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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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We are now in chapter 9 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link], "Duty Sex Isn't Sexy." This post will cover the first part of chapter 9- pages 158 to 161. This section is about how it's not good to view sex in transactional terms. (And yes, I agree- in a loving, long-term relationship, it's not good to view sex in transactional terms.)
What does it mean to view sex as "transactional"? One example the book gives is the sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati," where Lucille tells her husband, "Better mow the grass, Herbie, or no num-nums tonight." The idea is that women don't really *want* to have sex, but a woman is willing to do it for her husband if he does something that she wants (like housework).
"The Great Sex Rescue" says this:
Assigning a price for sex says, "I don't really want to do this. I see it as a means to an end-- a means to get what I really want, which is this behavior from you. So I will hold myself back from you until you give me what I want." This feels like a rejection-- I don't really want you; I only want what you can give me. It changes the nature of sex, and it ruins intimacy.
Yes, I agree with this. (Later in this post I will talk about how this gets more complicated if one partner is ace and genuinely doesn't want sex for the sex.) Typically, when people want sex, it's not just about wanting an orgasm- it's about wanting to have an intimate experience with someone they love. If their partner is going through the steps to give them an orgasm, but isn't enjoying it, well that's not really what they wanted. It "feels like a rejection."
The thing is, this transactional view of sex is EVERYWHERE in evangelical teaching on marriage. I've heard jokes in church about how a man should "help" his wife with the housework and then he'll be rewarded for it, wink wink nudge nudge you know what I mean you know what I mean. Married Christian women are told that they need to have sex because men "need" it- and there's no mention of the possibility of a woman liking sex. Just a lot of "look at how hard your husband works, he takes care of your needs [financially, opening jars, etc], now you should take care of his needs too." And teenage girls in purity culture are given lots of warnings about how you shouldn't have sex before marriage because as soon as the boy gets what he wants, he'll disappear, he won't be committed to you- you need to lock him down in marriage first before you give him sex. The girl wants a long-term commitment, and the boy wants sex, and marriage is the transaction they do to get those things. And then there's the idea that marriage is the solution for lust- it's telling men "you've worked so hard to avoid lust, now that you're married you can finally have sex with your wife as a reward, and you don't have to hold yourself back anymore" with no mention of, like, making sex a good experience for your wife.
Yeah, the transactional view of sex is EVERYWHERE in evangelical culture. So it's good that "The Great Sex Rescue" is pointing this out.
"The Great Sex Rescue" points out that there is a little bit of truth to the "if men help with housework, their wives will be more likely to want to have sex with them" idea. But it's not about "owing" each other; it's not about keeping track of who did what and who needs to repay the other spouse. It's about being a team. The kind of person who treats you as an equal, who recognizes that you both live there so you both need to do housework, who notices and cares about how much work you do- that's the kind of person that (typically) people want to have sex with.
Yes, I agree that if you're in a committed, loving, long-term relationship, sex should be something you both enjoy, not something you do because you "owe" your partner. (At the same time, though, I generally don't feel comfortable making statements about the way sex "should be." Everyone has their own priorities, and that's fine. As an example, for sex workers, sex is literally transactional, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.) But for aces, this is more complicated- I'll get to that later in the post.
One thing that I felt was a bit weird in this chapter of the book is the idea that the lower-desire partner has more power in the relationship. The book says, if Partner A has a higher desire for sex than Partner B, then Partner A is depending on Partner B to meet their sexual needs, and isn't allowed to get those needs met anywhere else, so Partner B has this power over Partner A, and could use it to manipulate them.
I mean, I guess that could be true? I can see how Partner A might see it that way. But I think most people in the "Partner B" role don't feel like they have power over their partner; they feel like they're being pressured into sex they don't want, and they can't necessarily say no because in marriage you have to have sex with your spouse, right? I don't think Partner B feels "powerful"; I think they feel vulnerable.
