Monday, December 12, 2005
Theory # 15: Relationships: Boring Married Sex
Ah-ha! Some people think that emotions are fixed, immutable, and you have to be overwhelmed by passion to have/enjoy sex. So when they're married and have been with the same person for a while and they're no longer overcome by passion, they figure the excitement has gone out of the relationship and there's no longer any reason to have sex.
Which is complete nonsense. It reminds me of my son, who, when he was a picky eater aged 2 or 3, would respond to food with "but I'm not starving." He could only conceive of eating if he was famished. Just like you can enjoy a meal when you're merely hungry as opposed to starving, so can you enjoy sex when you're not overcome by passion.
This also explains those scenes in romance novels of long-married couples having rip-your-clothes-off urgent sex, which has long bothered me. If one must be overcome by passion in order to have sex, then long-married couples who still have good sex lives must therefore be in the same can't-wait state of horniness they experienced when they first met.
It just ain't so. That urgency mostly stems from uncertainty and rarity. If you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you're going to be ravenous whenever you get a chance to eat. But if you have a full pantry, things change.
In good married sex, the excitement doesn't come from "oh, boy! I'm going to get some!" It comes from knowing what you can do with each other and the trust that allows you to explore.
The other fallacy is that emotions are fixed and immutable. It says that if I'm not feeling like sex at this moment, that any attempt at seduction or changing my mind would constitute coercion on my husband's part or self-sacrifice on mine. Emotions are flexible. I noticed this first with anger. It's entirely possible to let go of anger without bottling it up. I'll have another post later on anger. But it's the same with sex.
Allowing for the possibility of becoming interested in having sex even when you're not initially interested makes for more sex, and better sex--assuming, that is, that it's a genuinely open-minded attitude rather than a grudging one.
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Categories: Theories, Relationships
Which is complete nonsense. It reminds me of my son, who, when he was a picky eater aged 2 or 3, would respond to food with "but I'm not starving." He could only conceive of eating if he was famished. Just like you can enjoy a meal when you're merely hungry as opposed to starving, so can you enjoy sex when you're not overcome by passion.
This also explains those scenes in romance novels of long-married couples having rip-your-clothes-off urgent sex, which has long bothered me. If one must be overcome by passion in order to have sex, then long-married couples who still have good sex lives must therefore be in the same can't-wait state of horniness they experienced when they first met.
It just ain't so. That urgency mostly stems from uncertainty and rarity. If you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you're going to be ravenous whenever you get a chance to eat. But if you have a full pantry, things change.
In good married sex, the excitement doesn't come from "oh, boy! I'm going to get some!" It comes from knowing what you can do with each other and the trust that allows you to explore.
The other fallacy is that emotions are fixed and immutable. It says that if I'm not feeling like sex at this moment, that any attempt at seduction or changing my mind would constitute coercion on my husband's part or self-sacrifice on mine. Emotions are flexible. I noticed this first with anger. It's entirely possible to let go of anger without bottling it up. I'll have another post later on anger. But it's the same with sex.
Allowing for the possibility of becoming interested in having sex even when you're not initially interested makes for more sex, and better sex--assuming, that is, that it's a genuinely open-minded attitude rather than a grudging one.
...read more
Categories: Theories, Relationships
Labels: relationships, theories
Comments:
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You are such a girl. Of course the excitement comes from "Oh, boy, I'm going to get some!"
Of course, that might just be my pathology ;o)
Happy New Year, Darla. All the best.
Of course, that might just be my pathology ;o)
Happy New Year, Darla. All the best.
LOL! Good point. I should probably have prefaced the whole thing by saying it was from a female POV.
Happy 2006!
Happy 2006!
Hello. I think you're right, Darla. And I don't think this attitude of 'becoming interested' is one that's just held by women. I know plenty of women who have mentioned generally being more interested in sex than their husbands, or having to seduce/persuade their husbands into having sex (actually, that's one of the subplots in Crusie's Crazy for You).
# posted by 
: 1/05/2006 8:25 PM
: 1/05/2006 8:25 PM
So it is. :) And what made me start thinking about it is a friend of ours who was lamenting that "the spark" had gone out of his marriage.
There's obviously never just one thing going on, but I do think feeling that you have to be overwhelmed by passion does account for some of the married couples who report lackluster sex lives.
I'd probably be more clever on the subject if I were speaking from experience. (Note to self: gloating isn't nice.)
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There's obviously never just one thing going on, but I do think feeling that you have to be overwhelmed by passion does account for some of the married couples who report lackluster sex lives.
I'd probably be more clever on the subject if I were speaking from experience. (Note to self: gloating isn't nice.)
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