Posted on 12/29/2008 11:11:17 PM PST by goldstategop
n Part I, I made the argument that any woman who is married to a good man and who wants a happy marriage ought to consent to at least some form of sexual relations as much as possible. (Men need to understand that intercourse should not necessarily be the goal of every sexual encounter.)
In Part II, I advance the argument that a wife should do so even when she is not in the mood for sexual relations. I am talking about mood, not about times of emotional distress or illness.
Why?
Here are eight reasons for a woman not to allow not being in the mood for sex to determine whether she denies her husband sex.
1. If most women wait until they are in the mood before making love with their husband, many women will be waiting a month or more until they next have sex. When most women are young, and for some older women, spontaneously getting in the mood to have sex with the man they love can easily occur. But for most women, for myriad reasons -- female nature, childhood trauma, not feeling sexy, being preoccupied with some problem, fatigue after a day with the children and/or other work, just not being interested -- there is little comparable to a man’s “out of nowhere,” and seemingly constant, desire for sex.
2. Why would a loving, wise woman allow mood to determine whether or not she will give her husband one of the most important expressions of love she can show him? What else in life, of such significance, do we allow to be governed by mood?
What if your husband woke up one day and announced that he was not in the mood to go to work? If this happened a few times a year, any wife would have sympathy for her hardworking husband. But what if this happened as often as many wives announce that they are not in the mood to have sex? Most women would gradually stop respecting and therefore eventually stop loving such a man.
What woman would love a man who was so governed by feelings and moods that he allowed them to determine whether he would do something as important as go to work? Why do we assume that it is terribly irresponsible for a man to refuse to go to work because he is not in the mood, but a woman can -- indeed, ought to -- refuse sex because she is not in the mood? Why?
This brings us to the next reasons.
3. The baby boom generation elevated feelings to a status higher than codes of behavior. In determining how one ought to act, feelings, not some code higher than one’s feelings, became decisive: “No shoulds, no oughts.” In the case of sex, therefore, the only right time for a wife to have sex with her husband is when she feels like having it. She never “should” have it. But marriage and life are filled with “shoulds.”
4. Thus, in the past generation we have witnessed the demise of the concept of obligation in personal relations. We have been nurtured in a culture of rights, not a culture of obligations. To many women, especially among the best educated, the notion that a woman owes her husband sex seems absurd, if not actually immoral. They have been taught that such a sense of obligation renders her “property.” Of course, the very fact that she can always say “no” -- and that this “no” must be honored -- renders the “property” argument absurd. A woman is not “property” when she feels she owes her husband conjugal relations. She is simply wise enough to recognize that marriages based on mutual obligations -- as opposed to rights alone and certainly as opposed to moods -- are likely to be the best marriages.
5. Partially in response to the historical denigration of women’s worth, since the 1960s, there has been an idealization of women and their feelings. So, if a husband is in the mood for sex and the wife is not, her feelings are deemed of greater significance -- because women’s feelings are of more importance than men’s. One proof is that even if the roles are reversed -- she is in the mood for sex and he is not -- our sympathies again go to the woman and her feelings.
6. Yet another outgrowth of ’60s thinking is the notion that it is “hypocritical” or wrong in some other way to act contrary to one’s feelings. One should always act, post-’60s theory teaches, consistent with one’s feelings. Therefore, many women believe that it would simply be wrong to have sex with their husband when they are not in the mood to. Of course, most women never regard it as hypocritical and rightly regard it as admirable when they meet their child’s or parent’s or friend’s needs when they are not in the mood to do so. They do what is right in those cases, rather than what their mood dictates. Why not apply this attitude to sex with one’s husband? Given how important it is to most husbands, isn’t the payoff -- a happier, more communicative, and loving husband and a happier home -- worth it?
7. Many contemporary women have an almost exclusively romantic notion of sex: It should always be mutually desired and equally satisfying or one should not engage in it. Therefore, if a couple engages in sexual relations when he wants it and she does not, the act is “dehumanizing” and “mechanical.” Now, ideally, every time a husband and wife have sex, they would equally desire it and equally enjoy it. But, given the different sexual natures of men and women, this cannot always be the case. If it is romance a woman seeks -- and she has every reason to seek it -- it would help her to realize how much more romantic her husband and her marriage are likely to be if he is not regularly denied sex, even of the non-romantic variety.
8. In the rest of life, not just in marital sex, it is almost always a poor idea to allow feelings or mood to determine one’s behavior. Far wiser is to use behavior to shape one’s feelings. Act happy no matter what your mood and you will feel happier. Act loving and you will feel more loving. Act religious, no matter how deep your religious doubts, and you will feel more religious. Act generous even if you have a selfish nature, and you will end with a more a generous nature. With regard to virtually anything in life that is good for us, if we wait until we are in the mood to do it, we will wait too long.
The best solution to the problem of a wife not being in the mood is so simple that many women, after thinking about it, react with profound regret that they had not thought of it earlier in their marriage. As one bright and attractive woman in her 50s ruefully said to me, “Had I known this while I was married, he would never have divorced me.”
That solution is for a wife who loves her husband -- if she doesn’t love him, mood is not the problem -- to be guided by her mind, not her mood, in deciding whether to deny her husband sex.
