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| A venn diagram where one circle is "you," one circle is "me," and the overlap is "us." Image source. |
Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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Chapter 8 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link] is called "Becoming More Than Roommates," and it's about how it's bad and wrong to have a sexless marriage.
Umm. (You will notice this is a long post, because I Have Some Opinions.)
So obviously, first thing I want to say is, as an asexual I 100% disagree with that. There's nothing *inherently* wrong with having a sexless marriage. Most people do want to have sex with their spouse, so of course if you're one of those people, then you would be unhappy with a sexless marriage- but that doesn't mean it's *always* bad to have a sexless marriage. (For example, what if both spouses are asexual and aren't interested in sex?)
My overall feeling about this chapter is, ugh, it's so NOT OKAY how anti-asexual this is. And, it never actually explains WHY a sexless marriage is a problem. We're just supposed to know that obviously it's a problem. WHYYYY?
I can understand that it's a problem in the situation where one or both spouses places a very high importance on sex. But outside of that, there's no reason it would be a problem.
The authors are talking like there's something intrinsic about the nature of marriage which requires sex. And, no, I strongly disagree with that. Talk to your partner! Talk about what you want, and work out something that works for both of you. It should be based on the specific needs and desires that the actual real people in the relationship have- not abstract concepts about how marriage is "always" supposed to be.
Here, a few quotes from this chapter:
Sometimes marriages that are otherwise largely healthy become sexless or sex-starved. In that case, we need to challenge people to put more priority on sex.
Why? Seriously, why?
Here's another one:
Natasha would rather live without sex. It's not that it doesn't feel good-- it does, actually-- it's just that she'd rather watch Netflix at the end of the day than have sex. She knows her priorities are off, but frankly she just doesn't have the motivation to change.
I see no problem with this.
Continuing with the next paragraph about Natasha:
After she and her husband come home from work, make dinner, do the dishes, and get their toddler to bed, he wants to spend time together, and she, well, doesn't. She just wants downtime. She loves her husband-- that's not the problem. And he's tried everything: taking on more of the housework, giving her multiple nights a week off from childcare entirely, and booking romantic date nights out for the two of them in an effort to help her reengage in the marriage. But nothing seems to work because Natasha is, frankly, struggling with overcoming laziness when it comes to her marriage.
Oh, okay, so it sounds like the problem is this: Natasha's husband wants to have sex, so the fact that they're not having sex is making him unhappy. The book doesn't come right out and say that though, it just says Natasha is not having sex, and then we readers are supposed to automatically understand that that's a problem.
I find it very weird that the list of things that Natasha's husband is doing to try to get her to have sex with him includes things like doing housework and planning romantic dates, rather than, you know, having a honest conversation about his needs and how he feels about the lack of sex. It reads to me like the husband (and the authors of "The Great Sex Rescue") are operating under a framework where if you are a good spouse, then your spouse should give you sex. This is just... very weird. It seems like the lack of sex is really affecting the husband emotionally, he seems really unhappy about it, but if he doesn't communicate that to Natasha, then how would she even know? Even if he does ask her "do you want to have sex," she might not realize how big of a deal it is to him. This reads to me like a communication issue, not like a "let's blame Natasha for being lazy and selfish" issue (which is what the book says it is).
This chapter categorizes sexless marriages into 3 types:
- The sexless marriage due to selfishness or brokenness
- The sexless marriage due to emotional protection
- The sexless marriage in disguise
Let's go through each of them:
Scenario 1: The sexless marriage due to selfishness or brokenness
Well I'm already mad about this chapter, so this evangelical jargon "brokenness" has me even more annoyed. But I'll define it, for the readers who don't speak evangelical: "brokenness" means there is something wrong with us, at a deep level, because of sin. The book doesn't specifically say which of the examples in this section would be classified under "brokenness" but I would guess it's the example where one spouse is using porn instead of having sex with their spouse (using porn is a sin, this sin makes the porn-using spouse deeply "broken" and unable to have a good sex life without doing the work of healing from it first), and the example about sexual abuse victims dealing with trauma (the abuser committed sin against the victim, and even though the victim isn't to blame, they are still "broken" as a result, ie, they have deep trauma and can't have a good sex life until they heal from it).
