Although I pretty much have no more to say on the subject of marital sex, I am re-starting other categories of this blog. I'm also doing a new blog, called Pharisees and Philistines ("Everything You Don't Want To Be") which will concentrate for now on my interaction with various other blogs, mainly political, that I'm now following and commenting on. For the moment, expect to see most of the new, uncross-posted content in my media category Bookmovision, discussing (of course) books, movies and television.

I don't really want to start regular blogging again -- it takes too much of a toll in many ways, but (visualize Al Pacino here) this email dragged me back in.

"Michael" wrote:

I discovered your blog this morning when I made a google search for "men sex reasonable expectations."

I want to give you a quick overview of who I am, but let me start with the issue that brought me here. I presume from the nature of your writing that I can be candid. I want my wife to give me a "real blowjob". In my mind this means that she provides oral contact and sufficient manipulation, manual, breast, or otherwise, that leads to my ejaculation. And this is to be done with a kind and loving attitude where it is clear to me that she wants to accomplish this activity leading to my desired outsome without expecting anything in return in the next few hours. In other words love me, satisfy me and let me be. You may rest assured that I will get to her later.

She claims that she never had orgasms like I give her. I now confess that I am presently aroused just by the simple clarity of stating exactly what I want. My question is whether or not that desire is reasonable. I can provide some background information if that helps. [Specific information redacted here.]

She is highly sexual, erotic, feminine, and appealing to me. There are a few negatives in her and my appearances but not strong ones. We are caucasian, middle class, highly intelligent, and moderately successful. [additional specifics redacted]

I have a good track record of satisfying her sexual needs and, as she puts it, waiting on her hand and foot and spoiling her terribly. We are in love, still mildly romantic on occasion, very busy, and stressed with financial difficulties ... and the joys and pressures of raising [children].

... I frequently spend considerible time and energy bringing her to substantial orgasm (the usual activity) using my hands, vibrators, tongue, and penis. A typical session leaves her spent and exhausted, having had all she can stand. I want some of this, too. I will confess that our lovemaking is not as frequent as when we first met. I also note that I don't need as many orgasms as she seems to. I am older, and have mild ED. Also, I am not as easy to bring to orgasm as she is. But it's not as if she really tries. I've discussed this with her before, and she says that her arms, hands, or mouth get too tired to bring me to completion. I believe the core issue is a lack of skill and practice on her part and a lack of desire to obtain it. She thinks that if I "boink" her and achieve a good orgasm, that should be sufficient. And most days (months really) I agree. I just want her to do the work sometimes, just like I do for her.

I believe it would take five to fifteen minutes to get me off. I don't mind performing some of the work myself, but want her to "find a way to get me off." To her credit she does a fine job sucking me and is willing to engage in several activities I find highly arousing, including the following: deep oral penetration, my ejaculation on her tongue and mouth, breasts, buttocks, etc., doggy style in which I fondle her anus and penetrate her anus with my thumb or finger, anal sex (not her favorite thing, but she tolerates it well and enjoys getting me aroused and off in this way), mild spanking, and good hard thrusting intercourse. In short, she is no prude. Perhaps my malady is that it is human nature (or maybe man's nature) to want what you can't get.

In any case, I feel this accurately and completely outlines my situation. I am curious to know if you have any thoughts or comments. My intent is not to tittilate, but rather to learn or discover. Let me know if you have any advice. I've considered just copying this text and printing it out for her to read. It may have the desired effect. I'm not sure. Any ideas?

Michael

I replied:

A desire, per se, is neither "reasonable" nor "unreasonable." It just is. We can't really fight them, tell them to go away, or pretend they don't exist. We can ask WHY we have a particular fantasy or dream and perhaps work on any underlying negative that we discover that way, which might in turn moderate the urgency of the desire, but in the end, the only thing we can do with our sexual needs is work out a way to achieve them or learn to live without.

I think you've got a couple of potential problems here. Demanding a particular attitude

And this is to be done with a kind and loving attitude where it is clear to me that she wants to accomplish this activity leading to my desired outcome

from someone who has already stated that she finds fellatio difficult or even painful, is iffy at best. Many women experience jaw cramping from keeping their mouths in a position that avoids scraping a man with their teeth, and just keeping your mouth wide OPEN, even if you move it periodically into different positions, for 5 or 10 minutes is problematic. Try it sometime.

Fellatio-related pain is particularly common in the case of larger penises. Ironically, being well-endowed helps a lot with being able to get a woman to orgasm via intercourse, but it makes it very difficult for her to give you a blow job, especially all the way to the end, when the stress and and strain can get pretty intense. It's another of those simple equations: if it hurts, you're not going to be happy doing it, and the more it distresses you, the less happy you'll be. There is only so much <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0003935/stories/2004/08/12/discomfort.html">discomfort</a> that can be overcome by erotic thoughts of pleasing one's partner, and then you're going to want to quit. Again, just human nature.

(P.S. Larger penises also tend to be more susceptible to early age-related ED -- just what you wanted to hear, huh?)

Here's one possible scenario/outcome for you to consider, but not because I think it's inevitable: if, once you adequately convey your desire to your wife and she does attempt to fulfill this dream for you, the attitude may not be all you wish it to be, or the enthusiasm you want will be faked. The faking will be okay for you at the time of your sexual experience (since by definition you won't know), but how she really feels about the whole performance could have an effect on your relationship in general, and that effect MIGHT spill over into the other parts of your apparently damn good sexual relationship. So there is the possibility that you could get a...shall we say?...non-optimum trade-off.

Then again, you not getting your full service blow-job is already affecting your relationship. You seem to have a bit of resentment about how much effort it takes to give her orgasms, and how little it takes her to give you yours. It does seem unfair that women's sexual fulfillment requires so damn much work, and I can see how you'd want to "even the score" a bit. Little things like that, if you let yourself really start thinking about them, can leak a slow poison.

