- 30
- Jun
Ross Douthat wrote an essay in the NY Times yesterday that suggests that the reason people in high places step out on their marriages is that putting enormous focus on one’s career makes one into a sexless roommate. He sites Sandra Tsing Loh’s recent divorce and her essay on how marriage obligations make one into a dull sex partner.
He then further suggests that it is the middle class that is out there having all the fun–ignoring career and other obligations and putting their energy into flings and divorces.
Is that so? I can’t imagine where he got his data from. If it’s from reading recent press, he should know better: the media distorts everything and everyone. If, as he says, the reason middle America enjoys reading about romps such as Gov. Sandford’s recent sizzler is because it reflects who they are, then who, exactly, populates the highly educated echelons?
His argument made little sense to me. Living in Orange County, CA, I have seen my share of highly educated couples: chemists, engineers, attorneys, doctors, and so forth. But I have also seen other, less educated folks: college students on their way to something more, plumbers, waiters, janitors, and a stripper or two. I also trained at the Marine base and saw couples of all kinds there.
No one has an exclusive on sexless marriage. It affects all classes, all ages, all cultures, all religions. It seems to be an epidemic: estimates are that in 25% of marriages, couples have intercourse fewer than a dozen times in a year.
The reasons are as diverse as the couples themselves. Here are some ideas:
- It takes a lot of mental energy these days just to stay on top of everything. My father was a civil engineer and his tools were a drafting table, a pencil, and a slide rule. Now I have more computer power in one laptap than my father ever had at his disposal–but I also have a lot more people and things vying for my attention. That’s exhausting.
- Relationships are more complex. We expect a lot more from our partners. My parents only expected what was prescribed by society. We are expected to be confidantes, room mates, friends, financial partners, co-parents, and lovers. Making big demands of our partners can lead to disappointment that goes both ways.
- We live in an age of narcissism. Many people are very self-focused and want things to go their way. That means that when we look at our partner and see him or her wanting, we think that is a reflection on ourselves. We become disgusted and turn off to sex. After all, if you’re perfect, why would you want to make love with someone who is less than?
- We live by myth. One myth is that marriages become sexless over time. Another is that sex is always supposed to be red hot. A third is that bodies need to be perfect–tan, muscled, and hairless–to be sexy. These myths interfere with peoples’ enjoyment of sex.
- We are overstimulated and oversexualized. The fact that we can have porn in our living room with a click of a button takes away from its sacred meaning and at the same time makes sex seem overly important and larger than life. When a partner becomes ensnared in the porn trap, it can be difficult to untangle ideas about sex and meaning.
- We have become secular. Ideas about marriage and fidelity are considered quaint and out of date. Never mind that there is richness to be had in a monogamous relationship. These days the grass looks so green on the other side it’s positively neon green, so green that even people in the very public eye are willing to risk their careers for clandestine sex.
Well, those are my ideas about why marriage becomes sexless. There are more. What are yours? I’d love to read your comments and post them if you allow.
Are you ready for real change?
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:45 am
May I be completely politically incorrect?
My own situation has to do with medication and chronic illness. There, you have a direct cause and effect. But I think in more ordinary situations, there are three big reasons for sexless marriage.
1. Marriages are not sexless, but loveless, in too many cases. People turn into companions, or roommates, or co-executors, or co-child raisers, and the ideas of romance and desire get short shrift. But don’t you think that if people were willing to be merely adequate parents or financial co mangers, and valued those things less than they valued fire, desire, and romance, marriages would be a lot more full of sex? And, by the way, happier?
2. Here is the politically incorrect part. I think we have wimped out men in our popular culture. We have gotten them to be so empathetic, huggie-veggie, talk about their feelings, care-giving, etc. that the mystery and desire is bleached right out of them, in many cases. Call me crazy, but I would rather desire a husband who builds muscles by building things, or runs, or lifts weights, than have a husband who cans apricots or changes diapers.
e. As a society, we’re fat and out of shape. Fat and out of shape is not sexy. Period.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
You’re a therapist, so I’m thinking you’re listing these reasons based on couples you’ve actually interviewed.
There’s a couple of things that bother me about this list.
The focus here is on married couples, which probably means a lot of male-female couples who are legally bound, even in the state of CA. That forgets about couples who are unmarried, whether due to legal restrictions or simply because marriage isn’t right for them. You don’t have to be married to be in a sexless relationship and be distressed by it.
Not does being in a sexless relationship, in and of itself, have to be distressing, so long as no party involved is bothered by it.
I’m really disturbed by the narcissism argument. Again you’re probably saying this based on actual couples you’ve seen so it may well have some basis. Still, I’ve thought about it, & thought about it, & thought about it some more,
And I still cannot come to grips with anyone thinking like that, save perhaps for people who actually have narcissistic personality disorder. I think this is the very first time I’ve ever heard a statement like that, that anyone could be disgusted by their partner because they are somehow “Less than perfect.” No one is. Who expects that?
I would have phrased the 3rd part of the “Myth” point differently. It is very easy to internalize these myths when they are pounded into your head over & over by the media & daily interactions with other people.
I do not feel that porn has to contribute to a sexless relationship. If one or more parties in a relationship become addicted to it, or is easily influenced by it, then in my mind I imagine that that same person would still be easily addicted or easily influenced by some other thing if the porn wasn’t there. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. A selfish partner is still going to be selfish in other ways if you remove porn. You may be able to get through to them a little more easily with the TV off, but it’s going to take more work than that to make the lessons stick.
I am not fully understanding how porn makes sex seem bigger & larger than life either. Why does porn have this ability, but not mainstream media – tv that features heavy, sometimes surprisingly explicit sex scenes? Why does reading erotica not have that same power even when the erotica is highly explicit & idealizes scenes to the point where the reader could probably not perform all the stunts & tricks written down? I would say instead that daily exposure to sex scandals & mundane sexual situations on TV & on the radio & such has a stronger influence than porn, since you can turn porn off after a few minutes… but you cannot turn off the magazines staring out at you at the checkout line, the conversations you hear your friends & co-workers gossip about, the newspapers exposing politicians for their raunchy private sex lives, etc.
TBH I’m a little thrown off seeing a sex therapist actually refer to porn as a “Trap,” rather than as a possible area for couples to explore. I’m also a bit disturbed that you refer to sex as “Sacred,” when in a couple of paragraphs above you said it was a myth that all sex had to be red-hot. Why should all sex be sacred? Sometimes it just is. It can be sacred yes, and you can take that to the extreme if you want to try tantra. But what is this meaning of sex anyway? We should be able to construct our own meaning.
& I’m not understanding your last paragraph about living secularly. Are you saying then, that couples need a healthy injection of faith, spirituality? Do you mean to say “Fidelity” instead of “Faithful?”
And finally, I think even *I* need to be in a monogamous relationship… but I do not wish to discount as inferior those couples who have explored polyamory (would they still be called “Couples” then?) That’s not right for everyone. It takes work and communication. But if you’re in an open relationship, the sex you have with people other than your partner, need not be clandestine at all.