Let's talk about [bleep]
[trigger warning]
[for mature readers, please get your parent or guardian's approval to read if you're under 14]
Some recent events prompted me to look back on last year's discussions about rape culture and consent, and a followup post. Several people commented anonymously about a related matter that I think is really important. I'm going to repost some of those comments here. Some cultures and religions advocate for celilbacy* before marriage. I completely respect and support those who make that choice, but there is the misconseption that celibacy=silence, that the decision to not have sex outside of marriage means one cannot even talk about sex outside of marriage. And often the taboo of communicating about sex extends into a marriage. This silence leads to misinformation, misunderstanding, and a sometimes crippling separation between spouses.
I personally want to advocate for parents having long, varied, open conversations with their children, both sons and daughters, about sex, consent, what it's about, how to communicate, how to listen to your partner, how sex is about the pleasure of your partner and when your partner is enjoying it, your own pleasure increases. And I'd also like to advocate for couples who are having problems to please open up that line of communication. Please go see a counselor together. It's not too late. There should be no stigma about seeing a marriage counselor. Marriage is weird! How on earth can two people maintain that close of a relationship over years and years when both are changing? We all need some outside, non-judgemental help sometimes.
Someone's Wife:
I want to respond to Lizzie's comment that there are women who wouldn't want to have sex EVER if they had to give their consent enthusiastically before they did it.
My big question is, why don't those women want to have sex? Is it because women innately don't like sex and men innately do like it? I don't think so, because in other cultures, trends are different. In some cultures, and I'm especially thinking of some things I learned about from the Renaissance, women are seen as the sexual predators and men as the sex that has to protect themselves from the other sex's advances.
Here's my story. When I first got married, I gave my consent willingly AND enthusiastically in the beginning. But over time, my husband started to pressure me to do it when I didn't want to, to the point that I actually felt like I was being raped at times, but I told myself I was being crazy or too sensitive because I never really told him NO, so it couldn't be rape, right?
But over time, as that happened more and more, my enthusiasm for the whole thing really waned. Now, I only do it when I'm feeling really guilty because it's been a long time, but I'm never enthusiastic about it.
I can't say for sure what would have happened if my husband had accepted that I didn't want to do it /all the time/ and not pressured me back in the beginning, but I suspect that we never would have gotten to this point if he had done what the boy in Mary's story did - if he had cared as much about my feelings as he did his own and not pressured me.
I think he was afraid that if he didn't pressure me, I'd never want to do it. But that couldn't be further from the truth. I wanted to do it, I just wanted to feel like I mattered when we were doing it.
But the culture we're in right now shaped the way my husband and I related to each other from the beginning. It says that if you don't have sex whenever your husband wants it, he's going to find it somewhere else. A counselor even told my husband that if I didn't have sex with him whenever he wanted it, or at least twice a week, he would be a lot more susceptible to having an affair or looking at pornography. What kind of counselor does that? One who thinks that men have to have sex a certain number of times a week or else they just won't be able to help acting out those desires with someone else.
How much of that is true biology, and how much is shaped by our culture? I certainly don't know the conclusive answer to that, but I think a lot more of it is culture than we generally think it is.
Someone's Spouse:
The reality is that there are many reasons for differences in drive, and hopeful asking by one partner is pressure to the partner who struggles with sex for one reason or another. I am approve of the contents of these posts, but my advice is different. If you have problems with sexual differences, get professional help as soon as possible! We all get embarrassed talking to doctors and counselors about something so intimate as sex between two committed individuals, but the alternatives are worse. If you experience pain during sex and repeatedly engage in unenthusiastic sex, if you don't discuss it with your partner and seek professional aid, you will years down the road be "someone's spouse," and to your horror both people are scared and scarred. Resentment will build. Neither will understand why others have sex at least a few times a month, but they struggle with managing it once every six months, and when they do it is not fulfilling. So, you avoid the whole issue and are just great roommates who love each other, but somewhere deep in your hearts have some mistrust, hatred, and wounds. It all comes to a head when one person feels that they have foregone romantic love long enough (they never cheated) and decides that leaving wouldn't be that bad. It's unfair to both to be unable to have romantic love. And she does love him, she asks him to stay. The wounds are so deep, and they begin seeing a counselor. They can get to romantic love again, but they still feel deeply confused at times. They occasionally still avoid it, but they do so because it really isn't that important anymore. If it happens, great. If not, that's okay too because their focus has changed. Each is forgetting themselves and simply loving the other.
People, please go to counselors and doctors at the first signs of trouble. If it's a doctor issue and the doctor doesn't understand our help, change doctors. Don't live with it. Brushing it under the rug has far reaching consequences. Same with the counselors.
Another Wife:
Someone's Wife, that is unfortunately my story too. I was about to type it up after reading Shannon's post, but you have done it for me. Thank you Shannon, for opening my eyes to something that on one hand I have been someone naive about (what goes on in the world, and how important it is that I must work to educate my children about it), and on the other hand something that I have dealt with for over a decade, and not really understood just how to express my feelings about.
*alert reader Quinn alerted me to alert reader Miranda's comment on Goodreads reposting of this post, which I hadn't seen, but is an excellent correction: "Great blog post: I would just like to point out that there is a difference between celibacy and abstinence. Celibacy is when someone decides that they are going to completely abstain from marriage and sex, forever. Abstinence, which is what I think you were meaning in the first paragraph, is restraining yourself from indulging in something, such as sex or alcohol. You cannot advocate for celibacy before marriage because celibacy involves swearing off marriage."