Men, women and sex

[jafs]

Rather than respond to what I see as distractions on another thread, I've decided to post my thoughts on these here, along with some personal history.

I'm 54 and male, and have been lucky enough to have great sex with a number of women, including my wife.
I've never gotten so drunk I didn't know what I was doing, and had sex, and regretted it.
I've never been accused of rape, or felt that I'd been sexually assaulted/raped by anybody else (although some people have expressed interest in me that wasn't reciprocated, or were interested in/ready to have sex sooner than I was, which was uncomfortable).
Generally, sex for me has been linked to some other sort of connection - emotional/energetic/spiritual stuff, mostly, but as I've gotten older, I've also experienced a broader more pure desire to have sex with young attractive women without any other stuff.
I don't act on that, because of my commitment to my wife, and she's ok with the desire and sees it as normal/healthy, as long as I don't act on it - I'm grateful for that, because a number of other women might not be as accepting.

Unwanted sex is rape.
Rape is bad.
Having sex with somebody who is incapacitated to the point that they can't legally consent to sex is rape.
Getting a bit drunk/high, having sex and then regretting it afterwards isn't rape.

I live in a college town, and there seems to be a lot of trouble on campuses these days involving alcohol and sex.  My advice to everybody is  not to drink too much - the first thing that goes when you drink is your judgement, and you may wind up in any number of problematic situations if you drink a lot.

A few beers or a couple of glasses of wine, especially with food, is probably ok for most people.  But the kind/extent of drinking that's going on is excessive - if you drink to the point of passing out, you're drinking too much, for example.

I encourage anybody who feels that they've been sexually assaulted to get counseling to help deal with the trauma, figure out if they can any ways they might be able to protect themselves in the future, and consider using the legal system to hold their attacker accountable (although I'd also warn them that may be challenging, both dealing with the process and possibly not getting a desirable outcome).

[Xan]

My advice to everybody is to not drink too much - the first thing that goes when you drink is your judgement, and you may wind up in any number of problematic situations if you drink a lot.

The CDC recently recommended basically that, and the feminists are all up in arms about it.

[jafs]

I know - there's an unfortunate tendency to see such advice as "blaming the victim".

Of course, I don't see it that way, just as common sense ways to reduce your risk of being hurt in some way, or hurting someone else, possibly unintentionally.

[MediumTex]

I know - there's an unfortunate tendency to see such advice as "blaming the victim".

Of course, I don't see it that way, just as common sense ways to reduce your risk of being hurt in some way, or hurting someone else, possibly unintentionally.

Think of how hard it would hit the abortion clinics if college students drank less.

Abortion clinics are sort of like a social parasite that travels with feminism and gets its lifeblood from cultural shifts driven by feminism.  Those skinny women-only cigarettes do the same thing except their goal is to kill the women rather than their unborn children.

You might say that abortion clinics are to feminism as organized crime is to certain large labor unions.

[dualstow]

I love that my Unread Topics list displayed

Men, women and sex
Safe withdrawal...

[Mountaineer]

I don't act on that, because of my commitment to my wife, and she's ok with the desire and sees it as normal/healthy, as long as I don't act on it - I'm grateful for that, because a number of other women might not be as accepting.

Agree on that also, although I wonder if the more religious people here would consider this cheating, even if only in spirit? Mountaineer? Desert? Anyone?

None of us can keep the 10 Commandments, nor any of their updated expanded New Testament versions (see the Beatitudes).  We are all sinners.  Christ died for our sins.  We ARE forgiven.  However, at the same time, I think those same Commandments for Christians are a guide for how God wishes us to live our lives (in Lutheran terms, that is the third use of the Law).  Thus, for Christians, the guide would be repent, try not to do sinful acts anymore, go to where you confess (privately or publicly with general confession) and are absolved.  Lather, rinse, repeat frequently.

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

Agree on that also, although I wonder if the more religious people here would consider this cheating, even if only in spirit? Mountaineer? Desert? Anyone?

