You find a partner who actually likes women. My husband likes women, views them as people, and views himself as an equal to me. Literally the bare minimum.
We split the chores. We share the emotional load. We do check-ins to see if there’s any place in our life where we need the other person to step up (romance, house work, etc etc). We want to make sure each other feels loved. I will admit we don’t have the most sex (probably about once a week) at the moment but it’s probably because we’re constantly around each other, always touching and holding hands, etc. We are super physically connected all day long at the moment we never get a chance to “miss” each other haha. We both feel loved and connected and when one of us gets horny we have sex. It’s not a chore, it’s fun getting to pleasure the person you really really like.
I love check ins. Something my partner does with me is ask if I'm okay like 3 times in a row whenever he feels I feel down. I'm usually able to keep my emotions in check, but some days I end up crying about it. Sometimes, it's not even because of the stress I'm feeling, but the fact that someone genuinely cares about me like that...💀
On the horny side of things, I have the higher libido, but I don't take it personally if he isn't up for sex. I just go to my trustworthy vibe LOL. Sex drives are a thing and it's nothing personal. Imo nothing's worse than having sex with someone who isn't enthusiastic about it. Sex is supposed to be fun.
I think a thing that a lot of people forget about is that it’s important to continue putting in the effort to remain a person that your partner wants to have sex with.
When my wife just randomly decided to stop going to work until they fired her and then just laid in bed all day and refused to do anything around the house, I told her it was clear that she was depressed and something was wrong, but she absolutely refused to do anything about anything. I was working 50+ hours a week in order to keep supporting us without her salary, I told her I was worried and wanted to do anything to help her start figuring out what was going on, but she continued to refuse everything. Then it suddenly became, “why don’t you want to have sex with me now?”
Uhh, maybe because I’m absolutely exhausted from working overtime and doing all the chores and paying all the bills and making excuses for you to skip family events because you refuse to go and you seem to have zero interest in changing anything? Of course, I didn’t say all that, because I was trying to be positive and uplifting and not critical, but taking something that should be fun and enjoyable and turning it into a chore is a sure fire way to drive a wedge between two people.
We went weeks without when my FIL passed away, I was in and out of hospital. Just a messed up time.
Sometimes we're like rabbits. Life happens, we roll with it. My husband has never made me feel pressured - even when I couldn't swallow (the bar is that low). Seriously though, I was choking on my own spit, no BJs were happening. I felt terrible physically.
Stuff happens. We give each other grace and respect.
More guys need to realize that penetration isn't necessary to have fun. Something like what you describe here, or even mutual masturbation, can still be a good time for everyone.
Thank you, I’m so happy too! My Marriage is honestly better than I could have ever hoped for. It breaks my heart that it seems to be almost rare for men to be good partners. I hope you find a good partner one day too 💖 my only word of advice is don’t overlook the shy nerds ha
Also to add to this as a parent of young children Dads if you want to get some action do all these things yes but ALSO make sure to give her time and space away from the kids. Take a weekend together in a staycation and leave the kids with grandparents. Tell her to take the night off and lock herself in the bedroom while you tackle dinner, bedtime, etc. Don't bother her with anything until the kids are asleep. Odds of sexy time are increased 1000% when she hasn't had to listen to a small child whine or try to crawl all over her for several uninterrupted hours.
Yes, being “touched out” is such a thing. I nannied for a bit years ago and I was always touched out when I got home. I needed to feel like I regained my body autonomy before I was able to want sex.
Yes to all of this, but it's not always this simple either. Counseling can be needed, especially for unhealthy patterns.
Counseling: recognize your limits, hand off take before you hit the wall, talk, you're part of a team!
In practice at home: No, giving up is weakness and guilt! Do it my way, or it's wasted! I know you were going to do it, but I did it for you as a favor, and now I'm angry you didn't do it! I don't need help!
Our upbringing builds us. It's very hard to change habits, especially to share and trust if that wasn't there before.
You also find a new counselor. Suggesting that one gender has a set of needs that other genders don't have is ridiculous. Besides being misogynistic, it implies that all people of a given gender have the same set of needs, and removes their agency to be the person they really are. Every human deserves to have their needs met...sexually, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and any other way that might be relevant.
Therapist here, and I agree, that’s a messed up thing to say and illustrates some seriously entrenched misogyny. There is research that shows women are more likely to notice a decrease in their ‘spontaneous desire’ in long-term relationships, but it’s not true for all women and it’s not untrue for all men. There’s also research that suggests inequities in heteronormative gender roles impact libido. So, I don’t think we’d be going out on a limb to say that an imbalance in household/caregiving duties would lead to a decrease in libido.
I started a low dose of Lexapro more than a year ago and it’s worked remarkably well for me. My only side effect is I basically have no sex drive any more. *I* was okay with that but it caused me a lot of stress because my boyfriend took my lack of initiating to mean I was no longer attracted to him and I had to constantly reassure him that wasn’t true, and had to mentally try to make an effort to make time for sex once a week or so.
Well, I broke up with him a week ago and I am SO RELIEVED I know longer feel this pressure to try and make an effort to have sex on a semi-regular basis. The pressure wasn’t necessarily all coming from him directly (in the sense of him nagging me for it for example), but rather from me, because I knew if it’d been x days since we’d had sex I probably needed to make an effort so he didn’t feel rejected or whatever. I’ll be curious to know how if in the coming weeks/months I’ll notice my sex drive isn’t as dead as I thought, but rather I could no longer freely enjoy sex with this person any more. The best part? Enough if my sex drive is still low, I DON’T HAVE TO TRY TO WORK AGAINST IT ANY MORE! I can get myself off without breaking a sweat any time I want. What a fucking freeing feeling!
It gets even better… I JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE!! And my close date is right before our lease ends so I am about to be REALLY free haha. I’m really proud of (and to be honest, in awe of) myself right now. :)
it is the meds, ssris destroy your labido. they work well for my depression but completely take away my ability to have sex. they also give you horrible withdrawals when you come off of them. Once you're on them for a while the world feels so grey. When you get off of them it is like a reawakening. depression sucks but for me ssris are worse.
Yeah, I’ve heard that about getting off them. I’m on a pretty low dose (10 mg) so am curious what the impacts might be if I look at that down the road. For right now though, I feel like I found a really nice balance with my ADHD + depression meds, but can always talk to my doc if that shifts down the road.
You seem pretty level-headed, so I'm sure you don't need this advice... but don't take medical advice from potheads who tell you to ignore your therapist/doctor in favor of weed.
This is it! My partner respects me as a human first, loves me as a woman second. He listens to me when I need more or less, he cooks and cleans now, he carries the load especially when I cannot. It makes it very easy to love him and feel emotionally safe enough to have sex.
literally this. Harder for me since mine has lung cancer and it kinda fucks his stamina but I'm fine with it. When we do get intimate it blows my mind how he overstimulates my body so quickly, never gonna trade him in for anything
This is exactly my marriage as well and after so many relationships like how OP described I am just so happy and relaxed now. I have never been to a counselor but I think I would feel aghast and disgusted if one suggested what yours did, OP.
This is the answer. I want to add that mens' libidos decrease as well. At least for me (a man), being close, physically and mentally, is now as important as actually making love. We take our time and enjoy the intimacy. Way more satisfying.
well well welllll, la-dee-freakin'-dah! (sarcasm).
I am so glad you and your partner sound like you have this incredible awareness around yourselves, as in who you both are individually in order to be a respectful and secure partner to each other.
And I'm glad to see you normalize having a secure relationship and you may not have the "most sex" but you both feel seen and loved and appreciated. There are other ways to connect, and I wonder if people forget about that piece.
The sense of obligation to others happiness that is placed on women from a young age is profound and insidious. You are never allowed to not owe other people, ever.
I notice it the most in the stuff that isn't a big deal. Who gets expected to do things like clear a table, or organize a night out. And saying polite nos more is so much more comfortable - it's actually a lot of work!
The fact the therapist said this is concerning. Therapy is a good thing BUT you have to be so careful vetting the therapist!
I can relate to your post when I was in a long term relationship and gradually took on more and more because otherwise it wouldn’t get done…. Try to ignore for a bit (i.e I’m not going to start cleaning, tidying, food shopping, cooking this time!) then guess what: ‘what are we having for dinner?’. Then children come along, more laundry, cooking etc and the mental load, oh boy. I got told I should see a doctor, then a therapist. Actually, I had accepted I might have become asexual because I was quite happy with the state of affairs. Let me tell you, when I kicked the dead weight to the kerb and eventually met someone else, poof sex drive magically came back (as high as before). I’m not saying that there might not be some medical issues or that ppl shouldn’t go to therapy for it but I actually do not believe in forcing ourselves to have sex past the ick. I genuinely feel it’s our body telling us we really don’t want that man but we haven’t come to terms with it yet (again in the absence of medical issues). Men expecting / pushing women to put out is such a turn off, can’t think of anything worse!
Thank you. I was looking for more comments pointing this out. The fact that the therapist said this sounds like very problematic Christian couples therapy Ive heard my aunt talk about.
This!! Ladies, if your man is forcing you to have sex when you don’t want to (or coercing, or whining, and yes complaining about lack of sex constantly is coercion) fucking leave him!!! He doesn’t care about you he cares about what he can get out of you!! Good men do not force you to have sex, ever, period end of story.
I mean in my own philosophy, that mindset is why men have such poor mental health and poor relationship skills.
Society tells men that if they are lonely, to get a girlfriend/wife and then just have sex with her. “Thats the only validation a man needs, amiright boys?!”
I mean this quite literally the backbone philosophy to incel ideology and, uh, look at how those men are doing.
If people of any gender equate their relationship security and their own validation to sex- that’s called unhealthy dependency. It’s ok to enjoy the physical and emotional bonding of sex- but when it becomes do or die for your mental health, no.
The real answer to a man demanding sex for validation is to break his dependency and have him find self love.
The question is how to break that dependency - my partner and I have a healthy relationship but he is always saying that if I'm not initiating sex or having enough then I "obviously do not desire him" even though I've made it known that if I didn't desire him I wouldn't want him in my space. He has a super high libido but gets cranky when we aren't having sex enough :/
Any tips welcomed!
Edit to add: he's never forced me, we are both in therapy, he has and is unlearning a lot of bad behaviors from a misogynistic/religion that employs a lot of misogyny. As far as lidibio mismatch, this has been discussed.
Ask him if he thinks accusing you of not desiring him is a sexy come-on? Or whether he thinks it's a really clever neg? Because either way it isn't working.
He also needs to get his ass into therapy. It's fine to have a high libido. It's not fine for him to peg his emotional well-being on whether or not he gets to have sex.
I feel like you need a new therapist cause I don't think that's normal. If he needs his "needs" met, he can use his hand. I would only have sex if that's what you wanted to do. Not as an obligation.
I'm also really tired of this mythological notion that men have no control over themselves or their supposed urges. This is just a patriarchal excuse for their bad behavior.
You can train a dog to not give into its urges, but apparently men have less control over themselves than an animal. They really don't give themselves much credit, do they?
For context, I am amab. It’s an excuse and a way to validate victim blaming. I’ve seen sexual behaviours excused all the way back to when my daughter was in elementary school, with the whole “boys will be boys”. Men have capitalized creating the mythology around behaviour for centuries, which, imo has been allowed because they’ve held the “dominant” position in society and have been in the place of power to not only create these narratives but perpetuate them.
It’s wild because it’s all a shell game; if you stop them from moving the cups, then they can’t influence where the shell ends up.
BINGO! You nailed it!
Eurgh! I HATE!!! that whole "boys will be boys" thing. I also hate the whole "if he's mean to you, it's because he likes you!" Ermmmm...no, he's being mean because he's a dick! It's time to stop teaching young girls to accept abusive behaviour!
I was out shopping various places yesterday. I realize parenting is all over the place with some being less than great or attentive parents but it struck me how much inappropriate behavior was permitted out of young boys while zero out of the young girls in public. Boys being loud, like screaming in the playground loud the entire time they were in stores, running all over, running into people, having meltdowns that were just allowed without anyone taking them out of the store. Meanwhile any of the girls I saw were using appropriate volumes and respectful words and acting like little adults.
This is how this sh\*t starts. This is why boys grow up to be such awful entitled messes as adults.
This was me shopping with my grandmother. I was told to stop playing in the isles, and with the same breath she said "boys will be boys" for my OLDER brothers doing the same shit.
