I am a straight man. From high school through college and after, I loved me some women. Then I met my present girl 10 years ago. I fell head over heels for her. I still love her. But, little by little, she has become boring to me. Our sex life has cooled. Days run together with mundane activities like watching TV, going to the store, and hanging out with our kids.
We own a house, we’re financially stable, we look very traditional. But I am far from conservative. I love nightlife, crazy friends, and good drink. She was aware of this when we met because we ran in the same circles. My boredom is compounded by a craving for sex with other women. It doesn’t matter who—the girl at the coffee shop, the checker at Whole Foods, every chick at the gym—I’m up to my eyeballs in covet.
I want out. I want to be a father to my kids and take care of my wife financially. But I want out. I am a few years from 40. What is the best course of action?
Too Young To Flail
One day, I’m gonna throw my hands in the air and declare that, from that blessed day forward, I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of monogamy. That day hasn’t arrived, as I still have mortgage payments to make and opposite marriages to save—so here’s a little tinkle for you:
You say you want out, TYTF, but are you sure about that? In her book I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage, Susan Squire asks: “Why does society consider it more moral for you to break up a marriage, go through a divorce, disrupt your children’s lives maybe forever, just to be able to fuck someone with whom the fucking is going to get just as boring as it was with the first person before long?” (Emphasis added.)
Writing about Representative Christopher “Craigslist Congressman” Lee last week on Balloon Juice—a blog I read daily—BJ contributor “Mastermix” said: “If we want to do something about the high divorce rate, we might want to get real [about] the role of a discreet, mutually-agreed-upon affair as a safety valve.”
In other words, TYTF, destroy the only home your kids have known and put yourself and the wife through the hell of divorce, and here’s what happens next: You dog around for a few years and before long you shack up with a new woman—a woman who might want or already has a kid or two of her own—and a few years after that, you’re trapped in another monogamous relationship that bores you, and a few years after that, you’re writing to ask if you should put your second wife and your new kids through the pain of a divorce, all so you can make an embarrassing pass at a barista who has zero interest in fucking you.
Instead of putting your current family—and your hypothetical second family and that poor barista—through that, TYTF, why not risk leveling with the wife you’ve got now? Your marriage is already on the ropes, TYTF, so you don’t have a lot to lose. Ask to have a “safety valve” installed on your marriage in the form of permission to have a discreet, mutually-agreed-upon affair, should the right opportunity/barista present itself/herself. It may not be a pleasant thing for your wife to hear, but “I’m leaving you to go fuck a barista to be named later” won’t be music to her ears, either.
She may surprise you, TYTF. It’s entirely possible—I hope you’re sitting down for this—that you bore her just as much as she bores you. If she’s itching for a few adventures of her own, social and sexual, then spend whatever money you were planning to spend on lawyers and counseling for your kids on flying grandparents in to look after the kids while you two head out for a weekend away.
But if all she wants is to stay at home in front of the TV with the kids, tell her that to preserve your sanity and, paradoxically, your marriage, you’re going to go out and have some adventures on your own.
If she leaves you over it, TYTF, then you got what you wanted: out.
I’m a 31-year-old lesbian. My girlfriend is in her 30s, but save for a few one-night stands, she has never been with a woman before. I’ve never had better sex than the sex I’m having with her. When I try to talk to her about this, she gets anxious and makes self-deprecatory comments. I want to be with her for the long haul—our dreams fit together—I just need to figure out how to communicate with her about how great our sex is. Got any advice?
Communication
Breakdown
Yeah, CB, I’ve got some advice for you: Shut the fuck up.
I had this awesome new boyfriend once, and the sex was so freaking great that I felt compelled to communicate with him about how great it was. “This is so great,” I would tell him. “Let’s try to figure out where all this greatness is coming from!” But he didn’t enjoy talking about sex—particularly while we were having sex—and he got so annoyed with my attempts to figure out where all this greatness was coming from that he eventually asked/advised/ordered me to shut the fuck up.
Keep fucking the girlfriend’s fucking brains right fucking out, CB, but shut the fuck up. Odds are that she’ll learn to relax and open up about sex, like my boyfriend did. But in the meantime, CB, try to resist the urge to lesbian this thing into the ground by communicating it to death.
For several months now, I’ve had a growing attraction to one of my good male friends. I am an open bisexual male, and my friend is “straight.” We’ve had relations—me blowing him, him jerking me—but he’s adamant that he is not attracted to males at all. He nevertheless sleeps with me in my bed when he spends the night.
The plot thickens: A couple days ago, my “straight” crush ordered an eight-inch dildo, molded from a real dick, complete with balls! He got it to use on himself! He says because there’s not going to be another male present when he uses it, and thus no romance, the act will be “straight.” I define being sexual as enjoying not only the sexual interactions possible between preferred genders, but also the emotional satisfaction, or romance. Does he have a point?
