Is “booty duty” still expected?
I decided to like” Psychology Today’s page on Facebook today, and while scrolling through the stories highlighted, I was intrigued by the teaser, While it takes two to couple up, it takes only one to make things a whole lot better.”
OK, sold, so I clicked on the link that lead to an article highlighting 15 tips (the author calls them rules, but rules make most of us rebel, right?) to make a relationship better. Tips/rules Nos. 1 to 13 sounded good. Then we got to No. 14:
Initiate sex, even if you don’t feel like it. If you feel distant regarding sexual activity, it’s still a good idea to initiate sex once in a while. A long-term relationship won’t flourish if your partner is someone for whom sex is an enlivening essential force and you’re too unavailable. To decide you won’t be a physical partner because you don’t feel like it is like his deciding that there will be no more conversation because he’s not a talker. If you have a fair and good partner, there is probably something you can do that wouldn’t be too terribly difficult. (P.S. If you’re the pursuer in bed, back off.)
Then I read the reader comments and quite a few were as put off by that as I initially was:
as both a couples/marriage psychologist and a feminist, I have a concern about encouraging people (and it seems to be directed at women, perhaps?) to initiate sex even when they do not feel like it. Often, we (and, women in particular) are taught to ignore our internal states, and what feels right/not right to us, in order to please other people.”
Another reader writes:
I HATE the idea of giving any message to women and girls that they should have sex when their bodies don’t want to. I can see teen girls reading this, or pre-marriage women with boyfriends, and thinking that sex is something to engage in solely because your b.f. wants it, even when you don’t.”
For the record, the author did not say that this advice was directed at women, yet that’s what many readers assumed “ hmmm, maybe we should look into that.
I’m in my 50s, a mom, married and divorced twice, and in and out of relationships and dating arrangements over the years; you bet there have been a handful of times when I initiated or had sex when I wasn’t in the mood or sometimes wasn’t even all that attracted to the guy (husband or not!) or because of the Third Date rule (silly, right?).
But just how bad it is to say, I’m sorry, honey, I’m just not in the mood” when you truly aren’t up for sex “ in other words, being genuine about your needs? Obviously, that can’t be an excuse you use a lot because if you’re not in the mood that often, that’s a sign that something is wrong (unless you’re a new parent in which you have a buy for a few months). You also can’t use it to alienate your partner; a sexless marriage will eventually be a dead marriage “ or a divorced one.
So, are a lot of people faking it until they make it?
Evidently.
While researching forThe New I Do, I came upon the result of a poll included in the book (with a clever name)It’s Not You, It’s the Dishes(originally published in hardback asSpousonomics). Based on the results, there are a lot of people getting it on when they’re not in the mood, for reasons that range from healthy to (what seem to me) unhealthy:
47%sometimes have sex even when they’re not in the mood
11%frequently have sex even when they’re not in the mood
83%have sex when they’re not in the mood to make their partners happy”
75%have sex when they’re not in the mood because they expect to enjoy it anyway”
62%have sex when they’re not in the mood so they don’t hurt their spouse’s feelings
48%have sex when they’re not in the mood to earn good will”
45%have sex when they’re not in the mood because their spouse deserves it”
36%have sex when they’re not in the mood because they feel guilty”
The authors also mention booty duty” “ when one spouse calls for it, the other has to comply. Having just finished Stephanie Coontz’s wonderful book Marriage: A History, and learning about how husbands could force sex upon his wife “ up until the 1970s! “ sexual compliance” doesn’t sound all that sexy.
In truth, we have sex for a lot of reasons that often have nothing to do with pleasure or making babies, including wanting to be altruistic (I wanted the person to feel good about himself/herself”) and feeling it’s our duty or caving into pressure (My partner kept insisting”).
And let’s not even get into how many men and women are faking orgasms because they felt under too much pressure to enjoy real sex” (as opposed to fake sex?).
But there’s something rather disingenuous about having sex when you really don’t want to.
