I love you HP! That post was so....you And I agree. Having had the seperation experience, I was climbing the walls after 4 months of no sex. I was not going to be ok with the idea of celibacy. I don't think I've gone more than 4 months without sex since I was 18 So a concur, it a part of life for sure. Wouldn't want to do without it.
Quote: MoJo gave up her attached meaning to sex. What it did or did not mean to her.
I think this is right, but I was having a hard time explaining what I did even to myself until I started thinking about it in terms of philosophy. If I agree that I am a Type 7 then my natural philosophy might be Epicurean. I believe that it is good to seek pleasure in life. Not just in the "duh" way of thinking that pleasure is good, pain is bad, but in a fundamental, spiritual way of thinking that it is wrong or a kind of sin not to appreciate the pleasures that life has to offer.
Corri, I remember once you wrote to me that it was wrong to view the world as a sort of sexual smorgasboard laid out for my pleasure. As a Type 7 Epicurean, I felt I had to strongly disagree with this statement. I still disagree with the statement but not as strongly. Now I would say I believe that the world is a smorgasboard laid out for my pleasure, but I don't have to visit the sex part of the buffet every time I'm hungry. I try to think of sex as being like the dessert buffet, something I want very much that would make me very happy while I was munching it down but don't have to have to get by or be happy.
Quote: So JJ, theoretically it would be easier for you, as a Seven, to distract youself from the meaning you previously associated with your husband's failure to initiate sex.
As a Type 7, I can't stop myself from constantly making plans for my happiness. It's not so much that I distract myself from making sexual plans for my happiness by making other plans for my happiness, it's just that if I stop making sexual plans for my happiness, I naturally start making other kinds of plans. There must be an equivalent to this in terms of Type 4 philosophy.
Quote: The difference for me would be simply freedom of choice.
If I was single and choose to go with out sex thats my choice. And I have the option to change my mind at any time. I know that if I choose to have sex it would not be a problem to find a willing partner (beer googles if needed).
Well, one reply I might make would be is I haven't really given up freedom of choice because I could always choose to leave my marriage. The more relevant reply I will make is that I haven't chosen to go without sex, I've simply chosen to stop initiating sex and it's a decision I've made for myself that doesn't just apply to my marriage. If I was single right now I wouldn't initiate sex with men either. I've decided it was a bad habit that I picked up in adolescence, probably from reading too many Cosmopolitan articles. So to restate my position- I am choosing to go without any sex which I can only get by initiating.
Quote: You mean there are people out there who would find themselves suddenly celibate and be okay with it? Not me! I hate being celibate, even if it's self inflicted. I would not be "okay" with that thought, so the whole premise is not sitting right with me.
LOL. I know what you're saying. I hate giving up dessert even though I am freely choosing to be on a diet, but I am still operating as a Type 7 who is in pursuit of pleasure. I am simply choosing the pleasure of a light body over the pleasure of a yummy taste treat. I just have to face up to the reality that these two pleasures are to some extent mutually exclusive. If I was single and I was choosing not to have sex it would probably be because I was choosing the pleasures of freedom over the pleasures of friendship or the pleasures of the mind over the pleasures of the body to the extent that I believed they were mutually exclusive.
For instance, let's say I was single and I had a plan for happiness that included moving to France in two years and writing a book. I might hesitate to become involved in a longterm relationship with a man because he might not be able or willing to go along with my plan for happiness and I might not want to have casual sex for the next two years for all the obvious reasons that casual sex can be not that great. So, I would be making a plan for my happiness that does not necessarily include sex. Now, I might discover that this is a stupid plan because for me sex really isn't dessert, it is more like Vitamin C and I will start getting all rickety if I don't include it as a necessity in my plan for happiness, but by just being willing to experiment and see how long and in what context I can go without it or what sort of capsules I can get by on if real oranges aren't available, I am making myself less HD or just discovering how HD I really am.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Refresh my memory please....were you ever what you would consider to be LD? I used to be, and there are situations where I know I would be ok if for some reason I couldn't have sex.....say if my H were suddenly crippled and simply couldn't. However, as an able bodied woman....married to an able bodied man, I'm with Honeypot on this......I doubt I could be happy doing what you are doing.
BUT if this is what's working for you....more power to ya gal!
Quote: Refresh my memory please....were you ever what you would consider to be LD?
Nope and hope to never be. Well, I should qualify that and say that I have never been LD within the context of a meaningful relationship but I have been LD in the context of signaling "Go Away" when a guy says "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?".
