Ehhh… IMHO, you’re nit-picking. You said *and even if we could never, EVER have sex, * so I was taking that as a baseline of “couldn’t”, with “could, but only on very limited terms” as a best-case scenario. And - since I assume all able-bodied people are as capable of any kind of sexual activity as they choose to be - I took Evil Captor’s “poor milker” as someone whose milking capability was dictated by what they would not, rather than could not, do.
Similarly, I would certainly hope that your SO would look on the restrictions placed on her by her medical condition as a challenge to be overcome where possible in the interests of pleasing you * , and not as a cloak for indifference - though far be it from me to attempt to dictate your choices for you.
I take it as read that you would naturally do all you could to please her.
However, my irony was a little heavier than called for, and I thank you for not retaliating. Best wishes.
Sure, but the thing about marriage or any long-term monogamous relationship is, you’re only gonna have sex with that person. Whereas you can still talk to, listen to music with, or otherwise relate to other members of the opposite sex, so sex is a unique kinda thing there.
Some people posting here apparently think the long-term relationship should occur BEFORE the sex does. I think that’s putting the cart before the horse.
I’m one of them. I personally believe that their personality and other facets should be somewhat compatible with mine, before I choose to become that intimate with said person. Rather then doing it to get my rocks off and then dumping them because they have an IQ of Cheese, or are just incredibly annoying.
If the sex is bad, it can be improved. The best sex in the world does not make up for a lack of personality, or someone who would drives you to suicide or homicide if you had to actully be around them.
Darn right. Deep, abiding love can make otherwise lackluster sex wonderful, especially if two parties care enough to work together. It can not compensate for someone’s lack of intelligence or personality in the same way.
Yep, that could work. It should be nice and straightforward. “Find out what pleases your partner, and then learn how to do it right.” Simple philosophy. I wouldn’t know. The alternative scenario is where you find you’ve got yourself someone who made all the right noises beforehand, but who when it comes down to it, flat-out refuses to do anything she doesn’t feel like doing at the time. Actually, that’s not 100% true. A flat-out refusal would be easier to deal with than an excuse that also makes you feel unreasonable for even having asked.
I’ll add that a man doesn’t know what good sex is until he’s been apathetically jerked off by his yawning, burping wife (who’s already had her share of orgasms) - but by then it’s too late to do anything about it.
As to oral sex, the first time I suggested it, way back when we had just been “fooling around” for a few months, she froze up as if I’d proposed dipping my dick in dog shit and making her lick it off. In the eleven years since then, we’ve made minimal progress. The idea, I believe, is that once in a while when she’s feeling “really brave”, she’ll give it a tentative try, and I’m supposed to praise her to the skies for even trying. It’s several months since she was last feeling “really brave” -
…The idea itself turns her on. When I’m reciting her favourite “Pirate Fantasy” for her, there is almost invariably a whole queue of unshaven, rum-crazed buccaneers taking turns at both ends of her…
and, even when she is, the words “reluctantly” and “briefly” spring to mind. (No, I don’t pester her into doing it. It’s a complete waste of breath. I figure I’m better advised to wait until she’s good and ready of her own accord, and then offer disproportionately large amounts of encouragement.) Some women, on the “blow jobs” thread elsewhere, mentioned they have problems with gagging. Some women, I’m given to believe, look on this as something that they actively want to learn to work around in order to give better BJs. Others, on the evidence, would rather look on it as a convenient excuse for not having to do what they’d rather not do, and I’m privately convinced that Satan will be running a ski resort before ever Mrs M has to decide whether she’s going to spit or swallow.
Only once so far has my wife ever called a halt after she’s come and asked if I’d mind (if I’d mind! :rolleyes: ) finishing myself off… but ever since, I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It’s not that she can’t enjoy sex - far from it. 99% of the time, anything we start ends up with at least one orgasm for her, usually more. It’s just that, for her, sex means getting the orgasm she wants, when she wants it, how she wants it (and this can and does include pushing my hand away and taking over herself if she’s getting impatient, tho’ I’ve proven more than capable of getting her there on hundreds of occasions), and I’ll get what she’s prepared for me to get, when she’s good and ready. The rest of the time, “It’s not that I’m rejecting you (it’s just that you’re not getting any, insert excuse here)”.
Oh - and any talk about how fat and unattractive she is comes solely from her, never from me.
The point is that if you marry someone who doesn’t like curry or movies or motor-sport or pretty much anything else you care to mention, you will firstly have ample opportunity to find out before you are married, and secondly, no-one will think it at all unreasonable if you go out to enjoy yourself sans SO. But where sex is concerned, it’s perfectly OK for you to be fobbed off, pre-marriage, with promises of how wonderful it’s going to be after you’re married, and it’s also perfectly OK for your SO to play Dog in the Manger - this is the one case in which it’s not acceptable for you to look elsewhere for your enjoyment, and you can have drastic reprisals taken against you if you try it.