So it's important to really work out in your own mind, honestly, how important this particular act is to you (and why), because its fulfillment could cause problems in other aspects of your relationship -- but its lack of fulfillment could be a problem, too. Only you can decide which risk is more urgent. Please note that I say COULD in both cases, not WILL. Open communication -- even if it has to evolve over days, weeks or months -- can recover a multitude of missteps and misunderstandings. It won't change the physiology of the problem, but it can change the emotions.

I've considered just copying this text and printing it out for her to read.

I think that's a viable option, especially if you are beginning to resent her because you're not getting something that you consider very important. She needs to know that.

Let me know how it goes.

Check out this man's proposed "Contract of Wifely Expectations."

Cute, huh?

There are two basic attitudes most men take toward marriage:

(a) marriage is a transaction in which the person with the most power "wins" (gets what he/she wants from the other)

or

(b) marriage is a partnership, in which no one "wins" because there is no contest

This "Contract" (rightly called "sicko" by The Smoking Gun) is an example of the ultimate Transactional view.

As you read it, ask yourself, honestly, would you like to impose this sort of thing on YOUR wife?

Why or why not?
 

It's not talk or advice -- I'm going to work on that show next (but probably not before next spring). "Satin Sheets" is just a radio-like introduction to some "shimmering and seductive" music I like, all of it Podsafe under a Creative Commons license. There's a wealth of great independent musicians out there who need to be heard -- and I've always wanted to be a DJ.

You can listen to the podcast as streaming audio by hitting the little arrow at the bottom of the first show notes' post, but I'd recommend downloading the show from the text link (oddly enough, it's labeled "download") and listening to it from your own hard drive. The streaming feature seemed to skip and pop a lot when I listened to it last night, but maybe those were artifacts from my amateurish production methods. Who knows.

It's about 35 minutes long, approximately 32 Mb. I hope you like it. Record your comments online or by calling my phone line.

P.S. If you're an artist who'd like me to consider playing your material on a future podcast, send me a LINK to your work, not the work itself.

As someone remarked in the discussion where I lifted this article, only 34% "always" reaching orgasm during masturbation seems extremely low. You wonder why a person would bother masturbating if they couldn't get the payoff. But perhaps there was an alternate, "almost always" answer that could be chosen on the survey. Even I have been known to give up on Getting There a time or two.

A person really can be "too pooped to pop" sometimes. Trying to work up the necessary muscular, neurological and vascular tension to get over the top is genuinely tiring. It seems almost effortless if you only have to work for 2-3 minutes to Make It, but when you have to strive for a quarter of an hour or more, sometimes -- in prospect at least, and at the end of a long day -- the work-to-benefit ratio doesn't recommend itself.

This is part of what men don't understand. For them (and yes, I'm generalizing, get used to it), sex = fabulous pleasure from a minimum amount of physical work. Although they may have to work pretty hard to get their partners off, the actual sex part is always great. Guaranteed. But intercourse can begin to seem like a boring, messy chore if you're not going to get off from it. And it looks like almost a third of women can't make it that way. There are many others who only have orgasms from intercourse intermittently, and that means they have had many experiences of working long and fruitlessly toward... nothing.

And consider how appealing this effort would be with a partner who bores, sickens or infuriates you. Do you resent your wife? Do you carry around a load of anger against her? Is she physically unappealing to you now? Okay, whatever. Here's the question: Given your feelings (justified or not) if it was going to take you 15 minutes of tense effort to get off AND you only got there 25% of the time anyway, even after all that work, wouldn't you be a little reluctant to put out for her?

Don't you wish your wife was one of the lucky 14 percent who "always" have orgasms during intercourse?

She wishes she was, too.

I know everyone is wondering what black hole I fell into.

It's the really black one two blocks down and to the right.

I've been in and out of the hospital twice since January with a lung inflammation that had the doctors stumped. On my first visit they were sure I had congestive heart failure, but on the second the heart symptoms were less impressive than the lung problems.

My lung biopsies were sent to the Mayo Clinic which finally came down with a diagnosis about 2 weeks ago, but it's for an obscure disease (berylliosis) that the docs really don't know how to treat.

I'm on steroids (no, not THOSE steroids) and 24-hour nasal cannula oxygen right now. There is some possibility that the steroids will help me get a lot better over time so that I can at least kick the O₂, but then again, it's also possible that I'll just hold my own or get worse.

Meanwhile I've obviously let the blog lapse and I will never be able to answer all the email that's piled up. I've started back posting some recipes in A Foodish Consistency, though, and am thinking seriously about getting back to the discussion of Passionate Marriage. It might just happen.

Don't count on me -- but don't count me out, either.

Continuing the discussion of Passionate Marriage that started here.

One of the things that impressed me about Schnarch was that he had similar thoughts to mine about the influence of childhood experiences, as he outlines here (my emphasis):


In other words, don't assume that if your wife would only solve her problems with, say, her rejecting Dad or her overbearing Mom, she'd be able to respond to you the way you want. In fact, deciding that childhood trauma is the main thing that's driving her responses can send you on the motha of all goose chases....Not to mention that this means you're also thinking in terms of "fixing" her to your satisfaction and neglecting what you can do for yourself.

Schnarch has a beef with the conventional wisdom that "problemizes" every pain that life is heir to.


There is one dilemma of married life that is just inherent in the couple relationship, and therefore unavoidable even by the most perfectly-matched pair in all creation.


To illustrate this concept, Schnarch introduces a new couple, Bill and Joan, whose first therapy session starts with explosive emotions:


Schnarch eventually tells this couple that, contrary to popular belief, wonderful and lasting relationships can develop from "all the wrong reasons." In fact, it's only after you've been married awhile that you mature enough for the "right" reasons to even exist, and acknowledging and working (Schnarch says "struggling") with the reality of the bad start may be the only way to find the right way to stay together.

Well, whaddya know? He used the word "heroism" again.

I think he's stealing my stuff.

