I’m not sure if this is a hijack or not, but I have some general concerns about the needs vs. wants question. In fact, I would even go further and question the needs and wants themselves.
Let me start by saying that my position is that nobody needs sex. We may need it as a species, but as individuals, each and every one of us can exist just fine without it. Sex may be a prerequisite to having certain feelings, responses, mental attitudes, or what have you – but it’s not a need. So everything I say from here on out (in this post) is predicated upon my belief that though I want sex with my W, I don’t really need it. The other caveat is that I’m only into the second chapter of PM so I’m probably gridlocked, fused, and all sorts of other bad things, but just too ignorant to recognize it. So here goes.
As you all know, things have been somewhat better lately: W and I have ML five times in the past five weeks. That is a VAST improvement and an all-time record for us. Based on my own gut instinct and supporting recommendations from a good many of you, I have made no attempt to talk with her about this sudden huge upswing in LM. But this tremendous increase in frequency has me really examining the whole “want” issue. I’m very happy with the increase, but I want more. Once a week beats once every six months any way you look at it, but once every two or three days would be even better - and once a day, even better than that. But as they say, therein lies the rub.
If I’m brutally honest about what I want, it would be sex nearly every day with an enthusiastic partner. That sex would include her giving me a BJ at least once in a while. I know that I can’t really speak for my W, but based upon past performance (discounting the last few weeks), I would guess that she wants me to go down on her about once a month, she doesn’t really ever want to ML but she’s willing to do it occasionally just to please me, and I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the BJ is completely off the table. So how do we reconcile those different wants? When I add into the mix the fact that I want her to be happy and the fact that I really don’t want her to have to do something that she considers appalling (BJ) just to please me, things get so messy that I can’t even begin to make sense of them.
I know that Schnarch says that I should just state my wants and leave it at that, but while I can see some logic in that, it still seems wrong to me. It just doesn’t seem right to say in effect, “In order to make me happy, you have to do something that you find repugnant” and then just leave it at that. In the strictest sense, it is true, and it is disclosing, but it’s also completely selfish. Isn’t M about love and give and take and compromise? Ayn Rand may say that sex is inherently selfish, but I don’t see it that way. Sometimes sex is just f*cking, and I have no problem with that, but many times sex is something emotional/spiritual that’s shared between two people that builds and strengthens a bond between them. But sex isn’t the R. Unless your drives are perfectly in sync (which is probably pretty rare), it’s one of many areas where the give and take come into play.
If that hadn’t already complicated things enough, then some of you start dropping bombs like, “I will no longer accept mercy/duty/unenthusiastic sex”, or, “Why would you even want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you?” So let’s see, I want frequent, enthusiastic sex, I want my W to be happy, I want to be honest with her, I don’t want mercy/duty/unenthusiastic sex, I don’t want to pressure W to do anything that she finds truly abhorrent, I want her to want me (or to satisfy PM, I want her to give the appearance of wanting me), … Unfortunately, those aren’t all compatible. And I haven’t even gotten into my reactions to her reactions yet.
Let’s take the simple BJ as an example. I want one, and I know that she doesn’t want to give me one. I have two choices: forget the whole idea (bad), and try to influence her to do it (demanding, begging, stating “needs”, threatening D, or whatever). I think that this group would agree that assuming I chose option two, the only acceptable approach is the PM approach. OK, so I tell her that I need a BJ in order to [fill in the blank]. That puts the ball into her court; she can choose to not do it (bad), or she can choose to overcome her objections and give me a BJ (good). Ahh, but is it really good? I know that she doesn’t want to give me a BJ. It’s the equivalent of the coyote chewing his leg off to get out of the trap. It may be better than the alternative, but it’s still something that (s)he definitely doesn’t want to do. So now the ball’s back in my court. It may be one of my own making, but now I’m the one in the crucible with two unappealing choices: skip the BJ, or accept a coerced one from someone definitely not into it and in the process, know that by putting my own pleasure above her feelings, I’m directly causing discomfort/distress/unhappiness in someone I love and whom I deeply care about. So in that case, I’m left asking myself how badly I really want that BJ. When I put it that way, I’m not sure the BJ is worth it.
