Sex Q&A: What’s Wrong With Wanting Sex?

Sex As its Own Reward

Doug from Berea, Ohio asks:

It’s not a question, but I was a guy on the other end of that! I didn’t start off not having sex. The sex was good, but her attitude about sex put me off! I don’t like being thought of as a dirty, seedy, sex-hungry guy. In other words, something is wrong here because I think about sex—the passion and the heat (that’s the short version). Yes, I want to be loved for who I am. Yes, I have desires and I love sex, and with her it was good until she filled my head with her stuff. Honestly, I couldn’t and did not stay. She had her own story and the truth didn’t matter. Before that, I was married for 24 years to a woman that claimed there was something wrong with me because I didn’t orgasm in her time allotment for sex. It was just that she didn’t want to have sex with me! (Makes me wonder why she married me and what was I thinking.)

Good job, Liam! I’ve always gotten good advice from you, so thank you. Girls/Women, it takes two to make it, good or bad, and there are, as we say, deal breakers. The relationship may be fine, but sex can be a deal breaker and the reverse is true also.

Love, Doug

Liam’s Response:

Greetings, Doug, and thanks for giving us a bit of the male perspective on things. Your observations are infused with the pain of experience, and the wisdom that comes with hard choices. Sexual problems are in no way gender specific, and in them we see the trends and expressions that result from our social conditioning and how our notions of how relationships should work—with tight confines and social power roles—lead to a tremendous amount of internal resentment and misunderstanding.

In the ancient world, sex almost never came with expectations of monogamy. A wife was a piece of property, often given in tribute to a warrior king or chieftain. Her only value lay in her bloodlines or beauty and her ability to provide heirs. Men of the common ranks generally weren’t so fortunate. In most ancient cultures, breeding rights were reserved for those with the means to afford them. That’s Nature at work. The notion of pair-bonding developed in poorer hunter/gatherer cultures as a sort of barter exchange, but sexual monogamy was never part of the bargain. That came with patriarchal religion which likes to control every aspect of human behavior it possibly can.

Modern marriage began as a bone tossed to lower-class males. It was a goal they might attain. If they made enough money, garnered enough favor or fought bravely enough in battle they might be given a wife, get to have some sex and produce a kid or two before they died. It sort of curbed the resentment against the ruling classes who had for the most part been hoarding all the women for themselves. In short, Doug, sex is a commodity. It was then and is still is now.

Both the women you describe utilized their natural gifts in order to lure you into a promise of standard, modern monogamy. No doubt, in the beginning of the mating cycle, it seemed a good bargain for everybody. But the fact is the human mating cycle is very short. Time passed and the initial sexual interest faded as it always does. You, being a man, felt you had met your part of the pair-bond bargain and your natural expectation was that these women would meet theirs, continuing to be sexual with you on a regular basis. But they opted to use their sexuality as a weapon instead… a dagger in the passive-aggressive game that is all modern pair-bonding. They’d store up resentments, fears, feelings of loss and hopelessness and then punish you by withholding the one thing you were expecting to be given freely. In the end, as so often happens, you utilized your option to trade both of them in on other models. And that’s the way things go these days…

Let everyone who values their long-term relationships take heed. As Big Mama said in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” if there’s a problem in the marriage it started in the bedroom. A man leaving a long-term relationship might cite a million p.c. reasons why in order to appease his family and friends. But the truth is, sex or more pointedly the lack thereof, will always be the main reason. Always.

Liam

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5 thoughts on “Sex Q&A: What’s Wrong With Wanting Sex?

  1. Julie

    Seriously enlightened? I have to agree with Liam on this. Maybe women do cut off men from sex because women think they are not being treated well. But that is a huge mistake if they do. Sex can be a bonding experience and bring people closer together. If you cut off the sex, the type of behavior you’re referring to can just get worse and worse – it’s like children taunting each other back and forth. If a man doesn’t treat you well outside of the bedroom as you say, maybe you should get a different man. Nobody said anything about behavior outside of the bedroom except you. You just sound bitter. Personally, I’m never going to withhold sex as I just enjoy it too much and it’s unhealthy to withhold it in a relationship. If he treats me badly, I’ll tell him upfront what I don’t like and if it’s serious enough, it’ll be over. Men are not going to associate your withholding for it’s something I didn’t do elsewhere in her life. They’re just going to get annoyed and even more withdrawn. Not a good result, do you think?

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  2. Lee P.

    Boy oh boy, did you call that one right. my ex. whome I was married to for 32 years cut me off abruptly and we ended up getting divorced . I found out later that she didnt like the way she looked (she was quite overweight) I never said anything to her about it. Although I did mention it early on in our marriage that I thought she was putting on some extra pounds. She blew up at me and told me it was because she had 2 children and couldnt lose the weight. She went to weight watchers and went from 250 lbs to 156 lbs and was looking good than when her dad died , it all came back on in a hurry. Well I found out she couldnt cope with it , but in the prossess she wouldnt have sex with me. We eventually got the divorced and I moved on with my life. So sometimes there are things we have no control over that cause women to not want sex like we men do . That is just my own oppinion.

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  3. somima

    For me communication is the key to every relationship, and sex is communication with the body – but many women shut down if this is the only communication they get. It takes TWO in every relationship and I suspect some kind of denial on the own part when we blame the other one why a relationship or sex did not work.

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  4. Enlightened

    What a load of arrogant rubbish! You two are WAY OFF THE MARK ON THIS ONE. There is one main reason women cut men off in the bedroom. It is because they are behaving in a selfish or disrespectful/abusive manner outside of the bedroom to the woman and/or others in the household. Men – there is no way any woman will be intimate with you in bedroom when you put your own wants and needs above all else outside the bedroom. Think about it and try a little behavioral change. See if you then are able to give to get. Also, observe how you feel when giving and then receiving. You might be surprised how sweet, arousing and delectible life can be. You must stop blaming all others for your own short comings by making ridiculous excuses and change your bad behavior out of the bedroom first.

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  5. Aida Bon

    Dear Liam, What a pity the last sentence of your column is not in capital letters. It’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me…..BUT SO FEW PEOPLE KNOW THAT TRUTH. We are all comedians (except you). Every person who can read should read the book JOY by Alexander Lowen. He answers the questions about the unique signals in the boby that are internal cries for freedom. We are alle trapped in our bodies since the invention of religion 2000 years ago. Nobody knows what the words passion and surrender mean. Millions have read 50n Shades of Grey and now think that handcuffs, chains and whips can help them to survive the prison called love. One way is to read your columns!
    Love Your fan Aida (The Netherlands)

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