Next: More on Bill and Joan's Excellent Adventure


Passionate Marriage Discussion: 1 2 3

I haven't been posting because a) I'm sewing an "Evil Clown" Halloween costume for my younger daughter (demanded after I made that spangly "Glinda Good Witch of the North" costume for the elder's sorority play) and b) I'm still being sucked down into the quicksand of that ill-advised ghosting gig.

I have to keep reminding myself: the more I struggle, the deeper I'll sink.

In contrast to the writing job, ripping out a long seam into which I've somehow managed to sew half-a-dozen volunteer pleats is almost enjoyable.

I said ALMOST.

Schnarch expands on the theme I discussed yesterday:

[Wha]t part of you do you use to touch -- meaning make contact with -- your partner? Do you touch your partner from the best in you? Or do you reach out from the part that feels inadequate or wants to hide? If you do it from that part, you'll drop the emotional connection and resort to [just] touching each other's genitals to try to get something going.

Part of Schnarch's thesis is married sex is often an impersonal act. Yes, really. He thinks that couples tend to hold themselves away from each other even in the so-called "act of love," because participating fully can be too scary.

It seems to me that so-called "frigid" women do this from the front end, literally holding off their desire. If they don't feel like having sex, they won't have to expose their inner selves to their husbands -- or have to see and acknowledge his distance in the act. Men who are holding themselves back from their wives, on the other hand, tend to become fixated on fantasy or the physical acts and sensations they want in order to avoid personal exposure or deeper disappointments. (Their wives intuit their distance and feel "used" as a result: "He doesn't love me, he just wants to get his thing in me.")

Schnarch believes that our culture induces us to believe some things about relationships that just aren't true, that cause couples to create false expectations for their marriages (my emphasis).

For example, we've taken one kind of intimacy -- the type in which our partner accepts and validates us -- and convinced ourselves this is what intimacy is per se. Thus, we assume that intimacy hinges on acceptance and validation from our partner. Likewise we've confused "good communication" with being understood the way we want and getting the response we expect. ...

We're driven by something that makes us look like we crave intimacy, but in fact we're after something else: we want someone else to make us feel acceptable and worthwhile. We've assigned the label "intimacy" to what we want (validation and reciprocal disclosure) and developed pop psychologies that give it to us -- while keeping true intimacy away. We've distorted what intimacy is, how it feels, how much we really want it, and how best to get it. Once we realize that intimacy is not always soothing and often makes us feel insecure, it is clear why we back away from it.

Another thing that screws us up, Schnarch holds, is our truncated view of sex as a simple biological drive, just like our need for food. This is why some therapists view a lack of desire as "sexual anorexia," sort of an erotic "eating disorder." That idea also holds the hope that we can or will soon be able to medicate the problem away.

Superficially, the common idea that sex is a natural biological drive seems reasonable. After all, isn't sex drive a function of hormones? Isn't sex encoded in all animals? If sex drive weren't "normal," wouldn't our species die out?

While there's some truth to these notions, they limit our perspective on human sexuality and interfere with sexual satisfaction. We don't realize that seeing sex as a "drive" makes us focus on relieving sexual tensions rather than wanting our partner. It may be true that the more tension ("horny") people feel, the more they tend to seek relief -- but if that's the only reason you think your partner wants to be with you it tends to kill sex....

This strictly biological approach is also the reason why so many common kinds of sex therapy don't work. Most of them involve training yourself to be detached from the total experience of sex with your partner, either in your mind or in your body. For example, in the "squeeze" method of treating premature ejaculation, a man has to concentrate on his reactions -- and not let his partner "get" to him -- in order to be able to withdraw his penis and clamp down on it to prevent his orgasm (a procedure Schnarch calls a "sexual Heimlich maneuver"). Needless to say, this ruins the continuity of the experience for both partners.

I can just imagine the poor wife being tuned to only one internal channel while she's having sex with her husband under this treatment regimen: "He's getting too excited...I better not let myself go too much, it might make him come...is he going to whip it out NOW? or maybe NOW? or NOW?

Talk about Distraction!

These "re-training" approaches can actually make things worse between a couple than they were before therapy, because all the emphasis is on the mechanics of sexual activity (positions, procedures, performances). And as with any endeavor that emphasizes Doing Things Right, anxiety always follows.

Our near-sightedness blinds us to the ways our incomplete views of sex make us feel inadequate: once you adopt the seemingly sex-positive view that "sex is a natural function," the only way to explain sexual dysfunction or disinterest is to look for pathological explanations. When something goes wrong sexually we're set up to ask ourselves, "If sexual response and interest are natural, then why am I not responding or even wanting to respond?" ...

In the midst of marital discord few of us have the courage to consider that the beliefs and practices we share with many couples are the source of our misery. We usually think problems with sex and intimacy are caused by how we're uniquely screwed up. I propose, instead, that they're often caused by being normal. If you're well-adjusted to ill-fitting beliefs that permeate society, you're going to have trouble.

Notice that Schnarch used the word "courage"? More on that later.

Next: My childhood made me do it?

Passionate Marriage Discussion: 1 2 3 4

Continuing the discussion from the first post on Passionate Marriage.

Although I was fascinated with Schnarch's presentation of his first couple, Karen and Ken, in his initial chapter ("Nobody's Ready For Marriage -- Marriage Makes You Ready For Marriage"), I was less than thrilled with the "case study" as a whole.

The first problem I had with presenting this case in the opening chapter was that they were already well along in their marital development, had been to one of Schnarch's weekend workshops, and they were both very willing to work on their sexual problems. However, leaving that aside, they did represent some very common concerns.

Karen and Ken are 53 and 57, respectively. They initially tried to solve their sexual problems via the "sensate focus" style of sexual therapy, a form that encourages you to concentratre almost exclusively on how your body is responding during sex in order to rediscover your physicality. Although the concept has some value in and of itself, and in certain situations the attention exercises can be practically curative, as Karen tells Schnarch, "it totally glossed over my problem."

