Dan, Dan, Dan, if you are going to hawk your trinkets at the end of your posts at least call it what is like Click and Clack did, Shameless Marketing.

Unstated in MSS' letter, but undoubtedly meaningful is that while MSS looks at these sexual experiences as "maintenance sex" to satisfy her partner's sexual needs, her partner isn't using her as a sex toy, but remains invested in her sexual pleasure.

People who are against maintenance sex don't have long relationships. Or they're very lucky.

@#1: "shameless commerce" is their precise term. But thank you for bringing this up!

This really opened my eyes. When I was a young girl, before I came out, I had sex with the guys I was dating mostly because I thought that was what would make them stay with me (I was 18, immature/stupid/naive/in the closet). Flash-forward a decade and I am very happily (and healthily) with a gorgeous woman who loves sex and is "DTF" pretty much whenever. I try to have sex more often (I'm about a once-a-week kinda gal) but I can't get over the hollow feeling I get when I go through the motions of sex without really being into it. It's not non-consensual by any means, but it does bring back a time when I was approaching sex from a terrible perspective. I need to get it into my head that I'm having sex because it makes HER happy and feel good, not just because it's keeping the relationship together (as maintenance sex implies).

I'd always been fine with maintenance sex. Then I got pregnant. No more maintenance sex.

You don't have to do maintenance sex, just like your partner does not have to make you dinner, shower themselves, kiss you goodnight, not hit on your sibling.. One always has the option of being a crappy lover. But one does not have the option of being a crappy lover but still be treated like you are awesome. Unless you are super rich/hot of course.

@7: Right on. No, you don't have to do anything when you're married. But neither does your partner. Like stay with you.

Maintenance sex is a tricky subject since it involves looking at situations other than both partners giving enthusiastic consent (e.g. Person 1: Want to have sex? Person 2: You read my mind, let's head for the bedroom). My relationships have incorporated the following:
1) If someone says No, that settles it. At most, the person who wants sex may make as a polite "any chance you changed your mind" after several hours have passed, but that is it.
2) The person who says "No" should provide an estimate for when they will be up for sex in the future. For example: "This audit at work is stressing me out, but it will be over next week so weekend sex is possible, after the audit is complete sex is definite." That way the person who wants sex is not left uncertain about when they can politely ask again.
3) In the event of completely mismatched libidos, probably best to think outside the box or end the relationship

This really seems like something that adults ought to be able to figure out on their own without too much trouble.... A few practice questions: is continuing to ask for sex in each of the following situations a request for "good" maintenance sex, or being an overbearing coercive asshole?
A) "sorry, but I think I'm getting a herpes sore."
B) "the baby kept me up till 4 am, but if you don't mind having sex with my sleeping body I don't care."
C) "your mother will be here in five minutes."
D) "but honey, we're in glass-front elevator with three other people."
As a personal example, I had sex with my husband the same day I had my tonsils out.... But I did say no oral ;)

@7: Right. You don't have to do anything, but neither does anyone else. So this may require compromise.

@9: That sounds reasonable. It's easy for that train of thought to get tangled up in the semantic difference between "Mismatched libido" and "Just not that into you," but I don't think that makes much a difference on the practical level. If they don't want to have sex with you, it usually doesn't much matter why.

I'm a straight female who dated a strait male 5 years my juinor for 5 years. He has a very high sex drive. Sometimes, espically in the beginning, a twice a day kind of guy. This tapered out a bit, adveraging 4-5 times a week over the years. In all honesty, I'm ok with twice a month. There was A LOT of mainenence sex on my part for the first 2 years. He always knew my sex drive was much lower than his, but he almost always (99% of the time) made sure I enjoyed it too. I almost never said no. At about the 2 year mark I became the soul provider in our house so that he could take an aprentice position in a mechanic shop that paid $200 a week for 40 hours of work (most of the aprentice positions don't pay since its an internship of that trade) and all of his income went right back into his job to invest into the tools he needed to become a regular mechanic when the time came that he was ready. I was working up to 16 hours a day to make ends meet (this was prediscussed and I encoiraged it. I wanted my man to succeed and be able to help support us down the line). Comming home exhausted a lot, the sex began to taper off. Less maintenance sex. 1 - 2 times a week. He began to get frustrated abd one night got insistant to the point of annoying. I submitted to hisnpleading, but warned him that I wasnt going to participate, just to be used. I let hom fuck me while I lay there, too tired to contribute. Afterwards, we talked. The experience helped open his eyes a lot. He learned more about respect and concent and my sex drive in that one experience than in the whole previous 2 years. He said that is was unfulfilling and empty and he never wanted to do that again. while our sedx life never dissapeared, for a while while I was working 16 hour days he had to take matters into his own hands much more often. On and off our sex life matched my sex drive for a bit. After his apprenticeship, we found a happy medium of about 4 times a week. He ALWAYS made sure I enjoyed first, usually several times before he got his too. Seriously one of the most attentive lovers I've ever had.