(For more on "brokenness": Miss me with your "we are all sexually broken" hot takes. I'm asexual.)
Scenario 1 can be summarized like this: Partner A refuses to have sex with Partner B, and the issue is on Partner A's side. The examples given are:
- Partner A is lazy and selfish, like our buddy Natasha
- Partner A is using porn instead of having sex with Partner B
- Partner A is a victim of sexual abuse, and has trauma related to sex
- Partner A has sexual dysfunction issues- ie, medical conditions like vaginismus, or being unable to get an erection
When I say "the issue is on Partner A's side," I don't mean it's Partner A's fault, or that Partner A is sinning. Some of these examples would be seen as sin, and some would not. The point is, Partner A is the one who has the responsibility to do something about it, so that the couple can get to the point where they are having sex frequently and enjoying it.
I'll come back to this section in a minute, let me just define scenarios 2 and 3 first:
Scenario 2: The sexless marriage due to emotional protection
In this scenario, Partner A refuses to have sex with Partner B, because Partner B is not a safe person to have sex with. For example, Partner B is abusive, Partner B acts like they are entitled to sex and Partner A's consent doesn't matter, Partner B has raped Partner A before, Partner B doesn't care about whether sex is painful for Partner A, etc.
So, the issue here is on Partner B's side. It does no good to treat Partner A like they're the problem, and they just need to have sex with Partner B anyway, like most evangelical marriage resources would do. "The Great Sex Rescue" says that Partner A's refusal to have sex is the right thing to do.
Scenario 3: The sexless marriage in disguise
In this scenario, the couple is having sex regularly, but not in a way that's good for Partner A. Maybe Partner B always has an orgasm and Partner A never does, maybe sex is painful for Partner A but they feel like they have to do it anyway because they've been reading too many Christian marriage books, etc.
Okay, I'm glad the authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" are bringing this up. (And it's similar to what they said in an earlier chapter about who exactly is being "deprived.") Even though I don't think there's anything inherently bad about a sexless marriage, this scenario definitely is bad. If you're having sex, but it's a bad experience for you, well, stop doing that!
I say "stop doing that" like it's easy and obvious, but in evangelical-land, it's not that easy or obvious. There are many Christian marriage books which explicitly teach that most women don't like sex, but wives have to do it anyway because men need it. If sex is painful for you, and you don't like it, you would believe that's normal, that's just the way it is for women, and a very important part of being a wife is you have to have bad sex anyway. (Yes, they really do explicitly teach that an important part of being a wife is having bad sex.) They talk about it like it's a sacrifice that wives have to make- your marriage is important to you, and you love your husband and want him to be happy, so it's worth a few minutes of pain several times a week. Furthermore, you shouldn't tell your husband that sex is painful and unpleasant, because that will ruin his manly confidence- you need him to believe that he is good at sex and everything is perfect.
(I'm going to point this out explicitly for the ace and/or extremely sheltered readers: When Christian leaders describe sex as "it's worth a few minutes of pain", the part where it's "a few minutes" should be a giant red flag. Most women take longer than men to get aroused, so if sex is only "a few minutes" then it's likely that the woman is not aroused, and she's being subjected to vaginal penetration when she's not even aroused, which is likely to be painful. In order to feel good for women, it's usually the case that sex needs to take longer than "a few minutes", to make sure that the woman is aroused and ready before doing any penetration, and also to make sure enough time is spent on foreplay that feels good for her. The fact that Christian marriage teachers are emphasizing how little time it takes to have sex, as if that's a selling point, is deeply ****ed-up.)
One of the main messages of "The Great Sex Rescue" is that this whole "women don't like sex but have to do it anyway" is WRONG. I'm glad to see them taking a stand against that.
So... if you're a good evangelical woman, and you get married (to a man, obviously, since you are a good evangelical woman and wouldn't dream of being queer) and then sex is painful, you wouldn't even know that was a problem. You would think that's normal, and you just have to do it anyway, because that's what it means to be a wife.
"The Great Sex Rescue" has some anecdotes in this section, where men are saying things like "after 20 years of marriage, my wife just stopped having sex with me, for no reason, completely out of the blue." The authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" say that actually, it wasn't "out of the blue"- the wife had been suffering through bad sex for 20 years, and finally decided she couldn't take it any more- and GOOD FOR HER! Furthermore, the book says that if you continue to have sex even though it's bad, it's likely your husband will have no idea there's a problem- so you should speak up right away and refuse to have bad sex. Don't try to tolerate it.