Absolutely Hate Acronyms
Wasn’t there “another male present” when you were giving him blowjobs, AHA, and he was jerking you?
Maybe if your “straight” friend wasn’t accepting blowjobs from another man and swore on a stack of vintage Playboys that he would be fantasizing about a lady-parts-having woman-person pegging him when he jams that dildo up his ass, then maybe—maybe—he could be believed when he claims to be a straight dude into anal penetration. But a guy who fails to mention a burning desire for pussy to shore up his straight cred—particularly in conversation with a dude who blows him—and instead falls back on a lame “no homo” rationalization (“Hey, it’s not like the dildo brought me flowers or anything gay like that!”) is a lot of things, but straight ain’t one of ’em.
If your straight friend manages to fuck some sense into himself on that dildo, AHA, you might want to take a turn on it yourself.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
I dont understand this, have we really become this complacent? How can anyone conceive marriage as a trap, youre not forced into it, you can “escape”. Didnt you marry because you were ecstatic at the thought of spending the rest of your life with this person. Not Oh ill give it 10 – 15 years and then see if i feel like fucking someone else in which case we’ll just change the rules. Its just so damn self indulgent. Why isnt marriage celebrated as two people celebrating their love and commitment to each other? And why are we divorcing sex from marriage? How could you even contemplate becoming that intimate with someone outside youre marriage? Not even just marriage but LTPs. How does it not make you recoil in disgust? How is the other partner supposed to accept the fact that you want to lie naked with someone, kiss their neck, stroke their face, share that beautiful bond. If you are why isnt this ringing huge alarm bells, never-mind, oh we’re sooo chained in by social conformity maaan, lets free the love. If you dont want the commitment that comes with marriage dont enter into it and dont start a relationship with someone who wants it. I can see that after a few years the relationship changes and there isnt the passion of lust and you dont require sex as much because there are other ways you are expressing your love for each other, a state of absolute contentment with someone. But to say, I really want sex just not with you…whoops, my bad, sorry. Doesnt that mean youve become friends, not lovers? So many people seem to be ok with having their damned cake and eating it and opening a world of pain for everyone close to them because they have their “needs” and my God forsake us if we dont satisfy those needs. It would be a crime to nature! It is indeed your duty to fuck around. What?! Giving yourself license to sleep with someone else or simply sleeping with someone not because youre in love with them or madly attracted to them but because youre bored…BORED!!?? Rationalization is the salvation of fools. It causes me physical pain to think I could do that to my partner, that there could be anyone else but him to be my friend and my lover. And I cherish every moment we’re sat infront of the tv, or grocery shopping or taking the cat to the vet, or making love. Fuck you TYTF you deserve all the shitty angst youre marinading in and more and I pity that one too many shot of jacks that led to your poor wife agreeing to marry and breed with you.
…besides, there’s nothing that makes you a hotter guy to women than that wedding ring. Once you you actually leave your marriage, the hot women freak out and fade away. Been there, so have many guys, and that’s not so interesting.
But I’d really like to hear from one of the women who fuck married guys why they lose their luster once they aren’t married anymore. Extra points if you laid lots of guilt trips on him for cheating on his wife and begged him to leave her.
@153 – likewise, I’m sure 🙂
probably most simple and best advice given to most common complaint for monogamous couples. Now just all of us who have this problem have to ball up and do it.
@115 Where might I find these men that feel societal pressure to get marred and form a family? I only seem to meet the nearly 40 year olds that give me lame puppy dog eyes and say stuff like, “I’m just, ya know, not ready for a girlfriend, ya know”.
All of the women I know that are married basically gave long term boyfriends ultimatums: propose or we’re breaking up. I disapprove since I’m probably foolishly looking for a loving partner (marriage be damned) not some schlub of a husband to manipulate (I’m single though so clearly I’m doing it wrong), but I’m thinking a lot of men get married more out of laziness than societal pressure.
Breaking up, dating can be hard. I think guys like TYTF got married because they loved the woman they were with enough and at the time remembered how hard it is out there to break up and start over. Ten years on, yeah, dating is all rose colored memories.
jenesasquatch your problem is not that your wife isn’t putting out. Your problem is you told your wife something upsets you, you have a problem, you’re hurting, you want to work on it with her, and she essentially told you to go fuck yourself. Actually in this case she literally did. Since she doesn’t see a problem, there isn’t one. That my friend is a way bigger problem than your lack of a sex life.