So, to reiterate: Try before you buy; or don’t have any sex at all until you’re married. It’s possible that in this case, ignorance really is bliss.
Colour me shallow, then. No, colour me someone who loves sex and would really, really like great marital sex, but is quietly despairing of ever getting anything like. It’s unreasonable of me, maybe, to think “That’s what I get for accommodating her dream of being a virgin bride” - but it’s extremely hard not to. Walk a mile in these shoes, und so witer.
Malacandra, I hesitate to speculate too much about your marital woes too much (but then again, you have been pretty specific…). However, the thing I come away with after reading your post is that this is a selfishness problem, not specifically a sexual problem. The selfishness just happens to be about sex. But it’s basically selfish more than anything else.
I think someone who has a selfish nature will very often show that in other ways. It’s hard for me to believe (but then again, I don’t know your wife) that someone who is so selfish in one area (in this case, sex) would be completely selfless and loving and so wonderful and perfect in every other way. Did she show any hints of selfishness before you were married? Has this gotten worse over the years, or is this a new development?
Sexual hang-ups, I can understand. A lot of people have hang-ups—some minor, some serious, but a lot of people have 'em. I’d like to think that a lot of them could be overcome with time and patience. But in your wife’s case, it sounds like pure selfishness. Or at least, that’s what I’m getting from your post. But you know your wife and I don’t, so please forgive me if I’ve gotten it all wrong.
[qupte]So, to reiterate: Try before you buy; or don’t have any sex at all until you’re married. It’s possible that in this case, ignorance really is bliss.
[/quote]
So, what are we saying here? That because Malacandra wasn’t able to detect subtle signs of selfishness in his wife to be before marriage, that his current marital woes are all HIS fault? I don’t think so.
People, try before you buy! This goes for both sexes, because I have read tales of woe from women who dated and married nice, Christian men who stayed chaste before marriage and then pretty much stayed chaste AFTER marriage and finally came out of the closet as being gay.
I suspect that an inordinate number of the many divorces that occur shortly after people leave college or high school are cases where chaste partners discover belatedly that they don’t work well together in bed. And while divorce is the obvious solution here, it’s a very unpleasant experience by all accounts. Save yourself the agony. Try before you buy.
I might also add that an obvious stratagem for someone who knows, at some level, that no one’s going to be very interested in what they are willing to bring to the table sexually is to try to get them to commit to marriage before laying their sexual cards down.
For those people who feel that it’s important to “try before we buy” and who ask “what if she’s a bad lay,” the idea of a marriage with less than steller sex seems unimaginable. I have to ask, though, what happens when the sex eventually becomes less than stellar thoughout the course of the marriage as will most likely happen? Time for divorce? Did you promise to love, honour and cherish your spouse until death do you part or the sex stops being great, whichever comes first?
I suspect that an inordinate number of the many divorces that occur after many years of marriage are cases where people got married primarily for the sex and never bothered to actually fall in love with their partners. Once the sex went south, there was nothing left to hold the marriage together. If your primary interest is sex, why bother getting married? Save yourself the agony. Why buy the cow if the milk is free?
BTW, if the sex is really bad, there’s always porn…
yosemitebabe, I didn’t particularly notice any selfishness issues with my wife pre-marriage, none that should have rung alarm bells about the prospects for our sex life at any rate. Mind you, you need to bear in mind that I only had the other women I’d ever been in any kind of a r/ship with to judge by. I think the attractive, kind, intelligent, witty girls who’ll knock themselves out for the guy they love must live on the same planet as the ones who want to stay virgins till they’re married and so are eager and willing to provide fantastic BJs. Either that, or I needed to buy a bigger mirror when I was younger, so I could see the big neon sign above my head that said "No, thanks, don’t you bother with me.
godzillatemple, point taken. Personally, I married for better or worse. It’s just that I’d have liked a few years with a really determined attempt at “better” first. Anyway, I’ve got used to living under my own roof, and I want to be around for my son. Divorce lawyers make enough money without me helping them.
Btw, porn just depresses me with the very real thought that never in all my life, and certainly not at my age, would anyone who looked like that be remotely interested in me for anything other than a cash-down transaction.
Geez, guys, I’m not passing judgement on Malacandra’s admittedly awful-sounding situation, but isn’t it possible for both parties to have the best of intentions, and try really hard, and still be compatible in every possible way except in bed? That was very much the case with an ex of mine; super-nice guy, intelligent, considerate, helpful, generous, funny…but let’s just say there was one glaring area of incompatibility, and definitely not for lack of trying on both sides. (And who knows; I never managed to ask him, or tell him how I felt about it – the relationship pretty much had a built-in expiration date, since he was in the U.S. on a one-year Fulbright and all, and Lord knows we never got to the point where I would have considered doing long-distance over 9 time zones – maybe he felt the same way about me.)