Here's another way to look at what I'm doing/thinking. Let's imagine that there's a continuum along which you can be HD. At the far end is DESPERATE, followed by DEMANDING, followed by WORKING HARD FOR THE HONEY, HONEY, followed by EXPRESSING INTEREST/DESIRE, followed by EASY LAY, followed SEXUALLY NEUTRAL followed by DOING IT TO BE NICE, followed by JUST DOING IT, followed by NOT WANTING TO DO IT, followed by REALLY NOT WANTING TO DO IT, followed by REFUSING TO DO IT, followed by REFUSING TO EVEN THINK ABOUT DOING IT. (Granted, having never been LD my LD end of the spectrum might be inaccurate or more from the POV of the HD partner).
I have never gone further down the scale than EASY LAY and it is hard for me to imagine going further down the scale than that in any context ( This would be like imagining that I am capable of refusing to eat a slice of pie if I am hungry and someone baked it special and wants to share a slice with me. I have to admit that I can't think of one instance in my single life when I didn't choose to have sex when confronted with a single, friendly, attractive man with a hard-on.), but I am considering, experimenting with the idea that I might be happiest if I try to keep myself mostly down at the EASY LAY end of the scale.
Partly, this is because I think there is a certain balance in which where you are on the scale influences where your partner will be on the scale. If you are at DESPERATE then your partner is more likely to be at REFUSING TO HAVE SEX. From your POV, the fact that your partner is REFUSING is forcing you to be DESPERATE and from your partner's POV the fact that you are acting DESPERATE is making it impossible for them to do anything but REFUSE. However, if you are both plumb in the middle at NEUTRAL then you are happy roommates, not sexual partners so you've changed the whole paradigm. There has to be some lack of balance in order to make a sexual relationship function in the same way that there has to be some lack of symmetry in a work of art in order to make it interesting.
I wasn't even properly expressing my whole sexual potential when I said I can never go further down the scale than EASY LAY. What I should say is that as far as I can go down the scale naturally. I can play or pretend at being more LD than that within the context of a relationship, that is I am capable of "playing" hard-to-get or engaging in sexual teasing. Why would I want to do that? Why would a woman who wasn't feeling a lot of physical sexual desire want to "play" or "pretend' that she really wanted to f*ck her H's brains out? What is the difference between "playing' at a sexual role that doesn't come naturally to you and "faking" that role?
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Jenny, That's sorta my point, I guess. I am aware that there are situations in which celibacy is better than the alternative but I still wouldn't be "okay" with that--which is the premise of the entire question. I would consider that a big huge friggin bummer and a barely tolerable one at that. But...........I'd do it and make the best of it.
Which is pretty much what I do with my marriage as well. I tolerate the bad spells and make the best of it. Personally, the thought "I'd be okay with enforced celibacy if I was single so why am I not okay with it now" because I'd never have that thought in the first place.
Quote: The more relevant reply I will make is that I haven't chosen to go without sex, I've simply chosen to stop initiating sex
For some of us, choosing to stop initiating sex is THE SAME THING as choosing to stop having sex, since our partners DO NOT initiate. My bf has openly, directly initiated ONCE in 3.5 years.
Having said that, let me say that on Saturday night at dinner I proposed some playtime later. He said yes in a nice way. After dinner, he dawdled a bit, went out in the yard to have a ciggie, looked at the plants (he had spent ALL DAY working in the yard), piddled around some, and I fully expected him to sit down on the sofa and start watching tv which he has done many times when I've proposed playtime...
But I did not let him get away or "distract himself." We retired to the bedroom and without giving TMI, let me say that it was physically awful. Emotionally it was okay, sweet even, for two people so out of practice. But I did not experience even one speck of physical arousal. He did manual on me for a while until I couldn't take it any more because it was so awful-- I couldn't get into it.
I didn't ask him for oral, because he has indicated he doesn't like to do it on me, and I couldn't risk a rejection-- it would have undone me and I couldn't have held onto myself.
Then he proposed that I do oral on him, which I did, and he had an O. I just couldn't relax, couldn't force myself to be interested, and yet I knew that it had been such a hurdle to even Get Here, that I couldn't call it off midstream (so to speak). I was like a person who was starving and had to force myself to eat because I know my body needs food, but had to choke every bite down.