@157 many of my friends and I noticed that when men got divorced they wanted to get married again about 10 minutes later. They like companionship. They like someone to cook, keep house, do laundry, buy his mother a birthday gift, etc. Meanwhile before you married him he bought you champagne and fucked you in the jacuzzi. He never blinked when you wanted to go to SexyUpscaleRestaurant. Now he says “oh but babe I just love your cooking more.” And I know you men all think we women pack on pounds but every man I know got a huge beer belly within 3 years of marriage and we don’t find that any sexier than you find it when we don’t lose a pound of baby weight. Least we had an excuse to pack on the weight. We notice you shower less, aren’t getting as many haircuts, expect us to do stupid errands your secretary should be doing, and then leave us home with toddlers while you go have anal sex and cocktails with your secretary (now we know why she was too busy to do your errands). So many of us say FUCK THAT you can STAY married.
Plus, honestly, we don’t KNOW YOU when you’re married. We fuck you once a week in a hotel room and have stolen dinners out of town. We think you’re fabulous and your poor unappreciative bitch wife just doesn’t GET YOU like we do. Then you divorce and we spend more time with you and it’s “oh. You mean you’re not just a big dick and a wallet? You’re actually kind of an asshole and treat service persons like shit and call your teenage son a faggot and what the fuck do you mean you’re allergic to cats?”
But see while we’re just fucking you, if you’re doing it right, that’s intoxicating. Women get amazingly stupid when they’re getting fucked good and proper. Good sex is like opium.
@161 You seem like an angry person. My wife would never tell me to go fuck myself. Some things just don’t work out or are just not possible. Resentment and bitterness are not the answer. Anyone promoting communication needs to recognize that communication is a process. It’s not necessarily getting the answer you want. It does no good and is not mature to curse the sky for raining on you.
@11 – Wow, I am absolutely mind-boggled that no one wants to sleep with your baked middle-aged ass. I’m sure every girl in a 30 mile radius is just dying to throw themselves at the first idiot misogynist they come across!
A few other commenters have already mentioned this, but TYTF’s idea of fun — “nightlife, crazy friends, and good drink” — sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry on a white picket fence. (By “crazy friends,” I assume he means “friends who are also into clubbing and drinking.”) I suspect that a significant part of his problem isn’t sexual boredom, but just boredom, full stop. He should try to improve his sex life with his wife, absolutely, but he should also find some sort of hobby other than remaining a perpetual fratboy.
@147 (JackDitch)
The huge problem I have with the philosophies of Conservative orgs that may fulfill the stated objective of a shared philosophy is that, even if celibacy weren’t an issue, they are usually run on a strictly sex-segregated manner (ladies’ auxiliary, anybody?), which just emphasizes how the introduction of women into the far more important intellectual milieu will make it impossible for the men to stay focused on their higher calling. [Yeah, right! /sarcasm. “Here, Adam, why don’t you try this luscious apple?”]
As for more fluid relationships and living arrangements not being picked up as a significant liberal cause, I think it’s because people would first have to agree on what the cause should be (and how to word it); whereas the concept of something such as same-sex marriage is really simple: “Marriage is a union between two people.” Perhaps, once the major holes have been patched over after the big causes have been resolved, then there may be time and energy to examine the more idiosyncratic propositions, probably under the banner of greater individual liberty and personal expression.
I’m fascinated by the occupancy laws and the prejudices of the day that may have prompted them. Because, if you limit the number of unrelated adults, you can’t have a bawdy house (condoning immorality); or a rooming/boarding house (sheltering lower income people); a frat house (rowdy students) or, yes, a nebulous arrangement of people who may be engaged in polyamory (a threat to conventional marriage and its far clearer moral certainties where faithful=good and unfaithful=CPOS).
But I can still hope for the day (even beyond my lifetime) when it will be easier for people to see that there can be many options for creating their family of choice well beyond requiring sex as a prerequisite.
@ 160 – You ask “Where might I find these men that feel societal pressure to get married and form a family”, then go on to say : “All of the women I know that are married basically gave long term boyfriends ultimatums: propose or we’re breaking up”.
That’s where you can find them: married to your friends.
Had those guys considered their own needs and desires, they would have broken up. If your friends gave their BF’s an ultimatum, it’s clear that they valued marriage more than the relationship itself… because of the importance society grants to marriage, which is drilled into our minds from a very early age (remember fairytales?).
It’s the whole “if he really loves you, he’ll marry you” shtick. Well in my opinion, if your friends really loved there BF’s, they wouldn’t have pressured them into a situation that the BF’s clearly weren’t so enthusiastic about.
And as a sidenote: Couldn’t your friends have proposed themselves if they wanted marriage so much? How sexist is that attitude? In what century do they live?
