SubscribeAccording to a 2004 study, “American Sexual Behavior,” by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, married couples have intercourse about 66 times a year. But that number is skewed by young marrieds, as young as 18, who couple, on average, 109 times a year.Get into couples therapy, maybe even pick up the books the two couples in the article wrote. Or, you know, just move on—Dan Savage knows what he's talking about.
Either way, those statistics put the Mullers and Browns in Olympic-record territory. That they thought a sex marathon would reinvigorate their marriages might say as much about the American penchant for exercise and goal-setting as it does about the state of romance.
But the couples may also be on to something. “There’s a strong relationship between rating your marriage as happy and frequency of intercourse,” said Tom W. Smith, who conducted the “American Sexual Behavior” study. “What we can’t tell you is what the causal relationship is between the two. We don’t know whether people who are happy in their marriage have sex more, or whether people who have sex more become happy in their marriages, or a combination of those two.”
I used to be a "frigid" wife.
I knew even before I got married that I wouldn't be able to keep up the "schedule" of sex my husband and I had established during our courtship, and once I even warned him that it was going to have to slow down. But I think that went in one ear and out the other at supersonic speed, touching nothing in between.
Sure enough, not long after we got married sex became a battleground for us, and we struggled with the problem like two fish flopping around next to each other in the bottom of an open boat: gasping for a natural breath and injuring ourselves with every pointless, ineffectual spasm.
To me it seemed simple: he wanted me to be his sexual appliance, a handy-dandy love machine that could be switched on and off at his command. I felt no desire, and I didn't want to "submit" to being handled and penetrated when I wasn't in the mood. If he really loved me, this sex thing, this "merely physical" part of our lives, wouldn't be such a big freakin' deal. And his pissy, furious responses to my refusals only made me more sure that he didn't really love me. He just wanted to use my vagina.
To him it seemed simple, too. If I loved him -- as I consistently claimed -- why didn't I want to make love?
These things always look absolutely nuts in retrospect. You wonder how you managed to get through that crazy period in your life, how you could have been so wrong, how you could have set yourselves up in such a no-win situation. It looked hopeless at the time, a total impasse. Yet we succeeded in overcoming it, and one of the things I discovered in the five or six years since I started talking about our sexual renaissance in public is that this kind of sexual recovery is not as rare as I imagined. Being a writer by trade and a blabbermouth by inclination, a blog like this was inevitable.
I am a 30 year old woman who wants less sex than my partner, which causes all kinds of frustration and resentment on both sides. What can I do to heighten my libido?The fact that your partner isn't asking this question is something that should give you great pause. I agree with others that a relationship has to be sexually compatible. Otherwise, it's just a very deep friendship — and friendships such as those are wonderful, but they're not the same species of animal as a sexual relationship that should progress to marriage.
I want to have sex way less often than my partner does. This leads to immense irritation on my part, and frustration on his. I know this is the biggest relationship cliche out there, but this time, I'm the one who is going to change. I honestly don't think that there's any possible way to get him less interested in fucking me.
When we do have sex it is usually pretty amazing for both of us (I'm certainly not motivated enough to fake my orgasms, so that part is legit), it's just that it happens more often than I'd like it to (he asks for it as much as once a week or 6 times a month). When he asks me for a handjob or blowjob, you'd think he just asked if he could shit in my mouth.
He is very open with me in describing his sexual desires; he says he just doesn't want me to have to guess at what he wants. Usually, this leads to me calling him a "jerk" and falling asleep.
We own a house together, we will likely be married in the next few years, have plans for the future, etc.
We have been together for about 8 years. The sex thing has been an issue for us for about the last 5-6 years (basically ever since I started my career). A couple months ago after a bit of a dry spell, he had a crying breakdown and told me that he felt trapped in the relationship due to my lack of sexual interest, but I seem unwilling/unable to change.
I want to do something (other than throw away my vibrator) that will greatly heighten my sex drive. Tips?
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posted by tristeza at 9:27 PM on January 6