Different cases cut different ways. Some men are empowered by sex. Some are addicted. If a woman shares an active sex life with her husband. And he is not thankful. And takes her for granted. And seeks additional sex elsewhere. Then obviously providing more sex is not going to accomplish anything productive in their lives.

On the other hand. If a woman withholds sex. And her husband is constantly deprived. Having never experienced bountiful sex. Then it is entirely possible that a woman providing additional sex will improve both their lives.

The existence of one mechanism does not negate the existence of the other.

As I say often, their are selfish people of both genders. There are controlling people. Addicts. Damaged people. Neither gender is better or worse than the other. Even though frequently different.

Sex is not always good or always evil. I am merely pointing out that attempts to portray desire for sex as alwasy evil are just as misguided and likely to be self-defeating as attempts to portray desire for sex as always beautiful and helpful. Every case must speak to its own facts.

Fascinating link Retread.

I think this works the same way in women too. I bet if we were to come up with a list of well-known powerful and succesful women, we would find that they have highly charged sexual selves. I know I have mentioned before that SF is actually one of MY top needs, even though I have struggled to have this need met and meet this need myself in my marriage. However, I am VERY good at channeling my sexual energy into other creative persuits. I am a writer and graphic designer by trade. I also have several other creative hobbies, such as music and gardening. I love to compuse music and am passionate about creating a beautiful living environment for myself. I also write poetry, essays, and other prose. And I am passionate about spirituality. And I definitely see how my sexual energy fuels these things. Does any of this make me a genius? Nah. But maybe it could, one day. I'm still under 40

Sure, they "can" do it. But they are probably miserable and in great emotional pain. I haven't chatted with those on THIS website, but I have with husbands of CSA victims/and Sexual Aversion on another website quite extensively over the past three years. They are doing what they have to do and should do, but they are miserable. And, in my mind its an absolute fact that what they are able to provide IS less than they could provide if they were sexually fulfilled.

Just think of it. Just the very thought of having sex with you revolts your wife so much that she gets nauseous, and she's basically unwilling to constructively work on her issues. Will hardly even admit them. That's hard to just power through and remain "Mr. Romance" And yes, she loves non sexual romance. "Cuddling by the fire with a glass of wine type romance".......as long as nothing ever leads to sex. I'm actually describing an online friend of mine. This is not hypothetical. He's been living with this for over 17 years. (My situation is similar except not as severe. My wife wants sex and likes it as long as its only once in a blue moon - and she describes herself to me as a very happy wife.)

Why isn't it reasonable to assume that he'd be better able to be the romantic husband that she wants if she was a happy/willing lover with him?

The same goes for emotional ENs on this very thread. One of the posters mentioned how difficult it was to provide SF for her husband when she felt distant from him. Kudos to her for doing that. Seriously - Kudos, but I guarantee....absolutely guarantee that he knew the difference from when she forced herself to have sex to when she felt happy or excited to have sex. She was better able to do it.

Excerpt from Dr. Harley that relates:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3350_attn.html

A man should never assume that just because he is in bed with his wife, sex is there for the taking. In many marriages, that mistake creates resentment and confusion. Most men eventually learn that if they spend the evening giving their wife their undivided attention, with conversation and affection, sex becomes a very natural and mutually enjoyable way to end the evening.

But there are some women who don't see the connection either. They want their husbands to give them the most attention when there is no possibility for sex. In fact, knowing that affection and intimate conversation often lead a man to wanting sex, they try hardest to be affectionate when they are out in a crowd. That tactic can lead to just as much resentment in a man as nightly sexual "ambushes" create in a woman. Take my word for it, the fulfillment of the four needs of affection, conversation, recreational companionship, and sexual fulfillment is best when they are met together.

Love is NOT magic.

Neither is sex...

Nobody ever died from not having sex.

Nobody ever died from having too much sex (catching HIV from indiscriminate sex within high risk groups aside).

It is our society that has turn BOTH into something so special that it has stifled both from occurring.

Having sex for those who enjoy it stimulates the production of dopamine (the happy chemical), oxytocin (the bonding chemical), vasopressin (the connectedness chemical) and serotonin (the chemical that makes you feel good about life).

For many centuries athletes were advised to avoid having sex hearing claims that it zapped your strength and caused you to lose focus. What it really does that makes a person lose focus on other things is that it makes one feel happy, connected to the person you just had sex with, bonded to a person you have had repeated sex with and develop an overall sense of well-being. It blasts your pleasure centers with massive amounts of stuff that causes you to seek more of the sensation.