None of us can keep the 10 Commandments, nor any of their updated expanded New Testament versions (see the Beatitudes).  We are all sinners.  Christ died for our sins.  We ARE forgiven.  However, at the same time, I think those same Commandments for Christians are a guide for how God wishes us to live our lives (in Lutheran terms, that is the third use of the Law).  Thus, for Christians, the guide would be repent, try not to do sinful acts anymore, go to where you confess (privately or publicly with general confession) and are absolved.  Lather, rinse, repeat frequently.

... Mountaineer

Thanks for the response, but you didn't answer the question [Also not sure what Jesus supposedly dying for anyone's sins has to do with the response, either]. Do you think it is 'cheating' to have lustful thoughts about someone other than your spouse even if they are not acted upon? I want YOUR opinion.

Pugchief,

I'm sorry you did not perceive my reply as my answer.  It is MY answer.  Please help me understand why you do not think it is an answer.  Let me try again:

I don't know about you, but I think it is impossible for (probably almost all) human beings not to have lustful thoughts - it is very important not to act upon them outside of marriage.  But, even if you mess and do act upon them, you ARE forgiven.  There will likely be temporal consequences, however, if you do slip up and act on them.  For Christians, the guide would be repent, try not to do sinful acts anymore, go to where you confess (privately or publicly with general confession) and are absolved.  Lather, rinse, repeat frequently.

If this does not get it for you, what are you looking for?

... Mountaineer

[Xan]

That makes more sense the way you rephrased it. So basically, you consider it a 'sin' which, as a human, is unavoidable. But the impure thoughts are not tantamount to cheating. Cheating requires acting on them.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

[Xan]

I would say that from man's perspective, it's not nearly as bad as actually cheating.  Obviously it's not great, it's not something to be proud of, but here on earth it's not the same as cheating.  From God's perspective, all sin is sin.  In other words, we can't believe ourselves to be righteousness based on never having cheated: it's WANTING to cheat, even a little bit, that reveals our true hearts.

[MediumTex]

I know - there's an unfortunate tendency to see such advice as "blaming the victim".

Of course, I don't see it that way, just as common sense ways to reduce your risk of being hurt in some way, or hurting someone else, possibly unintentionally.

Think of how hard it would hit the abortion clinics if college students drank less.

Abortion clinics are sort of like a social parasite that travels with feminism and gets its lifeblood from cultural shifts driven by feminism. Those skinny women-only cigarettes do the same thing except their goal is to kill the women rather than their unborn children.

You might say that abortion clinics are to feminism as organized crime is to certain large labor unions.

That's a very good point.  I hadn't thought about it that way before.

I think that a good business opportunity for a bold entrepreneur would be to open a chain of upscale abortion clinics in affluent areas around the country.

Unlike Planned Parenthood with its Orwellian moniker, these clinics would bring a whimsical transparency to the baby killing game.

The clinics would be bright and airy and have an inviting atmosphere.  The staff members' aspiration would be to bring a Disney-like magic to young women's experience of having larval humans sucked out of their bodies.

The chain of clinics would be called "Baby B Gone."

Like many new and exciting things, Baby B Gone would almost certainly be controversial to some people, but that's where the passion and enthusiasm of the CEO would come into the picture.

Imagine the following appearance on "Good Morning America" where the CEO talked about his company:

Interviewer: Now, we all know that abortion is legal, but some are strongly opposed to it still.  And even those who support a woman's right to choose might still say that what you are doing is in incredibly poor taste.  What would you say to those people?

BBG-CEO: That's a great question, and I'm so glad you asked it.  At Baby B Gone, we like to say that we're not in the abortion business, we're in the women's liberation business.  We believe that the abortion industry is actually in its infancy, and has been shackled for too long by a persistent and unnecessary image problem. 

I think that in the years following Roe v. Wade, abortion proponents often used arguments about women's reproductive rights as a smoke screen for what was essentially a homegrown undercover effort to limit the growth of undesirable minority populations in this country.  Those were the old days.  In theme park parlance, those were the "carny" days of the abortion industry.  Where the people leading the industry back then thought in terms of stealth genocide, we see a much larger business opportunity.

Interviewer: What debt do you owe to the feminist movement in this country?