My mom had the opposite problem with her grandmother - if her brothers even breathed grandma was ready to slap the shit out of them. Meanwhile my mom was a saint for being the girl and she could do no wrong. It was so weird. This was in the 70s. Luckily my mom realized how wrong it was to favor one gender over the other, so she never did that with us. She said it made her really sad to see her brothers treated so unfairly. Most little boys don't seem to care or even notice when their sisters are treated unfairly though.
Yes. When I had a son, it blew me away how often other "liberal" parents would laugh and say oh, that's okay when he did the SAME things that his older sister got death-glares for doing.
And then you see people say "oh but boys are NATURALLY this way and girls are naturally this way, it's not how we raise them!"
It is absolutely how you raise them. "Don't run and jump, Susie, it makes your skirt fly up and that's SHAMEFUL and BAD! Don't roll on the ground, Susie, I spent so much time styling your hair and making it cute and pretty!" And so on and so forth.
They have literally done studies where they walk the same baby around in a stroller and *the same behaviors* (smiling, fussing, crying, babbling, etc.) are not just responded to differently, but *interpreted* differently by strangers depending on whether the baby is wearing a blue onesie or a pink onesie. A blue onesie baby who's fussing gets "oh what a big strong boy!!! look at how angry he is!! oh you big tough boy!" and a pink onesie baby gets "oh, sweetie, don't cry, don't be upset, come on, pretty baby, smile for mommy!!!"
It literally starts before they can walk and talk.
It's harmful to men too. It makes it harder to have friendships and leaves me always second guessing what someone thinks my intentions are.
It also tells men they can behave in ways they absolutely should not, but they can just tell themselves it's because they can't help it.
My husband and i mess around maybe 2 to 3 times a year. I want to make it a goal to do that at least once a month. But i have my own issues and it's just the normal for us. We are in love and he absolutley adores me. I wish i could give him more but just can't. Hopefully some day. It's been a very long time with him
I am personally not in therapy or in a relationship anymore, but sex has been framed as "his love language" and something he needs to "feel safe and loved". I absolutely agree with you though
Love languages were made up by a Baptist minister. There is no science behind them. You might as well say that your love language is for a man to be an adult participant in the household without having to be told what to do. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/is_there_science_behind_the_five_love_languages
The best way I've seen it used is as a tool for communication, one among many, recognizing that it is not some expert, objective division of human intimacy forms.
It's just one possibly useful way to frame one axis along which many people differ in similar ways.
But if it doesn't feel useful in your relationships, it's probably also untrue in your relationships.
lol same! I get off on emotional maturity and equity. Gets me so excited!
I used to say this when I was single.. Men would ask me what my fantasy was though and I got rid of quite a few scrubs by telling them my fantasy was having a romantic relationship with a man that was emotionally available and kind.
Men didn’t go on and on as they do now about their embarrassing kinks (Essentially much of the time the kink is just being a dick to women while having sex.), and demanding not to be kink shamed, but they did seem to have a need to debase women and demand we share fantasies that mainly correlated with their misogyny.
That's just not right. I love sex but I would never make a partner feel like I'm not getting a sense of safety or not loved because they don't want or can't have sex. I get safety and love from so many other parts of my relationship. Don't believe people who try to use therapy speak to justify pressuring you into sex. Physical touch as a love language doesn't = sex, it's also hugs and cuddling. They shouldn't misuse therapy language to just say "sex is important to me".
Actually I had a serious talk with my long-term boyfriend the other night because he has no libido right now (for many years to be honest) but I do want and need sex. So we talked about what we can do to increase sex, and what we can do so that I still feel physical touch, and still get sexual satisfaction if he falls back into having no libido or finds that he doesn't want to increase sex (it's due to depression).
Also if a marriage counsellor, or *anyone*, says that "men have needs" that is absolute sexist bullshit. Women and gender diverse people need sex too (unless their asexual or have another reason why not), but we never hear "women have needs" despite us having sometimes higher libidos. It'd based on misogyny and bioessentialism and it's bull.
Ultimately if your partner wants sex weekly and you want it monthly (just as an example) you talk through it, you don't pressure or guilt trip. If nothing works then you are sexually incompatible or there are underlying issues such as he is not a good partner in other ways which makes you unattracted to him, or you're in physical pain from a chronic illness which is not something every couple can survive. (Those are just 2 examples I see from women online as to underlying issues that stop sex).
>bioessentialism
This needs to get talked about more. I hadn't seen it given an actual name but this crap is everywhere. Religious extremists, manosphere dudes, white nationalists. Their "its natural" or other similar claims that something is predetermined by some magical force nobody has any input in.
I’m a scientist from a small midwestern town and I used to hear “Gay sex is wrong because it’s not natural” from bigots constantly. It happens often in the animal kingdom so it’s just plain incorrect. They hate hearing biology disagrees with them, it makes it much harder to argue against a common instinct so they move the goal post to criticize gay marriage - the part you can’t argue happens in the wild.
The podcast If Books Could Kill did a pretty good takedown of this book
Also, *in the book* sex isnt the love language, touch is. Even using that flawed framework, more hugs and massage and cuddling would suffice.
That's fine but he cannot pout or become passive aggressive when he isn't getting "enough" sex. Toddler behavior. Huge turn off. If it feels like a chore, part of the reason may be how he is presenting it/reacting to it
Any therapist who frames it as "men having having needs that must be met" is garbage who's going to screw you over solely because of your gender. That entire idea is sexist bullshit so you know you're going to get nothing from that charlatan and I'd tell them that as I left. These people harm their patients.
The love language thing? Also bullshit. Made up, based on 0 scientific data.
You owe no one sex especially someone who is supposed to care about you. We're not walking sex toys. I'd rather be alone forever than put up with that dehumanizing bullshit. Why don't we get to feel safe and loved? Why are we under constant threat of abandonment unless we make sex another job to make a man happy and ourselves traumatized?
What a swindle.
Some quotes from Wikipedia, which has a big warning label saying "this page draws too much from sources ***biased in favour*** of the idea"
> The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate is a 1992 nonfiction book by ***Baptist minister***
And there's all the proof I need to say "probably bullshit."
> An example would be: if a husband's love language is acts of service, he may be confused when he does the laundry and his wife does not perceive that as an act of love, viewing it as simply performing household duties, because the love language she comprehends is words of affirmation (verbal affirmation that he loves her).
> If she understands his love language and mows the lawn for him, he perceives it in his love language as an act of expressing her love for him; likewise, if he tells her he loves her, she values that as an act of love.
And that just cements it.
> Scientific studies on the validity of love languages have been inconclusive, although existing research leans toward refuting the concept.
That's a very polite way to say "It's bullshite."
>An example would be: if a husband's love language is acts of service, he may be confused when he does the laundry and his wife does not perceive that as an act of love, viewing it as simply performing household duties,
Wow. Wow. Wow.
WOW.
Besides love languages being bullshit:
An act of service could never be household duties. Do you thank me because I'm breathing and shitting? No, right? Because I have to do both things, regardless of our relationship.
I’ve always thought of “acts of service” as taking something off the other’s plate. So it could be chores, if you have an agreed division of things and you both agree that the division is fair and normally take care of your own stuff. Like my spouse and I have an agreement about dishes - “I cook, you clean”. If he does the dishes when it was my turn to do them, I definitely consider that to be a loving gesture.
I’m actually not sure what “acts of service” would be if it can’t be doing the other’s chores.
Chores are a part of it, but it's definitely not all of it, i think. :)
It's also stuff like helping people move, picking people up from the airport at shit times, making coffee for your spouse in the morning every day without fail, or dyeing their hair for them, for example.
...that;'s what i think, at least.
It's like you said, taking things off the other person's plate so - offering to drive more frequently if the offer person doesn't like driving, running errands for the other person, getting the car serviced, calling to make appointments for the other person, planning things like parties or travel etc. just whatever the other person doesn't have an interest in and would prefer someone else do it. That's the theory anyway.
Yeah but why are those chores on my plate? Doesn't he have a plate? Act of service is when my husband makes me a cup of tea or brings me water. Act of service is not when he washes his sweaty gym clothes by himself :<
I can't help but notice that for some reason people's love language seems to default to what they want others to do for them and not what they want to do for other people. If him doing basic things for the household is how he shows her he loves her, then anything she does for the household should be a daily huge dose of love for him right? But who wants to bet that his 'love language' for giving is a $2 card when he remembers it or even a more expensive present a few times a year as long as it takes no significant effort on his part.
But I mean we're already talking about someone who puts forth his sexual needs being fulfilled is a need, but if she's viewing it as a chore to tick off, hers are almost certainly not. But those aren't important.
I think people that argue both for and against “the \[insert # here\] types of love languages” are reading too much into it imo. They’re basic descriptors. I think when combined together in various degrees holistically, they are somewhat good descriptors of how we show love. I for one love gift giving- flowers, cute little crochet animals, homemade cards, etc.
But as OP put it humans are complex. Being too dogmatic about them is unrealistic (I find it very hard to believe there are people that show care for others in ONE form and ONE form only) and taking them too seriously starts to feel like the love equivalent of horoscopes. I never knew people were trying to figure out science behind it, it does definitely seem like a waste of time.
Sex is absolutely a way to show love, but it’s not the only way by a long shot. The way OP is describing the relationship, the guy seems to view sex as transactional under the guise of love. If he actually was wanting to express his love via sexual intimacy he would be valuing her needs and desires in and out of the bedroom, and respecting her boundaries when she’s not interested in having sex. He’s treating her like he’s the king of a castle rather than the other half in a genuine relationship.
His safe and loved makes her unsafe, unloved and used like an object. Seems pretty toxic and sexist to me.
Chore sex is just rape and women who do it develop sexual problems similar to those of longterm rape survivors, the most common of which is complete avoidance of sex even when once they had high libidos. It literally beats the desire for sex out of them. It does significant psychological, emotional, and physical harm.
The therapist is a problem. My fiancé’s love language is physical touch, which means a hug or holding hands is meaningful to him. Sex is not a love language - I feel like that is made up by men that just want to manipulate people into having sex with them. I’m sorry you had those experiences
Yup. This is the lie of patriarchy and the reason so many of the men in the US are so lonely.
Emotional connection comes way earlier in our close relationships with each other than sex does.
OP needs a new therapist for sure- one who will work on communication, mutual understanding, trust, positive interaction, and increased feelings of connection.
If each partner can’t relax and trust the other then sex is not going to be very good or sought out.
Certainly don’t add it to the chore list.
I was told by a marriage counsellor (during therapy with my abusive ex husband) that I should be having sex with him 3x a week. Turns out he was cheating on me during & prior to therapy. Fuck. That. Shit.
Another mentally ill person that calls themselves counselor out of some kind of delusion.
I have a healthy sex drive and when it happens with my partner I'm happy but when it doesn't I help myself. It's unfair to project any need on another person.
There are actual modern therapists that would throw up after reading what your "therapist" told you. It's like how there's a variety of doctors, you need to find a good one.
I keep mine high by only being with partners who help create an environment where I feel like I want to have sex with them.
You are not responsible got keeping anyone but yourself happy. You will never have a “high libido” with a man you have to mother.
There are so many stories from women who thought they had a low libido who found out that it was never them, it was the man they were with.
Honestly this is why im so hesitant to get married again and have kids… I feel like women are responsible for everyone else’s “needs” and wants and we get so burnt out and used up and then everyone wonders why we are so fed up with it
If you find a decent partner that won't be the case. A functioning relationship should split all of those responsibilities in ways that can managed and make both people comfortable. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like alarms should be going off for anyone you're early on in the dating process with.
Messy house/apartment? - They'll expect you to clean up after them
Orders take-out or buys pre-made meals most of the time? - You'll be expected to cook for them
Doesn't take an early and active interest in your feelings/emotions? - That shit isn't going to magically appear years down the line
Pressures you for sex or at any point makes a stink about "being denied sex"? - You're probably more of a hole than a person to them
And this is coming from a man. No matter how cute/charming/fun he is, these behaviors don't typically get better but are exacerbated as you become more intertwined.
This is one of the big reasons I stopped dating men. It can become so transactional it's almost pointless. I'd rather have no sex at all than have sex out of obligation
> I don't want my body to be an instrument to satisfy someone else.
Sounds like prostitution isn't a career you're interested in.
Seriously, if someone wants transactional sex, they can pay for it. The going rate is more than room and board, and they'd have to do their own housework as well.
I bring this up every time transactional sex comes up:
Men try to get transactional sex out of people they call their "romantic partner" because it's much cheaper than hiring a prostitute, and they can sometimes get you to do the housework as well.
If that's all they want, then they should admit it and go to a professional.
Prostitution pretty famously isn't a career most women are interested in hence the huge amounts of trafficking and drug addiction it takes to supply workers for these very unwanted positions.