Ken and Karen have already made sexual progress, and their problem is far from being the one most readers of WYW are interested in. They have sex about once a week (most WYW readers have sex much less frequently), and Karen even gives Ken oral and gets on top once in a while. But Ken complains that sex is "routine," and Karen is troubled with intrusive (S&M) fantasies that she feels take her "away" from Ken during sex. She also has problems with her own body and self-image, saying, "I don't initiate now because I'm afraid of looking pathetic and fraudulent. Body-image -- being fat -- has always been a problem." (Karen isn't particularly fat today, but was very troubled by it when she was younger.) Schnarch asks her,

Ken has self-image problems, too. For example, he is resisting Karen's suggestions that he pay more attention to his appearance, especially in regard to his clothes.

Later, Ken also says, "I've always been afraid to draw attention to myself, in bed or out. It's just not me" and Schnarch suggests he is "tugging against the limits of [his] self-image leash."

This whole sidelight about Ken's unwillingness to update his wardrobe struck me as interesting because the way a man presents himself to the world -- and his wife -- is so important. If you concentrate too much on what you "aren't," you don't give yourself scope to be what your wife might find more desirable. Although you shouldn't (as Schnarch puts it) sell yourself out by putting on a totally fake persona (which you won't be able to sustain in the long term anyway), it's also important to stretch your boundaries and not sell yourself short.

Schnarch ends the first session with Ken and Karen by saying,

I found Ken and Karen's verbally proficient, wide-open approach to therapy a little annoying. Not only were they fluent in session, they were fantastically successful in practice. I wondered more than once (and not only with Karen and Ken) whether the good doctor was "polishing" them as characters in his therapeutic dramas or using composite creations to demonstrate his points. However, there are many places in the book where his couples' problems ring very true indeed.

Karen and Ken move amazingly swiftly through their sexual paces (in just three days!), trying new things, sharing fantasies, even role-playing a "bar pickup" scene with each other. That is about as far as you can get from the situation of dealing with a reluctant wife (or husband), and their "progress" is so fantastic that Schnarch has to reassure us:

Does Ken and Karen's process seem remarkable? It's the kind of thing I've learned is possible from watching my clients do it. But it still amazes me every time it happens. And it happens frequently.

Well, good for you, doc.

But it's not likely to be that easy for most couples, especially in those situations where one partner is more interested in working on their issues than the other. And that's the biggest problem I had with this case study -- it was too perfect, too "amazing" to be entirely believable, and especially at the start, before Schnarch had developed his themes and concepts. Instead of being inspiring, it could actually depress or discourage the ordinary reader, who is likely to think: "That could NEVER happen with us!"

But even if you're convinced that Schnarch is peddling fairy-tales with "happy ever after" endings you could never achieve in your own marriage, there is still a lot of very interesting stuff to come.

Next time: False Expectations

I was inspired by this post at Crooked Timber, which celebrates the UK's National Poetry Day with one of Shakespeare's lesser-known but most beautiful sonnets, to post the one and only sonnet I've ever written (so far).

It was genned up in a hurry one day in response to a challenge in the auld (late 90s) Salon Table Talk "Books" section. One of the irascible regulars was complaining (soon after I posted a quite different offering in the "Post Your Poams" thread, if I remember right) that nobody even knew what the meter of a classic sonnet was, much less how to write one anymore. To him, it was (I'm paraphrasing here) all free verse and other foolishness these days. Young whippersnappers! Get offa my lawn!

So of course I had to prove him wrong. Not terribly wrong, mind you, since it isn't a good sonnet, but I proved to the old coot that I could imitate the Shakespearean FORM (which is the easiest of all the old sonnet forms, truth be told).



There are additional poetical celebrations in the comments thread over at CT. Go look.

From Reuters:

New research findings suggest that the sound of a person's voice may predict his or her level of sexual activity. ...

In the study, 149 men and women listened to recorded voices of anonymous individuals and rated the voices on a five-point scale, from "very unattractive" to "very attractive." ...

When the researchers compared voice ratings with sexual histories, they found that men and women whose voices were considered more attractive by opposite sex raters reported younger ages at first sexual intercourse, more sex partners and more sexual affairs than did those with less attractive voices.

Voice attractiveness predicted promiscuity in women better than did their waist-to-hip ratio, Hughes and her colleagues report in the September issue of Evolution and Human Behavior. Among men, however, the shoulder-to-hip ratio was a better predictor of promiscuity.

That said, not all women with attractive voices are promiscuous, but "promiscuous females tend to have more attractive voices," co-author Dr. Gordon G. Gallup Jr., of the University at Albany, State University of New York, told Reuters Health. ...

During human evolutionary history, voice may have also played a role in how men and women made reproductive-related decisions, particularly at nighttime, the report indicates.

"The sound of a person's voice could have become an important indicator of other biologically relevant information," Gallup Jr. said.

(I was alerted to this by George's fascinating "backed up aggregate" listing.)

It's about time I got around to discussing Passionate Marriage, the book I've left in the "What I'm Reading" sidebar for more than a month. I'm not going to be discussing it because I think it is so perfect and wonderful (in fact, I have a lot of problems with it, which I'll get into as I go along) but because it offers the most scope FOR discussion. It's just jam-packed with interesting stuff.

The major problem I have with the book for our purposes here is that it isn't exactly ideal for a guy who's struggling ALONE with his marital problems, trying to work out what to do in relation to an uncooperative wife. The situations in Schnarch's book tend to be those in which couples have -- at least outwardly -- agreed to approach their sexual problems together, and I've taken it as a given in this blog that you aren't in that position. So a lot of the stuff in it, particularly the center section which offers some activities to do together, might prove depressing or frustrating from your initial point of view.

But its central premises and some of the case studies are very valuable, so I decided I could recommend it.
 