BBG-CEO: Uh, how about a HUUUUUGE one.  Look, without all of those liberal intellectuals brainwashing women into thinking that killing their unborn children was not just okay, but that it was actually some kind of bizarre personal liberation statement, I wouldn't be sitting here today.  There is no question that if we see further at Baby B Gone, it's because we stand on the shoulders of feminist giants.

Interviewer: Is it true that you have a 20 foot tall bronze statue of Gloria Steinem in your backyard?

BBG-CEO: No, not at all.  It's actually 22 feet tall.

Interviewer: Wow.  Have you ever tried to stand on its shoulders?

[Laughter]

BBG-CEO: No, I haven't tried that one yet.  I've thought about it, though.

[More Laughter]

Interviewer: Anything else that you would like to share with our audience?

BBG-CEO: Well, first, thanks for having me on today.  There is so much negativity out there about our company that it's nice to have an opportunity to explain what we're really about.  You know, people all over the world are looking back at how our ancestors lived, and they're realizing that those people had a lot of insight into living well, from their Paleo diets, to their strong lean bodies, to their earthy approach to life in general, and, yes, to their attitudes toward infanticide.  What you might say we're doing at Baby B Gone is taking the basic insight that infanticide can be part of an exiting primitive nomadic lifestyle, and we're turning it into a fun, safe, and modern experience.

Interviewer: Well thank you for being with us today.

BBG-CEO: It's been a pleasure.  Thank you so much.

[jafs]

This is one of the big problems I have with a lot of traditional religion.

It seems that most/all of us find it natural to have sexual attraction to more than one woman, even those of us who judge that harshly.  I don't believe that God would have created us this way, and then want us to live in constant tension with our natural feelings/desires, or to live in constant guilt because of those.

I don't think that our natural feelings/desires are sinful/bad, more neutral.

It's what we do with those that make a big difference for me - if I get angry at somebody and handle it without escalating/hurting them, that's a whole lot better than hauling off and punching them in the face.  Similarly, to let yourself feel attraction to other women but not act on it honors both your natural/physical self and the commitment to your spouse.

[Fred]

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

This is just one of the many sayings of Jesus that makes you really scratch your head if you take the time to stop and think about it. If he's God and he's going to say something is a sin couldn't he have been a little more specific so we would have a clue what he is actually talking about?

Usually when I feel lust the evidence isn't in my heart so is that what he's talking about?

[jafs]

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

This is just one of the many sayings of Jesus that makes you really scratch your head if you take the time to stop and think about it. If he's God and he's going to say something is a sin couldn't he have been a little more specific so we would have a clue what he is actually talking about?

Usually when I feel lust the evidence isn't in my heart so is that what he's talking about?

That quote is part of a longer series of similar quotes in Matthew - my reading of them is that he's referring back to the OT, and setting his ideas against them, since mostly he changes them a bit.

This change seems to be towards a more "inner" understanding of things.

[Michellebell]

This is one of the big problems I have with a lot of traditional religion.

It seems that most/all of us find it natural to have sexual attraction to more than one woman, even those of us who judge that harshly.  I don't believe that God would have created us this way, and then want us to live in constant tension with our natural feelings/desires, or to live in constant guilt because of those.

I don't think that our natural feelings/desires are sinful/bad, more neutral.

It's what we do with those that make a big difference for me - if I get angry at somebody and handle it without escalating/hurting them, that's a whole lot better than hauling off and punching them in the face.  Similarly, to let yourself feel attraction to other women but not act on it honors both your natural/physical self and the commitment to your spouse.

I agree.  I believe in God and a lot of Christianity but I disagree with some of it.  I believe humans and animals are not distinct entities.  We are the most intelligent animal but we are still animals.  Therefore we have animalistic instincts and urges.  I don't think there is anything "evil" about this.  It is just the way we are or the way we were created.  I know my husband finds other women attractive as I objectively see other women as attractive too. I imagine that men may lust after others more than women do.  I find most other men unattractive compared to my husband actually.  However that doesn't mean I never find others attractive.  I've certainly lusted over some actors in movies, you could say.

We have to control biological urges all the time.  We have to avoid overeating, for example.  I say as long as we make good choices we are doing the right thing.  Also, if we feel guilt for having lustful thoughts, that's a good thing because it helps us to control the urges.  Some guilt is good.  Too much doesn't serve a purpose.