@162 Great answer! Thanks, Wendy. Sounds like it might be true as well. FWIW, I don’t think I’ve gotten slothful like that since the divorce, but I sure see a lot of guys do. The current project is to keep the gf convinced that the great sex now would certainly dissipate if we move in together (let alone marry). She gets it.
And the funny thing is that my adulterous single gf (the one who blew me off when I divorced like she wanted me to) has now come back around, largely for the reason you give.
Bottom line: the best, least complicated sex with alla the candlelight and tightly-focused attention and energy you could want takes place between two people who are married. But not to each other.
LABELS LABELS!
I’m an average guy who likes to kill the occasional hooker but that does not make me a murderer.
You can’t cubbyhole me!
@168 – in order for this “best, least complicated sex” to take place, do the married people have to be lying to their spouses? Does that just make everything that much hotter for you?
I think your example shows that many complications follow after the betrayals, even if the sex feels good and simple at the time.
@162 & 168.
You are right in IMHO.
And 162, I think much of what you suggest works in reverse for women who divorce and move on to the other man.
The last paragraph of both these posts are probably the definitive answers, if you include men in the “women get incredibly stupid” comment.
Bwahahahah Wendy! Damn girl, you are sooooooo right.
And all you misogynistic assholes out there, us wives get just as fucking bored with married sex. Perhaps we just handle it a little differently. The idea of leaving my family for (as one poster so eloquently put it) “perpetual frat boy” or girl in my case, status….ummmm, not gonna happen. Obviously, I think everyone agrees, boredom is no excuse. But what if the sex life is broken and just one partner is not willing to step up and play ball?
Then perhaps a discreet affair with another married person; helps everyone stay sane and happier in their marriage. I am laughing so hard at Wendy, as my affair partner has been turning my crank for years now, no one gets me as hot as him. However, if I had to deal with his unemployed ass in a real world situation? Might be a different story. Of course, I don’t pressure him to leave….one of the reasons we work so well together. We are both CPOS, which is not our ideal situation for either of us, but neither one of us wants to bang a barista or catch herpes to bring home to spouse.
Lol….and I am totally going to explain the concept of “lesbian” as a verb to all my lesbian friends who don’t read SL!!
@163: are you trolling for sainthood? wendykh does sound bitter, but she nailed your situation. You’re dissatisfied with your sex life (though you still don’t have the guts to say why), you’ve tried to resolve this by talking to your wife, she told you to talk to the hand. Very loving. So either your sexuality really isn’t that important to you (maybe you’re a “gray-a”?), in which case so what, or it is but you don’t have the balls to do anything about it. If you think that’s “trivializing” your situation, stop feeling sorry for yourself: most people would call it a pretty accurate summary. Did you really post on Slog expecting sympathy?
I disagree with the safety valve thing. What will happen is that he’ll become infatuated with someone, which will cause him to become a horrible judge of exactly how much time and attention he’s spending on the new infatuation. (Because let’s face it – infatuations make us stupid.) His wife won’t necessarily know that he’s cheating, esp. if he’s careful, but she will know something is wrong. She’ll feel neglected and like something is missing. So instead of a boring marriage, he’ll have one that’s falling apart. (I admit that maybe a one-night stand with a stranger [and a condom!] might be far less risky to his marriage, but this guy doesn’t sound like he’d stop at just one.)
What he should do instead is DO something to make his married life NOT boring. And you do that by starting to do all the little courtship gestures you did when you first got together. If he likes going out to have a drink, get a babysitter and take his wife with him. Maybe she’d like a break from the kids, too. It means more time and effort, sure, but that’s what makes a marriage different from having a boyfriend or girlfriend.
I usually like Dan’s advice, but he’s completely wrong on this one. An affair would only destroy what he’s trying to save, even if he never gets caught.
Oh, and one more thing @163: it may not make sense to you to curse the sky for raining on you, but
(a) your wife is a person, not an inanimate weather phenomenon
and
(b) anybody with any sense would get an umbrella or come in out of the rain.
The only thing #11 has right is that most wives aren’t going to be down with the pressure valve relationship. I wish more women could see that they stand a BETTER chance of staying married if they let their husbands have a little on the side…. rather than throwing them out for it.
@176, I agree with you, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that the marriage doesn’t go on the same after it opens up. Both parties have to let go of the “happy-ever-after” Cinderella true-love understanding of their marriage, and accept that each partner is more independent of the other & more flawed than in storybook romances. People have to be willing to live their lives as realist fiction (think Flaubert, Twain or Fitzgerald) rather than as romances.
The big problem with just asking the wife to be able to see others is that even if the wife herself doesn’t care about some extra-curricular activities, she is probably terrified her friends/family will find out that you are sleeping around. That’s the real fear – having to explain at Thanksgiving why your husband is getting it on with the barista.