If her husband is a decent man -- if he is not, nothing written here applies -- a woman will be rewarded many times over outside the bedroom (and if her man is smart, inside the bedroom as well) with a happy, open, grateful, loving, and faithful husband. That is a prospect that should get any rational woman into the mood more often.
when I was in my 20’s we did the 3 week thing.
I turned 40 in the spring and had my 8th in May.
I insisted on the 6 weeks.
(and I didn’t even have C-sections!)
Maybe it is. I come from a family (parents, sibs, most exttended family) that laughed a whole lot, and fought too but mostly laughed even during fighting. All anyone had to do was crack some joke and the whole fight seemed so silly.
I can be on fire angry and whomever I’m angry with makes me laugh and there goes all that anger. I do it to my oldest brother all the time. He’s a PITA but he can’t help but laugh. My husband does it to me.
It’s definitely the magic ingredient for me. And for my husband so it works out well for us. Sounds like you guys have that too.
“You are right. But she failed. In fact, she was telling people I had an “anger problem”, yet one of my friends families, on a camping trip (that last year), saw her go on an uncontrolled tyrade simply because I didn’t go fetch her water exactly the way she wanted me to”
my hubby calls them “high maintenance women”.
I know one of these.
Her hubby starts drinking at 5:00 every night.
If I had to live with her I’d be drinking right along with him.
I don’t consider women weak for crying after the death of their child. Don’t try to put words in my mouth.
I thought the title of the thread had to do with sex and married women. I don’t follow this “female nature” stuff. I don’t need to ask 5 women for their opinion.
We disagree on this topic and that’s ok. imo. Your opinion is as valuable or as inconsequential as mine.
You wouldn’t - by chance - be irish would you?
You just described my upbringing - and my marriage too!
Except I don’t have a brother.
Our humor was more on the sarcastic side.
You were NOT ALLOWED to have sensitive feelings - or you did not survive.
“You’ve been bragging all over the thread about how great your marriage is.”
Really? Didn’t realize I was doing that and after checking my posts on this thread don’t think I have been doing that. You have an issue, it’s your issue. Some people are happy or as happy as they allow themselves to be. I happen to think my husband is one hell of a guy. Sorry if I can’t join in the “men suck” because my husband, my late father, and all of my brothers are great guys. No marriage or relationship is perfect.
“It doesn’t come across that way.”
It does to the people who bother to look beyond their own issues. It does to the people who matter.
“This is Exhibit A of my point.”
LOL. Didn’t realize we were in a court of law. Proves my point too.
“My bride is why my heart bothers to take it’s next beat. She is why my lungs fill with fresh air, the reason I get up in the morning and why I have always come home to her at night. I figure that if you hope is to spend all of eternity with your soulmate, you best keep it fun, interesting and beautiful all at the same time.”
sigh!
flutter flutter!
I like the foot rub part :) That is heavenly.
hmmmm.....
If I were young and single it would be easy to read many of these “marriage sucks” comments and get sour on the notion.
There ARE people out there who are happily married, and it’s good to hear from them.
8? God has surely blessed you! I have 4. I wanted 10.
The 6 weeks was a must!
And I admire you. 8 Children. What a fun house you got there.
definitely the shoulders.
The feet are nice too.
A read your response a few times.
It made me laugh each time.
A very loud and messy house - but fun too.
It definitely is NOT boring.
Im tryin to understand the rationale of the handful of women on these two threads that believe its selfish for a man to desire his WIFE, but dont think the opposite is selfish when they require 3 days of Don Juan 'motor startin' before theyll do the 'chores'... 7 kids, you mustve been persuaded on occassion eh ???
Irish? Well yes, half of me is...other half is Italian. I prefer to think of it as the best of both worlds ;)
We had sarcastic humor too, wit.
My brothers were brutal. Sweet too but brutal at times. Mostly just annoying. Being the youngest and the girl, I suffered terribly, lol. Or so I like to claim.
Do you like Pipes and Drums music? I have a link for you if you do...my oldest brother is in one of the local pipes and drums band here. . He was over in Ireland for St. Patty’s day last year and the vid is great.
Yep. We were allowed to have sensitive feelings but someone was always ruined the moment with a joke that made us laugh.
My parents grew up during the Great Depression so maybe that had something to do with their strength and humor. My Dad was a WWII Vet. My oldest brother is old enough to be my father.
Since you want to go down the road of personally attacking me for trying to make a point I’ll just leave it here.
You’ve got all the answers apparently and everyone else is wrong.
Have a nice evening.
ahhh...you’re not just the baby - you’re the baby BY FAR!
I was the baby - 2 older sisters, 5 & 7 years older than me.
I do like that irish music.
I heard about the depression mostly from my grandparents.
My dad was born in the middle of the depression.
They were lucky to be on a farm so they could fend for themselves, but of course it was still tough.
My grandmother never got over it. She held on to quite a few quirks even when she had enough money to live comfortably.
She did leave behind a little “slush fund” for us though.
She wanted us to have an irish wake when she died.
We were supposed to go to a local bar/restaurant and have ourselves a good ‘ole time.
And boy did we!
Lucky. With all those men in the family, you were lucky to get to understand men at a young age and not be intimidated by them. Doesn’t sound like your father was too intimidating either. And everybody laughed all the time. Another piece of luck. Lucky
3 days isn’t necessary.
A few minutes of well invested time oughta do the trick - and that’s when she’s not in the mood.
When she’s in the mood you most likely won’t have to work very hard at all.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.