When I first started reading the book, I was put off by the fact that Schnarch's theme seemed to be grounded in selfishness. If you only read the first couple of pages, as I did when I first picked it up at Barnes & Noble, you'll think he's going to advise you to confront your spouse with your demands and insist that it's your way or the highway. But that's not where he's headed at all. It's a lot more complicated than that.

He starts with a story from his own life that has nothing to do with marriage, per se: the pressurized moment when he had to decide whether to throw away years of research on his master's thesis or knuckle under to a "charismatic" professor who insisted that he publish a dishonest interpretation of his results. In the end Schnarch decided to pitch the whole project and start over with another thesis advisor. This very difficult decision, he says, is where he first learned the crucial importance of differentiation.

Other reviewers have complained, and I agree with them to an extent, that Schnarch never strictly and completely defines what he means by this term, and seems to want the reader to absorb its full meaning by the accumulation of examples as the book goes along. But right there in the introduction he does offer a brief outline of the concept:


That's the part that had me a bit worried in the beginning. I thought that it would be too easy for an angry man, a man worn down from years of not getting what he wanted, to go nuts with this concept and start being an arrogant, demanding pain in the ass. And since his wife was likely to be just as angry and disappointed with her life, the results of such a strategy would be completely disastrous. But as I said before, and as we'll see as we go along, making yourself an insistent, insensitive jerk is not the counsel of this book.

To me the real heart of Schnarch's thesis is not so much the differentiation theory -- as essential as that is -- but his concept that marriage is a "people-growing machine." Schnarch sees committed, long-term sexual relationship as THE engine of personal growth in adult life. It raises emotional challenges by its very nature, as -- in Schnarch's terms -- a "crucible" of the two basic human needs, intimacy and autonomy. That furnace, he holds, is where we are refined into the best people we can be -- IF we are able to see the natural anxieties, disapppointments and conflicts of marriage as opportunities for increasing our personal maturity (or as I choose to put it, for becoming more and more your own kind of Hero).

In keeping with the "growth" concept, one of Schnarch's more interesting ideas -- which I'll discuss in greater detail later -- is that people don't actually reach their "sexual peak" until very late in life --  their 40s, 50s or even 60s.

But in the next WYW post, I'll talk about my irritation with Schnarch's organization and case studies, especially the first couple's story he presents.

"Dennis" wrote to me in email:

I am in a similar situation as "Darby", i.e. my kids are the same age (actually I have 3 in stead of 2) and my wife's libido is zero too - when we do "do it" it is about once every two months or so. We don't have as much money, as I don't make as much, but I do work five minutes away so I am there for my family - my father was a traveling salesman and was not home very often - I try not to replicate that.

When we do talk about sexual frequency (or the lack of it)she says that she is too tired; her sister and her friends (who also have small kids) are the same way (or never have sex at all). She also assures me it has nothing to do with me technique or style-wise, etc.

Your blog does have some interesting suggestions - the body odor/farting issue is an important observation and needing to get away from it all, say to a bed and breakfast is a good suggestion as well.

A contributing factor is that my wife is on Paxil; I know this has an effect.

Finally, I also think that our marriage has settled into a pattern in which my wife is perfectly comfortable. One of my problems is that I try to avoid conflict at all costs and I think if I move my wife out of her "comfort zone" it will cause of great conflict.

My question is: how do you break the routine?

You are looking at your wife as if she and her emotions are chess pieces you could move around on a board of your devising if you just knew the rules of the game or the "tricks" to try. But the answer is that you don't "move your wife out of her comfort zone," you move yourself out of YOURS.

Your comfort zone is the one where you"avoid conflict at all costs."

Maybe in some part of yourself you LIKE being a quiet, self-righteous sufferer, clutching your virtue to your bosom and resentfully telling yourself how your spouse is so awful to you, how her behavior or personality limits you so fatally, how she makes it just impossible for you to...(fill in the blank).

You break the marital routine by breaking your own routines, especially the routines inside your head, the main one being the childish fantasy that if the other person would just straighten up and fly right --"flying right" defined as behaving in consonance with your pleasure -- you would finally be happy in your life. Meanwhile, YOU don't have to do squat. You can wash your lily-pure hands of the whole thing and sit back, secure in the knowledge that The Problem of the Marriage is the other person and their failings.

Cushy gig, huh?

Being afraid to cause conflict is a big part of the problem, of course. But you also don't want to just go out and start breaking things before you know who you really are, what you really want and the right way to get it.

So ask yourself (ideally you'll sit down and write the answers, or at least make a few notes to yourself):

What kind of man are you?

What kind of man would you like to be?

What is the most ideal man you COULD be?

How did you get to where you are and who you are today? What is your family and romantic history?

How would your enemies turn your life story into a movie?

How could you turn your story into an uplifting movie, with the happiest ending possible? (No fair saying "a fairy godfather makes me rich" -- the story has to be driven by YOU and your character.)

That imaginary movie is your personal myth, the one you'll base your ethics and behavior on in the future.

But be careful: you don't explore your history, your "story so far," to make yourself unhappy or to give yourself excuses for failure, you're looking for (a) the real, live truth about yourself -- as brutal or ugly as it might be -- and (b) the basis for your future story, the one in which you become your best possible self. The one in which you become a Hero.

The Heroic You is defined from within, by examining your own reality, not by comparison to other people.

So you don't say to yourself, "I'm okay because other people are worse." But you also don't say, "I'm terrible because other people are so much better."

You don't restrict your adult self, going forward, to what Mommy or Daddy did/didn't do to shape -- or "ruin" -- you.

You don't define yourself by what other people might think of you.

You don't define yourself by what other people will "let" you do.

You don't define yourself by measures like

how much you have,

how you got it,

what you can't get,

why you're not able to get it, or

what other people won't give you.

