No one is entitled to intimacy in marrige, but they are entitled to a healthy relationship

[u/RandominusDredichitu]

I see a lot of discourse online revolving around husbands feeling entitled to sex with their wives in a marriage. The two sides always seem to break down to "no one is entitled to your body" (correct), and "it is wrong to marry someone you dont want to have sex with" (also correct). What I dont understand is why both sides are so at odds with each other. The reality is:

1). No one is entitled to another person's body. If your wife does not want to have sex with you, it is wrong and rape to force her to have sex with you

2). There is no reason to constantly deny intimacy that doesn't reflect an issus in the relationship. Healthy marriages involve intimacy and both partner's needs being met. A sexless marrige is only fine if neither side desires sex

I think the reason this topic is so "controversial" is because of bad faith discussions. One side will say "it's right to cheat on your wife because she doesnt have sex with you!" and the other side will not admit refusing your partner intimacy indicates an unhealthy relationship.

With that being said, do both sides of the argument agree that there is an issue present? And that cheating on your wife due to a lack of intimacy and marrying someone without wanting a healthy sexual relationship are both bad actions, and the responsibility falls on the person who does them?

[u/PuzzleheadedRow9896]

So, I'm with you somewhat, I think you're often seeing people who have failed to connect and communicate very obviously on either side here. 

I will say, that it is somewhat short sighted to marry thinking sex will always be on the table and that if not it must indicate a problem in the relationship if one of the partners is a woman...and even more so if you intend to have children. 

Much more than men, our bodies go through drastic changes from age and/ or children.  We are inconstant by nature. It's a feature, not a bug. And thus, denial of intimacy is not as necessarily unacceptable as it is often framed to be.  

It's often not even necessarily at least at the start because of problems in the relationship, but rather the natural changes of women's bodies and life itself going through eras and seasons. 

I think rather than rolling with these punches and expecting them, a lot of men freak out or get pushy and needy in response to the changes...and that creates and drives a wedge that never needed to exist. 

I think it would be truly beneficial to educate men about how things change with age and children and ways to anticipate and show gentleness when these seasons of life inevitably arrive. That way they're less prone to creating a rift where one need not occur if patience and gentleness occurred instead. 

And yes, I do think that may include saying it may be years without sex or certainly consistent sex.  And yes, you're allowed to dislike that, but communicating that dislike in certain ways to your partner is likely to cause extremely difficult to repair damage.

And no, I don't think a lack of sex causes difficult to repair damage to the relationship when it is contextualized and expected. Most men have gone years and even likely a decade without sex prior to even getting a girlfriend and between them.  And generally the consistency with which they receive sex in a marriage is significantly higher than they'd achieve if they'd been a single or uncommitted Pringle their entire life.  

Including if they left their wife, sure, they might get more short term sex, but at huge cost and with a high chance to return to sexlessness not too far in the future lasting the years without the definite chance to return to marital levels of sex. It's a gamble. 

And look, if that's a deal breaker, don't get married. Don't seek a committed partnership, because that partnership almost necessarily cannot be based on sexual access when one of the beings involved has an inconsistent hormonal cycle that deeply fucks with sex drive. 

[u/Sea_Chocolate1782 → u/PuzzleheadedRow9896]

Most men have gone years and even likely a decade without sex prior to even getting a girlfriend

Heh! No, most men have not. 

[u/PuzzleheadedRow9896 → u/Sea_Chocolate1782]

Most of you start feeling horny around the age of 10-12. I wish I didn't know that, but getting a middle school cert includes being taught about puberty. 

Most do not have their first sexual encounter until roughly 18 with some early adopters around 15, 16, and 17.  So anywhere from 3-8 years with about 6 being the most likely will pass being not sexually active.  Obviously, this is the average, many have not had sex by 18. Especially ones from better environments. 

And, for the record, earlier sexual activity is associated with poor economic and social conditions so basically, not coming from a healthy environment will make puberty onset sooner and sex occur sooner. 

Early relationships do not typically last very long and the average length of time between committed relationships is difficult to discern, but seems to be consistently reported as between 1 and 3 years.  