@176, Actually the rate of wives cheating is almost as high as the rate of husbands cheating. Just because most wives will say no to opening up the marriage doesn’t mean women are less likely to want some on the side. Of course, I suppose it’s possible that the same women who cheat are different women from the same ones saying no to opening up a marriage, but it’s human nature to want to have our cake and eat it, too, right?
Anyway, having some on the side usually creates more problems than it solves since the cheater spouse usually ends up neglecting the other spouse, even if they try not to. So, even if you never get caught you end up wrecking havoc on your marriage.
The “safety value” idea is a complete overreaction. He didn’t say his wife refused all sex permanently, just that his life seems “boring.” But there are so many ways for him to make it not-boring in ways that include his wife.
@167
I think society has drilled it into our (I could argue SOME) of our heads because marriage is still the best form of security for a woman.
A woman has a lot to gain from marriage: socially, emotionally, financially. The longer women put off marriage, the less chance they have of getting married, or at least having as much social/financial/emotion gain if they had married younger.
Yes, you can do all those married things either as a long term couple or even by yourself… buy a house, have kids. But because of how our society is structured, you’re doing these things without as much of a safety net. In a society where women still 1) make less than men 2) still bear the brunt of child care and 3) have a limited time frame in which they can have children AND careers, it can create a HUGE sense of anxiety to sit there and wait and wait and wait for the man to catch up.
I don’t think it’s as simple as the girlfriends who pressure guys to propose don’t love them. The girlfriends are just recognizing that they and the guy may not be on the same time line, and that their window of opportunity is shrinking a lot faster than his. They then put the guy on alert… Either I get what I need or I move on to where I can get it.
How is this any different than what Dan suggests for people (mostly men) who are not getting their sexual needs met at home?
@178 Yes, and Dan made reference to how society pushes hard for divorce –will accept divorce readily while hammering people for their open marriages.
@jenesasquatch: some responses you’ve received may be a bit snarky in tone, but they’re still on to something. From your first note, this bit is particularly tough to get past:
“Go to therapy? No, I don’t see a problem/I don’t believe in therapy/the sex is fine for me.”
But, but, but: YOU DO have a problem, and you TOLD her that you have a problem, so for her to say that she “doesn’t see” it means that she is deliberately refusing to hear you. YOU find the sex not-fine. YOU are hoping that therapy can help. She shouldn’t get to decide for both of you that because the problem doesn’t exist for her, it doesn’t exist at all, or is too trivial to fix. Your needs and feelings are as valid as hers. The health of your partnership should be just as important to her as it is to you. That one of you is frustrated and the other apparently doesn’t care, at all, means the relationship is developing a fault line along which it will eventually crack in some way, making both of you unhappy.
So I’m wondering what might underlie her resistance to therapy. (Yes, I know plenty of people don’t believe it can help at all with anything. But at the risk of perpetuating gender stereotypes, I find it very hard to believe that she would not be the one asking you to go for therapy if she had a serious concern that you absolutely refused to acknowledge or address.)
Many people approach couples therapy with the mindset of “once the counselor hears my side of the story, s/he will agree that I’m right, and you’ll have to do/give me what I want.” Which a) is not at all motivating for the other person, and b) is not really what therapists are supposed to do. They’re supposed to guide the couple in having constructive discussions and developing solutions and coping strategies that they both can live with.
So maybe your wife thinks that you’re convinced you’re right and she’s wrong, and that you’re just looking for a professional ally to help push her into a solution that would make you happier while making her miserable. On the flip side, maybe your wife is convinced that she’s right and you’re wrong, and there’s no point wasting money to be told so.
It’s also possible your wife suspects that a therapist *would* tell her that she’s shutting down communication, refusing to consider whether your concerns are valid and whether she could compromise a bit more – and that she’s already decided there’s nothing she’s willing to do to accommodate you in any way – hence the “I don’t believe in therapy” dodge.
You may need to try again (and again, and again) to explain how important this issue really is for you (assuming it really is), without making her feel as if you’re looking at things from the right-vs.-wrong perspective, blaming her for the problem itself, or expecting a specific outcome that will favor you at her expense. Something along the lines of, “I’m frustrated by this situation, and I’m disappointed that you won’t acknowledge how I feel and work with me to find solutions we can both live with.” Ask her *why* she doesn’t believe in therapy. Ask her *why* your frustration is not a problem for her.
If you’ve already had that conversation over and over again ad nauseam and her answer hasn’t changed, then it really could be that she simply cares less about your feelings than you do about hers. Advice columnists often tell people that if their partners won’t go to therapy with them, they should go alone. I can’t see how it would hurt to try.
