On the SDMB, I often read posts by male Dopers like:
There is something about these posts that bothers me. If a woman witholds sex to get her way, doesn’t that imply she doesn’t like sex for sex’s sake? And, more importantly, wouldn’t that be a huge turn-off for her husband, implying that she only tolerates him sexually, instead of being an enthusiastic parther?
So, I’d expect men to be really bothered by a woman on a sex-strike, or even by a woman threatening to go on a sex-strike. I’m a woman, and if my husband threatened to withold sex on purpose, I’d be so hurt and become so insecure about my sexual attractiveness, I probably would end the relationship, both sexual and otherwise, right there and then. **Why wouldn’t men feel the same way? **
The way I’ve heard it, it’s not a deliberate policy of withholding sex as a means of getting your own way. It’s just that unless the woman is happy and free from legitimate female anger, she is (quite against her will) incapable of feeling sexual desire for her man. Of course this has been known to have the look and feel of a deliberate sex ban in pursuit of her own ends, but I’ve been assured that this is not in fact the case.
Why not end the relationship there and then? shrug You don’t burn the house down just because some shit has got trodden into the carpet. Also, there’s room to doubt that there’s a better deal waiting anywhere else.
There was a TV comedy-drama a year or two back about a bunch of guys whose lottery syndicate had a huge win, and they wanted to spend it on turning their football club professional. Their wives, however, wanted to spend it on home improvements and holidays abroad, and decided they would all institute a sex strike until the men came to heel. I didn’t bother to watch it. Parallels with Lysistrata were, I thought, misplaced inasmuch as the Greek women were only doing it to stop a war, not for selfish ends. But if I had five million quid and a wife keeping her legs shut until we spent it how she wanted, I think I’d happily cough up a half share and sign it with a kiss-off note.
–Mal, good in the kitchen, living proof that it ain’t necessarily so. :rolleyes:
Maybe the difference is cultural. In the USA, I feel men like to be seen as " red blooded males with needs, damnit!". So, a woman implicating she doesn’t like sex as often as him, or that she is cooler about sex then he, gives him a compliment about his potency, and herself about her un-sluttiness.
If that is so, it would be a milder version of the sexual role-playing that goes on in cultures where sex is emphasized by taboos, like the English Victorians. Or Islamic cultures, where women have to wear chadors and burquas. In those cultures men and women seem to be have made an implicit agreement: men can feel like potent studs, and women can feel like sexually powerful beauties, because the cultural mores ensure neither position will ever be tested. Like a man, raging with anger, can threaten his enemy, precisely because his buddies are holding him back, so he doesn’t have to make good on his threat.
The writer of Corinthians obviously thought it an important issue:
Clearly the tactic of withholding sex has been used for many years as a way of exerting control over one’s partner.
As a man it would upset me if I were “banned” from sex, but it depends on context.
If I’ve been a berk then I can understand that emotional distance also leaves a woman less likely to want sex… but I wouldn’t stay with anyone who used sex as a weapon like you describe.
This goes for me personally, and I don’t claim to speak for the rest of the world.
If I get into a fight with my boyfriend and he hurts my feelings, or if he does something that hurts me, I feel alienated from him and it feels weird and wrong to touch him until we talk it out completely or until enough time passes for me to suck it up and get past it.
It’s not because I’m consciously trying to punish him, but rather because being hurt by someone who’s supposed to love me lessens my desire. When I’m mad at someone, I don’t really feel like having their hands on my body.
I’m not sure that’s entirely what you’re talking about, so I’ll add that I’d never say something like, “No sex for you unless you do the dishes tonight!”. Sex isn’t a currency. I wouldn’t use it to try to get my boyfriend to “behave”, and if my boyfriend tried to do the same to me, he wouldn’t be my boyfriend anymore.
hmm… all Mars-Venus booklets agree: " men" want to have sex to make up after a fight, women want to have made up before they will have sex again.
So, I guess my question then becomes: how long can a woman allow herself to stay mad, and refuse being pacified, before she is guilty of a deliberate sex-strike? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks?
