Great attitude -- I'll bet your wife or girlfriend is a happy gal. By the way, here is a recent photo of actress Helen Mirren, age 63:
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.
The more I contemplate spending my life with the women of my age group....the more I think getting a dog would be a great idea.
Sadly many women get treated like spoilt Princesses nowadays. A queen would have a sense about her position and it’s responsibilities.
Mel
Thank you for your nice words. I love my kids sooo much, gotta let them know that every day!!!! I may be a bit over the top with it sometimes, but through all of the mess they father and I are going through, they are happy and triving. He has spent so much time away from us that his being gone really doesn’t bother them. I am glad for that but it’s kinda sad that he has made such a small impact in their lives
““Hysterectomies” are called that for a reason.”
Yes, for the same reason tonsilectomies are called what they are. Hyster means uterus, and “ectomy” indicates surgery to remove something.
“This was the surgical response to psychological and other female maladies - e.g “hysteria.” If women acted out, they might become a candidate for this treatment.”
Oh, what a boatload of meadow muffins.
The feminists, like all leftists, rewrote history to suit themselves. Sure, medicine had (and probably still has) a lot of stuff wrong. Headshrinkers gave people lobotomies, electroconvulsive and insulin shock therapy, wrapped them in wet sheets, and did all kinds of crap to men and women alike. Castration was the counterpart to unnecessary hysterectomy.
And none of that means what the feminists try to make it mean.
“She had no idea that such things were possible.”
Ignorance is a fact of the human condition. Other women did know.
“It was a new concept at the time that women might experience the big O like men.”
It was new to talk about it publicly in Western Culture. It was not something new in history. Self-aggrandizing feminists want to claim that never before in history had women stumbled across the clitoris. It’s ridiculous.
“Things are quite different now.”
Yes, we imprison men at a rate seven times that of most developed countries. 85% of black children are born out of wedlock, because there are no husbands to teach the boys how to act like men, and a ridiculously high percentage of these illegitimates kill each other before the age of 25 — again, because there are no fathers in the homes. My 16-year-old daughter knows in graphic detail what men who suffer from same-sex-attraction disorder get up to. Lesbians parade their perversion publicly in front of my three-year-old daughter. My two high-schoolders have to contend with the establishment of a “gay” straight alliance at their school. One in four high-schoolers in this town has a venereal disease. The proporton of children living in homes with their married biological parents is at an all-time low, while the molestation of children by stepfathers and boyfriends seems to be on the rise. We tolerate a TV program called “Sex in the City,” which seems to be about nothing but the attempts of some semi-attractive, superannuated, skanky sluts to find accomplices in fornication. Women are *expected* to engage in premarital sex, and find it quite difficult to develop a relationship if they don’t.
Yes, “things are quite different now.”
“At least for women, I would bet that this is not a part of history to which we would wish to return.”
The word “return” is not appropriate when the subject is a fantasyland that never existed.
“I would not call it cultural degredation that we no longer yank out a woman’s reproductive organs when they behave as men would not wish.”
Not, of course, that “we” ever did.
“Nor do I call the expectations of sexual pleasure by both parties degrading.”
And you mention that, why? In the attempt to create the impression that I hold the opposite position?
“the Taliban”
And there’s the tell-tale comparison with the boogey-man du jour.
Feminism is an attack on the family, designed to turn women into people who are incapable of being adequate wives and mothers, which has the concomitant effect of driving men out of the family. The books and magazine articles to which you refer were some of the first salvos in that attack.
They weren’t “liberating” women from some mythical bondage, they were teaching women that they have a “right” to be selfish sluts with no concern for anyone else’s feelings or well-being.
And what has been the effect? We’ve gone from “Leave it to Beaver” to “the Adams Family on Ketamine.” The family in America is in worse shape than anyone would ever have thought possible. I saw it before the changes, watched the changes happen, and I see it now.
Yes, indeed, things are a lot different...and Satan rejoices.
Excellent post.
Dittos, FRiend.
I hate double standards too - and there are some that work against the women too.
From my experience - and what I was taught before I was married - “love” is a verb - not a noun.
It isn’t just about “our” wants and needs - it is also about self sacrifice. Treating your spouse with dignity and respect.
So while I agree with Prager that women need to pay careful attention to their man’s needs - I disagree with his opinion that she should just put out when she isn’t in the mood.
As another poster pointed out - if it’s too much trouble to solve the “mood” issue - then maybe he needs to buy a blowup doll?
And I’m talking about a normal woman with a normal sex drive.
I understand - as others have pointed out - there are some out there with no sex drive and need some help there.
Which, I guess, is a whole ‘nother story.
The knights room? That is too cute :)
No advice for her survival during the childhood years other than “stick to her guns.” Tell her to call me when she and her sibs are adults and I’ll walk her through the major holiday celebrations since all the work will most likely fall on her ;) I finally have half helping in some way.
That was my mom, the one who thought prices shouldn’t increase. We called her the coupon queen.
“Slippery nipples” lol! Bailey’s and Sambuca? Not sure, I’d have to look it up but that’s what I recall.
Sounds like you celebrated your Grandma’s life as she wanted :) Gotta love the Irish. We joke in our family, the Italian side tends to be so somber and the Irish side knows how to just have fun, enjoy life.
oh I don’t know about that!
I remember going on a trip and our bed & breakfast was 1/2 american, 1/2 italian guests.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it’s not just in the movies that the italians break out into song and dance over dinner.
LOL! Granted, Italians are fun too. In our family, just not as fun as the Irish side. My husband always asks, when we get an invitation to a party or wedding, which side - the Irish or Italian side? - The Irish side is much more fun in our family.
just make sure when it’s irish night you have plenty of time on your hands to listen to long winded stories!
Whenever someone starts I have to fight the urge to say “is this going to be a long story?”
That’s probably the reason for all the booze...it eases the pain of listening to all those stories.
good point.
Especially when most of them are repeats.
LOL! Ain’t that the truth?
On the bright side, family history was handed down orally. And, because they all told the stories so many times, I actually remember most of them, lol.
Male nature is guided by sex. Women have a constant desire for romance and often want it in non-sexual circumstances. A man, in considering how to react to a woman's wanting romance, should be guided by loving behavior rather than feelings, which can change. The right kind of behavior can bring unexpected rewards - be it in in a marriage or in any other life situation. Men need to do very little to please a woman and get her undying love and gratitude. Just not get in the mood like "courting" one's spouse is a chore; it should be an expression of one's vows to one's beloved.
I don't think that is a revelation for many women -- hence the old women's locker room joke:
"Did you hear about the guy whose brains fell out? His fly came unzipped..."
A few years ago the former Pope caused a firestorm because he said that men should not lust after their wives. He was trying to say that males should not use their wives as a sex object*, because it is demeaning to them, but of course the media monkeys had a field day of riducule.
______________________
*The difference between "lovemaking" and "self-gratification by using someone else's body"
It's no fun (in that department) being the parent of an unmarried young person in these times, either. Our nation has become so fragmented, you have no idea what another person is about; it takes years to find out; and by that time children may be involved and may get caught up in a mess. You can't even rely on the churches as a pipeline, given the ever-leftward drift of the clergy.
They should have taken better care of Sarah Palin, for starters -- and should still be doing so.
Great attitude -- I'll bet your wife or girlfriend is a happy gal. By the way, here is a recent photo of actress Helen Mirren, age 63:
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