Obviously you’re welcome to ignore not-quite-solicited advice from internet strangers. You’re the only one who can decide when enough is enough, but I hope you’ll come to some workable solution before your marriage sustains significant damage. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best of luck.
Wendy is hilarious, if a little angry.
Add 20 or so to the chorus of pretty young things that get hit on by the middle-aged idiots fresh out of (or still “trapped” in)marriage. Happens to me and my girlfriends all the time. I hate to break it to them, but the girls will smile and flirt all night if you’re buying. You’re still not getting any. Even single, attractive, young men swing and miss most nights. It’s cold out there.
This argument about women shutting down sexually in LTRs is as old as time. She used to be hot for it night and day? I bet you used to rub her feet, take her out, tell her she’s pretty, go down on her, and bring her treats a lot more too, didn’t you? And not just obviously, right before you make a move. We all forget how to be good to each other – it’s a human thing, not a man or woman thing. We all take each other for granted.
179: From a chating wife: EXACTLY!
Some of my male friends have remarked that they would never open up marriages, smply because women havea much easier time getting laid, and thy know by opening up the marriage, they know their wives will hve the opportunity to fuck around a LOT more then they will. And tis is what binds them in monogamy, as much as they WANT to screw others…its the disparity of availible NSA sex partners.
180: You too hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, this is why I got married young and foolish. Fortunately, he ended up being a decent guy, even if I did not realize at the time how important sexual compatibility was. I shoulda read Dan younger.
I could almost feel sorry for TYTF….if he didn’t come across as sucha whiny tool
Lol 183, and all you other cute young 20-somethings who get hit on by creepy 40-somethings! This thirty-something who keeps herself in pretty good shape has soooo much sympathy for you guys! I have moved on to the FIFTY somethings when I go out and play wingman! And that is where TYTF is heading, especially with such brilliant lines as he uses in his letters. I bet he will even brag about his sportscar and sporting a combover and unbuttoned shirt to reveal gray chest hair….
And lemme tell you….its not pretty. Ugh. To quote the immortal Cher from Clueless…”As if”!!! Lol!!
@ 180 – That’s only true because the US is sorely lacking in other legally-protected forms of partnership.
France’s example is interesting in that respect: they created the PACS in the 90’s as a way to allow legal gay unions without actually giving gays the right to marry, but they found out recently that it’s increasingly popular with straights, because it provides them with all the protection they need, without most of the legal burden that an eventual divorce would entail.
The same could be said about the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, etc.
If there’s only one form of legally protected union, then of course the expectations concerning it become ridiculously high. But that only means that people should lobby their governement for more diverse options. And do they?
The truth is, when you hear people talk about marriage and how they want their wedding to be, and how much money they are willing to invest in the wedding, it’s hard not to see the influence of a “fairytale” conception of life. TV and Hollywood movies do nothing to change that, either as they’ll tag on a romance to any sort of situation so as to have that requisite happy ending, even though it has nothing to do with the story. But why do they do that? Because the test audiences complain if they don’t. And there must be somebody who watches all those “wedding story” shows.
But you’re point about the women looking for social and financial gain from marriage is absolutely valid. And that’s precisely why many man balk at the thought of it: because many of them feel that their would-be wife is getting married to their wallet. (I am not saying they are right in feeling this way, or that the women aren’t justified in their quest for security, just that when you work tending bar, you get to hear that complain a lot.)
@177, everything you say here is also true of most not-open marriages once the honeymoon years are over, no? I guess open(ed) marriage partners can all point to a specific crisis moment when they were forced to acknowledge that they weren’t two halves of a fairytale whole, and that they’d have to consciously choose to accept each others’ (and their own) flawed individuality – while those in traditional marriages are more likely to have that awareness creep up on them in the form of vague dissatisfactions.
@187 – yes. The way I see is it that before a serious marital crisis, you have good days and bad days, where good days often feel as if you are living out a storybook romance. (“Ooh, maybe we should stop being such a cute couple before our friends hate us!”) Bad days, not so much.
After a crisis (such as opening up a monogamous marriage, or facing serious illness, or the death of a child), you feel like social freaks even on the good days. (The “you” is rhetorical and an overgeneralization, but perhaps you see what I mean.
Re 186 : I meant “your point”, not “you’re point”, of course. Sorry, it’s been a long week.
Ah, well. Men vary in their “straightness.” Mr. Straight may have no desire to go farther than he is going with his friend and the big dildo. Lots of straight men like to get pegged. If he’s alone, it’s gay because he got a lifelike dildo? He may sleep with his blow job buddy because his buddy wants it and he is trying to be caring.
But of course it is entirely possibly that he is gay but feels more secure with the gradual approach of jamming a giant dildo up his ass in private before he tries it with someone else. He wants to know what it will be like before he makes a commitment to doing it. Okay. Wait two weeks and see what happens.