If Partner B really could manipulate Partner A all the time and get away with it, then you could say Partner B has the power, but in reality that's not how it works. In reality, Partner B gets constantly told that she is not a good enough wife because she is not having enough sex, and she should be worried that Partner A will cheat on her, and it will be Partner B's fault, etc.
And isn't that what most of "The Great Sex Rescue" is about? I find it odd that this one part of the book says the lower-desire partner has the power in the relationship, because most of the book is about how the lower-desire partner is mistreated by the church (or rather, how women are assumed to not want sex, and told that a key part of marriage is having unwanted sex), and how wrong that is. Chapter 10 is an entire chapter about marital rape- how marital rape is a direct result of evangelical teachings on marriage.
So I'm not sure what to make of this section of chapter 9 which says the lower-desire partner has the power. I *guess* the higher-desire partner might feel that way, and I *guess* in the one specific context of "your spouse is not allowed to get their sexual needs met anywhere else, it HAS to be you" then the lower-desire partner has a bargaining chip, but overall, in reality, it doesn't really work out like that. More likely that both of them feel unhappy and powerless.
Okay, so that's basically what this first part of chapter 9 is about. Now let me tell you my asexual take on it.
The difficult thing here, for a relationship between an ace partner and an allosexual partner (ie, not asexual or asexual spectrum) is that the ace partner might actually not want sex. It might genuinely be true that the ace partner is not interested in sex for the sake of sex, but is willing to do it for "transactional" reasons. Willing to do it because they feel it's a requirement for maintaining the relationship, and they are getting a lot of benefits out of the relationship, so overall it's worth it.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with having sex for other reasons besides "I really like sex." I know there are aces in this kind of situation, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. It *might* be a bad thing. You should examine the specifics of your situation carefully, because it could be a bad thing, or it could be okay.
Here's the question that the ace partner should ask themself: "When I have sex with my partner, is the experience positive, neutral, or negative for me?" (I'm not talking about the categories sex-favorable/ sex-indifferent/ sex-repulsed because that's a different thing than what I'm trying to discuss here.) I mean it like this:
- positive: "I want to have sex because I enjoy the actual sex itself"
- neutral: "I don't really care if we have sex or not, it's fine if we do, it's fine if we don't"
- negative: "There are some parts of sex that I actively dislike"/ "There are some parts of sex which I dread and I want them to be over as fast as possible"/ "This is painful but I love my partner so it's worth it"
(This "positive/neutral/negative" framing reminds me of how I don't love the concept of "enthusiastic consent"- people often define "enthusiastic consent" like it only counts as real consent if you're in the "positive" category I've made up here. This is not inclusive of aces, or anyone who consents to sex for reasons more complex than "I really want to have sex." See Siggy's post on that: I’m not enthusiastic about enthusiastic consent.)
In my experience, it can be difficult to even know one's own feelings. There was a period of time when I thought I felt neutral, but I actually felt negative. And I now see that if I had kept going on like that, it would not have been good for me long-term. (Fortunately, in my case, getting pregnant totally changed my whole entire perspective on sex. When I was pregnant and I felt horribly sick all the time, that was the first time in my life that I felt I had a "good enough reason" to say no to sex. [Or rather, for most of my life I definitely knew there was no way I would ever consent to sex, because I was "protecting my purity", not because I felt like I actually had a choice- but once I stopped "protecting my purity" I moved right into the "men need it" paradigm. So I still felt I didn't have much of a choice.] Pregnancy helped me get away from the "obligation" mindset. And then after I gave birth, I no longer had vaginismus, so PIV [penis-in-vagina] sex was not painful anymore and WOW THAT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE.)
My advice is that if you feel that your experiences having sex with your partner are negative- if you feel like "I don't like this but I'm still choosing to do it because I get benefits from the relationship/ because I want my partner to be happy/ because I love my partner"- my advice is not to do this. My advice is to stop having bad sex. Even if you feel like "it's worth it because [whatever reason]", this is going to end up being really bad for you in the long term.