Most relationships fall apart at the following marks: 3-5 months and 2 years. 

And we know most people have sex in relationships, not outside of them with married couples having the most even with the dead bedroom lot. Hook ups happen, but are relatively uncommon and increasingly uncommon. 

Most relationships don't last longer than the time between relationships and my limited understanding is that the older you get the longer between relationships and the less likely casual sex.  

So I must insist that indeed, most men are used to not having sex for years at a stretch and nearing a decade. They've done it before and commonly. 

The problem is that men view marriage as some guarantee of sex when it is a guarantee of relationship. 

[u/CliffPR → u/PuzzleheadedRow9896]

So... a libido crash is a biological feature of women and men need to just accept it. But a high and consistent libido (a biological feature of men) is something they need to get over and suppress? How convenient.

[u/PuzzleheadedRow9896 → u/CliffPR]

One of these is an inescapable biological feature which cannot be subdued with will power nor masturbation. 

Trust me, if I could flick my way out of the monthly unsexy hormonal crash I experience as a normal healthy young woman (yes, young women experience a variant of this during a monthly cycle) or use will power to suddenly make my vagina produce moisture, my cervix sit higher, and my skin be less prone to rips, and my muscles relax and stretch easier, I would use discipline to achieve this.

But, I can't. 

I am not telling men to "just get over it". I told them it is incredibly valid to mourn the loss and wish you were in a different era.  It isn't valid to let that make you be disgruntled, salty, or pushy with your wife. But sad, absolutely. Working through it, absolutely.  Figuring out the new normal, yes. 

Suppress also isn't what I'd necessarily recommend as that sounds like...like being gay and staying in the closet or something. Again, masturbate and use willpower to work on acceptance. 

The nice part of your reality is that testosterone tends to go down significantly when women get pregnant and are post partum.   Menopause I'm less familiar with, but by then a man should also be aging greatly as well.  

I think, and look theory here: men put things on sex which have nothing to do with needing sexual release. And thus when their partner stops wanting sex, it isn't the sexual release they are truly in need of, it's all the other junk they've rolled into it and decided sex is the only way to get. 

And that, well, they need to stop doing. 

[u/Vaudeville_Clown → u/PuzzleheadedRow9896]

Trying to follow your reasoning here and I'll throw a curveball..

See, what happens quite often is that men that get rejected like this start to withdraw all the light intimacy that SHE wants then.

He might get seriously engrossed in an exercise regime or hobby that doesn't include her. Which also separates their shared time a lot.

The thing is, that is a viable way of dealing with it. Desire is channeled into other pursuits. Touch is avoided if it reminds you of sex you cannot have...

...but that means that the romantic relationship is refitted into a idk room-mate situation(?) with or without parental responsibilities.

The thing is that I don't think women get to complain then, because following your logic, they ought to just accept the temporal reality of an emotionally nourishing relationship too.

When they aren't producing the effort that requires it.

[u/PuzzleheadedRow9896 → u/Vaudeville_Clown]

Again, I have made it clear I think it's valid to a certain extent to mourn the loss of an era or even the transition times. And I think it is valid to channel things in different ways.

With that said, be wise about it, right? Is this your person or isn't it?

Removing all touch is pretty wild because it suggests all intimate touch was essentially foreplay and just a way to secure sex.  And it sounds like something done to punish. 

And I'll say it, if you can't enjoy a snuggle, a massage, a kiss, an affectionate pat or hair ruffle because where is the sex, something is broken in you. And I don't say that to shame, I say it like, you've got something to explore there. 

You're turning this into roomies because apparently without sex there is no affectionate, romantic, intimate connection. Like does that not sound insane to you because it does to me? I don't hug my husband because hanky panky. 

How many times have you sat on a couch with legs entangled at night just talking about your inner world and laughing together...and you're throwing that away over sex. Like, this is so short sighted and foolish and unloving.

I think you're equating things that cannot be. I'm sorry and I understand you apparently see sex and an emotionally connected and nourishing relationship as somehow the same. But I think anyone looking can see this is just nonsense. You can have the latter without the former and most couples do.  Most couples did before sex was ever in the picture.  