It was horrendous, awkward, uncomfortable. Fortunately it was not disgusting; I wasn't repulsed, just so totally not into it.
We were both very nice to each other, sweet, kind-- the EC part of it was tolerable, even okay.
I said I'm just so out of practice. We should practice more, and he agreed. He seemed very happy with the event, and complimented me several times later and the next morning.
The next day Sunday at dinner (we always say a spontaneous grace out loud before dinner) he prayed for blessings on various things and I threw in thanks for our intimate time, and he added, "yes, we have fun when we play," (and then addressed to the deity) "please help me to get there more often."
All you guys out there: stop smoking and drinking and if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. do something about it now, before it's too late. Trying to have sex when you can't get an erection is *HELL*--
We've got a l-o-n-g way to go...
Which raises another question: we've established that it's basically dishonest to fake an O; is it dishonest to pretend you are aroused when you are not?
Quote: Personally, the thought "I'd be okay with enforced celibacy if I was single so why am I not okay with it now" because I'd never have that thought in the first place.
I would never be okay with "enforced" celibacy either, but I want to be okay with making choices for myself that might include or result in celibacy. I don't want to feel like I "need" to be in a relationship with a man because if I don't "need" to be in a relationship, I can better insure that I "want" to be in a relationship.
If you woke up tomorrow and your sex drive had suddenly disappeared would you be happier or less happy in your relationship? I think it could go either way. You might be happier, for instance, because you would no longer feel the need to work at your relationship in order to get laid. You might be less happy because you might discover that your sexual attraction to your spouse was a good part of what made the relationship valuable to you.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Quote: For some of us, choosing to stop initiating sex is THE SAME THING as choosing to stop having sex, since our partners DO NOT initiate. My bf has openly, directly initiated ONCE in 3.5 years.
Well, I would say that you made two choices. You chose to stop initiating sex but you also chose to keep working on your current relationship instead of working on other things in your life. So, either you are working on your relationship in the hopes that it will lead to your BF initiating sex which is really an indirect way of initiating sex or you are working on your relationship in order to make it so great that you can be happy in it without sex. I'm probably not really expressing myself clearly here but what I'm trying to say is you will be happier in your relationship or out of it if you stop investing so much "work" or ego strength in projects that are unlikely to lead to your happiness.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
It's true... I can't figure out what it is that I want.
Sometimes I think that what I want most is for him to be wrong.
I have come to the conclusion that I feel deep inside that someone desiring me sexually is a measure of my value and worth. Chrissy picked up on this months ago about me. The sexual validation from our partner taps into connects with some deep need to be seen and loved in a unique way by someone who has chosen you from all (or many) others.
My bf (and other men in the past) is a substitute for the parents who showed no interest in me. Some part of me (a long-ago wounded child part) keeps saying, "See me! I AM okay, I am lovable, I am pretty, I am someone you want to have around, cuddle, kiss, play with. There's nothing wrong with ME, but there's something wrong with YOU if you don't love me!"
I couldn't get that special validating attention from them, and I can't get it from him.
So when he doesn't respond to me sexually, I get to hate him the way I hated them for not responding to me with that special "you are our one and only" kind of love. It's a hamster wheel.
I KNOW all of this, but the awareness hadn't filtered down and gotten rooted in my guts. This has to happen for me, or I will find myself in the same sitch in my next R (if there is another R). That's why I stay here-- this is where my work is.
(I also know that I play a part in his drama, too-- I have more of a handle on his drama since we see his mom a couple of times a week.)
Mo, I get what you're saying, I am just saying it doesn't apply in my situation. Whether the celibacy was forced upon me, or I chose it myself, all I'm saying is that I would *never* think, Hey I'm okay with this. I may think, "this is what I have to do in order to make a better life for myself" or something like that, but I would hate every minute of the celibacy aspect of it!
As far as whether I'd be happy or unhappy, I can say with 100% certainty that I'd be unhappy. It is part of who I am and, furthermore, a part of myself that I *enjoy*, regardless of whether anyone else is currently enjoying it with me.
If I'm unhappy with myself (as I would be were I to lose my sex drive), then I'm sure that would filter down into the R and my unhappiness would show up there.
I think my point is that, for some of us, the idea of "I'd be happy if I was single and not having sex, so why does it bug me so bad now?" is simply not true. I'd be climbing the walls and VERY eager to get back into a relationship so I could resume that part of my life again. For me, it's the same whether I'm in an R or not--lack of sex makes my life incomplete.