Yes, as an asexual, I totally agree with this. Don't tolerate bad sex, because that's not sustainable, and it's not good for you.
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Okay so those are the 3 scenarios given in the book. Overall, the message is, if you're the one causing the marriage to be sexless, then you're the one who has a responsibility to work on yourself and make changes so that you can have a good sex life with your spouse. Basically, the lack of sex is a problem, and whichever partner is causing the lack of sex, is the one who needs to change.
I don't think the lack of sex is a problem, in and of itself. I think the problem is when there's a mismatch between what the two partners want. And the way to resolve that mismatch is NOT "let's work on whatever issues are stopping us from having a normative ideal sex life" like the book says [this is my paraphrase, not an actual quote]. The way to resolve that mismatch is to really think through what you want- specifically, which parts of sex do you like or not like? What kind of intimacy is important to you? How do you show love to your partner, and how do you want them to show love to you? Get some specific answers- more specific than "I like sex" or "I don't like sex"- because sex can be a lot of different things. And then communicate with your partner, compare your lists of what you want and what you don't want, and come up with a plan that works for both of you.
There are 2 examples from "scenario 1" I want to go back and look at, and discuss how my advice of "figure out what you want, and then work something out with your partner" would play out (and how it's different than what "The Great Sex Rescue" says). First, we have this part, which mentions the writers' experiences with female sexual pain:
Not wanting sex when you're dealing with sexual dysfunction is a perfectly understandable and normal response. But whatever the sexual dysfunction, if it impedes libido and makes sex difficult or impossible, it is incumbent upon that spouse to seek and follow medical treatments. All three of us writing this book have been treated for sexual pain at one time or another, so we are not telling you to do anything we have not done ourselves. Dilators, internal massages, perineal stretches, the works-- it's not fun, but it gets the job done.
I'm gonna have to disagree with this.
I used to have vaginismus (a medical condition where the vagina involuntarily closes itself, making penetration very painful or impossible). One of my main "hot takes" about vaginismus which I've blogged about is, this is not necessarily something you need to get treatment for. Vaginismus means you can't easily put things in your vagina- this is only a problem if you want to put things in your vagina. Besides that, it's not a problem at all.
And I'm glad that I found the asexual community- a group of people dedicated to analyzing and categorizing all of our feelings on what we really want out of sex and relationships- rather than finding a doctor who could tell me how to change my body to be good enough for a man.
The short version of the story is, I did a bunch of trial-and-error on my own (involving masturbating and sex toys) and eventually I did figure out a way I could manage to have PIV [penis-in-vagina] sex without pain (though it didn't always work)- and along the way, figured out some other things that worked better for me than PIV. (And it's great that I figured those things out!) And then when I gave birth to my baby, I guess that cured the vaginismus and now it's not a problem at all any more.
It's really good that I was able to figure out what I actually wanted, instead of approaching it like "I need to find a doctor who can help me meet the heteronormative standards of what I'm supposed to be doing as a wife." And... well that's basically what "The Great Sex Rescue" is saying here- if you have medical reasons why you can't do PIV like you're supposed to, then you need to get treatment so you can do PIV like you're supposed to. Eww, no. Figure out what you actually want.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm being too negative about doctors, when I blog about vaginismus. Let me clarify this: If you are coming at it from a place of confidently knowing what you want, then treatment from a doctor can be a very useful tool, if that's what you want. But back then, I was definitely not in a position where it would have been useful for me. I was so "pure" I had never even used my hand to feel around "down there" and get a sense of the basic geometry. All I knew was I wasn't supposed to have sex or know anything about sex- and even when I rejected that belief, I still had this weird idea that "monogamy" means I shouldn't investigate my own body by myself... and then sex didn't "work"- well of course sex didn't "work", I had no idea what I was even trying to do. I assumed it would just happen "naturally." And when I asked doctors for help- because I did ask doctors for help, but they were all useless- they told me "just relax" and other things that very much did not help me to realize that I needed to figure out what *I* wanted. If one of them had diagnosed me with vaginismus and given me a set of dilators, I would have approached it like, "okay I still have no idea what I'm even trying to do, but if I follow the doctor's instructions about these dilators, then I can be good enough to have sex with my partner correctly." Which, no, don't do that. Instead, figure out what *you* actually want.