I guess my own personal problem is that I don’t have a way of punishing my SO that doesn’t punish myself just as much. A sex-strike backfires for the reason I stated in my OP. And I *hate *fighting with my SO and I hate staying mad, which is a kind of one-sided, cooler form of a fight, only drawn out longer. So, what do I do after I’ve said : “This is really important to me?” Nothing.
depends on individual circumstances - staying ticked off for a month because hubby left the toilet seat up is probably over-the-top, but if it’s something she’s asked over and over again (and has been deliberately done to annoy) then it’s a different matter
each couple will set their own tolerance level for how long sulks can last - my missus gets cross v. easily about v. small issues* but calms down within an hour or so… I’ve known other women who rarely lose their temper, but when they do it rumbles on for days
*even she would acknowledge that they are trivial problems
Lighten up. Most of the time when people say things like “wife will make me sleep on the sofa” they’re joking. I have gotten pissed off at my wife enough to voluntarily place myself on exile in the family den but it had nothing to do with holding out on the sex.
a swift kick in the goolies is the preferred dispute resolution for my missus :eek:
I’m much more articulate than her - we tried reasoning things through, but I would always try to use clever rhetorical tricks to “win” the argument - that made her feel really small which wasn’t good
a quick whap on my arm, or the aforementioned kick in the unmentionables, alows her to get rid of the frustration, makes me realise I’ve made a boo-boo, leaves no lasting damage and saves me having to think up a clever reason for why I pissed her off in the first place
her way of making up to me involves allowing me to watch 2nd division German Bundesliga matches on ZDF, in place of desparate housewives or something else she wants to watch
I don’t use withholding sex as a weapon, because that is punishing me as much as punishing him! I’ve never been the type to say “unless I get xxxx, no sex for you!”
On the other hand, if my husband and I are upset with each other, it doesn’t exactly put me in a romantic mood. I’ve had relationships in the past (before I was married) where the guy would want to get romantic as a way of smoothing over the problem. That didn’t work for me, because unless the problem has been resolved it is still there. You can’t just screw it away and pretend it didn’t/doesn’t matter.
My grandparents are the kind of couple who have fights so they can make up. The daily process would be as follows, until quite recently:
Have fight.
He storms out of the house.
Anybody else who was present during the fight (say, their kids or grandkids) leaves the house to go to school/work/for a walk.
He comes back bearing a goodwill present.
Sex ensues.
I’ve never understood it myself, but apparently they’re not the only ones to work that way. The whole process of fighting, in their case, is linked to getting hot enough for vertical sex. And no, they didn’t have sex only after a fight, it’s not “grandma not having sex unless she’s gotten some candy.” (Although I’ve heard there were some interesting uses for the candy, at times, but I digress…)
In my case, when I’ve gotten good and truly mad at someone, anyone, they better stay, not just out of my bedroom but out of my sight. For their own safety. GRRRRROWL!
Blackmail of any kind is not a good thing in any kind of relationship. Are there couples who blackmail each other? Well, yes. Same as there are couples who demean each other. “People do it” doesn’t make it a good thing.
How long would you stay if you found your electricity being cut off because BF spent the cash for the bill on football tickets[that partially came out of your wages]? one hour, one day? one week?
What about having to exist on a minimal amount of money because your husband wont give you access to the bank accounts and wont pay the electric, phone and pulic utility bills so they are always behind and always being dunned and/or turned off and the only money you have coming in is what the roommate donates to the household accounts? <in my case about 2 years before the last straw hit - his passive agressive behavior at my having scrounged the money for a new linoleum floor for the kitchen and presenting him with the materials to redo the floors and him filling the house with dust, mildew, mold and wood powder from sanding the kitchen floor. I have COPD *and * asthma, in addition to being allergic to that particular mildew. 3 months later the crud was still in every part of the house except where mrAru kindly barriered off and thoroughly cleaned.>
What about a lie [no dear, I just went over to Bob’s house and sat around - that couldn’t have been me at the bar spending the money, you must have mistook the amount we had in the bank]
How long do you stay mad at a betrayal? What can you consider a lot of marital problems but betrayal. You are supposed to be an equal partner in a marriage, so how would you feel if the other person just went and did whatever they wanted without thinking of how it impacts you. I really do think that if you get a windfall, you should consider how your partner would share in spending it. If I were in the discussion, it would be fair to take PART of the windfall and do something for the family as a whole, and part of the windfall to make the football club professional. Anything else is selfish and a betrayal of the sharing and partnership that a marriage is supposed to be.