Some articles even made it sound like maintenance sex is a form of nonconsensual sex.

Consent presumes "free will", the existence of which is questionable given our understanding of how causality works in this universe. Best to avoid sex altogether until philosophers sort this stuff out.

I'm with Dan, the sex doesn't always have to be the full-blown (pun intended) rock-your-world marathon variety – that's almost impossible to keep up (pun intended) in a long-term relationship. So, guys, take the 8-minute quickie blow job and thank your lucky stars. And for the fairer sex, I guess some women can get there fast

(god bless you if you can!) but for some its more labor-intensive. Don't be afraid to get out your favorite vibrator and snuggle up next to your guy if he's not into it/too tired. It's amazing what a panting woman's orgasm can do to alter a guy's attitude (and if not – what the heck, you just came, right?)

...or guys, "do the laundry" yourself - you've been doing it since you were eleven, why stop now?

@13: "Best to avoid sex altogether until philosophers sort this stuff out."

But that presumes that we know what sex is, and I'm not sure the philosophers have put that one to bed yet either.

@14: you are calling an 8-minute, to-release, non-reciprocated blowjob "quickie" "maintenance sex"?

there's a lot of married guys that would call that a once-a-year-if-that miracle.

You know contrary to popular opinion straight dudes aren't always in the mood, either. Sometimes, even when you're exhausted, you just gotta get those pants off and take one for the team. Back int he day when I was training for a fight or competition I was just not in the mood - I was literally beat. But you can't ask your wife to hold off her needs for five months just because you're in a competition cycle.

There are all sorts of relationship maintenance activities we don't always like to do when we have to do them.

As long as everybody is on the same page it's just part of the deal.

Wait - what's this about how when I'm not into it and he is, the "easy" way is for me to do all the work and blow him? Unreciprocated? Easy for who?

I'm always a little amazed at these people who are batter-dipping the corn dog two or three times a day, every day. Man, that wasn't me even in my horniest college days.

@19 I also said "do-it-yourself" (if that was in response to my comment)...

drjones @7 has it right. This is something you choose to do for your partner.
My libido varies strongly throughout the month. At the low ebb, it's handjobs with dirty talk (which very reliably gets my husband off) because I don't really feel like being touched. Either side of the low ebb t's a bit more fun, but I tend to rely on PIV and handjobs more than usual. At the high point of the monthly libido cycle, I'm fucking him with a strap-on and ordering him to service me in various ways, which is pretty much his sexual paradise.

@Max Solomon: you are calling an 8-minute, to-release, non-reciprocated blowjob "quickie" "maintenance sex"?

Heavens no, that's more of an emergency stop gap. A 20-minute non-reciprocated blowjob with a sexy outfit and dirty talk is maintenance sex.

The man doing the dirty talk, Sean? Hard to talk dirty or other with one's mouth full.

@19: Dan has long recommended non-PIV maintenance sex. Women often pop up and tell him that a blowjob is more work than lying back and thinking of the Queen but presumably he gets more positive feedback than negative cause he's been saying it for years.
Personally I prefer to give a hand/blowjob if I'm not in the mood but it's just a preference.

And I'm married and give 1-2 BJs/per week on average so it's not as rare as some make it out to be.

Yeah, I'm okay with maintenance sex. IF it's consensual. What pissd me off about Amy's remark was that you HAVE to have sex with your husband, even if you're too tired to. And does he also have to get up and clean out the bathtub, run the dishwasher, go to the grocery store, comfort the crying baby, race home from work to take the kids to the park or violin....when he's too tired to?

No one should have maintenance sex when/if it makes them FEEL DEAD INSIDE or disrupts their well-being in critical ways.

Otherwise, it's nice to throw your partner a bone (or let 'em throw one at you) on occasion. It's like accompanying them to the opera/Star Wars/sports. You're not always going to be 100% into everything your partner wants to do, but it's nice to play along on the days it doesn't kill you.

Eh. This is a ymmv situation. I do give BJ's once a week or so, especially if I am not interested because I can get him off quickly and he loves it so damn much.

For me maintenance (as versus horny sex) is an excellent barometer about how I am feeling in the marriage. If things are good I am receptive. If things are not, no way. There was a six month period of high stress and marital disatisfaction and I didn't even want to be touched. I don't know what Amy said or didn't. I can see this setting off some serious hot buttons because women still live with tha hangover that marriage meant we couldn't say no. We all want to pretend that was years and years ago, but it really isn't.