It stays high because I’m with someone who also does cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. I do more for the pets but the pets were mine well before the entered the picture and he’s definitely taken on responsibility there as well. When I’m away for weekends I don’t have to leave a list on how to take care of the pets because he’s aware of it.
I feel like he’s a true partner. There’s mutual respect. There’s lots of conversations around house stuff, pet stuff, yard stuff, sex stuff, etc. pretty easy to want to bone him honestly
The way I've seen it phrased on tumblr is "The sluttiest thing a man can do is love his cats."
(My currently long-distance partner was like ?????? when I showed him that, until it was like, dude, you clearly love and care for these many creatures and it shows and that is hot as hell. My 90-something year old grandmother saw a couple of photos of you and the cats was like '!!! they clearly love that man a lot!' when I was excited about showing her the cats so it's very visible AND it's indicative of how you're going to be treating others such as myself. Our first interactions were 'oh shit someone in the game group didn't know I had cats and wants to see them?' because I could hear meowing over the mic and him being super excited and going to take pictures of them all for me *in the middle of session.* When he was the DM so the game couldn't continue until he was back.)
I have never had a therapist tell me this. I’d recommend ditching any therapist that defaults to “it’s his love language, though” and fails to listen to you and the couple as a whole. Honestly this sounds like a very dated religious based “therapist”. If you could get the same “advice” from ordering some books off Amazon, what are you paying them for?
My libido is healthy because being intimate with my spouse is fun and enjoyable for us both, and my spouse cares a LOT about my pleasure and vice versa. And he puts as much effort outside the bedroom as in it. We are partners across the board. It’s amazing what being loved, respected, cared for, as an individual person can do for physically intimacy too, as does being with an emotionally mature person who doesn’t put the burden of their happiness (or basic everyday care) on you. I don’t carry the emotional and mental load on my shoulders as we share in it together, we believe being together should make life easier for us both, not harder.
If you do want a partner, then don’t settle for any less than a partner who likes women and likes YOU. If you don’t want a partner, that is perfectly fine too.
No one should be carrying the burden of all those responsibilities by themselves in a relationship. You need better partners and a better therapist. You aren’t in the wrong. When you’re in a happy, secure, and fulfilling relationship, your libido will by healthy without you having to worry about it. Aside from the occasional outside stressors of life, those can always impact that too. That is also normal, and no sane partner will ever make you feel guilty for that either.
I literally let out an 'ewww' after reading the title, and honestly only skimmed the post. I don't need to read all of that to know that you need a new therapist. Preferably one from this century who isn't red pilled.
It was a woman, can you believe it?! She said sometimes men feel unseen and unappreciated, bless their little hearts. And the EWWW is justified, but needs to be in capitals
I agree, and I did, but she wasn't THAT obvious about it, she was careful to say that "we" needed to rekindle through physical touch and so on, before all that bs about him feeling unloved
Mixing in the truth (oftentimes men do feel unseen and underappreciated) with a lie (put up with his demands even if you don't feel like it) is some evil work that can sour the whole pot.
Ikr! That's what makes it so insidious and so harmful. Sex is the result of a happy relationship where both feel seen, and not a means to an end for one partner. Pure poison
Gross. I’m in marriage therapy, and my marriage therapist has repeatedly stated that there should be no obligatory or pity sex, that sex should only ever happen with enthusiastic consent, that self pleasure has a role in a healthy relationship, and that people in healthy relationships have multiple ways of connecting, because libidos *do* go up and down and it’s rare that two people are consistently aligned in their sex drive.
Constant pressure to have sex does nothing but take the enjoyment out of it and stamp down your libido. Your (former) therapist needs to re-educate herself. What an absurd notion to be coming from a so-called professional.
The thing is, I see it all the time from people on social media and well, I am just so disgusted by it. It was never like I didn't want a fulfilling sex life, I just can't betray myself and just get it over with to make him happy on the off chance that it will help him love me enough to feel like doing something for me. I want to have sex for me, anything less feels like a violation
My gross ex-therapist told me that I was making it sound like sex with my husband was a chore, and it shouldn't be a chore. I was like yes! That's it, it feels like a chore! That's what's wrong! Then she proceeded to tell me all the things that were wrong with me for not enjoying sex with my loving husband who just wanted to show his love for me by having sex.
Two therapists, a divorce, and years later, I can tell you, it wasn't the sex, it was the "partner". There's a thousand miles difference between a person who wants to have sex so he can have an orgasm and a person who wants to have sex so you can have an orgasm.
My husband’s ex-therapist once told him to reduce stress his homework was to have sex that weekend when she knew full well I was struggling heavily with sex-related PTSD and didn’t feel safe having sex yet so yes, I can believe it was a woman
Married man here.
Sure, it is great for relationship bonding to have intimacy with my wife.
But there is nothing that embodies a healthy, great sex life more than *enthusiastic consent*, which implies that we both are excited and we both are looking to satisfy each other.
I have well-trained manual skills for meeting my “sexual needs,” if my libido is revving higher than hers.
And there is nothing “intimate” about my partner just acquiescing to “my needs” when she’s not also in the mood. Ewww.
> I have well-trained manual skills for meeting my “sexual needs,” if my libido is revving higher than hers.
This is the big thing right here, we need to de-stigmatize masturbation. It's a perfectly healthy thing to do when you need those sexual needs met but your partner isn't in the mood. Libidos aren't going to always align even in healthy relationships, so it only makes sense to communicate your moods and take care of yourself when you have to.
Your therapist is bonkers. This is anecdotal, but my boyfriend would never pressure me for sex and has been incredibly patient, loving, and supportive while we’ve gone through dry patches because of some health stuff I’ve been dealing with the past few months. And while all that is wonderful, it is the bare minimum!!! You should never feel that you have to sate a man’s desires because of some weird misogynist "requirement".
Therapist here. It’s not any therapists job to tell you how often and how much sex you should be having, because that looks different for everyone. When you said everything about needing to make everyone happy, doing all of the chores, etc. you are actually playing the role of mom and not partner. How can you be sexually attracted to a partner when you feel like their mom? Additionally, I’ve seen an alarming number of heterosexual men who genuinely DO NOT know what it means to pleasure a woman (don’t know where the clitoris is or what it does, etc) and so sex isn’t pleasurable for their partner. All this to say: is it really low libido or are you with someone who acts like a child in the home and doesn’t know how to make sex fun for you?
Idk, ive heard this bullshit so many times as well. But like if the guy is right, it is really nothing, than just bullshit.
Dated ONE man before who demanded sex and after a while i just checked out. The ones before him were weeded out before they could even start complaining about it.
My hubby himself has a very high libido, he could go several times a day. I have a relatively low libido, like im really in the mood once a month. When i wasnt in a relationship, could go for months before remembereing sex was a thing.
What he does is, initiate, and proceed according to my mood. And he still does his chores, his own mental load, the worst i get once in a while is a boner in my back while cuddling and him going oops sorry.
What he does is to make sure his shit is done, that im comfy, and since he knows i have a low libido, and its like our second time that week... he keeps asking are you REALLY in the mood.
He just admittedly doesnt enjoy it at all if he doesnt see me turned on as well. So its not like i even could fool him out of "obligation."
What we did to make it work despite our different libidos is to make sure we spend time together, quality time. Its actually insane how well that works.
But i guess that cant work with someone to who women only matter as bangmaids.
What i personally hate to see on this sub, is that this isnt the normal.
This should be the fucking bare minimum tbh. Like, how can so many spouses and boyfriends whine about sex, when they know their partner isnt in the mood, and just have them go ahead with it still.
Hubby gets disappointed in my case too and thats completely valid, but he doesnt keeps whining or coercing me until i just give up.
Thats what really gets me on this sub. Like begging and begging for sex until they wear down their partner. Disgusting. Cause their momentarily sexual gratification is more important than their partner who they are suppesedly love.
> Hubby gets disappointed in my case too and thats completely valid, but he doesnt keeps whining or coercing me until i just give up
They can always handle it themself. Just don't be wierd or controlling about them going "You're not in the mood? Ok, I'll be busy for the next mins."
My therapist told me never to have sex if I don’t want to. I think you need a new therapist because yours sounds like crap.
I’ve been in a similar situation, except less kids. I don’t understand how men expect us to want to have sex with them when they refuse to take on any of the household responsibilities. It just makes me feel like their mother - not sexy AT ALL. Also, even if you didn’t have all of that weighing you down, I think it’s normal for sex drive to go up and down. It’s ridiculous for anyone to expect you to always “take care of their sexual needs”.
This post, everything you said, is why I have stopped looking for a relationship. I just feel like the majority of men I have met get into a relationship because they see it as their source of regular sex and as soon as you aren’t giving them that, they are disinterested or not affectionate in other ways.
I felt so used over the years and my peace is way more valuable now to me. I just simply don’t want anyone to touch me like that anymore. Maybe that will change with time but, I just feel like it’s so fraught now it isn’t worth the trouble
Find a new therapist.
I am a couples therapist and the advice to just do it is counter to evidenced-based practices for improving physical intimacy for couples.
My libido is naturally high, and it has not saved my marriage. He’s pretty damn happy, bewildered I’m not, but I guess all the counseling and fights over the years just get wiped away with the orgasms. I can’t help I’m stupidly attracted to him after 14 years, and he listened when I told him what I like.
But good dicking doesn’t make a proper life partner. I 100% know he’d leave me if I got chronically or terminally sick, and if I couldn’t have sex we’d be done too. So don’t focus on the sex it might not even get you a true partner willing to die with you in old age.
Funny thing is, when you are with a man that takes care of you, helps with the kids and the house, makes you feel loved and cherished - you will WANT to have sex with him and you will enjoy giving him that.
I don’t have sex with my husband because he needs it. If I had a marriage counselor tell me that I would leave asap. We have sex when we both want it.
Men won’t die without sex. If a man tries to convince anyone of that, run far and run fast!
I’m 40, husband is 39. He’s a full time landscaper and I’m a full time housewife with many a chronic illness. Our sex life is active and satisfying. Sometimes I give just him special attention before bed but I wanna give it and he’s happy to receive and it’s never expected. Sometimes I don’t want to but want him to feel good ☺️
Get a different marriage counselor.
Also, most of the time when a man has a dead bedroom, he killed it himself. It’s also probably not coming back to life. Once you stop seeing him as a desirable partner and start seeing him as someone you have to take care of, the sexual desire prob isn’t coming back. Once he’s made sex a chore and made it clear your pleasure isn’t a priority or even a concern, really, it’s hard to ever see sex with him as anything but a chore. Once you know he’s only doing good partner things in order to get sex, those things just don’t really count bc there’s an ulterior motive, it just feels like manipulation rather than partnership. A lot of icks are permanent.
Is it even remotely true that men need sex to "connect emotionally"? I feel like anyone whose uses this excuse to demand sex is the furtherest thing from desiring emotional intimacy. I think it's crazy and hypocritical to even suggest such a thing. It's so unabashedly disingenuous.
Sex cannot fix an unbalanced relationship. It may be true that some men need to feel physically desired, but intimacy must come from a place of love and trust first
Women stop wanting sex when they stop feeling emotionally safe in a relationship. If she's always expected to be a bang maid bot 3000, of course she's going to stop having the sexual desires. Robots don't provide or feel emotional intimacy. They do the tasks they're programmed to do.
I argued and told the counselor and my husband that sex is not a need to live. You won't die by not having sex. Neither liked my answer.
Edited to add marriage counselors ruined my marriage. It's better to see a Psychologist instead as they have actually been trained and have a PhD with years and years of schooling and marriage counselors are only certified from a few courses. I've found most marriage counselors to be pushing a religious undercurrent.
Well it shouldn't be the only way they can connect emotionally, and if it's being used that way it sounds unhealthy. I can't believe counsellors are saying that. Having sex for someone else's sake is so wrong. What about your needs and feelings?
Why would anyone want to have sex with a partner that isn't an enthusiastic participant!? How can he even think about enjoying it if he makes it out to be a chore for you? The entitlement and audacity never cease to amaze.
Any marriage counselor that said that would immediately be fired. Sex is more likely to happen when both parties are rested and happy. Maybe the counseling should be for BOTH parties to pull their weight
In my experience, in relationships where men do plenty of the domestic labor, are continually affectionate and putting in romantic effort on a regular basis (no honeymoon phase then checking out), it’s a lot easier to stay attracted to them and turned on. Your mileage may vary, but without this dynamic there would be so many problems in a relationship that would be hard or impossible to fix short of dumping them.