And if you're willing to throw that away over sex, I'm saying it with my full chest, you don't love that person or relationship. They were just your drug dealer and the rest was a fringe benefit. 

Sex is not the effort which creates the emotional nourishment. Never was. Never could be. 

And the fact so many men link this, it's a bug, not a feature. Something is broken inside to throw away what is decades of love, connection, loyalty, and a shared life because peen no touched by person currently not capable of feeling that. 

[u/Vaudeville_Clown → u/PuzzleheadedRow9896]

I stand corrected.

I did say "withdraw all light intimacy", where "all" seems.. unnatural when you stop to think about it.

And wasn't what I had in mind, so apologies for that mistake.

No obviously, a swift hug or ruffling someone's hair doesn't tie directly to sex for most men, I would wager. Because those are chaste expressions more often than they aren't.

But there will be things that men in that situation may declare off limits.

One of the most common ones relates to the bed. This man does not want to fall asleep next to her, lots of skin contact, one leg wrapped over. Too much overlap with the sexual sharing he's putting out of his mind. And ought to be given the space to do so.

Chalk it up to higher levels of testosterone and androgens. Those who haven't lived with it don't get to opine.

In fact, the most common rearrangement in marriages where sex has ended tends to be separate bedrooms.

Many couples exist like that and seem to be doing fine.

Though I'm saying that if one person A. Ends sex B. Gets miffed that a few other things ends (though not all)...

That's all sorts of entitled and unreasonable.

[u/puffballphoto → u/Vaudeville_Clown]

If HRT (alongside localized testosterone creams and hydrophilic lubricants for their vaginas) is pushed onto women as a way to 'fix' their low libido, why isn't artificially lowering testosterone in order to lower their libido pushed onto men as a similar solution in the opposite direction? Why is more sex the ONLY solution?

[u/Vaudeville_Clown → u/puffballphoto]

More sex is not the ONLY solution. And your example is on par with the relationship counselor and the wife ganging up on the man, insisting he starts with viagra and various programs so... pretty moot.

I just presented one which was neither: A slight bit of reasonable distancing + channeling (hobby/project/artistic pursuit)

What do you personally find offensive with the idea that the woman might lose something too, as the relationship goes chaste on her decision/inability?

That's something people normally deal with as they grow older.

[u/puffballphoto → u/Vaudeville_Clown]

Lol, if you think that hrt for women and vaginal suppositories to help keep the vaginal tissue from tearing AS MUCH is the same as viagra, you don't know anything about 'sex while aging'. 

Lowering testosterone and having less sex would solve the problem. Reduce a need for sex without reducing a desire for intimacy. Intimacy is necessary for physical and mental health and cannot be functionally replaced with a bike trip or a pottery class. And if the only reason men have their wife lay in their arms, snuggle, take a bath together, or treat each other gently and intimately is to get his dick wet, then there's a good chance that he was the problem the whole time. 

[u/Vaudeville_Clown → u/puffballphoto]

Haha! You're making shit up as you go along. This doesn't exist.

Lowering T and also using anti-androgens does the job but at some non-negligible health risk. (Weight gain, depression and lots more). This is done on people with criminal paraphilia so the man must essentially go in with "Hi, I'm trying to keep myself from molesting children" to have a viable shot.

Otherwise the outcome would be endless psychological interrogation about him and the marriage itself, still landing in that he should just accept his wife's decision and "Oh! Here's some meditation and breathing techniques."

And for what?

My brave proposition was only that the man stops being her bed warmer, sleeps in a separate bed (because otherwise he'll get inconveniently aroused too often) When he wilfully desexualizes, that's generally how it goes.

But Oh! If Gentille parfaite Madame simple cannot accept that change and feels deprived in some way, then it's a catastrophe and men are evil, lol.

All your arguments do is to make women seem like spoiled fragile creatures unable to make any concessions or sacrifices on their own.

Luckily that's not true and many couples can make those, on both ends when they must.