[jafs]

It's nice to find something in common 

[Fred]

This is just one of the many sayings of Jesus that makes you really scratch your head if you take the time to stop and think about it. If he's God and he's going to say something is a sin couldn't he have been a little more specific so we would have a clue what he is actually talking about?

Usually when I feel lust the evidence isn't in my heart so is that what he's talking about?

That quote is part of a longer series of similar quotes in Matthew - my reading of them is that he's referring back to the OT, and setting his ideas against them, since mostly he changes them a bit.

This change seems to be towards a more "inner" understanding of things.

But how are you supposed to know when you are committing the "inner" sin of lust?

[jafs]

You don't know when you're lusting after somebody?

[Fred]

You don't know when you're lusting after somebody?

No, not really. I think one of my wife's friends is really hot. I would even say I think she is REALLY hot. I do feel some sort of reaction when I see her that I chalk up to evolutionary biology but is that lust?

My wife would say so if she read this post but what about Jesus?

[jafs]

Well, I'd say it is.

Lust is just sexual desire, isn't it?

[Fred]

Well, I'd say it is.

Lust is just sexual desire, isn't it?

I don't know. That's the question I am asking.

If any feeling of sexual desire is sin then maybe the Muslims are right and  women should start wearing burqas.

Personally, I don't see anything sinful about it but I'm not Jesus so what do I know.

[Michellebell]

I think Jesus said lust is sinful so that we would acknowledge and listen to the guilt we feel when we experience it.  Even though I don't think we are evil for having natural biological urges, the notion that lusting is sinful is a way to help us make the best choices.

[Fred]

I think Jesus said lust is sinful so that we would acknowledge and listen to the guilt we feel when we experience it.  Even though I don't think we are evil for having natural biological urges, the notion that lusting is sinful is a way to help us make the best choices.

Well, it would appear that most Christians aren't making the best choices according to this article in a Christian magazine....

http://www.christianpost.com/news/nearl ... dy-125471/

[MediumTex]

The central insight of Buddhism is that human desire invariably leads to suffering.

If you substitute "sin" for "desire", you could almost say that Jesus was a Buddhist in many of his teachings.

Buddhism teaches that as you begin to tame desire, you begin to open yourself up to higher states of awareness and understanding.  Jesus taught that as you turn away from sin and worldly desire, you come closer to God.

The parallels are almost too obvious, and I think that's why both belief systems find such traction among humanity--i.e., they contain underlying truths that help to elevate us from our animal nature.

[Michellebell]

The central insight of Buddhism is that human desire invariably leads to suffering.

If you substitute "sin" for "desire", you could almost say that Jesus was a Buddhist in many of his teachings.

Buddhism teaches that as you begin to tame desire, you begin to open yourself up to higher states of awareness and understanding.  Jesus taught that as you turn away from sin and worldly desire, you come closer to God.

The parallels are almost too obvious, and I think that's why both belief systems find such traction among humanity--i.e., they contain underlying truths that help to elevate us from our animal nature.

The issue I have with Buddhism is that you are supposed to let go of your desire for so many things.  You will feel less pain if you feel less attachment, yes.  But you will also enjoy less love and fun in the meantime.  I definitely agree that Christianity and Buddhism are practically the same in many ways.  But I feel like our lives are meant to be loved, first and foremost.  We are to love our spouses and also love ourselves, even if it means loving our flaws.  I have a long way to go before I become Godlike.  I figure it'll happen when I die but I try to thank God for all the blessings He has given me in the meantime and go easy on myself, as a perfect God wouldn't create everything to be perfect except humans.  My views don't really follow any religion, but I thought Jesus and Buddha both were great teachers with unparalleled wisdom.

[MediumTex]

Does anyone want to take a shot at answering the question: "What are the differences in needs between men and women when it comes to sex?"

My answer would be that in the context of a long term relationship, a man's stress level and self-esteem are wired pretty tightly into sex as a physical outlet and as a method of re-establishing or strengthening emotional connections.  My belief is that men need it more than women in general, even though they may both need it and both enjoy it.