It is desiring and seeking more of what makes you feel so good that leads to addiction AND causes you to be willing to sacrifice things already important to you in order to get more of it. This is how we fall in love, end up in an affair, become an alcoholic or drug addict, spend thousands of dollars watching porn on the internet, lose our marriage over an online game like World of Warcraft etc.

We end up in a serious misapplication of all sorts of moral, ethical and spiritual/religious things when we begin to make what we want into something we need. THIS is the wrong thinking that leads to most of our troubles in marriage and in society. It is this way of thinking that allows a person to justify lying to the boss, speeding on the highway, smoking "a little harmless pot", picking up prostitutes, drinking themselves into a stupor night after night and allowing themselves to flirt with that new girl at work or that cute guy in the Best Buy that knows so much about refrigerators.

Neither love nor sex is a life force, a source of spiritual strength or the ultimate in mystical energy. Love is your brain on drugs. Sex is but one of the drugs...

LS has linked to an important article on MB since UA is the key that makes all the rest of this stuff fit together. The discussion of sex so often revolves around how one of us just doesn't feel like it or how sex is a special thing or about how sex needs to only happen under certain circumstances....

Bovine excrement...

Sexual Fulfillment is one to the top ten emotional needs. It feeds our brains the stuff they need to feel happy, content, connected and bonded to our mate. If they are not being supplied by our spouse, they are a vacuum looking for something to fill them.

SF is but one of the four Intimate Emotional Needs that include Conversation, Affection, Recreational Companionship and Sexual Fulfillment. These four create intimacy and a lack of these four causes a breakdown in intimacy. They are both signs of intimacy and the way intimacy is achieved. The four together should be met during UA time for one simple reason. If you don't do them during UA time, they aren't going to happen.

Women tend to try to go along with the other three and leave off SF at the end of the night (spend all day at a picnic, move into a great play and dinner that night, take a long romantic walk on the beach at midnight...)

"Not tonight. I'm really tired..."

Why is sex different than Conversation or Affection or Recreational Companionship?

I think it has to do with three factors.

1) Our society has turned sex into a recreational activity. My (many of us here) generation reacted to the stigma attached to sex and tried to turn it into a bodily function like having a bowel movement or activity like taking a bath.

2) The women's movement, started and led by women who hated men for various reasons and felt that their right to not feel used and abused superseded the rights of men they had married to have sex with their own wives. During this time men really got a lot of mixed signals about sex and often the woman that freely had sex with him before marriage (and often with a host of other men as well) decided that sex was not something she wanted to engage in after the wedding.

3) Sex for many women is leverage and power. It is how a man is kept under control. It is what brings him home at night with his paycheck (meeting another important EN that of Financial Support) and that of Family Commitment) But often sex is used as bait in order to hook a man into meeting her own needs rather than an activity she partakes of in order to meet his need.

SF is not more special or unique than any of the other top ten ENs except for one factor. When we marry we are really promising that we will only get this need met from our spouse and that we will never meet that need for anyone else ever again. Quite often women who stop meeting their husband's need for SF, often feeling neglected and unimportant, allow another man to meet their own needs of Conversation, Affection and end up falling in love with OM who for some reason isn't the giant turn off to sex that their husband has become and they even have wild/crazy/dangerous/stupid sex as part of the affair.

And when the affair is over and they decide to "work on the marriage" the sex returns to only on special occasions, only after all other ENs have been met, only when the kids are at Grandma's, when the dishes are done, the house is spotless and the bills have all been paid with money to spare.

Love is an addiction. Sex is one of the things that supplies the drugs. It has been turned into things it never was intended to be. It was not really intended to be for the sole purpose of procreation in people since people have brains that react to a whole host of chemicals in ways that are unlike almost any other animal (lifetime mating animals all have similar structures in the brain, BTW and indiscriminate mating animals do not have the same receptors in the same concentrations in the same parts of the brain). It was not intended to be a random occurrence with random individuals for the same reasons. To some animals sex is simply a way to procreate. For some it is a recreational activity (dopamine spikes and serotonin levels clime). For some it is actually just a way of greeting each other (Oxytocin and or vasopressin levels elevated). In people it reaches a higher level of sophistication than that and stimulates parts of the brain that cause us to feel connected, bonded together, happy and content.

And when it is is missing, like any unmet Emotional Need that is included in the list, it causes the person who has a high need for SF to feel disconnected, no longer bonded, unhappy and discontent, the source of this feeling being the wife who refuses to meet his need because "it is too special to be met like other ENs." It pretty much turns him into a walking affair looking for a women who is willing to let him have sex. Some resist and instead go to a hooker (yeah they think hookers are better than a "real affair" with a mistress who poses a threat to the relationship) or they learn to become eunuchs and "rise above" their own unmet needs.