That said, Dan got this right and continues to get it right. Sex is important and often* the social glue that helps hold a marriage together. That means both parties make an effort on "maintenance" (sex, compliments, roses, and bjs). And that we also respect the word no out of each other.

*recognizing that horniness, like all human attributes, exists on a bell curve. Therefore, there are companionate marriages without sex... blah blah blah. ..

Very good point, Dark Horse.... "Maintenance" of the RELATIONSHIP is what really matters here, and yes, that means maintenance sex, and as much as is needed, in the absence of really good excuses. But it also means non-sexual maintenance - call it romantic maintenance. Whatever it is for you doesn't matter - candlelight dinner? Flowers? A cute little note in your pocket? You know - the kind of thing Dan referred to in his Rolling Stone interview as "all that female bullshit."

It depends a lot on the guy whether I'd do blowjobs for maintenance sex. Like, one guy, hugely responsive to subtle technique...that's fun, almost a little game for me. Much more likely to do, if I'm not aroused, than have sex. Other guys, where their idea of 'blowjob' is 20 minutes of athletic deepthroating? Uh, no, I need to be super-aroused to be interested in that, thanks, I'd rather think of something sexy for a bit until I'm up for PIV.

Sometimes you can even have self-maintenance sex with stranger. Everyone should chill the fuck out it's just a penis in a vagina (or some other combo depending on your penis/vagina-having status) We're all out there getting taken advantage of every day in all types of ways, why sex gotta be some ultra special category.

Who is this woman to go telling other women what they have to do. Good the femosphere went off at her. And to say one has to have MSex when exhausted? Excuse me.
Not to say I don't think sex is very important to a union. It is. So is care for the other's wellbeing.
Doing the MSex routine on someone when they are exhausted, is not looking after them.
Be creative when finding time for sex, so both people can enjoy it.

Having sex is not the same as making a meal, or showering, drjones@7.
Is it? Some of you guys sound like, "yeah babe, come across when I want it
or no clean husband round the house for you." Attractive or what.
Sex is a strong bonding between people. Too many negative experiences around it, it loses that special quality.. and the love goes. Occassional MSex, that's what I feel. Otherwise you eroding the fabric of love keeping you together.

@19: I get the impression that there's no consensus on whether blowjobs are "easy" or not. YMMV.

@35. Bingo. I think one of the most dangerous things we do is to assume our feelings are good benchmarks for others feelings, especially something as subjective as "hard" and "easy."

@34. I think a difference needs to be made between carrying one's weight in a shared living arrangement and maintenance of the relationship, although I *know* one impacts the other and vice versa.

Dear husband (wife, sex kitten, boy toy, etc.) You would have to clean the toilet, do the laundry, wash your dishes if you lived alone. I am not your butler, maid, or scullery wench. You couldn't get out of carrying your own load as a roommate. Why do you think you can with a spouse?

Sex, compliments, appreciation. .. that is something else. That is the marriage (or emotional relationship) and is different than roommates

This is a tricky topic in my relationship. My partner is a survivor.

@Cat in fez: one guy, hugely responsive to subtle technique...that's fun, almost a little game for me

Holy mother of god I LOOOOVE subtle technique!!

Geoz @37: Unless your partner is dead, all our partners are survivors.

You mean a rape survivor? Well, guess what -- maintenance sex is consensual sex. A "no" should always be respected. Badgering someone who has said no is not consent. However, watching someone you purport to love suffer with sexual frustration is not kind. Maintenance sex is SAYING YES when you're feeling meh, not being pressured to say yes when you have already said no. I hope this column, and perhaps a therapist, can help your partner see the difference.

Yeah. Maintenance is one of the many possible reasons to consent, not an obligation to have nonconsensual sex.

@38: "Huh. I don't necessarily see a salient difference between sex, laundry, compliments, dishes, appreciation, cooking dinner, etc. All of those strike me as "treating your partner well," which is, to me, someone's defining trait as a partner."

I think of such gestures as Maslow's hierarchy. I've had bad experiences with partners that prioritized romantic gestures over responsibility (because the former are easier). Flowers and chocolate and smoochy face are not gonna be well received if bills haven't been paid and there are maggots in the sink due to backlogged dishes.

For me, once all the life basics are covered (rent, bills, food, sleep, chores, hygiene), then relationship stuff can happen. I'm not nit picky or quid pro quo; I won't have a panic attack if not every sock is paired or demand that my partner vacuum before I'll blow him. But I'm simply not going to be in the mood to do anything romantic or sexual with a pending eviction looming over my head or a nest of roaches teeming in the kitchen.

