difference between a man who is viewing wham-bam porn sex, and a man who is viewing simple pictures of nude women. If your man is of the first type, then nude pics of you probably will be "nice" in his book, but unless you give him a catalyst (ie: threat, bomb, whatever) he likely won't stop looking at porn.
Men have to make a choice to stop viewing it for themselves, for some reason that they deem to be a good enough reason. Giving them another type of porn (pics of you) is not going to make them stop. It may make them happy and they may enjoy masterbating to a pic of you now and then...but it is not even in the same category (in their minds) as videos of sex between porn stars.
Again, I invite you all to my blog to make comments on the porn subject.
I thought I was doing this early in my M by going to Glamour Shots for some "sexy" photos. The pics turned out nice--sophisticated and beautiful--but they are FAR from soft porn--HA, HA. But in my "Laura Ashley" days, that was about as close as I got within my own comfort zone.
Although H liked the present, pictures of me did not have the effect I intended. My H likes to view action...video. I don't think any picture, even more hard core ones from a magazine would do the trick anymore for him.
But that's just my sitch. Other opinions? I'm sure others have a different viewpoint.
Nope, nothing new here. H has been out of town all week. I've just been working crazy hours, minding the fort and getting D13 ready to start school Monday.
My "pile" of books came from Amazon last week. I see H left a bookmark for himself in Ch.1 of the Nice Guy book. He also asked me for recommended reading for his trip, so I sent Love Languages, Men's Edition in his suitcase. (I haven't had time to read it myself yet.) I also purchased some Deida --Way of a Superior Man--which I found interesting.
I think NMMNG will be an interesting read for him...he will see himself in those pages. He's pretty "classic" in many respects, especially with the penchant to want to "fix" things, including women. His first wife was definitely a "fixer upper", as were many of his GF's prior to me. And I think in our present sitch, he would rather fix me than work on himself.
But, as I mentioned earlier, he IS open to reading material. I just want to ensure that, no matter what, we keep moving forward.
Not to worry, all is well. I will discuss the MC/ST with him when he returns, so we can schedule an appointment.
But here's a question for the DBing universe: Are there any men lurking out there who have worked on the issue of ED and/or low libido? What was your experience, and what have you found that worked best?
We ran into a little difficulty about a year ago with ED. It was situational but grew as I started to doubt if things were going to rise to full attention. It became very stressful since I didn't want to disappoint my wife and it really hit her confidence hard. Me too BTW. She had been showing very little interest in sex back then and I was starting to get resentful and hurt. Then one day we had a great day together and she was feeling frisky and surprised me by being uncharacteristically spontanious and agressive. Well things didn't happen right away and I went into a panic. We had a failure to launch. I was willing to make her cum orally but the fact I didn't get hard upset her as she was having issues with not feeling attractive enough for me. She started crying and it became a disaster as you can imagine. Unfortunately my wife took it very personally which didn't help either. So I was losing confidence in myself and feeling guilty about letting her down.
After that I started looking for natural remidies and went to my Dr. Told her all about it and got tested for low testosterone...was on the low side but not terrible. Started taking some over the counter hebal suppliments S t e e l l i b d o and got a perscription. I used the herbals as maintenence and only used the perscription when I knew we are going to be doing it multiple times that day or evening. I found that it was primarilty a confidence issue with me but the suppliments did help. The perscription worked as advertised BTW. The ED has only really surfaced 3-4 times. But it is a big mental issue that I am still aware of today.
I also started thinking about sex more through out the day and have actually brought back my level of desire as well. I send flirty and sexy messages to my wife through out the day and it gets us both warmed up.
I have been weening myself off the suppliments and perscriptions. I still take 1-2 supliments per day but havn't needed the perscription for nearly a 8 months. I have to trust that everthing will work if just given enough time. I also took the advice of Dance Queen and been more sexually aggressive with my wife. She really liked that. She needs me to be the man and the initiator...That came out after we talked about it a lot.
You can do things about most forms of ED. It is not hopeless.
Vorlon
M: 50, W: 48 M: 26 yrs S:25, D:24, S:20, D:19 Hard at work on my marriage everyday! There is hope, there is life, it is the only life we have....
I wish my H would stretch a little more here. So far, he seems to consider a pill the answer to the ED problem. After trying the variety pack, he has found Levitra to be the best for him, probably because it works the fastest.
My H is still depending on me to steer the course of our SL, and although he is trying hard to be more affectionate around the house, it is just sweet...not sexy at all. He says he has no sex drive, but can do it whenever I want if he has enough "warning" to take a pill. Somehow, this just doesn't cut it. I want to be desired by him, not just "serviced" once a week.
I know it's his brain, not his willy that needs to be "rewired". I have purchased a number of books that have been recommended by others here, to see if it will spur him to take additional action. At this point, he doesn't see a need for any other effort than a pharma one to make a sex life happen again for us.
There is so much out there for both of us to learn and grow from....I only wish we had started a long time ago.
I hear you Silverado. I'm not sure how you get the desire back from your spouse. It's up to them to want to want you. And I too get that "sweetness" from my wife but not the "sexy" that I desire.
I want to be desired by her... not just her making herself available to me once a week or so.
You are correct that this is a growth problem. When one spouse starts to grow the other spouse is placed in an uncomfortable position... they either grow as well and take on the challenge or they face the consequences of the status quo, which could mean the growing spouse leaving. It's a touch choice for them either way.
All we can do is hope that our spouses will pick the growth path but it can't be forced on them.
I want to thank you again for commenting on my post and for sharing your story. You came in at a moment when I was in sheer agony, and I was quite reactive to all of the information I was taking in. I apologize for my charged response.
I just read through your post again, and noted some helpful information about sex therapy. Bagheera suggests to do it as a couple so that it isn't taken as fixing him. That is a smart tip, and I plan to ask my husband to see a sex therapist.
You haven't posted on your situation for a long while. Are you taking a breather from focusing on it? Are you OK?
