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.
No it doesn’t. You and certain other male posters just don’t want to hear about sex from a woman’s point of view. It just doesn’t matter to you. And for that matter, most women don’t matter to you either. That is the problem with the GOP and why they have such problems attracting and promoting women. Women are completely objectified.
And before you or anybody else trashes me, read my tagline. Abigail Adams spoke up.
Per a couple of posters, Prager has been divorced twice, a fact not surprising based on the articles.
He’s yet to figure out his contribution to the problem. Until he does he will remain unsuccessful with women.
As someone who is not-quite-so-young anymore and has plenty of battle scars, our enlightened, progressive society makes all kinds of contradictory demands on men. Life pretty much sucks unless you enjoy no-win situations.
Is it love or is it lust?
Can there be lust in a marriage? And is it right?
Do guys understand that their actions contribute to an unhealthy relationship? To read things here and Prager a woman should be hot and ready whenever he wants. Well it seems some need to wake-up from this juvenile fantasy of lust. A man's scorn can turn a woman off faster than a light switch.
Most men here I'd bet think they know what a woman's scorn is. Isn't that what Prager is really talking about, a woman's scorn.
Do they know what a man's scorn is? Most men, from some of the posts here, have no clue they may be even treating their wives with scorn and then expect her to service his desires as their “obligation”.
Scorn: open or unqualified contempt;
to reject, refuse, or ignore with contempt;a derisive or contemptuous action or speech
Contempt: The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless;
The state of being dishonored; disgrace.
Yeah, go ahead and keep expecting and treating sex in a relationship as a woman's “obligation.” At that rate I'll never be in the mood for you.
I remember stories about women in my grandmother’s era lying still and enduring sex as a marital duty. Is that the glorious past to which you wish to return? Of course, the bargain made for her submissive cooperation was that the male had to fully financialy support her and remain monogamous. (Women do tend to put on weight to discourage advances under those conditions, or they develop psychiatric problems as were common in the Victorian era.)
If you truly want a cold fish in bed enduring your advances because of duty and finacial insecurity, have at it. I would rather have a loving relationship with which to share life’s experience and to help validate my existence, but then I am a female.
This reminds me of a story my mother told me of a story her great aunt told her. A friend of the great aunt was at a married woman’s house for lunch around the turn of the 20th century. Her husband arrived home unexpectedly and said “I need to use you,” so her friend had to leave.
HMMM! He has always called me the/his Queen! And he has always treated me that way. The man smiles all the time! You are 100% correct.
It may sound harsh but if a man is inept, he will be lonely, a lot.
I had a girl friend that always wanted sex some times two or three times a year.
Rodny Dangerfield
You could go buy a donut, then after you have used it to have your little naughty, you could eat it.
“Coming home to the same face every day for a lifetime can be a good thing for some people... and bore others stiff.”
I doubt it’s all that often that a face kills a marriage; more likely, it’s what’s behind the face...
“That is the problem with the GOP and why they have such problems attracting and promoting women. Women are completely objectified.”
That is just pure and utter BS.
What a beautiful story. You and your wife are like my husband and I were.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to have my husband come home from work, grab a snack, throw me on the bed for 3 minutes, then go plunk himself down in front of the TV watching a ball game as he is asking whats for dinner. A toilet gets more love and respect.
Extropolation on the theme, “all the sex you want whenever you want”:
I worked in publishing/magazines for some years and there happened to be quite a few gays ( male gays ) in the industry, I had some great pals that were gay and in one guy in particular, Rick, and I ( a straight female) became fast friends that would talk about anything.
He was very candid with me and said he’d actually been bisexual at different points in his life...he would flirt with me too—but was now heavily ensconced in the gay scene.
At that time he was trolling gay bars for quickies ( this was just as AIDS was arriving on the scene) and having many truly faceless encounters with other gay ( ie, excuse me, but “glory holes” were one method).
He went on to explain how ideal the gay male interaction was, because males have such a strong sexual appetite and requirement for ‘outlet’ without any emotional connection.
So both parties were exactly aligned and driven for the same thing...to use one another.
He said it was great because it was “no strings attached”, unlike his experiences with females, because she’d always want him to call them afterward or whatever etc, and things got emotionally messy.
So he was happy as a lark getting his rocks off several times a night in some cases with other like-minded orgasm seekers.
He was a witty fun guy, now gone from AIDS
While I agree with his basic premise and Part I was well stated, Prager is offering some very lame arguments here. Sounds a little desperate and whiny.
Thank you for posting part 2.
If I had to look at Dennis Prager’s smarmy smirk, I’d never be “in the mood” either. Fortunately, I’m married to a man.
Doesn't and shouldn't
Indeed, it does. Women get horny. Women love good sex just as much if not more than men. The key word here is "good." If the woman's partner can not deliver "good" she will rarely be in the mood. When she does get horny she will take the problem into her own hands. She will choose this over being paws by an oaf and who will just leave her horny.
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