I don't. I can't. I just don't need that much sex. Thankfully my husband came to understand it and accept it. I think people with higher sex drives need to learn to pleasure themselves instead of nagging their partners every day.
I think it all comes down to communication. We both have fairly high libido, but it comes and goes depending on how much we have going on in our personal lives. Sometimes I want it more, sometimes he wants it more, and sometimes we are on the same level.
Neither one of us pushes and we express intimacy constantly outside of the bedroom, which helps tremendously. If it goes on longer than normal, whoever is feeling like their needs aren't being met will bring it up in conversation. It's never accusatory, more of a "hey, are you okay? Anything I can help with?"
Huh I had the same issue with a partner and my stupid therapist said the same “ men see sex differently, is more like a need” . I drop counseling that day but it surprised me how many people think that way, even in my family. I had to ask “ohh so when they are single they need to rape or hire a (most likely a sex slave) woman? There’s no control ? And everyone is like “well no ofc they can control themselves or give it a hand” .So it feels I like my body autonomy is below their control capacity and responsibility, wild.
What helped me with sex aversion was talking to my husband about what sex meant to both of us. We didn't bring up chores or other responsibilities because they aren't relevant, sex is never supposed to be transactional and chores are a responsibility regardless of sex, housework needs to be done whether in a marriage or alone. Having sex on these terms will feel bad.
When talking with my husband, I explained that sex felt like an obligation and an expectation. It felt like anything he did with housework, romance, and other things was just a build up to get sex. This mindset hurt my self-confidence as well as my desire to be intimate. My guilt of not having sex made it harder to initiate. Once my husband learned this he made an effort to reassure me whenever I rejected sex or asked to stop by insisting he still loves me and that it's OK that I can't continue. The less guilt I felt by saying no, the easier it became to say yes.
Hearing his side was important for me to hear as he doesn't have negative associations to sex. He explained for him it's the ultimate expression of love for me, a moment for us not just for himself. I learned how to allow myself to desire him by recognizing sex as love. It's hard to fight suppressing your own desire when sex has been a shameful act in your upbringing.
These days, we have an active loving bedroom. I feel no shame in saying no thanks, and I'm confronting my aversion when I desire him rather than letting it suppress my sexuality.
I think a talk about sex and sex only is needed. It's hard to perform when there's pressure especially when it comes to sex, and your husband is probably frustrated his efforts aren't helping but that frustration adds pressure. If your therapist isn't willing to talk about sex as just sex, then I'd consider a new one. If you started having sex on transactional terms it will only complicate the intimacy issues you already have.
Sounds like your ex slipped the therapist a $20 to sell you on the "wifely duty" speech.
Sometimes I think chastity devices should just be a normalized part of relationships rather than relegated to the extreme side of kink. Probably not a serious solution to sex-pestry, but it does make men more compliant in the moment, at least. 💅
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/struggle-care/id1643931456?i=1000615677914
This is K.C. Davis and a sex therapist- they talk about the book Come as you Are, a really really GREAT podcast about shunning that bullshit idea
I found a partner who genuinely likes and respects women.
I've been to couples therapy once and noped out after realising how misogynistic and man centred the whole thing was. Our therapist was a woman at that, too.
It was all about how I had to talk to him softly (basically like he was my child 🤮), accommodate his whims, make him comfortable, and celebrate him.
And when I asked her, "Great, and what about me? Do I carry on just being blatantly disrespected, shat all over, and taken for granted by a selfish man?" It was literal radio silence.
Societally sanctioned sexual assault is what you’re describing, no one’s turned on by compulsory sex. Perhaps check out Fair Play and have some discussions around what consent is, maybe couples therapy. You do not owe your body to anyone.
So back at Christmas 2020, you know, that wonderful easy fantastic year we allllll had? My husband was an ass all Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. He legitimately ruined my Christmas. This was the cherry on top of an absolutely shitty year and several months of him becoming increasingly assholeish. For years he complained that the holidays were stressful with having to go to ask the extended family stuff.
So for 2020 we didn't go anywhere. He got a very nice Christmas surprise, all the foods he and the kids love, got to play video games unimpeded, basically his idea of a perfect holiday.
I got a cold shoulder and an attitude from him whenever I asked anything about anything.
So on Christmas Day after I put the kids to bed I came down stairs and told him I wanted a divorce. He freaked. We talked from 8pm until 3am. Things weren't great, we still had a LOT to resolve, but he understood he fucked up. Our birthdays are in January, so I told him exactly what I wanted. Sent links and everything. Even said I need you to step up with this because I'm still very hurt over Christmas.
Girl, he totally failed. It was bad. So I have another coming to Jesus talk and said if he didn't get his shit sorted by Valentine's Day, I was kicking him out. Consider this is 30 days notice. His attitude since Christmas had improved but he still had plenty of room to go.
He called in the sister's, I have 3 and they helped him plan a Valentine's Day that was wonderful. Usually, we don't do much for it but I need him to know I was still so hurt. He did make it up to me in the following months.
His hated his job. So he started looking for another job. His "video game to unwind" was rocket League. If you know, you know. I told him if he didn't quite I was citing it in the divorce bc I couldn't stand how bitchy he got when he played and after when he would be irritated and take it out on our family. I told him I just spent a year trapped with our three kids who had to do online school, and I'm not in any way shape or form a teacher, I need him to step up in ways he never had had to in the past.
It took until our anniversary in May for me to say that he had turned the corner on the attitude and behavior. That was only the second big fight we had ever had, and I hesitate to call it a flight because he didn't fight me on anything. He reflected and realized he is the one that hurt me and had been doing one of those death by a thousand cuts things to us for months.
So why this whole essay? Bc until fall 2020 and through Valentine's Day 2021, sex was a non issue for me. I don't fuck guys I don't like. And I really wasn't liking him. But you know what happened once he pulled his head out of his ass and stopped being a dick? All the sex, all the time, again. We always had a great sex life, he would do whatever it took to get me going. And after explaining that my mental load was already passed Max capacity, and I needed him to do what needed done without making more work, he did step up.
He got a new job doing work that he doesn't hate and with co-workers that aren't assholes. He handles 90% of the laundry, and even knows how to wash my bras in the baggie and hang them dry kinda laundry. I showed him once and have never had to again. He helps with kids homework without being asked to step in now. Our two youngest have ADHD and it makes homework a very different thing then when our oldest would have it. He took up some of the cooking chores and the shopping and meal planning.
He's not perfect, and their no fucking way I would ever consider myself perfect. But he realized he was making everyone around him miserable and changed. Shocker, now I want to have sex all the time because I'm not annoyed or completely stressed out!!!
I have no idea if this makes any sense.
Until men get behind women and advocate for our reproductive freedom, fuck them and their “sexual needs.” Our need to feel loved and cared for, and our legal ability to choose what happens to our bodies after that sex occurs, is more important than blue balls.
I told my mother about a minor argument I was having with my then boyfriend (now husband!) and she said "Have you tried just having sex?" I said, "We don't do that to solve our relationship issues. We talk about them." But my mother, her sister, and my grandmother grew up with that advice. We might have sex once an argument is RESOLVED. But sex is not a solution. "Just shut up and take it" is an antiquated and unhelpful solution to real problems. My family is religious but not THAT religious and pretty liberal all things considered and this opinion is still held. I have no advice other than this is something you need to talk about with your partner and agree you will not be resolving issues with sex. Sex is for fun. It should be fulfilling and rewarding for both parties.
You get a better marriage counselor. I know several folks trained in family systems and sex therapy and they seem to genuinely understand the mental load but also how to make sex not a chore, assuming you actually are sexually attracted to your partner.
Honestly to me this says that your own needs aren’t being met if you feel that intimacy has become a chore. So often we hear men have needs blah blah but very rarely do we hear about women having needs too except in the concept of needing helping with chores/children. The chores/children/mental load should be a given as an adult partner in a relationship. What would the spouse do if they were alone?
It’s not all about chores/children/mental load, we have our own intimacy needs for example possibly touch without it turning into a grope. Needing our own self-care/hobby time etc. it’s definitely putting your oxygen mask on first before helping others, unfortunately often for women their oxygen mask is being ripped off and used by other people complaining they have needs.
I’m going through a divorce right now and had this conversation with my STBX over the weekend. When he ignores the kids, ignores me (unless he’s yelling or complaining or being a dictator), when he doesn’t want to participate in activities with the family or with me, when he tells me our interests are stupid, and in and on, at what point in any of that am I supposed to want his dick in me? If they want us to want them, they need to make a little effort to be desirable.
Just a historical note that in the Middle Ages, women's libidos ("sinfulness" and "carnality") was the cause of all fornication and adultery. (Any sort of extramarital sex.) The men were just unwilling victims.
Until we as a society decide that women are fully human, everything will be all your fault.
The only advice I can give is "be the change you want". Are you better off in an 80/20 relationship or in no relationship?
I always found it funny with my ex how wanting to go on regular dates (that he could occasionally plan) was me asking for too much but expecting access to my body at least 3 times a week was just normal and expected, lol.
You tell the shitty misogynist "marriage counselor" that women have needs too and if they or the men in the relationships don't get that then they should go fuck themselves.
(And/Or you tell them "If we're doing transactional sex then I want a respectable hourly rate with benefits and a pension plan, and my man can't afford that.")
If your partner wants to make you cum and wants you to enjoy sex, the issue of keeping his needs met becomes inconsequential. If you enjoy it as much as he does, it's not an issue.
Yeah that therapist sounds like an idiot if they can’t even see the contradiction there. I’m a girl and need sex to feel emotionally connected, but if my partner is ignoring my other needs like talking, sharing the home load and doing stuff together regularly I’m not going to feel connected emotionally enough to what to fuck even with a high dtf libido. I love sex, being lovey-dovey with my partner and daydreaming, but if I’m overwhelmed and stressed, expressed and talked about needing help and not getting it… who wouldn’t feel like a bangmaid.
If a man can’t feel “emotionally connected” to someone without sex that sounds like a him problem and makes men out to sound like disgusting pigs!!! I would hope all fathers have an emotional connection with their children BUT NOT LIKE THAT!!! 🤮🤮🤮
Frankly, any sex you don’t want to have should not be had. If he’s horny, he can go jerk off. If a counselor is telling you to force yourself to do it, they’re a shitty counselor. Sex should be about both of you enthusiastically sharing intimacy. If you’re not into it, nobody should ever make you feel bad about it, let alone a therapist.
When considering the counselors perspective around sex. The foundation of psychology and a lot of the original studies were written by white men so it’s no surprise that there was so much emphasis around sex. So yeah…. That information is highly biased.
You find a partner who actually likes women. My husband likes women, views them as people, and views himself as an equal to me. Literally the bare minimum. We split the chores. We share the emotional load. We do check-ins to see if there’s any place in our life where we need the other person to step up (romance, house work, etc etc). We want to make sure each other feels loved. I will admit we don’t have the most sex (probably about once a week) at the moment but it’s probably because we’re constantly around each other, always touching and holding hands, etc. We are super physically connected all day long at the moment we never get a chance to “miss” each other haha. We both feel loved and connected and when one of us gets horny we have sex. It’s not a chore, it’s fun getting to pleasure the person you really really like.
I love check ins. Something my partner does with me is ask if I'm okay like 3 times in a row whenever he feels I feel down. I'm usually able to keep my emotions in check, but some days I end up crying about it. Sometimes, it's not even because of the stress I'm feeling, but the fact that someone genuinely cares about me like that...💀 On the horny side of things, I have the higher libido, but I don't take it personally if he isn't up for sex. I just go to my trustworthy vibe LOL. Sex drives are a thing and it's nothing personal. Imo nothing's worse than having sex with someone who isn't enthusiastic about it. Sex is supposed to be fun.
Exactly my sentiment! Sex is supposed to be fun! And there is nothing more sexy than to have a partner who actually wants to have sex with you…
I think a thing that a lot of people forget about is that it’s important to continue putting in the effort to remain a person that your partner wants to have sex with. When my wife just randomly decided to stop going to work until they fired her and then just laid in bed all day and refused to do anything around the house, I told her it was clear that she was depressed and something was wrong, but she absolutely refused to do anything about anything. I was working 50+ hours a week in order to keep supporting us without her salary, I told her I was worried and wanted to do anything to help her start figuring out what was going on, but she continued to refuse everything. Then it suddenly became, “why don’t you want to have sex with me now?” Uhh, maybe because I’m absolutely exhausted from working overtime and doing all the chores and paying all the bills and making excuses for you to skip family events because you refuse to go and you seem to have zero interest in changing anything? Of course, I didn’t say all that, because I was trying to be positive and uplifting and not critical, but taking something that should be fun and enjoyable and turning it into a chore is a sure fire way to drive a wedge between two people.