This is dangerous territory, of course. When you first start thinking in this new groove, of your new self, emotionally independent of others' opinions or demands, it will be tempting to believe that you can chuck realities you don't want to face and dismiss responsibilities that you think are interfering with your ability to Be All You Can Be. But the inconvenient thing about being a hero is that they always fulfill their commitments in life, one way or the other. Dealing with their their personal demons and their tough situations -- in a forthright, proactive way (not just suffering through them) -- is what MAKES them heroes.

Heroism starts within you. It's not a product of your situation, your opportunities, or the people you have to deal with. It's inner strength and quiet assurance without any taint of "Look how much I saaaacrifice! Look how much I suuuuffer!" Wanting people to notice how good you are, demanding to be admired or rewarded because you're Such A Nice Guy (or having tantrums to make sure they know you're baaaad) are some of the ways you enslave yourself to them.

Here are some excerpts from an article looking at several books on marital crisis in The High Hat

The Ties That Bind

American marriage in crisis

By Greg Hough

Dr. Stephen Mitchell's Can Love Last?: The Fate of Romance over Time was released posthumously in 2002 ... Expanding upon Freud’s observation that the concepts of love and desire seem to have a fundamental psychological incompatibility, Mitchell notes a "centrality of idealization" in the first flushes of romantic desire, which creates a bonding magic that brings people together, but is also one important cause of a relationship's fragility....

Mitchell invites couples that are unhappy in long-term relationships to question whether they are as unhappy as they think they are. He, like the other two authors reviewed here, is wary of any "grass is greener" thinking among those in marital crisis. Better first, he argues, to consider the possibilities of what one already has, seeking to discover (or rediscover) something essential and transformative. To give up without fully exploring those possibilities leaves one vulnerable to repeating similar self-defeating mind traps with future mates.

Exploring the transformational possibilities of a stuck marriage, Mitchell writes, takes at the least an understanding of the creative aspect of a relationship. He says that marriage ideally is a "sandcastle built for two," with the notion of "objective reality" accepted as a construction that can be molded and remolded:

We tend to assume that ordinary reality is factual and objective, which makes the transcendence that transforms the ordinary other into an object of desire a fantasy-driven illusion. But if ordinary reality no longer wears the mantle of objectivity, if ordinary reality is understood as a construction, useful for some purposes, useless for others, its transcendence in the creation of the desirable is not a contamination or masking of what is really there, but an alternative construction, a window into what is really there.

... As a respected Manhattan therapist, it's understandable that Mitchell would have an optimistic view of therapy as a way to help individuals free themselves from mental bondage. Trouble is, not all therapists — maybe not even the majority of them — have the combination of warmth, patience, wit and breadth of real-world intelligence that Mitchell seemed to possess. Going into therapy with one who was heretofore a stranger, having trusted only in the power of personal reference and/or advertising, can be a crapshoot, one that might leave those who try it ultimately worse off than they were before. ...

[In his 2003 book Imperfect Harmony: How to Stay Married for the Sake of Your Children and Still Be Happy, Dr. Joshua Coleman] draws from case histories of counseling patients who sought to stay together so their children might avoid financial hardship or a life with only one parent around at a time. He sees healthy possibilities in couples that make the choice to stay together, even if both partners in marriage realize that their romantic relationship is likely beyond repair. This is possible, he cautions, only by "changing whatever you have to change in yourself to be an effective and positive force in your kids' lives."

Coleman uses his counseling stories to spur the reader to self-inquiry, to make him answer for himself: How and when do you stay in a marriage because of the children? And how much of your own psychology is contributing to the difficulties in your marriage? He asks the reader to recognize that the fear one may have of changing "is almost always based on an irrational worry from childhood." ...

While time doesn't heal all, it creates the possibility for your marriage to change for the better. Divorce buries that possibility once and for all. … Sometimes, it really is a matter of hanging in there long enough of working on it until things change sufficiently so it’s manageable; your kids get older, your partner mellows out, you get a new perspective.

... While in verbal conflict with a partner, the goal should be "not getting defensive while your partner voices a complaint or criticism"; one should "avoid getting into who's right or wrong" during the discussion:

The goal isn't to win, it's to live your life in a way that isn't controlled or dominated by your partner's behavior. The issue is who you want to be in your marriage.

...  A reader favoring modest rhetorical eloquence may find something off-putting about Dr. Phil's best-selling 2000 book on marriage, Relationship Rescue. Like McGraw's other best sellers, it features a mass-marketed "in your face" machismo aimed at middle-of-the-roadsters unlikely to question the props he gives to the likes of God and Whitney Houston. Yet his communicative strategy is often successful....

Beyond the bravado, there are actually many points where Drs. McGraw, Coleman and Mitchell agree on the subject of an individual’s role in a marriage. Like Coleman, Dr. Phil tries to point the reader in the direction of a new perspective on fear, to rid one's mind of irrational "monsters in the dark" that may keep one from taking necessary positive steps; he also, like Coleman, makes the point that one's position in a marriage, no matter how seemingly painful and stuck, may well involve some personal "payoff" that makes change difficult. Along with Mitchell, McGraw places high priority on marriages "built on a solid underlying friendship." And like his colleagues, he makes the point that the best way for readers to help heal their marriages is by first being willing to deal with their own personal dysfunctions:

Only when you stop seeing yourself as a victim will you start to see yourself as a fully competent force in your relationship. Your less than perfect relationship will no longer be a source of despair. It will be your opportunity to use your power. Problems truly are nothing more than opportunities to distinguish yourself. It is time to do just that. ...

You can no longer settle for living a second-class life with your partner. Ambivalence is no longer in your vocabulary. Passivity is no longer part of your behavioral repertoire, and hatefulness is no longer on your list of emotional choices. You must set the bar of excellence for yourself an unprecedented high level, and then with tenacious determination strive to leap over it. ...

Until you can look yourself in the eye in the mirror, until you can look your children in the eye and say I did everything I could to save this relationship and it could not be done, then you have not earned the right to quit.

Read more of Hough's article at The High Hat.

