It’s Time for Women to Start Talking About Why We Have Sex
But should it be?
I have a client whose marriage is struggling. Her husband has ADD and works too hard and doesn’t prioritize her. For years, she has been trying to get him to consistently notice her, to want to spend time with her, to enjoy the things that they used to enjoy together. And, most days, she fails.
Unless – she has sex with him.
She tells me that if she has sex with him, something she knows that he wants twice a week, he will be way more willing to spend time with her.
So, she has sex with him and he does something nice and then things go back to the way they always are, her feeling lonely and disconnected, him doing his own thing. Until they have sex again and so the gerbil wheel turns.
Another client has sex with her husband twice a week because, if she doesn’t, she feels guilty. My client works full time, manages her children’s schedules and keeps the household running smoothly. Her husband helps but she is the one who keeps the train on the track. More often than not, the last thing that she wants to do at the end of the day is have sex.
But, her husband wants it. He has made it very clear that he does and he often sulks in the moment when he doesn’t get it. The next day he is irritable and the more time that passes between sexual encounters, the less helpful he is around the house. My client believes that she is responsible for this behavior because she didn’t have sex with him and so she does so, begrudgingly.
I am sure that many women have found themselves in similar situations, more than once, probably with different men throughout their lives. And I am sure that many of those women have accepted that this pattern is okay, that this is just the way that it has always been, men want sex and women give it to them.
But I am asking – is it okay that women accept this pattern? Is it okay that women must give their body to their husband/boyfriend because that is just the way that it’s always been done, or, in some cases, because a god says it’s their duty to do so?
When I was in college, I was in a “friends with benefits” relationship. It was consensual and fun and satisfying. And then one day he showed up at my dorm room, drunk. I had been studying and was in bed reading. He made it very clear that he wanted sex. I did not and said so but he kept pushing it, kissing me and touching me, until we ended up in a position with him on top of me. I remember so clearly, 40 years later, making a conscience decision in that moment to give in and let him have sex with me. After all, we had had sex before and I should just give it to him and be done with it. So, I did. And, surprisingly to me, I walked away feeling hollow, used and hating myself.  I have had a fraught relationship with sex ever since.
One might think that my college experience was different from those of my clients. After all, they are married and want to do things that make their husbands happy. My question is, is it really that different? Is it our responsibility to submit our body to men to keep them happy, even if we don’t want to, in any situation?
My answer to this question is this – only if it makes us feel good in the end. And I am not saying that we need to have an orgasm. What I am saying is that is important that, when we are lying next to our man after sex, we feel connected and loving. That we don’t feel like we have sacrificed something as important as our own body for someone else. That we haven’t experienced any physical or mental pain. And it does happen – women who go into a sexual encounter unenthusiastically ultimately do find pleasure - but often times it does not.
Sexologist Kassandra Mourikis states that having sex with someone because one feels guilty or because they feel it’s their responsibility can have physical and emotional consequences. During the sex act, if a woman isn’t ready, she can feel physical pain in the moment, not something anyone should feel during the act of sex. Repeated instances of having sex as a duty can lead to avoiding any kind of physical intimacy, no longer enjoying a sexual experience and looking at sex as a duty instead of something enjoyable. Most importantly, having sex for someone else can lead to long term mental health issues.
Ironically, all of these things can ultimately lead to the death of a marriage, exactly what a woman is trying to avoid by indulging her husband.
An internet search using the keywords “women must have sex with husbands†found hundreds of articles about why women are obliged to have sex with their husbands. But I think that it’s time that we question this age-old assumption and take a look at why we feel it is our duty to have sex with our men. We must ask ourselves why we tolerate sex when we don’t feel like it and where this belief that we had to do so comes from. Is it really our responsibility to make our man happy at the expense of our relationship with sex and our mental health?
In my perspective, Ms. Mourikis sums it up perfectly: “Each person is responsible for meeting their own pleasure,†women by setting their boundaries around sex and men by respecting those boundaries and taking their pleasure into their own hands.