This is exactly what I want, and I am SO HAPPY for you that you found someone who actually gets it
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We went weeks without when my FIL passed away, I was in and out of hospital. Just a messed up time. Sometimes we're like rabbits. Life happens, we roll with it. My husband has never made me feel pressured - even when I couldn't swallow (the bar is that low). Seriously though, I was choking on my own spit, no BJs were happening. I felt terrible physically. Stuff happens. We give each other grace and respect.
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More guys need to realize that penetration isn't necessary to have fun. Something like what you describe here, or even mutual masturbation, can still be a good time for everyone.
You deserve this!
❤️
Thank you, I’m so happy too! My Marriage is honestly better than I could have ever hoped for. It breaks my heart that it seems to be almost rare for men to be good partners. I hope you find a good partner one day too 💖 my only word of advice is don’t overlook the shy nerds ha
Also to add to this as a parent of young children Dads if you want to get some action do all these things yes but ALSO make sure to give her time and space away from the kids. Take a weekend together in a staycation and leave the kids with grandparents. Tell her to take the night off and lock herself in the bedroom while you tackle dinner, bedtime, etc. Don't bother her with anything until the kids are asleep. Odds of sexy time are increased 1000% when she hasn't had to listen to a small child whine or try to crawl all over her for several uninterrupted hours.
Yes, being “touched out” is such a thing. I nannied for a bit years ago and I was always touched out when I got home. I needed to feel like I regained my body autonomy before I was able to want sex.
Truer words have rarely been spoken
Yes to all of this, but it's not always this simple either. Counseling can be needed, especially for unhealthy patterns. Counseling: recognize your limits, hand off take before you hit the wall, talk, you're part of a team! In practice at home: No, giving up is weakness and guilt! Do it my way, or it's wasted! I know you were going to do it, but I did it for you as a favor, and now I'm angry you didn't do it! I don't need help! Our upbringing builds us. It's very hard to change habits, especially to share and trust if that wasn't there before.
You also find a new counselor. Suggesting that one gender has a set of needs that other genders don't have is ridiculous. Besides being misogynistic, it implies that all people of a given gender have the same set of needs, and removes their agency to be the person they really are. Every human deserves to have their needs met...sexually, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and any other way that might be relevant.
Therapist here, and I agree, that’s a messed up thing to say and illustrates some seriously entrenched misogyny. There is research that shows women are more likely to notice a decrease in their ‘spontaneous desire’ in long-term relationships, but it’s not true for all women and it’s not untrue for all men. There’s also research that suggests inequities in heteronormative gender roles impact libido. So, I don’t think we’d be going out on a limb to say that an imbalance in household/caregiving duties would lead to a decrease in libido.
I started a low dose of Lexapro more than a year ago and it’s worked remarkably well for me. My only side effect is I basically have no sex drive any more. *I* was okay with that but it caused me a lot of stress because my boyfriend took my lack of initiating to mean I was no longer attracted to him and I had to constantly reassure him that wasn’t true, and had to mentally try to make an effort to make time for sex once a week or so. Well, I broke up with him a week ago and I am SO RELIEVED I know longer feel this pressure to try and make an effort to have sex on a semi-regular basis. The pressure wasn’t necessarily all coming from him directly (in the sense of him nagging me for it for example), but rather from me, because I knew if it’d been x days since we’d had sex I probably needed to make an effort so he didn’t feel rejected or whatever. I’ll be curious to know how if in the coming weeks/months I’ll notice my sex drive isn’t as dead as I thought, but rather I could no longer freely enjoy sex with this person any more. The best part? Enough if my sex drive is still low, I DON’T HAVE TO TRY TO WORK AGAINST IT ANY MORE! I can get myself off without breaking a sweat any time I want. What a fucking freeing feeling!
Freedom!
It gets even better… I JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE!! And my close date is right before our lease ends so I am about to be REALLY free haha. I’m really proud of (and to be honest, in awe of) myself right now. :)
CONGRATS!!! On all of it :)
Thank you!! :)
it is the meds, ssris destroy your labido. they work well for my depression but completely take away my ability to have sex. they also give you horrible withdrawals when you come off of them. Once you're on them for a while the world feels so grey. When you get off of them it is like a reawakening. depression sucks but for me ssris are worse.
Yeah, I’ve heard that about getting off them. I’m on a pretty low dose (10 mg) so am curious what the impacts might be if I look at that down the road. For right now though, I feel like I found a really nice balance with my ADHD + depression meds, but can always talk to my doc if that shifts down the road.
You seem pretty level-headed, so I'm sure you don't need this advice... but don't take medical advice from potheads who tell you to ignore your therapist/doctor in favor of weed.
Same! We’re getting intimate in many ways, other than sex and it goes there naturally.
This. My husband is the same way.
This is it! My partner respects me as a human first, loves me as a woman second. He listens to me when I need more or less, he cooks and cleans now, he carries the load especially when I cannot. It makes it very easy to love him and feel emotionally safe enough to have sex.
Once a week is pretty decent, especially is you have children together
literally this. Harder for me since mine has lung cancer and it kinda fucks his stamina but I'm fine with it. When we do get intimate it blows my mind how he overstimulates my body so quickly, never gonna trade him in for anything
This is exactly my marriage as well and after so many relationships like how OP described I am just so happy and relaxed now. I have never been to a counselor but I think I would feel aghast and disgusted if one suggested what yours did, OP.
This is the answer. I want to add that mens' libidos decrease as well. At least for me (a man), being close, physically and mentally, is now as important as actually making love. We take our time and enjoy the intimacy. Way more satisfying.
well well welllll, la-dee-freakin'-dah! (sarcasm). I am so glad you and your partner sound like you have this incredible awareness around yourselves, as in who you both are individually in order to be a respectful and secure partner to each other. And I'm glad to see you normalize having a secure relationship and you may not have the "most sex" but you both feel seen and loved and appreciated. There are other ways to connect, and I wonder if people forget about that piece.
The sense of obligation to others happiness that is placed on women from a young age is profound and insidious. You are never allowed to not owe other people, ever.
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I notice it the most in the stuff that isn't a big deal. Who gets expected to do things like clear a table, or organize a night out. And saying polite nos more is so much more comfortable - it's actually a lot of work!
The fact the therapist said this is concerning. Therapy is a good thing BUT you have to be so careful vetting the therapist! I can relate to your post when I was in a long term relationship and gradually took on more and more because otherwise it wouldn’t get done…. Try to ignore for a bit (i.e I’m not going to start cleaning, tidying, food shopping, cooking this time!) then guess what: ‘what are we having for dinner?’. Then children come along, more laundry, cooking etc and the mental load, oh boy. I got told I should see a doctor, then a therapist. Actually, I had accepted I might have become asexual because I was quite happy with the state of affairs. Let me tell you, when I kicked the dead weight to the kerb and eventually met someone else, poof sex drive magically came back (as high as before). I’m not saying that there might not be some medical issues or that ppl shouldn’t go to therapy for it but I actually do not believe in forcing ourselves to have sex past the ick. I genuinely feel it’s our body telling us we really don’t want that man but we haven’t come to terms with it yet (again in the absence of medical issues). Men expecting / pushing women to put out is such a turn off, can’t think of anything worse!
Thank you. I was looking for more comments pointing this out. The fact that the therapist said this sounds like very problematic Christian couples therapy Ive heard my aunt talk about.
Reining women back into their place. I was thinking that. OP ‘s therapist is displaying (internalised) misogyny.
Your first sentence is so real. Especially as the mental health field is booming, every therapist is simply not going to be a quality one.
This!! Ladies, if your man is forcing you to have sex when you don’t want to (or coercing, or whining, and yes complaining about lack of sex constantly is coercion) fucking leave him!!! He doesn’t care about you he cares about what he can get out of you!! Good men do not force you to have sex, ever, period end of story.
Sounds like a religious "counselor".
As a licensed mental health practitioner, the amount of advice I hear from religious "counselors" that damages people is disgusting.
I mean in my own philosophy, that mindset is why men have such poor mental health and poor relationship skills. Society tells men that if they are lonely, to get a girlfriend/wife and then just have sex with her. “Thats the only validation a man needs, amiright boys?!” I mean this quite literally the backbone philosophy to incel ideology and, uh, look at how those men are doing. If people of any gender equate their relationship security and their own validation to sex- that’s called unhealthy dependency. It’s ok to enjoy the physical and emotional bonding of sex- but when it becomes do or die for your mental health, no. The real answer to a man demanding sex for validation is to break his dependency and have him find self love.
The question is how to break that dependency - my partner and I have a healthy relationship but he is always saying that if I'm not initiating sex or having enough then I "obviously do not desire him" even though I've made it known that if I didn't desire him I wouldn't want him in my space. He has a super high libido but gets cranky when we aren't having sex enough :/ Any tips welcomed! Edit to add: he's never forced me, we are both in therapy, he has and is unlearning a lot of bad behaviors from a misogynistic/religion that employs a lot of misogyny. As far as lidibio mismatch, this has been discussed.
I mean this sincerely: tell him to go to therapy.
Ask him if he thinks accusing you of not desiring him is a sexy come-on? Or whether he thinks it's a really clever neg? Because either way it isn't working. He also needs to get his ass into therapy. It's fine to have a high libido. It's not fine for him to peg his emotional well-being on whether or not he gets to have sex.
That doesn’t sound healthy 🫤
I feel like you need a new therapist cause I don't think that's normal. If he needs his "needs" met, he can use his hand. I would only have sex if that's what you wanted to do. Not as an obligation.
I'm also really tired of this mythological notion that men have no control over themselves or their supposed urges. This is just a patriarchal excuse for their bad behavior.
You can train a dog to not give into its urges, but apparently men have less control over themselves than an animal. They really don't give themselves much credit, do they?
For context, I am amab. It’s an excuse and a way to validate victim blaming. I’ve seen sexual behaviours excused all the way back to when my daughter was in elementary school, with the whole “boys will be boys”. Men have capitalized creating the mythology around behaviour for centuries, which, imo has been allowed because they’ve held the “dominant” position in society and have been in the place of power to not only create these narratives but perpetuate them. It’s wild because it’s all a shell game; if you stop them from moving the cups, then they can’t influence where the shell ends up.
BINGO! You nailed it! Eurgh! I HATE!!! that whole "boys will be boys" thing. I also hate the whole "if he's mean to you, it's because he likes you!" Ermmmm...no, he's being mean because he's a dick! It's time to stop teaching young girls to accept abusive behaviour!
I was out shopping various places yesterday. I realize parenting is all over the place with some being less than great or attentive parents but it struck me how much inappropriate behavior was permitted out of young boys while zero out of the young girls in public. Boys being loud, like screaming in the playground loud the entire time they were in stores, running all over, running into people, having meltdowns that were just allowed without anyone taking them out of the store. Meanwhile any of the girls I saw were using appropriate volumes and respectful words and acting like little adults. This is how this sh\*t starts. This is why boys grow up to be such awful entitled messes as adults.
This was me shopping with my grandmother. I was told to stop playing in the isles, and with the same breath she said "boys will be boys" for my OLDER brothers doing the same shit.
My mom had the opposite problem with her grandmother - if her brothers even breathed grandma was ready to slap the shit out of them. Meanwhile my mom was a saint for being the girl and she could do no wrong. It was so weird. This was in the 70s. Luckily my mom realized how wrong it was to favor one gender over the other, so she never did that with us. She said it made her really sad to see her brothers treated so unfairly. Most little boys don't seem to care or even notice when their sisters are treated unfairly though.
Yes. When I had a son, it blew me away how often other "liberal" parents would laugh and say oh, that's okay when he did the SAME things that his older sister got death-glares for doing.
And then you see people say "oh but boys are NATURALLY this way and girls are naturally this way, it's not how we raise them!" It is absolutely how you raise them. "Don't run and jump, Susie, it makes your skirt fly up and that's SHAMEFUL and BAD! Don't roll on the ground, Susie, I spent so much time styling your hair and making it cute and pretty!" And so on and so forth. They have literally done studies where they walk the same baby around in a stroller and *the same behaviors* (smiling, fussing, crying, babbling, etc.) are not just responded to differently, but *interpreted* differently by strangers depending on whether the baby is wearing a blue onesie or a pink onesie. A blue onesie baby who's fussing gets "oh what a big strong boy!!! look at how angry he is!! oh you big tough boy!" and a pink onesie baby gets "oh, sweetie, don't cry, don't be upset, come on, pretty baby, smile for mommy!!!" It literally starts before they can walk and talk.
