ER–
If you want more foreplay or a specific type of touch, be that specific—your partner isn’t a mindreader and has probably been having their own fantasies and scenarios in their head. Match them up! Who wouldn’t want to hear “I’ve been dreaming of you ----ing ____ my____while I ___ your____…” from their spouse? If I’ve been daydreaming of a romantic and tender episode with his whispering sweet things to me, and he’s spent the day imagining silently and swiftly ravishing my body the instant he gets home, well, somebody’s going to be disappointed. Talk to each other. He might like your ideas!
Drachillix and I had dinner the other night and I told him this thread got me thinking that it’s not very likely a married couple could never have sex again–most time/health obstacles are temporary, a few months and committment and invention can see a couple through. But I’d hate not being able to look at him, not to actually see him every day, not be able to read his eyes and I was so thankful I’d never have to choose what peice of the package that makes our marriage to cut out, sex or companionship or fun or eyesight!
I always thought it would be one of the cornerstones of a marriage. ( male, married 19 years ). Instead it became a manipulative device, then a destructive device ( attempting to concieve for 4.5 years ), then a control device.
No where in there was it ever a mutually desired event. About 11 years in, I gave up on trying. One can only take so much shit.
Yes I’m still married. Probably for the wrong reasons. Sex sort of happened in an incomplete way once last year, early in the year but that’s it.
It’s heartwarming to read what Dopers are saying. There is hope, there are loving sensuous relationships that do exist. More power to you .
Cartooniverse --except for the fertility issues, I think I understand. It can become so huge and then so cumbersome that to not deal with it is a relief.
I doubt that anyone is exempt, really–there are just degrees of disconnnect. Those here who are lucky enough to be better matched–that’s great.
As for lack of sex d/t a physical problem being temporary–not so. Many chronic illnesses impede sexual congress–true, ingenuity can overcome alot! Cyn -would that it were that simple! I do not want to make my husband out to be the baddie here–it is our problem, and I have contributed to it. When we were younger, his drive was so strong–I was overwhelmed and turned off by the whole thing. It was too much, too often, too intense, too everything. But that did mellow, what with kids and job loss and ill health etc…
I have found that he really doesn’t want to explore or be directed in that way, for all his complaints that I “wouldn’t” tell him what I wanted.–he says that it is controlling on my part. Or he will do what I ask, but not for long enough or whatever. It’s like he has an expectation in his head about how the whole process should proceed-x lead to y leads to z etc–and when that pattern is deviated from–he shuts down.
We are both working on little things–touches and small tokens of affection throughout the day to ease the way towards sex. Cartooniverse --maybe that would work for you? I am willing to see where this takes us.
I am a man, spinal cord injured and am incapable of having “normal” sex due to the injury. My wife left me after 7 years of this mess, and a number of “dates” have been unable to deal with the problem, often blaming themselves for my “failure” to deliver.
My feeling is that sex is not of the most important level, but it is intimacy that is most important. Intimacy includes a lot of what some may consider “sex”, but is more than that, it is the touching, holding and feeling another human in your arms. Can you tell I miss that? :dubious:
For you that think you can’t live without sex, let me assure you that you can. It is challenging, not always fun, but eventually I know I will find someone that can be supportive of my situation and understand that it is physical, not psychological, it is the hydraulics, not the operator so to speak.
so to you that “can’t” live without sex, “walk” a mile in my shoes…they are hardly worn…
Reality is that compared to air, water, food, physical exercise, and the companionship and contact of other humans, we could go without it essentially forever with minimal adverse effects. I won’t spontaneously combust or climb the tower with a rifle for want of sex per se – the lack of sex will be a symptom of a larger set of problems if that happens. Thus I disagree with some posters I have seen in some of the other threads, that seem to view the ability to do without as some sort of pathology.
Obviously in starting a relationship with a woman I will seek to have us both determine how well we fit into each other’s expectations and desires – including whether we can sustain the same heat.