And that is my summary rant about sex...

Just wanted folks to know that not posting on a thread does not mean I have no opinion. It is more likely a lack of time to get into the discussion at hand...

Very good post. And it never enetered my mind that you didn't have an opinion

Mark, I usually enjoy reading your posts; however, in this one I smell a hint of mint bitterness.


There is something very odd in what you posted too:


The Women's Movement was started and led by women who hated men. Who knew? I guess the Civil Rights Movement was started and led by Black people who hated White people. I always assumed both of these Movements were about being equal citizens rather than hating anyone and I am glad they occured because without either of these Movements I wouldn't be able to vote, apply for credit, own property, or attend certain schools.

Speaking of school...I learned in school that the Women's Movement was about voting rights for women, women being paid equal wages for equal work, better working conditions for women, and female reproductive autonomy. Here's an excellent link with info & a timeline. THERE'S NOTHING IN THERE ABOUT DENYING MEN THEIR RIGHT TO HAVE SEX WITH THEIR WIVES. I saw no evidence of "Sex denying for husbands" marches or protests...but I could have missed it.

And since you mentioned it - my right not to feel USED and ABUSED does supercede my husband's "right" to have sex with me. I am a human being after all.


Como se dice "Because you let it control you?"


Eew.


And there we have it ladies - If a clear thinking man such as Mark can totally wig out on the sex issue, we may actually have more "power" than we ever imagined.

Wield your mighty swords with care ladies.

Allow me to assist you:

What's your point?

Anyone in Plan A feels that way - male or female.

LS,

Dr Harley says it best doesn't he?

For all the men who are sharing about how much pain they are in when they don't get SF - The women hear ya. It's the same pain women feel when their ENs aren't met.

For all the others who are arguing for some inflated value to be placed on SF - You will NEVER win an argument or convince anyone that your need for SF supercedes a woman's ENs...especially not Dr. H or anyone who is truly practicing MB. MB states that ENs are simply ENs and your spouse's ENs are your top priority.

Chris,

I have to go to work right now but I will address your concerns with my post when I get time because I am not bitter at all, do not think the women's movement and the civil rights movement have anything at all to do with each other and do not confuse Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton with Clara Fraser and Susan Stern.

I think you will find that my opinions actually pretty closely parallel those of Mel and a few other women around here.

And just for the record both my mother and my wife served terms as president of the League of Women voters in our county and bot pursued projects at the state level.

And just so there is no mistake, I was referencing sex, as per this thread and not the differences between the sexes.

Be back later...

Mark

I learned in school that some early feminists referred to marriage as a "cult of domesticity" and essentially taught that it always denied a woman her rights, and that some viewed all sex, even consensual marital sex, as rape. I learned that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Any time you tell someone that they shouldn't feel the way they feel about their emotional needs, aren't you engaging in a Disrespectful Judgment?


Dr. Harley classifies disrespectful judgments as abuse.

Mark, it's not just women. I've done this. And I'm sure other men have.

Where is that clapping smiley when you need it? I think this was an EXCELLENT post Mark. I'm really glad you chimed in. Been missing your long posts.

Will share later, because I have work to do. But I totally agree with women using sex as power. I agree, because I have done this myself, and still do if I don't watch my motives.

What school did you attend? In my school feminism of that type wasn't even addressed although The Women's Movement was part of the curriculum for History.

Anyway - The Womens Movement is related to "Feminists who hate men" as the Black Panthers relates to the Civil Rights Movement...Every philosphy has it's fringe element Markos

YES - So men take a page from that book in this discussion when speaking about women and their refusal to give you sex.


Yep - Within the context of a marriage. None of us here in this discussion are married to each other.

Either way - your wife is still a human being who's right to be treated like a human being supercedes your "right" to have sex with her. In fact ENs aren't rights at all & SF is an EN.

Anyway, isn't the statement "Women use sex as power" a Disrespectful Judgement? And as Mark said Sex for many women is leverage and power. It is how a man is kept under control... isn't THAT a a Disrespectful Judgement? How does Mark get a "good post" + pat on the back for posting several DJs about women.

Sorry, but I ain't drinking this batch of cool-aid.

But in your case and the case of the other men, you were really and truly tired. The women are doing it deliberately to deny men their rights. (LOL!)

Really? The parallels is pretty obvious to me: The goal was to obtain civil rights for groups who were denied those rights.


I don't see the relevence.



My dad is a dentist; however, I am unqualified to fill your cavities.


Okey doke.

Bam.

Fellas - read that two more times.