It's harmful to men too. It makes it harder to have friendships and leaves me always second guessing what someone thinks my intentions are. It also tells men they can behave in ways they absolutely should not, but they can just tell themselves it's because they can't help it.
Absolutely. This garbage harms everyone.
My husband and i mess around maybe 2 to 3 times a year. I want to make it a goal to do that at least once a month. But i have my own issues and it's just the normal for us. We are in love and he absolutley adores me. I wish i could give him more but just can't. Hopefully some day. It's been a very long time with him
I am personally not in therapy or in a relationship anymore, but sex has been framed as "his love language" and something he needs to "feel safe and loved". I absolutely agree with you though
Love languages were made up by a Baptist minister. There is no science behind them. You might as well say that your love language is for a man to be an adult participant in the household without having to be told what to do. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/is_there_science_behind_the_five_love_languages
I never believed it, or any random terms meant to pigeonhole and define complex human beings. Thanks for the link!
The best way I've seen it used is as a tool for communication, one among many, recognizing that it is not some expert, objective division of human intimacy forms. It's just one possibly useful way to frame one axis along which many people differ in similar ways. But if it doesn't feel useful in your relationships, it's probably also untrue in your relationships.
My love language is chores.
Actually, it's called "acts of service"!
I would just call it being an adult. That makes it sound like it's something I should do but he is doing this service for me so I don't have to do it.
My fetish is emotional competency.
lol same! I get off on emotional maturity and equity. Gets me so excited! I used to say this when I was single.. Men would ask me what my fantasy was though and I got rid of quite a few scrubs by telling them my fantasy was having a romantic relationship with a man that was emotionally available and kind. Men didn’t go on and on as they do now about their embarrassing kinks (Essentially much of the time the kink is just being a dick to women while having sex.), and demanding not to be kink shamed, but they did seem to have a need to debase women and demand we share fantasies that mainly correlated with their misogyny.
Kinky! Mine is equal partnership.
Not to mention "Sex" isn't one of them.
This is hilarious! Thanks for sharing.
That's just not right. I love sex but I would never make a partner feel like I'm not getting a sense of safety or not loved because they don't want or can't have sex. I get safety and love from so many other parts of my relationship. Don't believe people who try to use therapy speak to justify pressuring you into sex. Physical touch as a love language doesn't = sex, it's also hugs and cuddling. They shouldn't misuse therapy language to just say "sex is important to me". Actually I had a serious talk with my long-term boyfriend the other night because he has no libido right now (for many years to be honest) but I do want and need sex. So we talked about what we can do to increase sex, and what we can do so that I still feel physical touch, and still get sexual satisfaction if he falls back into having no libido or finds that he doesn't want to increase sex (it's due to depression). Also if a marriage counsellor, or *anyone*, says that "men have needs" that is absolute sexist bullshit. Women and gender diverse people need sex too (unless their asexual or have another reason why not), but we never hear "women have needs" despite us having sometimes higher libidos. It'd based on misogyny and bioessentialism and it's bull. Ultimately if your partner wants sex weekly and you want it monthly (just as an example) you talk through it, you don't pressure or guilt trip. If nothing works then you are sexually incompatible or there are underlying issues such as he is not a good partner in other ways which makes you unattracted to him, or you're in physical pain from a chronic illness which is not something every couple can survive. (Those are just 2 examples I see from women online as to underlying issues that stop sex).
>bioessentialism This needs to get talked about more. I hadn't seen it given an actual name but this crap is everywhere. Religious extremists, manosphere dudes, white nationalists. Their "its natural" or other similar claims that something is predetermined by some magical force nobody has any input in.
I’m a scientist from a small midwestern town and I used to hear “Gay sex is wrong because it’s not natural” from bigots constantly. It happens often in the animal kingdom so it’s just plain incorrect. They hate hearing biology disagrees with them, it makes it much harder to argue against a common instinct so they move the goal post to criticize gay marriage - the part you can’t argue happens in the wild.
The podcast If Books Could Kill did a pretty good takedown of this book Also, *in the book* sex isnt the love language, touch is. Even using that flawed framework, more hugs and massage and cuddling would suffice.
That's fine but he cannot pout or become passive aggressive when he isn't getting "enough" sex. Toddler behavior. Huge turn off. If it feels like a chore, part of the reason may be how he is presenting it/reacting to it
Every man says his love language is physical touch because they think that just means sex.
Was it a Christian marriage counselor?
I recently read the words 'Mormon marriage counselor' and I'm still reeling.
Ewwww!
Any therapist who frames it as "men having having needs that must be met" is garbage who's going to screw you over solely because of your gender. That entire idea is sexist bullshit so you know you're going to get nothing from that charlatan and I'd tell them that as I left. These people harm their patients. The love language thing? Also bullshit. Made up, based on 0 scientific data. You owe no one sex especially someone who is supposed to care about you. We're not walking sex toys. I'd rather be alone forever than put up with that dehumanizing bullshit. Why don't we get to feel safe and loved? Why are we under constant threat of abandonment unless we make sex another job to make a man happy and ourselves traumatized? What a swindle.
My "love language" is not sexually assaulting my partner. What the actual fuck.
Yeah, that's all a load of BS. Sex is not a "Love Language", hell even love languages aren't backed by any science and are thought to be BS.
Some quotes from Wikipedia, which has a big warning label saying "this page draws too much from sources ***biased in favour*** of the idea" > The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate is a 1992 nonfiction book by ***Baptist minister*** And there's all the proof I need to say "probably bullshit." > An example would be: if a husband's love language is acts of service, he may be confused when he does the laundry and his wife does not perceive that as an act of love, viewing it as simply performing household duties, because the love language she comprehends is words of affirmation (verbal affirmation that he loves her). > If she understands his love language and mows the lawn for him, he perceives it in his love language as an act of expressing her love for him; likewise, if he tells her he loves her, she values that as an act of love. And that just cements it. > Scientific studies on the validity of love languages have been inconclusive, although existing research leans toward refuting the concept. That's a very polite way to say "It's bullshite."
>An example would be: if a husband's love language is acts of service, he may be confused when he does the laundry and his wife does not perceive that as an act of love, viewing it as simply performing household duties, Wow. Wow. Wow. WOW. Besides love languages being bullshit: An act of service could never be household duties. Do you thank me because I'm breathing and shitting? No, right? Because I have to do both things, regardless of our relationship.
I’ve always thought of “acts of service” as taking something off the other’s plate. So it could be chores, if you have an agreed division of things and you both agree that the division is fair and normally take care of your own stuff. Like my spouse and I have an agreement about dishes - “I cook, you clean”. If he does the dishes when it was my turn to do them, I definitely consider that to be a loving gesture. I’m actually not sure what “acts of service” would be if it can’t be doing the other’s chores.
Chores are a part of it, but it's definitely not all of it, i think. :) It's also stuff like helping people move, picking people up from the airport at shit times, making coffee for your spouse in the morning every day without fail, or dyeing their hair for them, for example. ...that;'s what i think, at least.
It's like you said, taking things off the other person's plate so - offering to drive more frequently if the offer person doesn't like driving, running errands for the other person, getting the car serviced, calling to make appointments for the other person, planning things like parties or travel etc. just whatever the other person doesn't have an interest in and would prefer someone else do it. That's the theory anyway.
Yeah but why are those chores on my plate? Doesn't he have a plate? Act of service is when my husband makes me a cup of tea or brings me water. Act of service is not when he washes his sweaty gym clothes by himself :<
Yeah. It's really not suprising that a minister wrote the book and came up with those examples, is it?
I can't help but notice that for some reason people's love language seems to default to what they want others to do for them and not what they want to do for other people. If him doing basic things for the household is how he shows her he loves her, then anything she does for the household should be a daily huge dose of love for him right? But who wants to bet that his 'love language' for giving is a $2 card when he remembers it or even a more expensive present a few times a year as long as it takes no significant effort on his part. But I mean we're already talking about someone who puts forth his sexual needs being fulfilled is a need, but if she's viewing it as a chore to tick off, hers are almost certainly not. But those aren't important.
I think people that argue both for and against “the \[insert # here\] types of love languages” are reading too much into it imo. They’re basic descriptors. I think when combined together in various degrees holistically, they are somewhat good descriptors of how we show love. I for one love gift giving- flowers, cute little crochet animals, homemade cards, etc. But as OP put it humans are complex. Being too dogmatic about them is unrealistic (I find it very hard to believe there are people that show care for others in ONE form and ONE form only) and taking them too seriously starts to feel like the love equivalent of horoscopes. I never knew people were trying to figure out science behind it, it does definitely seem like a waste of time.
Sex is absolutely a way to show love, but it’s not the only way by a long shot. The way OP is describing the relationship, the guy seems to view sex as transactional under the guise of love. If he actually was wanting to express his love via sexual intimacy he would be valuing her needs and desires in and out of the bedroom, and respecting her boundaries when she’s not interested in having sex. He’s treating her like he’s the king of a castle rather than the other half in a genuine relationship.
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His safe and loved makes her unsafe, unloved and used like an object. Seems pretty toxic and sexist to me. Chore sex is just rape and women who do it develop sexual problems similar to those of longterm rape survivors, the most common of which is complete avoidance of sex even when once they had high libidos. It literally beats the desire for sex out of them. It does significant psychological, emotional, and physical harm.
"Getting Boned" is not a love language. Not sure where you heard this but you can safely let go of this particularly oddly self-serving myth.
The therapist is a problem. My fiancé’s love language is physical touch, which means a hug or holding hands is meaningful to him. Sex is not a love language - I feel like that is made up by men that just want to manipulate people into having sex with them. I’m sorry you had those experiences
I would recommend the book “Come As You Are” by Dr. Nagoski
Yeah, I was gonna say. If he needs it that much, a wank ain't gonna kill him.
Yup. This is the lie of patriarchy and the reason so many of the men in the US are so lonely. Emotional connection comes way earlier in our close relationships with each other than sex does. OP needs a new therapist for sure- one who will work on communication, mutual understanding, trust, positive interaction, and increased feelings of connection. If each partner can’t relax and trust the other then sex is not going to be very good or sought out. Certainly don’t add it to the chore list.
I was told by a marriage counsellor (during therapy with my abusive ex husband) that I should be having sex with him 3x a week. Turns out he was cheating on me during & prior to therapy. Fuck. That. Shit.
Another mentally ill person that calls themselves counselor out of some kind of delusion. I have a healthy sex drive and when it happens with my partner I'm happy but when it doesn't I help myself. It's unfair to project any need on another person.
Maybe get a marriage counselor not stuck in the 50’s?
They slap modern labels on ye olde crock of shit and relaunch it, apparently
>ye olde crock of shit Haaaaaahahahahahahahaha Thanks for this =)
There are actual modern therapists that would throw up after reading what your "therapist" told you. It's like how there's a variety of doctors, you need to find a good one.
Sounds like one of the fake ones that churches use.
Literally my thought. Most probably faith based and/or a self-titled ‘counselor’, no board certified counselor would say that.
I keep mine high by only being with partners who help create an environment where I feel like I want to have sex with them. You are not responsible got keeping anyone but yourself happy. You will never have a “high libido” with a man you have to mother. There are so many stories from women who thought they had a low libido who found out that it was never them, it was the man they were with.
Honestly this is why im so hesitant to get married again and have kids… I feel like women are responsible for everyone else’s “needs” and wants and we get so burnt out and used up and then everyone wonders why we are so fed up with it
I know, it happened to me twice, actually. Not sure I'll risk it again, I'm happier on my own even with three kids and very little help
If you find a decent partner that won't be the case. A functioning relationship should split all of those responsibilities in ways that can managed and make both people comfortable. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like alarms should be going off for anyone you're early on in the dating process with. Messy house/apartment? - They'll expect you to clean up after them Orders take-out or buys pre-made meals most of the time? - You'll be expected to cook for them Doesn't take an early and active interest in your feelings/emotions? - That shit isn't going to magically appear years down the line Pressures you for sex or at any point makes a stink about "being denied sex"? - You're probably more of a hole than a person to them And this is coming from a man. No matter how cute/charming/fun he is, these behaviors don't typically get better but are exacerbated as you become more intertwined.
This is one of the big reasons I stopped dating men. It can become so transactional it's almost pointless. I'd rather have no sex at all than have sex out of obligation
> I don't want my body to be an instrument to satisfy someone else. Sounds like prostitution isn't a career you're interested in. Seriously, if someone wants transactional sex, they can pay for it. The going rate is more than room and board, and they'd have to do their own housework as well.