If once we have committed to each other out of love she were to experience a situation that through no fault of her own leads to diminished sexual capacity, I’d do my best to deal with it.
Conversely, if she just decides that our sex life is to be designed to suit HER, just because she feels she should be the one that makes the rules, then I’m hitting the road since obviously the problem is NOT with sex.
You mean if you found out before becoming involved? As in partway into the getting ready to "go steady’ phase?
Then yes.
It’s entirely possible that I would, but it would depend greatly upon WHY there’d been the drop. If it were because that person really never had had that much of a drive and now that they’d “gotten” me they felt they could just "be themselves. Then yeah, I’d consider it the same as any other lie.
I see sex as one of the three crucial parts of a relationship. It’s like a three legged stool, if you cut one leg away, it can’t stand up.
1st Leg is the physical, which includes sex, affection cuddling and so on.
2nd leg is mental, which includes how well you match in temperment, intelligence, personality, qualities, characteristics etc
3rd is spirituality, the “it” factor, how you connect with each other, how you see “love” and relationships and so on.
I feel that all three aspects are just as crucial as the other, and that if you’re missing one, or if one isn’t as strong, that it weakens the relationship. That’s not to say that if some injury or illness caused the sudden dearth of sex, that I wouldn’t be willing to shift the physical to more affection and cuddling and to work things out. But it would still be a problem and would need to have some sort of satisfactory solution, for me that is.
If both partners are that much at odds due to each not being able to make the other feel good, it’s time to call it quits, whether you’re talking sex, or some other issue, imho.
My former boyfriend and I were together for 7 years (though we are still good friends we are no longer together, due to reasons having noThing to do with sex). When we first started dating, though I was enthusiastic in bed, I was incredibly shy about sharing what I wanted. It helped a lot when we started chatting on an Instant messaging program.
I was able to be more bold when not sitting in front of him fidgeting and blushing. Plus chatting about what we wanted to do, or were going to do was pretty hot in between spending the nights at each others house. We even continued to do this sometimes after we moved in together!
I’m still sorta shy, but able to talk about it anyway. Maybe you could try communicating your needs through little notes or letters?
Sex is hugely important in my relationships, but what I think is more important is making compromises about it. It’s a big sign of both emotional maturity and compatibility to be able to find a middle ground. My last girlfriend had a raging, unstoppable, full-steam-ahead libido. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love sex, and I love having a lot of sex. But her sex drive, as I would eventually find out, was just too much for me. It was a lot of fun for a while, but eventually I began to feel overworked. Problems in our sexual relationship began to develop, including performance anxiety and premature ejaculation. It got to the point where I got physically sick when she called me over to have sex with her. I should’ve told her I couldn’t keep up with her, but at the time I really wasn’t mature enough to understand the conflict, I just thought there was something wrong with me. On her 20th birthday (I was 18, BTW) she went home for a weekend and then when she came back she didn’t want to do anything sexual or even kiss, which was telling. She dumped me after about a week of calling me over (basically) to dump me and not being able to work up the courage; eventually I asked her what was wrong because it was pretty obvious there was something, and she told me she no longer wanted to be my girlfriend. No words could explain the way I felt that day, as she was my first girlfriend and–although I’d had friends-with-benefits type flings and such that had been officially ended–it was the first time I’d ever really been dumped. Within a couple of weeks she was with a new guy.
Would our relationship have survived if we had communicated our feelings to each other and found a compromise? Perhaps. I felt overworked and I’m sure she felt that I wasn’t satisfying her (although she did tell me that I was the first guy to ever give her an orgasm). We should’ve been a lot more open with our feelings, but we weren’t, and now it’s over.
I may be getting stationed in Tucson eventually since I’m enlisting in the Air Force, and I’ve told her by text message (a day or two ago) that I want to get back together if I can get stationed there. Haven’t gotten a response yet–we had been texting for a couple minutes before that, and she stopped texting me when I sent her that (she had said just before that she was a little busy). What will happen? I don’t know. Hopefully, we can get back together and I can share my feelings and we can begin a more open relationship. Time will tell.