In a blog entry brilliantly entitled "Women are From Shrewville, Men are from Idiotown" World O'Crap reads "Dr." Laura's new book Woman Power so we won't have to. Woman Power is billed as a workbook (yes, really, just like in third grade!) to accompany her best-selling, terminally insulting The Care and Feeding of Husbands. As WoC says, "that means it covers the same material as the previous tome, but it also gives you lots of blank pages."

One of the pages that might just as well have been blank is the following:

Within only two weeks of the publication of The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, I received a letter from a six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifteen-pound police officer. It was painful to read, but I shared it on my radio program. The response to it from all across the United States and Canada was amazing. Why? This big, masculine, powerful, accomplished guy was turning into depressive mush because his wife never seemed to be proud of, or happy with, him.

Yes [WoC comments], his wife turned this big, strong, macho policeman to "depressive mush," and she alone bears responsiblity for his emotions and feelings. I mean, he says so, and Dr. Laura concurs.

Fortunately Dr. Laura has a quick fix, as she indicates at the end of the intro:

Just a look of the eye, the tone of a voice, the touch of a hand.

Simple. A few minutes each day . . . tops.

Some listeners were inspired by the policeman's story to read Dr. Laura's book.

David, a listener, wrote:

"I bought The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands because I wanted to read it myself just to see if I had unrealistic expectations of my wife of seventeen years.

Translation: "I bought the book because I heard it chastizes women for not having sex whenever their husbands want it, and I wanted my wife to know that Dr. Laura agreed with me that my wife was a bitch."

“It is unreal what simple creatures men really are. If I could just get that little bit of physical love from my wife, I would absolutely be her slave. I have told her this many times and it is just so much water off a duck’s back. I work sometimes twelve to fourteen hours a day to provide the income necessary for our family to live with some degree of comfort. And all I ask from my wife is fifteen minutes a couple of days a week (which I never get)."

David, maybe if sex took longer than fifteen minutes, your wife would want it more.

Men are starting to come out of the closet and admit that they are hurt and angry and don’t want to take it anymore. Tim, a reader, called my radio program asking me what he should do with his anger toward women, an anger crystallized by reading The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands!

Much, much more here. Don't miss the cheese ball seduction. With grapes.

I was so disgusted with this dipwaddity that I got to pontificating (and blogwhoring... I'm so ashamed... ) in the comments at WoC, to wit:

It's the underlying attitude that's sick. Methodology. Quid Pro Quo. Tit for Tat. Looking at the OTHER person as your source of happiness, the sole dispenser of the things you must have. So you need to work it out of them, you need to MAKE them behave the way you want.

Sick, sick, sick.

You hit the nail on the head, WoC, with that guy whose anger increased when he read Laura's book. All he wants, he says, is a little sex. He deserves it because he works so hard. He's OWED sack time, dammit. Never mind why or how it happens. He thinks if she just lets him get his rocks off in her body on a regular basis, he'll be satisfied -- even happy!

But the more mature among us know that it doesn't work that way. When men get dutiful sex they complain that it's not ENTHUSIASTIC sex. Just "getting it" doesn't satisfy their deeper needs, which are for love and admiration -- or at least a confirmation of their masculinity/sexual power. A non-responsive woman, even if she were to let her body be used twice a day, every day, on demand, doesn't fill that emotional bill.

That's why Laura advises (fake) admiration, compliments, enthusiasm, non-stop verbal reassurance, and other methods of ego massage in order to manipulate a man. But the funny thing is that human beings are very sensitive creatures when it comes to things like that. Most men will begin to sense the falsity, no matter how good an actress a woman is.

And since human life tends to rebel, sooner or later, against such fundamental forms of fakery, a woman won't be able to keep up the quality of her pretense over time. She'll start to resent having to continually admire/compliment/give in. Acting is exhausting work, as anyone on Broadway will tell you. A few months later her show will deteriorate and she won't be nearly as good at convincing him he's a marvelous guy. He'll start to doubt himself again and demand more reassurance.

Bottom line is that "working" people from your power center (no matter what that power might be based on: economics, sex, hierarchy, whatever) is not the way to a happy life.

You don't get love by getting over.

Yes, too long and too serious for that venue (as Jonathank might say, "You're better when you're breezy"), but luckily others offered real entertainment in that thread. For example:

Oh, and on the always hilarious subject of Dr. (of Gymnasium Science) Laura Schlessinger, you might remember the time she hinted that she might return to Christianity from Judaism because her fellow Jews weren't being very nice to her. Waaaah.

With tongue firmly in cheek, of course.

Read more here.

"Thor" challenged me in the comments to the "Body Beautiful" post on eyebrows, so I thought I'd better bring it forward where more WYW readers were likely to see it.


I answered:

Actually, I meant to get more specific about the whole idea long before this, but aside from dealing with some emails I haven't wanted to get into the WYW part of this blog just yet, and I won't until I can devote more concentrated time.

I'm still slaving away on the ghost-writing gig and I've been trying to get the blog changed over from the old location. This has involved trying to get the new categories and template designs tweaked to my satisfaction.

I also have to make a pretty elaborate costume for my daughter's sorority play (she's going to be Glinda, Good Witch of the West), and I've been editing the Dustbunny Novel into html format so I can start to post it, etc. etc.

But here's a quick and dirty overview of the of the "mythos" concept: you have to come up with a heroic model for yourself, a picture of yourself as an Ideal Guy (yes, I'm serious -- stop laughing) and then try to attain and maintain that ideal in your everyday life.

For one way of going about this, look at different masculine icons in literature, the arts, the movies, etc. and find one or two (or even three) that particularly appeal to you, that seem most like your ideal self, most like your inner masculine soul, and use them to construct your Heroic Ideal, the man you want to be.

Doing this helps you define yourself TO yourself, and makes you less dependent on (and over-reactive to) other people's perceptions and demands.