But, if you're coming at it from a place of "I've analyzed the pros and cons of being able to have PIV sex, and I think this is something that would benefit me" then yeah, go ahead and get help from a doctor. Probably more efficient than the trial-and-error that I did. (And I can't speak for anyone else's situation- maybe some people's sexual medical issues can't be solved without an actual doctor's help.) But I needed to do that trial-and-error, because my only other option was just going along with what everyone was telling me I needed to do to have sex correctly.
(And if you feel it's worth it to work on the vaginismus issue so you can have PIV for your partner's sake, well, sure, if that's your decision, then that's valid- but is your partner also going to great effort to make sure you are getting the kind of intimacy that's important to you? They should! If you are literally changing your body for them, are they making it clear that they understand and value that? They should! Or are they treating it like, you fail to meet the bare-minimum requirements for being married, so you better get that fixed as soon as possible, and they are being a saint for putting up with your inadequacies? Oh YIKES.)
Anyway, "The Great Sex Rescue" doesn't see it that way. Their view is, if you're married, you need to have PIV sex, and if you aren't able to have PIV sex, then you need to get medical treatment so that you can. No! I have big news: Even if you're straight and married, you don't need to have PIV sex! If you want to have sex, there are other ways to have sex, did you know that?
I've actually seen comments, in the comment section of the "Bare Marriage" blog (ie, the blog written by Sheila Gregoire and the other authors of "The Great Sex Rescue"), where men are saying things like "PIV sex is so painful for my wife, I can't possibly ask her to do that, so we just do other sexual things instead." I'm very happy to see men saying things like that! You don't need to do PIV, even if you're straight and married, and honestly if PIV is painful then you definitely SHOULDN'T do it- but good news, there are plenty of other sex things you can do! (Also, I think those men's wives would benefit from learning what vaginismus is- it's likely that they don't even know it's a real medical phenomenon and there are treatments for it. Once they know what it is, they can weigh the pros and cons of getting treatment, and make the decision that works for them.)
Here's another example from "The Great Sex Rescue"- an anecdote that comes from a comment on their blog or survey:
My husband doesn't really care that he can't get an erection. He just shrugs it off as, "Well, I tried, but it just isn't working," and that's good enough for him. His doctor gave him blood pressure medication, and said, "It shouldn't be a problem now," and pushed us out the door. But it's still a problem, and my husband doesn't care. I'm barely forty, and we've been through a lot of stress, including the death of a child. We need this connection. Despite the fact that our sex life has never been fantastic, I'm not ready to be in a sexless marriage.
My first thought when I was reading this was, if the lack of erection is the problem, well there are sex toys you can buy which can serve as a replacement. But actually, I don't think that's the problem- it seems like the actual problem is the husband isn't really interested in participating in sex at all, even though it's really important to the wife. So if he's not even motivated enough to try harder to get an erection, he's likely also not motivated enough to use a sex toy to make his wife feel good.
But here's a thought experiment: Suppose you were having this problem, and I came along and said "well there are sex toys you can buy to serve as a replacement" and your reaction was "NO, absolutely NOT." First of all, okay, then don't do it, it's just a suggestion- this is all about figuring out what *you* want, and if you don't want to use a sex toy, then you shouldn't use a sex toy. And second, the fact that you are strongly rejecting my suggestion is actually a very useful thing- it gets you one step closer to figuring out what you actually want. See, now we have a bit of information that we didn't have before: in your opinion, there is something about using a dildo which is incredibly *different* than if it's your partner's actual body, and that difference is very important to you. Great, this is extremely useful information! Now ask yourself, specifically, what about it is the key difference, for you? If you can articulate an answer to that question, you're well on your way to being able to communicate with your partner about what you actually want, and from there you can work out something that can work for both of you.
It shouldn't just be one partner saying "I want sex" and the other saying "I don't want sex" and concluding there's just nothing that can be done. (Or, concluding that the "I don't want sex" partner is the one in the wrong, like "The Great Sex Rescue" is doing in scenario 1.) "Sex" can be so many different things. Intimacy can be so many different things. There is plenty of opportunity to find overlap in your preferences, and exclude the aspects that you don't like.