I had a really long post here but deleted it. My take on the issue can be stated simply:
If something happened to cause my husband not to be able to get/maintain an erection, it wouldn’t be an issue for me. I know he loves and desires me, and whether or not that could be fulfilled in the good ol’ penis->vagina way is less important than knowing that he ‘would if he could’. 1a. On the other hand, there’s no way in hell I’d have committed to marriage to him without having ascertained before hand that he had a healthy sex drive, was good at what he did, and was compatible with me.
I’ll probably ruffle some feathers here, but I think that any guy who’s quite fine with the idea of pre-marital abstinence is a concern from a relationship point of view. Fair enough if he wants to have sex but can’t for religious/moral reasons until he’s married, but some of the posts here have indicated that the man isn’t in the least bit bothered. Not frustrated. Not eager for the time when he can consumate the marriage. Quite.perfectly.blase.
If either partner doesn’t actually desire the other, I’d really question the nature of the relationship. A relationship without sex can still be a marriage, but a relationship without desire is a friendship.
REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:
Sparing the details, suffice to say that I’ve personally experienced a relationship where my man had some seriously fucked-up issues that I could not ever endorse or, for that matter, indulge even if I did endorse them. (Spoiler box for the curious) [Spoiler]He was only sexually aroused by amputees. The feel of real flesh was a turn-off; unless there were limbs missing he wasn’t aroused. He insisted I wear pantyhose because ‘he liked the way it felt’ - it was only after we’d broken up that I found out it was because then he could pretend it was a prosthetic! Is that something I would have wanted to find out after the wedding? I don’t THINK so!
Plus he had a bundle of sexual neuroses including but not limited to the idea that ‘female bits’ are icky (note that I’m a very clean person. This wasn’t ‘icky’ in a hygeinic sense, it was some weird all-encompassing ‘ickyness’), that sex with a menstruating woman is a gag-worthy concept, that oral sex on a woman is repugnant. He managed penetration once or twice, only to lose the erection immediately because he couldn’t handle the thought of being inside a vagina. [/spoiler]
This man initially suggested we wait until after marriage for sex. He truly believed he’d be able to go through with it (and ‘go through with it’ was how he thought about it) if we were married, as though it were some magical cure-all wand for his hang-ups. Instead, I’d have committed myself to a man who not only found me undesirable but, rather than admit to his own failings, explained it was *my fault * he couldn’t perform, because I couldn’t keep him aroused.
So, while I’m completely against abstaining until marriage* on the basis that a person should know what they’re getting into on all levels ** before they commit legally/spiritually to someone, I’m not saying that a marriage can’t survive without sex. I believe that if the emotional intimacy is still there and there’s plenty of genuine demonstrated affection, the relationship should still be fine.
What it can’t survive is vastly incompatible sex drives which the parners can’t or won’t compromise on.
It’s not a good analogy, but I suddenly imagined signing to a (theoretically) lifetime purchase of a product based on someone saying ‘Just trust us. It’ll be good, really. You don’t need to try the product.’
** For the record, I also believe that anyone who gets married without living together first, in this day and age when there’s no stigma attached to it, is asking for disillusionment. There’s a vast difference between dating someone and living with them.
How important is sex? Well…I like it a lot! I’m with Khiadra on this. It kinda freaks me out when I hear about couples who aren’t interested in sex at all. It’s just weird.
I did go out with one girl for a few months and we couldn’t really get into making out. For some reason our kisses didn’t match at all. Strange phenomena there of some sort. We had a great relationship otherwise and we were very comfortable together in every other way, but we couldn’t kiss in a real passionate way. We are still very good friends, but we just knew that we weren’t right in a relationship together. So I guess we did kinda break up because of a sex-related issue, but it wasn’t a libido issue so I don’t know that it counts.