That's only part of the whole idea, of course, but the search for your personal icon(s) is FUN even if you can't manage to make it "work" for you.

For example, take this silly poll that I whacked together on another site as a way to think about what kind of guy you are: are you more "Smoothie" or more "Outlaw"?

I also want to start discussing the book in the sidebar, Passionate Marriage, which in some respects echoes my idea that you have to KNOW WHO YOU ARE as a first step toward getting what you want.

As I mentioned in the beginning, I'm unlikely to be able to devote major time here until the end of October. That includes the email that's piling up again.

Meanwhile I'm essentially just keeping the blog active (and testing category formats) with more frivolous posts. Remember, too, that I post everything to this page and if you only want the Why Your Wife... posts, you need to subscribe to or bookmark the WYW category.

Go to the WYW category homepage now.

As promised at the end of the "Reward For Good Behavior?" post, here's another email -- from a woman this time.

"Bonnie" writes:

I was reading [on the blog] about men who look at porn. Im having a hard time. My husband does not have orgasm with me but masturbates with porn on the net. He has a lock on the door. I recently woke up in the middle of the night and the door was locked and I blew up and confronted this with him. He explained he was not chatting and just masturbating with the porn. He said he was doing a good job juggling both me and the porn. I am very sexual and he does take care of me sexually. So now I dont ever say anything. But one thing for sure he was very upset like I intruded and tried to take control.

I really was shocked by this deep addiction of his. I do have a somewhat of a resentment and I wonder if I can get over it. Can you tell me how to handle a man like this in the best way? He also tries to make me jealous looking at other women when we go out. I really would appreciate your opinion on coping etc.

I was struck by two things in this email: first, the fact that Bonnie's husband doesn't have orgasms during sex with her, and second, the way Bonnie phrased her request for advice, asking "how to handle a man like this"?

Lissen up, everybody: The first rule in dealing with marital crisis is:

Don't try to handle your partner, try to handle YOURSELF.

I know Bonnie didn't mean to ask how to manipulate or "work" her husband, but it's revealing that this is the expression/concept we usually use when we are having worrying conflicts with our spouses. It essentially asks, "How can I get control of this person so they stop upsetting me like this?"

This couple is in a power crisis, both of them trying to maintain their autonomy and their influence over the other while desperately fearing that they will be "taken over." Mr. Bonnie's sexual problem is one of two things: he is either holding back his orgasm (consciously or unconsciously) to maintain his erotic independence, or an over-indulgence in porn has turned into a fetish (conditioned orgasm which possible only with imaginary women and difficult or impossible in real sexual encounters).* Maybe his problem is a combination of both of these possibilities, if he has turned to porn as a way of disconnecting from his wife or denying her the satisfaction she would feel if he "lost control" in bed with her.

Bonnie, on the other hand, wants her husband to validate her, to reassure her about her erotic power and attractiveness with his body's responses. But Mr. Bonnie, perhaps feeling resentful, overwhelmed or "invaded" like Ricky's wife, escapes into his private sexual space and refuses her demand to be sexually complimented. Then to make sure she understands his total independence from her and how resistable she is, he Does His Duty without coming, has all his orgasms with air-brushed fantasies, and overtly admires pretty strangers.

My advice to both these people is to stop responding to your spouse's attempts to control you -- or escape you -- with frantic, anxious reactions that only raise the emotional stakes and induce ever-greater fears and rebellions. Don't look into your spouses actions and reactions as if they are a mirror of what you really are. You are an adult who doesn't need Mommy or Daddy's approval (or rejection) to define your self.

You do not need to submerge yourself in your spouse's emotional crises or respond as they demand in order to get your "If You Really Loved Me" certificate -- and you don't have the right to create Love Tests and Symbiosis Schools for your partner, either. If they don't respond to you the way you want or provide what you think you need, ask yourself if "what you want" isn't actually a demonstration of your spouse's submission to your will. Being fused together at the emotional hip (responding fiercely, rejecting coldly, wringing your hands, evading, demanding reassurance, reproaching, punishing, escaping, bribing) is unhealthy for marriages and other living things.

So back off. Let go.

Forget the desperate attempts to reform others or conform yourself to them.

Get on the road to who you really are (here's a hint: you must not be your partner's parent; you cannot be your spouse's child).

Move toward an independent, fully adult understanding of what you really need (say it with me, everybody!):

Love, not Power.

Then walk back -- with open arms.

.

*Anything (shoes, belt buckles, rubber duckies, you name it) can become a fetish when it becomes strongly associated with orgasm and is deliberately repeated to the exclusion of other orgasmic activities. Sex toys and other libido stimulants can be lots of fun, and most people don't acquire severe porn or "prop" fetishes because they continue to be orgasmic with real people and in varied situations. But once orgasm gets more or less disconnected from actual encounters, as it seems to have been for Mr. Bonnie, crippling, exclusionary fixations on porn are tragically common.

From a New York Times review of Jenna Jameson's book How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale in the New York Times

By JANE and MICHAEL STERN

... Jenna Jameson's Herculean life includes not only battles with drug addiction, drinking and eating disorders, but also emotional tugs-of-war with an estranged father, a grueling succession of dysfunctional relationships with men and women, and strep throat contracted from a co-star. ''It's not easy to have sex with strangers in front of other people,'' she announces, and yet, no surprise, the book is packed with exhaustive accounts of filmed sex scenes with guys and gals who range from ''soft, pasty . . . porous, greasy'' to an actor/director/boyfriend whose on-camera work delivers such satisfaction that she deems their videotaped sex ''by porn standards . . . the sign of a healthy relationship.'' A performance she describes in detail as ''one of the most explosive scenes I had ever filmed'' is done with a male co-star so energetic that she declares, ''Trying to maintain eye contact with him was like trying to read Dostoyevsky on a roller-coaster.'' ...

Bonus gossip quote: Jameson says actor Nicholas Cage smells like ''the distilled sweat of homeless people'." Oooh, baby.