OK now more time to be reflective - long post. I can only draw from my personal experiences during my life (I am 62 years young).
I think many men are brought up to believe that being emotionally open is a poor strategy. Let's face it, our male life is filled with competition (sport, work, etc.). Our parents usually bring boys up to be strong, bite-your-lip sort of people and, on top of that, most of the images that we see about men reinforce the equation that macho equals manliness.
Being brought up with 4 sisters meant that women have always been the stronger influence in my life and, generally, I find women easier to get on with than men.
However, my father dying when I had just turned 12 and then putting up with about 3 years of bullying at school pretty quickly wired me up to understand that not showing emotions was the best way to survive the world.
My first wife was (still is) a kind and caring women who didn't ask for a lot of emotion for me so that marriage lasted for 16 years before it died a natural death. I then met a beautiful American women in New Jersey and it was an intense, romantic affair full of emotions before it failed. Ergo, once again I learnt that showing emotions led to pain.
Then there were a couple more relationships where they were fuelled by my intense emotions and they also ended in lots of pain.
So when I finally met my dear, sweet wife and knew that this was the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, deep down in my subconcious a voice said keep control of your emotions otherwise this will also end in pain.
So J and I have had 11 years of really great love making and these are my conclusions:
1. If you are a man that is uncomfortable with emotional intimacy then it really must be dealt with or all your relationships will be prone to failure as most women really need this intimacy. Loving your woman is not enough!
2. Both genders must never use sex as a bargaining tool or a reward/punishment process. I think women are more prone to this as they know the real power that rests with them.
3. If a man is losing interest in sex then unless he is honest with himself as to the reasons why, his partner can't deal with it.
4. If a woman is missing sex from her partner she should be honest about the reasons why. Early on in my relationship with J we discussed how we would deal with one of us wanting sex when the other didn't. We came up with a number of tactics which meant that it was rare for one not to turn on the other during such an instance. Happy to discuss these tactics in another post.
5. Ultimately, most sexual problems probably stem from low self-worth but I'm just an amateur therapist so it may be rubbish! But Michele's book and others all focus on looking inwards for the answers to relationship problems.
Finally, in case any of you think that I'm bomb-proof then read my post here. Thank goodness, though, we have had a great sex life as it is one of the strong links that seems to be keeping us connected.