Also, “lesbian this thing into the ground by communicating it to death.” ROFLMAO
@182 Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Yes, that was an unfortunate way of phrasing that. The point that I was trying to make really is just: we ended up at “no.” I didn’t mean to imply that it took only a minute to get there or that “yes” was never seriously considered. And I have been to therapy alone.
It seems I just can’t make myself understood. Marriage is hard. You and your partner will have significant problems. You may never see eye to eye on some things. Sometimes that happens, okay? Even when you both put in a first class effort. Stop telling me that that’s impossible. I’ve lived it. My original comment was intended to point it out. It’s something to think about due to what I perceive as the implication elsewhere that communication always leads to agreement or harmony. It was not a complaint, not a plea for sympathy or for anything from anyone. Just to give you another perspective.
@186
But the flip-side is women feel men are dragging their feet on marriage but still dating them just to have access to free pussy.
Women COULD stop giving it up before marriage, but then you run the risk of either being labeled a prude, bringing no sexual experience to the table, or discovering too late your libidos are out of sync.
Granted, I am biased because I am a woman, and I despise the dating/marrying game. It feels constantly like a lose/lose situation. Women have (by and large) loosened up on demanding the ring before they jump into bed, and yet most men STILL balk at marriage. Mature women have stopped whining that a guy is dating her to get in her pants… they get that getting into their pants is PART of the whole thing we call love. So when are mature guys gonna retire the whole terror about “being after the wallet” and realize that security is just as natural a want in love as sex is.
@ 194 – “Women COULD stop giving it up before marriage”
I don’t know if this is a reflection of how you personally think, but by phrasing it like this, you are kind of reducing marriage to a business transaction, or let’s say a series of exchanges of services. A series of obligations. And you wonder why men balk?
Don’t women enjoy sex? Shouldn’t it be something that they are happy to do and share for their own satisfaction and that of the person they love, married or not, but more so if they say that they want to spend the rest of their life with that person?
If sex is just something that they “give up” in order to attain security, well, am I ever glad I’m gay, because it sounds like that pussy ain’t ever free.
In the end, it comes down to this: So what if the guy wants free pussy? He’s giving free dick in exhange!
If you don’t like the dick you’re getting, you shouldn’t expect your security from the man attached to it. And if you don’t like dick at all, you shouldn’t expect your security from a man, period.
This is the 21st Century, you know. Women are allowed to have a career and to create their own security. Just saying.
this is the best savage love in a while..i miss the “hey faggot” greeting from the terminal city days
Hunter 78 – text speak is annoying on texts. From teenagers. This is a blog. Use full words if you expect to be taken seriously by adults. I’m probably 2-3 decades younger than you, and I manage to type all the letters, on a 4 inch phone screen.
Srsly. Ur annoying. Btw, “myn” has 1 ltr < “mine”. As does “yser” thn “wiser”.
@195 “Don’t women enjoy sex?” LOL.
Let’s just say that there’s an awful lot of bad sex out there. And I think that bad sex is still somewhat satisfying for the guy, whereas it can be actively unpleasant for the girl.
Somewhat off topic: I can’t tell you how much pressure I’m under, as a girl who fucks “no-strings-attached”, to participate in anal. Every fucking guy. If they don’t bring it up on the first date, they do on the second date. The PIV sex with these guys is already pretty uninspiring, and now they want anal, which is very difficult for me to enjoy.
Anal is the reason I haven’t seen any of these guys more than twice. And I go back to my husband with joy.
There’s a reason women like commitment with their sex, and it’s called “The Incredible Prevalence of Bad Sex When Dating.”
Also, did you guys read about this? Apparently the noise women make during sex correlates much more strongly with male orgasm than with female orgasm. http://www.labspaces.net/blog/1186/Why_t…
I have a theory, I’ll try out on you guys. What if instead of dividing the world’s sexual experiences into consensual sex and non-consensual sex (“sex” and “rape”), what if instead we divided by whether everyone participating in the sex was enthusiastic? I won’t insist on orgasm; sex can be fun without orgasm.
Would you agree that at least half of the sex acts in the world’s history involve one person who was not enthusiastic? Instead of talking about how to reduce date-rape (understandably, no one likes considering the possibility he’s a rapist…) Let’s talk instead about how to increase the number of sex-acts where both people are enthusiastic participants.
Yeah, Ricardo, we can do it all on our own! Just like you can pop out kids, have a career, and raise and support them all on your own. One handed! Blindfolded! Uphill both ways in the snow!