We’re still friends and all, but it would be sheer torture to realize that one had committed to spending the rest of one’s life with someone like that. No, sex is not the only important thing in a committed relationship, or even the most important thing, but I, for one, can’t imagine a situation where I would knowingly marry someone with whom I hadn’t confirmed a certain level of sexual compatibility.
And I wasn’t suggesting that. But it does sound like his wife is pretty selfish. Pure selfish. Sure, there might be some hang-ups and incompatibilities in there too, but to me, her description reeked of selfish.
Hmmm… Well, like I keep on repeating, I don’t know your wife, but she sounds selfish to me. And I am so sorry that you are having these marital woes.
That’s a very good point, indeed.
I think that there are many couples who have not “tried before they buyed” and have done pretty well. Maybe it was the fact that they were pretty affectionate beforehand and they communicated well. I mean, if one of the couple has a particular sexual fetish, for instance, they’d better voice it before marriage. If the other party is of the mindset, “No way no how” then that’s it. They don’t actually have to go to bed to figure out that they will not be a match in bed.
Some people notice that things aren’t great (sexually) before marriage, but they still hope that things will magically get better after. And vice-versa, like the old joke about the bride smiling at the wedding because now that she’s married, she doesn’t have to give any more blow jobs. No amount of “trying before buying” is going to correct such situations.
True, yosemitebabe, but how about we dismiss deliberate malice or deceitfulness from the equation and simply discuss whether we gain more than we lose by finding out if someone is basically honest but seriously and irremediably hung-up?
No more whining about my personal circumstances. I’ve said enough, and I don’t want to sound like I’m fishing for sympathy. But as to the jokes:
…They’ve discovered this miracle food that causes a woman to put on 35lbs and lose 90% of her sex drive. It’s called “wedding cake”.
or…
How do you stop your girlfriend giving you BJs? Marry her.
There are, almost certainly, equally funny and deserved witticisms to represent the female POV
Okay, folks, time for a general reminder. Keep your discussion centered on ideas, not the posters behind the ideas. You can ask for clarifications, debate till the cows come home, etc. but keep it civil and keep personalities out of it.
And raisinbread, start watching your step very carefully or you won’t be posting here much longer. This isn’t some stupid chatroom. Hijacking threads with off-topic crap, even in darling purple, is still just trolling. Clean up your act, match the company or find someplace else to play.
TVeblen,
For the SDMB
Obviously everyone gets more from a romantic relationship than just sex.
Equally obviously, sex isn’t something that you’re either born good or bad at. You can be naturally talented, but basically it’s something that you learn to be good at and can vary hugely depending on your partner.
The debate on whether or not sex should happen without marriage I think has missed the point that sex with someone before marriage isn’t just about seeing whether they’re good in bed. As mentioned before, people can become much better in bed through practice and patience on the part of their partner. But nevertheless, it is the case that sex helps you to know someone better. I don’t just mean the bare act of intercourse but the whole experience - getting to know each other’s naked bodies, seeing each other aroused, playing with each other, teasing each other, talking, laughing, waking up together. I wouldn’t want to marry someone without having slept with them not because I wouldn’t know whether or not sex would be fun, but because I simply wouldn’t feel that I knew them well enough. Physical intimacy is part of a romantic relationship and to ignore that completely is just as narrow-minded as to suggest that physical intimacy is all that’s needed for a relationship.
I’m a woman, btw, and have no particularly fixed timetable on when sex should happen. If someone hadn’t indicated any desire for me by the third date, I’d probably assume they weren’t interested, but as others have said, that wouldn’t have to mean sex.
Mostly the people I’ve had relationships with have been friends first, though, so it’s difficult for me to judge.
Oh, and one more thing. Malacandra’s posts bring out perhaps the way in which sex can often highlight both the good and bad points of a relationship. Someone who’s selfish in bed may very well be selfish in everyday life, but the latter may not be obvious until it’s been noticed in a sexual context. I’m sure everyone who’s had a sexual relationship will agree that it’s very rare for sex to be completely separate from the rest of the relationship. I.e. if someone is generally sweet and considerate, they will be so sexually and the opposite also. When problems arise in the relationship such as problems with trust or intimacy or compatibility, they can be noticed and hopefully helped by noticing them in bed first. Problems with sex can provide very good early warnings for other problems.
What some of the no sex before marriage posters seem to be missing is that although sex can sometimes happen too quickly and “blind” you to other important aspects of a relationship, a romantic relationship is an organic whole in that parts of it will affect other parts.