And I'll not consider "You haven't had sex with me in X amount of time" a legitimate grievance from a person who's not pulling their weight on those basics.

@42"For me, once all the life basics are covered (rent, bills, food, sleep, chores, hygiene), then relationship stuff can happen.... And I'll not consider "You haven't had sex with me in X amount of time" a legitimate grievance from a person who's not pulling their weight on those basics."

I suspect this has a lot in common with "Are blowjobs easy or difficult" or "Is that box heavy." Personally, I think the concept of "necessary but not sufficient" is probably the central one--people making you live in a craphole aren't getting laid any time soon, but I'm pretty sure being the cleaning lady and the butler aren't either, no matter how clean they keep the place.

I'd be surprised if any two people saw it as the same hierarchy, really. For my part, I'm dumping anyone who holds the sex life hostage to housekeeping duties, just because to me, it means they're not attracted to me.

Though I guess "dumping" makes it sound differently from how I see it--that setup would make me feel (correctly or not) like they were trying to use sex to purchase labor, rather than actually interested in me as a partner, which means the fun part of the relationship is already over.

I suspect it's something like "once any of the various requirements falls below a certain level, everything goes awry." I mean, it's not like someone can really compensate for no sex by doing extra vacuuming, after a certain point.

Yes Fan@40. One doesn't want to see one's partner suffer in sexual frustration. And one doesn't want to be pressured to have sex when one is exhausted.
Sleeping in the same bed every night makes it dicey as well. Proximity and all, nightly battles. Will she won't she. Will he won't he.

@43: "It's not like someone can really compensate for no sex by doing extra vacuuming, after a certain point." Bingo.
Though replace the word "sex" with the phrase "passing-level work" and the word "vacuuming" with the word "credit," and you have the vain hope of a bunch of my students around this time in the semester.

@45: Lol. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

To be fair, watching someone try to compensate for no sex by doing extra vacuuming might be pretty funny. Pretty sure that would require a much more powerful vacuum than the standard household model.

That 'maintenance sex is consensual sex' thing really depends on how it's negotiated, though. Dogs' years ago I was in a relationship where I was the lower-libido partner, and my boyfriend wanted (and GOT) 'maintenance sex'. However, HE wanted to be the one to decide when we'd have that maintenance sex (generally late at night when I'd have no energy or brain capacity for lust and needed to get up early in the morning), how we'd have that maintenance sex (generally PiV which would hurt like the blazes given the horrible timing and lack of even trying to get me in any kind of mood) and how long we'd have that maintenance sex (until he came, which took ages), and so on. And he'd never be interested in sex at times that were high-energy and low-stress for me, would not even try to attempt to get in the mood.

Now, current partner and I also do 'maintenance sex', but we negotiate based on energy levels. Late at night? Something low-key and not physically intrusive, unless I can sleep in the next day. During the day? Give me a couple of minutes to go take a shower and clear my head, and I'll have something more interesting than maintenance sex to offer. Busy, stressful week? Sunday's a standing date! World of difference. In both relationships, I was fully committed to maintaining the relationship, including the sexual aspect. But there's only so much giving a person can do if the giving has to hurt.

@47, what your old boyfriend demanded was not maintenance sex. That was: "sex on demand."

Maintenance sex should mean: if it has been longer than X amount of time (as seems reasonable to both partners) then I'll be aware that you're feeling neglected, and will alert you to optimal times and will do my best to be receptive to sex.

But the one feeling deprived should be willing to do their part too: adjust the timing to the other person's preferences, engage in foreplay or romance if the low-libido one wants, generally give sexy times their best shot.

The idea that maintenance sex means no foreplay for the less interested party -- that's bullshit.

Erica @48: "The idea that maintenance sex means no foreplay for the less interested party -- that's bullshit." Absolutely. The person who wants sex more should try to get the person who wants sex less into the mood, by using whatever tactics get them in the mood -- be that extra vacuuming, flowers, a back massage, tending the baby while they nap. If PWWSM attempts those things and they don't work, PWWSL could elect to appreciate the effort and participate in the sex anyway.

@49, within reason. The lower libido person (LL) doesn't get to shunt all their chores off onto the other person. But whatever the high libido person (HL) usually does to please LL in bed, on a non-maintenance day -- that should obviously happen on a maintenance day too, if LL has any interest in those activities.

Yeah, I've always been under the impression that maintenance sex is a compromise where LL agrees to accept a lower level of "in the mood"-ness to have sex, and HL agrees to accept a lower level of effort on LL's part. One person compromises on how rarely they want it, and the other one compromises on their expectations for how athletic it's going to be.