And about the "neutral" category: I remember I talked to a married ace woman one time who said, "I don't mind having sex with my husband. It's a chore just like any other chore. It's fine." So, she is saying her feelings are neutral. It may be the case that her feelings truly are neutral. If so, that's fine. If she continues doing that long-term, I don't think it will be harmful for her (as long as she's getting benefits from the relationship in other ways).
But for me, years ago, I thought I felt neutral, but... I was actually in pain, from the vaginismus. And I thought "it's painful but it's worth it because I love my partner, and men need sex." No, don't do this. If the sex itself is actually a bad experience for you, then even if you are getting benefits from the relationship that outweigh that... I... no, don't do this. The belief that "love" means regularly subjecting yourself to something that hurts you, and your partner is experiencing pleasure because of your pain, and your partner wants it to be about intimate, loving connection but for you it's a sacrifice that you convince yourself is worth it, and you have to pretend to be happy about it... this is just really unhealthy in the long term.
So if the experience of sex is negative, then no, don't do that. If it's neutral, then that's fine- but the difficult thing is, what if you're deceiving yourself into thinking it's neutral, when it's actually negative? And if your experience of sex is positive, if you find yourself actually looking forward to it and desiring it, well that's the best-case scenario, good for you.
Also, if you want to have sex with your partner, but your experience of sex is negative or neutral, I recommend making changes so that your experience can be neutral or positive. Talk to your partner about what would need to be different in order to make it a better experience for you. Your partner has an obligation to care about that. Here are some examples:
- If PIV [penis-in-vagina] sex is painful because you have vaginismus, then don't do PIV sex. Do other sex things that don't involve vaginal penetration.
- If you feel neutral about sex, maybe there's something you and your partner could add to it, to make it positive instead of neutral. Maybe you want to cuddle more. Maybe you want your partner to constantly tell you that you're beautiful. Add things that change it from a neutral experience to a genuinely pleasurable experience (and the pleasurable aspects don't even have to be sexual in and of themselves).
(Disclaimer: I'm a sex-favorable asexual. For sex-repulsed aces, maybe this advice won't work. Please do leave a comment on this if you're sex-repulsed and have an opinion about it.)
And, I think, if your experience of sex is neutral and you're more or less doing it for "transactional" reasons, the important thing is it shouldn't feel like "my partner did something for me, so I will respond by having sex with them." Don't keep count of specific things and who owes what to whom. Instead it should be like, both of you always have an attitude of caring for each other and loving each other, and you genuinely want to do things to bring happiness to your partner. And see, this works exactly the same in both directions, because it's not specifically about sex. Whatever your partner enjoys, you do it for them. Maybe it's sex, maybe it's going to the library together, whatever it is, you do it for them. (Unless, like I said, it's a horrible experience for you.) Sex shouldn't be seen as more important than the things the lower-desire partner values.
There have been times in my marriage, when both me and my husband were under a lot of stress and I felt like my needs weren't being met (this was totally unrelated to sex) and that made me start to think in transactional terms, like "he's asking me to do something for him, I want to make him agree to do something for me, before I agree to this." That's a sign that there are problems in the relationship. In that situation, you have to honestly communicate with each other about how you feel and what you need, rather than playing games about who does what for whom. A relationship should be like, both of you are prioritizing each other's needs and happiness, to such an extent that you don't feel it's necessary to keep track of every little detail about who did what and who owes whom for it.
One more thing I want to showcase, from this section of "The Great Sex Rescue." I like the definitions presented in this diagram, from page 161:
Transaction, Obligation, and Coercion
Transaction: I did this, so you owe me.
Obligation: You owe me.
Coercion: You owe me, so I'm going to take what I want.
The first part of chapter 9 looked at transaction, the second part (which we'll look at in a later blog post) is about obligation, and then chapter 10 is on coercion and marital rape.
In summary: This section of "The Great Sex Rescue" is about how it's not healthy to view sex in transactional terms, like it's something a wife does for her husband as a reward for good behavior, or like a husband should do more housework in order to get his wife to have sex with him. I basically agree with this, but it's complicated in a relationship between an ace partner and allosexual partner.
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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"
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