Fact is, it usually takes 2 incomes to support a home and family these days, and much of the raising of kids goes by the wayside. So yeah, that swinging dick is needed for more than a good time. Not saying some women aren’t capable and willing to bust their asses, alone, to try to be superwoman and supermom and still have some semblance of a life of her own. It’s just not that easy. And unfortunately, the feminist message that we can have it all is proving untrue for a LOT of women who did it right: got educated, established a career and financial stability, found a man they like AND love, got married later, and then started on kids. Only to find that the kids were not forthcoming. Turns out, making babies gets considerably harder after 30, for a lot of us.
So yeah, we still wanna get married, and we wanna do it before we have to start laying out some serious (try 50k) cash for fertility treatments, if that’s even an option. Though that’s not “feminist” or “progressive” and we’re judged like hell for wanting it, and wanting it soon.
What’s the solution? Know what you want, and pursue it from the beginning. Quit dating people you KNOW you’re not going to marry. Men, don’t hang around out of obligation, or fear of change, or whatever chicken-shit reason you stay with women who aren’t the One or whatever. Women, stop expecting him to change (he won’t), don’t stay with a man who isn’t what you need for fear of being alone, talk about your plans in concrete, reality based ways (no “someday) and if he runs, he wasn’t the guy and he just saved you another 2 years.
Nobody wants to be the baby-hungry marriage harpy, but we also want families, and we can’t usually wait as long as men. Equal rights, modern feminism, progressive women – none of this changes this biological fact.
me @199 – you know what women get out of a long term sexual relationship? Knowledge about how to get her man off (relatively) quickly. When you fuck a lot of guys in a year, and maybe viagra plays a role in this, you would be amazed at the number of guys who last for 45 minutes of fucking. For me, that’s not a good thing.
@195
I think you are missing what is really at stake for Martychan.
We women do love sex. Also, men do want to have children.
Our desire for sex isn’t generally as great as a man’s and we can get sex pretty much whenever we want. A man’s desire for children isn’t generally as great as a woman’s and a man can have kids well into his 90s.
These are the points of contention. Men can and do leverage a woman’s desire to marry and have children in order to get free, available sex. Women can and do leverage a man’s desire for free, available sex in order to get a marriage with children. Clearly, the potential for swindling is rather high. This is why you end up with all this mistrust and suspicion and bargaining power.
This is my favorite thing about not wanting kids at all. I have the luxury the attitude you described.
@ 198 – That was a rhetorical question, in response to someone who talks about sex in terms like “giving it up”. I sure do hope women enjoy sex.
I was born in the 60’s, so I grew up amidst all the cries of “women have the right to feel sexual pleasure” etc. I find it sad that, as evidenced here, many women still see sex as something you trade for security rather than as something you do for pleasure. I thought we’d grown beyond that.
But I have a bit of news for you (or maybe not, since your posts reveal that you’re an intelligent person and that you’ve been around): there’s a lot of bad sex out there for us gay guys too. Most men are just not that good at it; they just want to empty their nutsack, and they have very precise ideas of how they want to do that. We all have to deal with that attitude. But you and I still love sex, don’t we? And we still pursue it. So my post really wasn’t directed at women like you.
And BTW, I totally agree with your post @ 200.
“If sex is just something that they “give up” in order to attain security, well, am I ever glad I’m gay…”
Now that I’ve read 201, I would just like to conclude by saying that sex is not just something we “give up” in order to attain security but, CLEARLY, you should still be ever glad you’re gay.
@ 201 – “Yeah, Ricardo, we can do it all on our own! Just like you can pop out kids, have a career, and raise and support them all on your own.”
I never implied that. I know you can’t have it all. That’s why you have to make your choices and accept their consequences (as in every other aspect of life, as I’ve repeated many a times on this forum).
In my not-so-humble opinion, if you want to have kids and to stay at home to raise them, which is thoroughly legitimate, you have to find a man who wants that too, and not “give an ultimatum” (see comment 160 and my answer @ 167) to someone who doesn’t, that’s all. The same goes for any other arrangement that you might want (DITK, DINK, whatever).
So basically, I totally agree with your penultimate paragraph. Because if we don’t follow these rules, as shw3nn points out @ 203, “the potential for swindling is rather high”.
And shw3nn @ 203 – No, I’m not missing what’s at stake for Martychan, I’m just questioning her attitude in how women should go about to obtain it. Because, as you stated yourself, “this is why you end up with all this mistrust and suspicion and bargaining power”.
But I’ll go back to what I said @ 186: if there were options other than marriage that provided adequate legal protection to women and children, the whole obsession with getting married would not be so strong, guys wouldn’t feel that pressured and would generally be more enthusiastic about having kids (because there wouldn’t be a huge legal bill awaiting them in case of separation, on top of child-care payments), and everyone would benefit from it. It works quite well in other countries.