Maastricht, I think you’re seeing strategy where there is none. If I’m mad at my boyfriend, I may not want to have sex with him, but that’s not a punishment, or a bargaining tool. That’s just me not wanting to have sex with someone who, at the moment, is *not * giving me the warm fuzzies.
Alternatively, having sex doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve made up. There’s all different kinds of angry, and relationships don’t alternate between hot war and blissful peace. Cold war or detente can last awhile, and sex, while it may be a nice way of momentarily thawing the chill, doesn’t actually resolve anything. I may have sex with him and still be mad at him, or we may “make up” and although I’m not *mad * at him, I’m still not feeling it. Different situations produce different results.
For me, sex is a mood. If I’m angry, or betrayed, or sad, or tired…I’m going to have a difficult time getting worked up to hot and horny - and moreover, if I’m already mad because MY NEEDS were not met or taken into consideration (which is the usually reason for a fight in a relationship), I may be suddenly resentful if sex suddenly becomes about HIS NEEDS.
I do have needs for sex, it just isn’t something that happens when I’m upset with my significant other.
This isn’t about punishment, this is about my need for emotional intimacy as part of sex.
I agree with most of the posters here–in fact, I have just recently (last 3 years) discovered sex for sex’s sake.
It was a long time learning that I could compartmentalize things a bit–in some ways it’s freeing and I get more good sex more often. Then again, I am very lonely inside my marriage–good sex is there, but no real emotional intimacy. I all it hygiene sex–a release of sexual tension, but not a coming together emotionally.
Forgive a stereotyped remark, but if good sex IS emotional intimacy for guys, and it’s not for girls(at least not for me), where does that leave us?
I see no disconnect in not being able to enjoy sex while being mad at your partner–unless you want to have angry, passionate sex (which my partner doesn’t, sadly enough, but I digress). If I can’t stand the sight of you because I am so mad, why would I want to fuck you? Makes no sense to me.
I have always thought the whole husband sleeps on the couch crap to be myth. In all my years of marriage, we have slept apart for reasons of anger maybe 5 times–but here’s the thing: I never kicked him out of our bed or vice versa. The spouse who was mad enough to stomp off to sleep on the porch did it of his/her own volition.
And nobody should kick anyone, anywhere–that is not OK.
I’m not sure if you’re kidding or exaggerating, but what you’ve described here is physical abuse. If your wife needs to strike you to settle her anger, I’d suggest that she needs some counselling.
As for the OP, I don’t think mature women use sex as a weapon. It sounds like a high-school girl tactic to me. That goes for using crying to get your way, too. Grown-up women realize that they aren’t going to get their way on every issue, and there will be many compromises with their mates because they have valid opinions and wants, too.
Sorry, was anyone saying that if the relationship is holed below the waterline by issues like lying, stealing, financial irresponsibilty etc., you still have to carry on givin’ it up or you’re a manipulative bitch? I understood the OP to be more about withholding sex over much more trivial issues - not because the whole relationship was on its last legs. Was this the place to vent, aru?
I’m sorry – every time I see that Thread title i imagine some Sex Generals, like the Brain Guys in the last segment of the Woody Allen movie everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex…, standing around a Situation Room with a map shaped like the outline od Male and Female bodies (like on restroom doors), pushing around little plastic markers – penis, breasts, vagina – with those “pool bridge” thingies, and strategizing the next “Sex Strike”.
“We’ll go in at 3 A.M. Her defenses will be down, and she won’t expect it!”
If I actually tried anything like that , Pepper Mill (who likes Surprise Sex at appropriate times, but being awakened out of a sound sleep at 3 AM isn’t one of them) would take it out on me in a way not approved of by many in this thread. Sex Strike, indeed.
