Posted on 01/16/2004 12:22:11 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Dr. Laura Schlessinger's new book, "The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands," which is available autographed at WorldNetDaily's online store, has shot up the nation's sales charts, now sitting at No. 4 on the prestigious New York Times best-sellers list.
After just two weeks in release, the popular radio host's latest book has risen to No. 3 in Barnes and Noble bookstores nationwide and No. 8 on booksense.com, the nationwide best-seller list of independent bookstores.
In Schlessinger's book, she urgently reminds women that to take proper care of their husbands is to ensure themselves the happiness and satisfaction they yearn for in marriage.
Women want to be in love, get married, and live happily ever after, she says. Yet disrespect for men and disregard for the value, feelings and needs of husbands has fast become the standard for male-female relations in America. Those two attitudes clash in unfortunate ways to create struggle and strife in what could be a beautiful relationship.
Writes Dr. Laura in a recent exclusive column for WorldNetDaily: "Women seem not to understand, or underestimate, the profound power they have over their husbands. Men are very emotionally dependent upon women from the day they are born to the day they expire. This book teaches women to use this power benevolently – which will definitely result in them being happier with life and love."
Dr. Laura Tells Women: Just Do It
NYPOST.com
by Barbara Hoffmann
Husbands need sex, and it's a wife's job to provide it - as much as he wants, whenever he wants it. So contends Laura Schlessinger (search) - better known as Dr. Laura, the ever-provocative radio-show shrink - in "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands."
In a galley of her book, coming out in January, Schlessinger describes what she calls "loving obligation" - that is, a spouse's duty to do something whether or not he or she feels like it.
If husbands are expected to "go to work and earn money" and visit relatives they don't like, she argues, why can't their wives put out on demand?
She also describes other ways a woman can make her marriage flourish: by making her husband her No. 1 priority; by not nagging, nitpicking or whining ("Be honest, girls, this is what we do") and by seeing her husband for what he is: "a gift from God," and respecting him accordingly.
This may all be very well, coming as it does from a married, conservative, 56-year-old with a Ph.D in physiology, but some therapists aren't buying her major thesis: that it's men who are starved for sex.
"In most marriages, it's the wife who wants sex, and the husband who doesn't," says Frederick Woolverton, a clinical psychologist and director of the Village Institute for Psychotherapy.
"Dating and honeymoons are all about sex. Marriage is all about intimacy. Men have affairs because they're afraid of intimacy."
It's true that sex is an essential part of marriage, Woolverton says, adding, "It's the women who are complaining."
Marcella Bakur Wiener, a clinical psychologist who has counseled couples for 30 years, agrees that the notion of the sex-starved husband is a generalization.
"Some men are insatiable, but so are some women," she says. But no matter who needs it, she says, sex should never be something that's supplied on demand.
"There are so many things we already 'have to do' in life," Wiener sighs. "Why should there be a 'have to' in an intimate relationship?"
Yet another therapist sees Schlessinger's point - sort of.
Diana Adile Kirschner, a couples therapist, believes husbands and wives should meet each other's needs as long as it's not "a one-way deal."
"In the couples I see, the women want foreplay, romance, communication, which tends to open them up to being sexual," she says.
"When the man gets more sex, he feels more connected, and more like communicating. When a woman feels understood and romanced, she's more likely to feel more sexual."
Memo to Dr. Laura: Can "The Proper Care and Courtship of Wives" be far behind?
Finally, a woman who understands our needs. Is she married? ( Joke ). She's got one lucky husband!!!
Her advice, though, I think comes from her Jewish ethical and moral training sometimes, and that may be what is provoking comment from the other professionals.
She went off the reservation, though, in one of her earlier marriages, and her ex-paramour took photos of her and later posted them on the Net, proving that he was the perfect ****heel she said he was, and that she was the hypocrite he said she was. Leaving the reader to choose between a recovering hypocrite and an exultant ****heel as to who was telling the more cogent truth.
And the gays and liberals are vomiting blood.
"Men are very emotionally dependent upon women from the day they are born to the day they expire."
That coupled with the following information punctuates the point...
This is very sad to me. I'm glad my grandfather died before my grandmother. She was his best friend. Women remain close to their children and grandchildren who provide them an emotional lifeline. Traditionally, the male was less involved with family and it's not always easy when he retires to strike up a relationship with those he's known his whole life but has been busy providing for and often unable to devote as much time to them. His wife is his emotional lifeline. I think women forget this. I do. I'm not even sure I realized it.
It's therapists like this that make me crazy. Dr. Laura's whole point is that men are not terribly communicative the way a woman is and to expect him to be Chatty Cathy is to expect him to be like your girlfriend instead of like a man.
"When a woman feels understood"....what does this mean exactly? Usually this means if a man behaves like a girlfriend the woman feels 'understood'. In other words, if only men were more like women.....what rot.
I can't believe this guy has a license to practice. What a ridiculous assertion.
Baloney. Men undoubtedly have affairs for many different reasons. I would guess that the majority of them are because they feel disrespected, unloved and unwanted at home.
I read the book, and it sounded like my biography. My wife and I are separated, and she still doesn't get why I was unhappy in the marriage.
So you've met my wife. ;o)
Pretty general statement on his part. I suspect mostly they have affairs because, well... it's available :-)
Uhmm... maybe she meant women would like him to be her boyfriend. Ergo her comment about feeling more "romanced." Just a thought.
Usually this means if a man behaves like a girlfriend the woman feels 'understood'.
I've felt understood by both male and female friends. I don't understand the belief that men can't be friends who understand you. My husband is very capable of understanding me and I don't view him as my girlfriend. He's my friend. My best friend.
He's being sarcastic, right ?
I don't know whether Ahnuld himself ever said it, but this would definitely come under the rubric attributed to him: "guhly man"!
I once had to explain to a very surprised and no-doubt slightly injured single professional woman that the worst insult she could offer a man is to tell another woman that "so-and-so is okay, he's completely safe!" Guys aren't supposed to be "safe", or her girlfriend, or stuff like that. What do women really think of a man who's down with their girl-chatter? The late John Ritter comes to mind, and his "Jack" character from Three's Company. It wasn't an accident, I think, that the other supporting male character on the show was gay.
But then, as Paul Newman once told Sally Field, "I'm from the Stone Age."
What you said.
I guess my main gripe with this therapist's attitude is she seems to be saying, "Well, women aren't getting this, this and this from their men, so there". It's obvious she didn't read the book, which clearly states that you get what you want if you follow her guidance. This therapist doesn't even address the validity of what Dr. Laura is saying - she only focuses on the complaints of women, which is what the last 30 years of books have been obsessing about.
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