Now, I should say here that I'm a sex-favorable asexual. Most aces are not sex-favorable- they may be sex-indifferent or sex-repulsed instead. So maybe I'm portraying this too optimistically, and in reality it may be the case that sex-repulsed/ sex-indifferent aces won't be able to find a way to be compatible with a partner who wants sex. I personally don't know- feel free to leave a comment if you are sex-repulsed or sex-indifferent.
I definitely don't want anyone to take this to mean "see, aces CAN find a way to be okay with having sex" and then try to pressure someone into sex based on that. No, that's not what I said. I said that if you really get into the specific details about what you do or don't like about sex, and what kind of intimacy is meaningful to you, you are likely to find some workable overlap with your partner. I didn't say that overlap is necessarily sex.
My view on this is influenced by what I've read from the kink/BDSM community about using checklists to find interests that you and your partner have in common, and plan your "scene" based on that. It's a very logical idea- you have a list of a whole bunch of elements which may or may not be included in the actions you do with each other, and for each item on the list, you can mark yes/no/maybe. Then you compare your list with your partner's, and make a plan- anything you both marked "yes", you definitely do, and if there are some things that one person really wants, and the other person doesn't care one way or the other, then yeah sure include those too. Etc. And the things on the list can be "adventurous" sexual things, but they could also be mundane things, like, to what extent do you want to keep some of your clothes on? Do you want the lights on or off? Do you want to cuddle?
(But... for people from an evangelical background, who are taught that it's "sinful" to think deeply about what you want, and express those desires and expect people to care about them... yeah, I know my advice here isn't possible, if you're coming from that mindset. So. That's the real problem.)
Even though I've never literally filled out such a list, or done BDSM stuff, this is basically the framework I'm using. It makes so much sense! Which specific elements are important to you, and which do you want to avoid- and I don't mean just sex itself, I also mean things like, maybe there's some other kind of intimacy that's important to you, like you want your partner to read a novel out loud to you, so you can both enjoy it together. If that's important to you, then your partner should treat it as a high priority. Society expects people to treat sex as a high priority if their partner wants sex- well, how can Partner B expect sex from Partner A, while not making any effort to do the kinds of intimacy that Partner A values? Why does society treat Partner B's "need" for sex as more real?
Anyway, I wasn't intending to make this post "here's my advice for how to make an ace/allo relationship sexually compatible" because I think that's more complicated and difficult than what I'm presenting here. I just want to give advice for some of the scenarios in "The Great Sex Rescue," where people don't seem to have even attempted to ask themselves the questions "What do I actually want from sex? Which aspects of it are important to me?"
"The Great Sex Rescue" is basically saying, [this is my paraphrase, not an actual quote] "If you're married, you have to have heteronormative PIV sex, and if there are issues that are stopping you from having heteronormative PIV sex, you need to work through those issues, and then you need to have heteronormative PIV sex, this is a requirement if you are married." Which, ugh, no. Why on earth do you need to have sex, just because you're married? Why on earth do you need to have PIV? Why? There's no reason why it has to be that way. Now, if you *want* it to be that way, then yes, that would be a reason, that would make sense. So figure out what you want.
As I was reading this chapter, getting more and more frustrated with it, I thought to myself, "This is basically saying, 'Instead of being required to have sex because men need it, you're required to have sex because you have to as part of being married.'" And then, lo and behold, I get to the end of the chapter, where there's a little summary, and it literally says this:
Instead of saying, "You need to make sex a priority because your spouse needs it," say, "Sex is vital to a healthy marriage. Make it a priority so you don't miss out on God's blessings for both of you."
Oh COME ON.
Anyway. So. Well that's chapter 8 of "The Great Sex Rescue." I'd like to say, in my opinion, being queer is about figuring out your own identity and what you want. Knowing yourself. I'm so glad I'm queer.
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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
Related:
Vaginismus Is Not A Problem, In And Of Itself
Miss me with your "we are all sexually broken" hot takes. I'm asexual.
Separating Vaginismus From Asexuality
And this link (via redbeardace): WANT/WILL/WON’T LIST (specifically written for aces)
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