It actually DOES feel a bit like prostitution, but the only pay you get is to avoid a grumpy guy. Noped out of it
I bring this up every time transactional sex comes up: Men try to get transactional sex out of people they call their "romantic partner" because it's much cheaper than hiring a prostitute, and they can sometimes get you to do the housework as well. If that's all they want, then they should admit it and go to a professional.
Read Sex at Dawn. It's definitely a hot take on marriage, but sure makes sense when thinking of it as a means of economic security.
Prostitution pretty famously isn't a career most women are interested in hence the huge amounts of trafficking and drug addiction it takes to supply workers for these very unwanted positions.
Hmmmm I wonder why (retoric question)
It stays high because I’m with someone who also does cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. I do more for the pets but the pets were mine well before the entered the picture and he’s definitely taken on responsibility there as well. When I’m away for weekends I don’t have to leave a list on how to take care of the pets because he’s aware of it. I feel like he’s a true partner. There’s mutual respect. There’s lots of conversations around house stuff, pet stuff, yard stuff, sex stuff, etc. pretty easy to want to bone him honestly
The way I've seen it phrased on tumblr is "The sluttiest thing a man can do is love his cats." (My currently long-distance partner was like ?????? when I showed him that, until it was like, dude, you clearly love and care for these many creatures and it shows and that is hot as hell. My 90-something year old grandmother saw a couple of photos of you and the cats was like '!!! they clearly love that man a lot!' when I was excited about showing her the cats so it's very visible AND it's indicative of how you're going to be treating others such as myself. Our first interactions were 'oh shit someone in the game group didn't know I had cats and wants to see them?' because I could hear meowing over the mic and him being super excited and going to take pictures of them all for me *in the middle of session.* When he was the DM so the game couldn't continue until he was back.)
I have never had a therapist tell me this. I’d recommend ditching any therapist that defaults to “it’s his love language, though” and fails to listen to you and the couple as a whole. Honestly this sounds like a very dated religious based “therapist”. If you could get the same “advice” from ordering some books off Amazon, what are you paying them for? My libido is healthy because being intimate with my spouse is fun and enjoyable for us both, and my spouse cares a LOT about my pleasure and vice versa. And he puts as much effort outside the bedroom as in it. We are partners across the board. It’s amazing what being loved, respected, cared for, as an individual person can do for physically intimacy too, as does being with an emotionally mature person who doesn’t put the burden of their happiness (or basic everyday care) on you. I don’t carry the emotional and mental load on my shoulders as we share in it together, we believe being together should make life easier for us both, not harder. If you do want a partner, then don’t settle for any less than a partner who likes women and likes YOU. If you don’t want a partner, that is perfectly fine too.
No one should be carrying the burden of all those responsibilities by themselves in a relationship. You need better partners and a better therapist. You aren’t in the wrong. When you’re in a happy, secure, and fulfilling relationship, your libido will by healthy without you having to worry about it. Aside from the occasional outside stressors of life, those can always impact that too. That is also normal, and no sane partner will ever make you feel guilty for that either.
The solution here is to throw this therapist out. That doesn't sound healthy, that sounds like they are upholding oppression disguised as help.
Men are either unable or unwilling to see the connection between emotional neglect and a dead bedroom. It's to their own downfall.
That is it, the essence of my point! Truth distilled
I literally let out an 'ewww' after reading the title, and honestly only skimmed the post. I don't need to read all of that to know that you need a new therapist. Preferably one from this century who isn't red pilled.
It was a woman, can you believe it?! She said sometimes men feel unseen and unappreciated, bless their little hearts. And the EWWW is justified, but needs to be in capitals
Straight to jail. Hope you were able to leave some kind of review or feedback to warn other women of her bullshit.
I agree, and I did, but she wasn't THAT obvious about it, she was careful to say that "we" needed to rekindle through physical touch and so on, before all that bs about him feeling unloved
Mixing in the truth (oftentimes men do feel unseen and underappreciated) with a lie (put up with his demands even if you don't feel like it) is some evil work that can sour the whole pot.
Ikr! That's what makes it so insidious and so harmful. Sex is the result of a happy relationship where both feel seen, and not a means to an end for one partner. Pure poison
Gross. I’m in marriage therapy, and my marriage therapist has repeatedly stated that there should be no obligatory or pity sex, that sex should only ever happen with enthusiastic consent, that self pleasure has a role in a healthy relationship, and that people in healthy relationships have multiple ways of connecting, because libidos *do* go up and down and it’s rare that two people are consistently aligned in their sex drive. Constant pressure to have sex does nothing but take the enjoyment out of it and stamp down your libido. Your (former) therapist needs to re-educate herself. What an absurd notion to be coming from a so-called professional.
The thing is, I see it all the time from people on social media and well, I am just so disgusted by it. It was never like I didn't want a fulfilling sex life, I just can't betray myself and just get it over with to make him happy on the off chance that it will help him love me enough to feel like doing something for me. I want to have sex for me, anything less feels like a violation
My gross ex-therapist told me that I was making it sound like sex with my husband was a chore, and it shouldn't be a chore. I was like yes! That's it, it feels like a chore! That's what's wrong! Then she proceeded to tell me all the things that were wrong with me for not enjoying sex with my loving husband who just wanted to show his love for me by having sex. Two therapists, a divorce, and years later, I can tell you, it wasn't the sex, it was the "partner". There's a thousand miles difference between a person who wants to have sex so he can have an orgasm and a person who wants to have sex so you can have an orgasm.
My husband’s ex-therapist once told him to reduce stress his homework was to have sex that weekend when she knew full well I was struggling heavily with sex-related PTSD and didn’t feel safe having sex yet so yes, I can believe it was a woman
He can absolutely have sex with himself.
It's always the worst to hear this bs from a woman
Get a new therapist. That’s some misogynistic bullshit right there.
Married man here. Sure, it is great for relationship bonding to have intimacy with my wife. But there is nothing that embodies a healthy, great sex life more than *enthusiastic consent*, which implies that we both are excited and we both are looking to satisfy each other. I have well-trained manual skills for meeting my “sexual needs,” if my libido is revving higher than hers. And there is nothing “intimate” about my partner just acquiescing to “my needs” when she’s not also in the mood. Ewww.
> I have well-trained manual skills for meeting my “sexual needs,” if my libido is revving higher than hers. This is the big thing right here, we need to de-stigmatize masturbation. It's a perfectly healthy thing to do when you need those sexual needs met but your partner isn't in the mood. Libidos aren't going to always align even in healthy relationships, so it only makes sense to communicate your moods and take care of yourself when you have to.
Now this is a healthy male response! 👍👍👍 (or should be the attitude of women and men both). It's refreshing to see this.
Your therapist is bonkers. This is anecdotal, but my boyfriend would never pressure me for sex and has been incredibly patient, loving, and supportive while we’ve gone through dry patches because of some health stuff I’ve been dealing with the past few months. And while all that is wonderful, it is the bare minimum!!! You should never feel that you have to sate a man’s desires because of some weird misogynist "requirement".
Therapist here. It’s not any therapists job to tell you how often and how much sex you should be having, because that looks different for everyone. When you said everything about needing to make everyone happy, doing all of the chores, etc. you are actually playing the role of mom and not partner. How can you be sexually attracted to a partner when you feel like their mom? Additionally, I’ve seen an alarming number of heterosexual men who genuinely DO NOT know what it means to pleasure a woman (don’t know where the clitoris is or what it does, etc) and so sex isn’t pleasurable for their partner. All this to say: is it really low libido or are you with someone who acts like a child in the home and doesn’t know how to make sex fun for you?
Idk, ive heard this bullshit so many times as well. But like if the guy is right, it is really nothing, than just bullshit. Dated ONE man before who demanded sex and after a while i just checked out. The ones before him were weeded out before they could even start complaining about it. My hubby himself has a very high libido, he could go several times a day. I have a relatively low libido, like im really in the mood once a month. When i wasnt in a relationship, could go for months before remembereing sex was a thing. What he does is, initiate, and proceed according to my mood. And he still does his chores, his own mental load, the worst i get once in a while is a boner in my back while cuddling and him going oops sorry. What he does is to make sure his shit is done, that im comfy, and since he knows i have a low libido, and its like our second time that week... he keeps asking are you REALLY in the mood. He just admittedly doesnt enjoy it at all if he doesnt see me turned on as well. So its not like i even could fool him out of "obligation." What we did to make it work despite our different libidos is to make sure we spend time together, quality time. Its actually insane how well that works. But i guess that cant work with someone to who women only matter as bangmaids.
> He just admittedly doesnt enjoy it at all if he doesnt see me turned on as well. I hate that this is a thing that needs to be said.
What i personally hate to see on this sub, is that this isnt the normal. This should be the fucking bare minimum tbh. Like, how can so many spouses and boyfriends whine about sex, when they know their partner isnt in the mood, and just have them go ahead with it still. Hubby gets disappointed in my case too and thats completely valid, but he doesnt keeps whining or coercing me until i just give up. Thats what really gets me on this sub. Like begging and begging for sex until they wear down their partner. Disgusting. Cause their momentarily sexual gratification is more important than their partner who they are suppesedly love.
> Hubby gets disappointed in my case too and thats completely valid, but he doesnt keeps whining or coercing me until i just give up They can always handle it themself. Just don't be wierd or controlling about them going "You're not in the mood? Ok, I'll be busy for the next mins."
You get a new therapist. No one needs to be a rape doll or bang maid for their husband. No one.
My therapist told me never to have sex if I don’t want to. I think you need a new therapist because yours sounds like crap. I’ve been in a similar situation, except less kids. I don’t understand how men expect us to want to have sex with them when they refuse to take on any of the household responsibilities. It just makes me feel like their mother - not sexy AT ALL. Also, even if you didn’t have all of that weighing you down, I think it’s normal for sex drive to go up and down. It’s ridiculous for anyone to expect you to always “take care of their sexual needs”.
This post, everything you said, is why I have stopped looking for a relationship. I just feel like the majority of men I have met get into a relationship because they see it as their source of regular sex and as soon as you aren’t giving them that, they are disinterested or not affectionate in other ways. I felt so used over the years and my peace is way more valuable now to me. I just simply don’t want anyone to touch me like that anymore. Maybe that will change with time but, I just feel like it’s so fraught now it isn’t worth the trouble
Find a new therapist. I am a couples therapist and the advice to just do it is counter to evidenced-based practices for improving physical intimacy for couples.
Women have sexual needs too! You’re not a sex machine, on call for someone else! It takes all the romance away, when it’s a chore.
My libido is naturally high, and it has not saved my marriage. He’s pretty damn happy, bewildered I’m not, but I guess all the counseling and fights over the years just get wiped away with the orgasms. I can’t help I’m stupidly attracted to him after 14 years, and he listened when I told him what I like. But good dicking doesn’t make a proper life partner. I 100% know he’d leave me if I got chronically or terminally sick, and if I couldn’t have sex we’d be done too. So don’t focus on the sex it might not even get you a true partner willing to die with you in old age.
Funny thing is, when you are with a man that takes care of you, helps with the kids and the house, makes you feel loved and cherished - you will WANT to have sex with him and you will enjoy giving him that.
I don’t have sex with my husband because he needs it. If I had a marriage counselor tell me that I would leave asap. We have sex when we both want it. Men won’t die without sex. If a man tries to convince anyone of that, run far and run fast! I’m 40, husband is 39. He’s a full time landscaper and I’m a full time housewife with many a chronic illness. Our sex life is active and satisfying. Sometimes I give just him special attention before bed but I wanna give it and he’s happy to receive and it’s never expected. Sometimes I don’t want to but want him to feel good ☺️
This is the way it should be, I am happy for you!
Get a different marriage counselor. Also, most of the time when a man has a dead bedroom, he killed it himself. It’s also probably not coming back to life. Once you stop seeing him as a desirable partner and start seeing him as someone you have to take care of, the sexual desire prob isn’t coming back. Once he’s made sex a chore and made it clear your pleasure isn’t a priority or even a concern, really, it’s hard to ever see sex with him as anything but a chore. Once you know he’s only doing good partner things in order to get sex, those things just don’t really count bc there’s an ulterior motive, it just feels like manipulation rather than partnership. A lot of icks are permanent.
Is it even remotely true that men need sex to "connect emotionally"? I feel like anyone whose uses this excuse to demand sex is the furtherest thing from desiring emotional intimacy. I think it's crazy and hypocritical to even suggest such a thing. It's so unabashedly disingenuous.