I think that men who don't get that form of validation and affection from their wives eventually find that it begins to undermine their self-confidence in other areas of life.  I think that's one of the things that makes it so dangerous when a woman either decides to use sex as a lever and a tool to get other things she wants, or simply stops showing any interest because she happens to not find her partner attractive at a given point in time.

As a useful metaphor, I always imagine a dog disappointing its owner and the owner withholding food as punishment.  At first, the dog is simply confused because he isn't making the connection between his misbehaviors and his sudden lack of nourishment, but more importantly over time the dog begins to get weak and desperate from hunger, at which point he becomes utterly un-trainable in any way because hunger begins to overwhelm his ability to think clearly about anything except food.

If the owner filled up the dog's bowl and showed it to him and then poured it back into the bag on a regular basis, I suspect that would only make things worse for the dog.  In any case, the owner would never get what he wanted from the dog because the punishment the dog was receiving would never get the dog closer to changing his behavior when it came to whatever it was that he was doing wrong in the first place.

Our social norms tell men that no matter how hungry they become when it comes to sex with their wife, they are supposed to endure and not complain.  Seeking sex outside the relationship is seen as a character flaw by society and as a betrayal by the woman, and begging for it within the relationship is often viewed by the woman as weakness, which turns her off more than ever.  For a man in those situations, it's the worst kind of double bind--whatever he does feels like failure, even though all he is trying to do is get one of his most basic needs met. 

Since the sexual needs of many women are less urgent than the needs of their husbands, sex can become the perfect siege weapon because it allows a woman to easily outlast her husband in her quest to get whatever it is that she is trying to get from him.  If she assumes that he is psychologically stronger than her, she might not even feel guilty about using sex as an emotional weapon.  I think that a lot of women would be shocked to know of the scale of mental havoc that can occur inside a man when he is physically rejected by the only person he actually loves and is attracted to.

I've always thought that the closest analog to a man being asked to live with a woman to whom he was attracted, but knowing that sex was being withheld as a form of punishment or simply as a form of neglect, would be if a man started giving his wife the silent treatment at the same time he stopped paying the bills when she was relying on him for financial support.  I think that the emotional and psychological damage would be similar in both cases.

To return to the dog metaphor, I think that even if it worked, starving him to create the desired changes in his personality would be a questionable approach to training him, but if it didn't even work as a way of modifying behavior it would be hard to view it as anything other than cruelty.  If the person withholding the food said: "Well, I didn't know it was cruelty, the dog never told me that, and I don't understand dogs that well", something tells me that wouldn't hold much water for most people.  I think that most people would say that when you made the decision to get a dog you assumed the responsibility not to treat him that way even if he did disappoint you.

If the dog finally decided to run away and his owner reacted by showing him a picture of the dog's puppies and told him that if he ran away the puppies would be starved just like him, would that make things better for the dog?  Would that help the dog to behave better?

The very best I think you could ever expect from starving a dog to make him act right would be to create an animal that had trouble trusting anyone, that became very aggressive when it came to food of any kind, and that no longer had many of the traits that might have made him a good pet to start with.

It's ironic that when you think of abuse in relationships, you often visualize a man abusing a woman.  The truth may be more along the lines of men are better at administering physical abuse that leaves marks because men tend to be abusive in the context of anger and rage when they aren't considering the consequences of their actions, but women may be better than men (or at least as good) at administering psychological and emotional abuse that leaves no physical marks, and which is administered in a more calculated and sophisticated way.

To take a stab at the question of how a woman's need for sex in a relationship differs from a man's, I think it is similar, except women often don't experience the need for sex in as physical a way as men do (I'm just speculating there, of course).  Also, since men are less inclined than women to be stingy with sex, many women are probably never faced with the experience of having it withheld from them as a behavior modification tool.  I'm sure that when a woman finds herself in a marriage with a closeted homosexual man, she probably gets a taste of what it might be like for a man to be married to a woman who doesn't seem interested in an enjoyable sexual relationship with him.  For both sexes, I think that it chips away at self-esteem and undermines all forms of intimacy.

But that may not be right.  It's obviously a man's perspective.  Anyone want to suggest a different answer?