Eudaemonic @51, but should HL then be less "athletic" in their own efforts to please LL? Or does the fact that LL is "taking one for the team" mean that HL should make a special effort to please LL?

EricaP,

My own preference for maintenance sex is to talk dirty to them, kiss them, lick them and nibble their nipples while they get themselves off. If I just want to go to sleep, athleticism on their part is going to keep me awake. So NO ATHLETICISM. Please. Just get it over with, be happy and let me sleep.

EricaP @52: I'd imagine it might vary. If LL takes a long time to come, they might be happier if HL gets right to the point so they can get to sleep, rather than dragging it out when they might or might not come.
Having pressure put on you to come when you weren't feeling sexy in the first place is no fun.

@52: During maintenance sex, I'd say yes--I get the impression (both from experience and from hearing other people talk about it) that it works best when both parties recognize the distinction between "maintenance" sex and "regular" sex, just like snacks and meals both work better when everyone involved recognizes the distinction between a tide-you-over snack and a full dinner spread. Different purpose, different expectations.

Pattern-match to when someone says "It's not time for dinner yet, but if you're hungry I can whip you up a snack."

Agree that the HL shouldn't put pressure on the LL to do anything except be cheerful about providing a minimal experience. And I agree that the HL doesn't have to bring their best game.

But I think they should offer to get the vibrator, or give a back rub, or scratch the LL's back (or in my case: use some dominant energy) rather than just assuming that during maintenance sex the LL is punished by not having any fun. Seems to me that the HL should do their best to see that the LL also enjoys maintenance sex, where possible, and without adding any pressure to the LL.

YMMV, but personally I've found that taking turns tends to work best, if both parties want maintenance sex. I mean, when my wife wants a back rub, I don't feel like I'm being punished by the fact that I'm not receiving one myself right that moment. But a little of this might have to do with the fact that I (like most men, apparently) tend to want maintenance sex in the evenings, and my partners (like most women, apparently) have mostly been morning types.

I kind of feel like if both parties want a little sex play at the same time, then that's just sex--maybe a "quickie"--rather than maintenance sex. But that's mostly semantic; when I think "maintenance sex," I only mean the times when one partner wants it and the other would just as soon be asleep.

@57 "if both parties want maintenance sex" then there's no real issue, right? They have a good situation. For us, when one of us would "just as soon be asleep," that one usually gets aroused anyway after a couple of minutes and it turns into regular sex. Or else the less interested party is literally falling asleep (or in pain) during sex, and the other one stops before their orgasm but without feeling aggrieved.

But if there's a HL partner who wants sex 3 times a week, and a LL partner who wants sex once a week... and let's say that HL prefers sex at bedtime and LL prefers sex in the morning. If they have sex three times that week in the morning -- is HL justified in being irritated that he never got sex at bedtime? Is LL justified in being irritated at HL for getting sex 3x / week and wanting more? I guess that's where you find out about long-term compatibility. If you're both irritated and arguing over who is giving more, then it's not working out. I guess I don't know how people work this stuff out if it doesn't come easily.

@58: Yeah. If both parties want sex with the same frequency, then it isn't a HL/LL situation (which is not to say they can't have frequency and timing issues).

But if each partner wants a handjob/vibrator 3x a week, and "regular" sex 1x a week, and one wants the maintenance-sex in the morning and the other in the evening, then one person gets theirs 3x a week in the morning, and the other in the evening. It's always seemed to work fine--in my experience, the evening-person isn't irritated at not getting an orgasm in the morning, nor vice versa.

If both parties want an orgasm at the same time, I wouldn't call that maintenance sex. I get the sense that maintenance sense isn't so much of a mutual thing, because mutuality makes it more than just maintenance.

...of course, a lot of them don't work this out, because even working out something like the morning/evening thing requires both 1) being accurate and honest about what you want, and 2) being comfortable with the fact that your partner doesn't want solely what you'd prefer them to want. Getting both of these takes a fair amount of maturity, and I'm pretty sure that (statistically) almost every relationship occurs between immature people.

(But that's fine. One's total collection of relationships doesn't need to have a very high "success" rate, overall. I mean, 5% is basically plenty.)

I used to not believe in this at all. Don't hate me, but my husband was totally frustrated. Our relationship changed and I started giving him all the sex he wanted, or blow jobs. For awhile it was 2-3 times PER DAY. But then he leveled off at about 5 times a week, sometimes more. Overall we are happier and more content, and I find that I easily become aroused even if I didn't "feel like it" at the beginning.