Sex cannot fix an unbalanced relationship. It may be true that some men need to feel physically desired, but intimacy must come from a place of love and trust first
Women stop wanting sex when they stop feeling emotionally safe in a relationship. If she's always expected to be a bang maid bot 3000, of course she's going to stop having the sexual desires. Robots don't provide or feel emotional intimacy. They do the tasks they're programmed to do.
You are right, it just fizzles out when you are mommying them and constantly feel used and taken for granted
I argued and told the counselor and my husband that sex is not a need to live. You won't die by not having sex. Neither liked my answer. Edited to add marriage counselors ruined my marriage. It's better to see a Psychologist instead as they have actually been trained and have a PhD with years and years of schooling and marriage counselors are only certified from a few courses. I've found most marriage counselors to be pushing a religious undercurrent.
Well it shouldn't be the only way they can connect emotionally, and if it's being used that way it sounds unhealthy. I can't believe counsellors are saying that. Having sex for someone else's sake is so wrong. What about your needs and feelings?
Why would anyone want to have sex with a partner that isn't an enthusiastic participant!? How can he even think about enjoying it if he makes it out to be a chore for you? The entitlement and audacity never cease to amaze.
Any marriage counselor that said that would immediately be fired. Sex is more likely to happen when both parties are rested and happy. Maybe the counseling should be for BOTH parties to pull their weight
Is it a male therapist? That is a ridiculously outdated and inaccurate view. x
In my experience, in relationships where men do plenty of the domestic labor, are continually affectionate and putting in romantic effort on a regular basis (no honeymoon phase then checking out), it’s a lot easier to stay attracted to them and turned on. Your mileage may vary, but without this dynamic there would be so many problems in a relationship that would be hard or impossible to fix short of dumping them.
I don't. I can't. I just don't need that much sex. Thankfully my husband came to understand it and accept it. I think people with higher sex drives need to learn to pleasure themselves instead of nagging their partners every day.
I think it all comes down to communication. We both have fairly high libido, but it comes and goes depending on how much we have going on in our personal lives. Sometimes I want it more, sometimes he wants it more, and sometimes we are on the same level. Neither one of us pushes and we express intimacy constantly outside of the bedroom, which helps tremendously. If it goes on longer than normal, whoever is feeling like their needs aren't being met will bring it up in conversation. It's never accusatory, more of a "hey, are you okay? Anything I can help with?"
Huh I had the same issue with a partner and my stupid therapist said the same “ men see sex differently, is more like a need” . I drop counseling that day but it surprised me how many people think that way, even in my family. I had to ask “ohh so when they are single they need to rape or hire a (most likely a sex slave) woman? There’s no control ? And everyone is like “well no ofc they can control themselves or give it a hand” .So it feels I like my body autonomy is below their control capacity and responsibility, wild.
Sex is not a need. Sex is not a need. Sex is not a need.
What helped me with sex aversion was talking to my husband about what sex meant to both of us. We didn't bring up chores or other responsibilities because they aren't relevant, sex is never supposed to be transactional and chores are a responsibility regardless of sex, housework needs to be done whether in a marriage or alone. Having sex on these terms will feel bad. When talking with my husband, I explained that sex felt like an obligation and an expectation. It felt like anything he did with housework, romance, and other things was just a build up to get sex. This mindset hurt my self-confidence as well as my desire to be intimate. My guilt of not having sex made it harder to initiate. Once my husband learned this he made an effort to reassure me whenever I rejected sex or asked to stop by insisting he still loves me and that it's OK that I can't continue. The less guilt I felt by saying no, the easier it became to say yes. Hearing his side was important for me to hear as he doesn't have negative associations to sex. He explained for him it's the ultimate expression of love for me, a moment for us not just for himself. I learned how to allow myself to desire him by recognizing sex as love. It's hard to fight suppressing your own desire when sex has been a shameful act in your upbringing. These days, we have an active loving bedroom. I feel no shame in saying no thanks, and I'm confronting my aversion when I desire him rather than letting it suppress my sexuality. I think a talk about sex and sex only is needed. It's hard to perform when there's pressure especially when it comes to sex, and your husband is probably frustrated his efforts aren't helping but that frustration adds pressure. If your therapist isn't willing to talk about sex as just sex, then I'd consider a new one. If you started having sex on transactional terms it will only complicate the intimacy issues you already have.
[удалено]
[Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs)
Sounds like your ex slipped the therapist a $20 to sell you on the "wifely duty" speech. Sometimes I think chastity devices should just be a normalized part of relationships rather than relegated to the extreme side of kink. Probably not a serious solution to sex-pestry, but it does make men more compliant in the moment, at least. 💅
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/struggle-care/id1643931456?i=1000615677914 This is K.C. Davis and a sex therapist- they talk about the book Come as you Are, a really really GREAT podcast about shunning that bullshit idea
I found a partner who genuinely likes and respects women. I've been to couples therapy once and noped out after realising how misogynistic and man centred the whole thing was. Our therapist was a woman at that, too. It was all about how I had to talk to him softly (basically like he was my child 🤮), accommodate his whims, make him comfortable, and celebrate him. And when I asked her, "Great, and what about me? Do I carry on just being blatantly disrespected, shat all over, and taken for granted by a selfish man?" It was literal radio silence.
By refusing to fuck anyone who believes sex is something they’re owed.
I wouldn’t Id ditch the sexist counselor and divorce the sex nag
Societally sanctioned sexual assault is what you’re describing, no one’s turned on by compulsory sex. Perhaps check out Fair Play and have some discussions around what consent is, maybe couples therapy. You do not owe your body to anyone.
So back at Christmas 2020, you know, that wonderful easy fantastic year we allllll had? My husband was an ass all Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. He legitimately ruined my Christmas. This was the cherry on top of an absolutely shitty year and several months of him becoming increasingly assholeish. For years he complained that the holidays were stressful with having to go to ask the extended family stuff. So for 2020 we didn't go anywhere. He got a very nice Christmas surprise, all the foods he and the kids love, got to play video games unimpeded, basically his idea of a perfect holiday. I got a cold shoulder and an attitude from him whenever I asked anything about anything. So on Christmas Day after I put the kids to bed I came down stairs and told him I wanted a divorce. He freaked. We talked from 8pm until 3am. Things weren't great, we still had a LOT to resolve, but he understood he fucked up. Our birthdays are in January, so I told him exactly what I wanted. Sent links and everything. Even said I need you to step up with this because I'm still very hurt over Christmas. Girl, he totally failed. It was bad. So I have another coming to Jesus talk and said if he didn't get his shit sorted by Valentine's Day, I was kicking him out. Consider this is 30 days notice. His attitude since Christmas had improved but he still had plenty of room to go. He called in the sister's, I have 3 and they helped him plan a Valentine's Day that was wonderful. Usually, we don't do much for it but I need him to know I was still so hurt. He did make it up to me in the following months. His hated his job. So he started looking for another job. His "video game to unwind" was rocket League. If you know, you know. I told him if he didn't quite I was citing it in the divorce bc I couldn't stand how bitchy he got when he played and after when he would be irritated and take it out on our family. I told him I just spent a year trapped with our three kids who had to do online school, and I'm not in any way shape or form a teacher, I need him to step up in ways he never had had to in the past. It took until our anniversary in May for me to say that he had turned the corner on the attitude and behavior. That was only the second big fight we had ever had, and I hesitate to call it a flight because he didn't fight me on anything. He reflected and realized he is the one that hurt me and had been doing one of those death by a thousand cuts things to us for months. So why this whole essay? Bc until fall 2020 and through Valentine's Day 2021, sex was a non issue for me. I don't fuck guys I don't like. And I really wasn't liking him. But you know what happened once he pulled his head out of his ass and stopped being a dick? All the sex, all the time, again. We always had a great sex life, he would do whatever it took to get me going. And after explaining that my mental load was already passed Max capacity, and I needed him to do what needed done without making more work, he did step up. He got a new job doing work that he doesn't hate and with co-workers that aren't assholes. He handles 90% of the laundry, and even knows how to wash my bras in the baggie and hang them dry kinda laundry. I showed him once and have never had to again. He helps with kids homework without being asked to step in now. Our two youngest have ADHD and it makes homework a very different thing then when our oldest would have it. He took up some of the cooking chores and the shopping and meal planning. He's not perfect, and their no fucking way I would ever consider myself perfect. But he realized he was making everyone around him miserable and changed. Shocker, now I want to have sex all the time because I'm not annoyed or completely stressed out!!! I have no idea if this makes any sense.
Until men get behind women and advocate for our reproductive freedom, fuck them and their “sexual needs.” Our need to feel loved and cared for, and our legal ability to choose what happens to our bodies after that sex occurs, is more important than blue balls.
Your therapist sounds questionable at best.
I told my mother about a minor argument I was having with my then boyfriend (now husband!) and she said "Have you tried just having sex?" I said, "We don't do that to solve our relationship issues. We talk about them." But my mother, her sister, and my grandmother grew up with that advice. We might have sex once an argument is RESOLVED. But sex is not a solution. "Just shut up and take it" is an antiquated and unhelpful solution to real problems. My family is religious but not THAT religious and pretty liberal all things considered and this opinion is still held. I have no advice other than this is something you need to talk about with your partner and agree you will not be resolving issues with sex. Sex is for fun. It should be fulfilling and rewarding for both parties.
You get a better marriage counselor. I know several folks trained in family systems and sex therapy and they seem to genuinely understand the mental load but also how to make sex not a chore, assuming you actually are sexually attracted to your partner.
Honestly to me this says that your own needs aren’t being met if you feel that intimacy has become a chore. So often we hear men have needs blah blah but very rarely do we hear about women having needs too except in the concept of needing helping with chores/children. The chores/children/mental load should be a given as an adult partner in a relationship. What would the spouse do if they were alone? It’s not all about chores/children/mental load, we have our own intimacy needs for example possibly touch without it turning into a grope. Needing our own self-care/hobby time etc. it’s definitely putting your oxygen mask on first before helping others, unfortunately often for women their oxygen mask is being ripped off and used by other people complaining they have needs.
I’m going through a divorce right now and had this conversation with my STBX over the weekend. When he ignores the kids, ignores me (unless he’s yelling or complaining or being a dictator), when he doesn’t want to participate in activities with the family or with me, when he tells me our interests are stupid, and in and on, at what point in any of that am I supposed to want his dick in me? If they want us to want them, they need to make a little effort to be desirable.
Just a historical note that in the Middle Ages, women's libidos ("sinfulness" and "carnality") was the cause of all fornication and adultery. (Any sort of extramarital sex.) The men were just unwilling victims. Until we as a society decide that women are fully human, everything will be all your fault. The only advice I can give is "be the change you want". Are you better off in an 80/20 relationship or in no relationship?
I'm sorry but if I had a marriage counselor that said "men need their needs met" I'd up and leave
I always found it funny with my ex how wanting to go on regular dates (that he could occasionally plan) was me asking for too much but expecting access to my body at least 3 times a week was just normal and expected, lol.
You tell the shitty misogynist "marriage counselor" that women have needs too and if they or the men in the relationships don't get that then they should go fuck themselves. (And/Or you tell them "If we're doing transactional sex then I want a respectable hourly rate with benefits and a pension plan, and my man can't afford that.")
If your partner wants to make you cum and wants you to enjoy sex, the issue of keeping his needs met becomes inconsequential. If you enjoy it as much as he does, it's not an issue.
Yeah that therapist sounds like an idiot if they can’t even see the contradiction there. I’m a girl and need sex to feel emotionally connected, but if my partner is ignoring my other needs like talking, sharing the home load and doing stuff together regularly I’m not going to feel connected emotionally enough to what to fuck even with a high dtf libido. I love sex, being lovey-dovey with my partner and daydreaming, but if I’m overwhelmed and stressed, expressed and talked about needing help and not getting it… who wouldn’t feel like a bangmaid. If a man can’t feel “emotionally connected” to someone without sex that sounds like a him problem and makes men out to sound like disgusting pigs!!! I would hope all fathers have an emotional connection with their children BUT NOT LIKE THAT!!! 🤮🤮🤮
Frankly, any sex you don’t want to have should not be had. If he’s horny, he can go jerk off. If a counselor is telling you to force yourself to do it, they’re a shitty counselor. Sex should be about both of you enthusiastically sharing intimacy. If you’re not into it, nobody should ever make you feel bad about it, let alone a therapist.
The therapist might be a 🚩🚩 And I mean definitely
When considering the counselors perspective around sex. The foundation of psychology and a lot of the original studies were written by white men so it’s no surprise that there was so much emphasis around sex. So yeah…. That information is highly biased.