Reply to S/O Has demanding sex ever actually worked for anyone?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I’m *really* surprised you would take her lack of interest so personally after you read that book. It makes me wonder if you really internalized some of the most important parts. Remember how the author talks about how feeling obligated to have sex or feeling like your partner is being pushy is a common “brake” that women have? Giving your partner a book in the hopes that she would have more sex with you is definitely pressuring her to have sex. I am not surprised it didn’t work. Some women would obviously be okay with it but it’s totally natural that it would turn off a lot of women. [/quote]

Asking her to read a book with legitimately helpful information isn't being "pushy." [/quote]

Is there a word for “pushy” that doesn’t have a negative connotation? That’s what I mean. It’s like giving an overweight person a treadmill. Objectively, there is nothing wrong with it, and it might even be really helpful. But our unconscious (and the part of our brains that decide whether or not we want to have sex is unconscious) isn’t objective. With sex, all of us respond to stimuli that aren’t objectively sexual or not sexual.

Rational or not, if I knew my husband wanted sex and gave me that book, I don’t think make myself want sex, no matter how hard I tried or wanted to want sex. And with this kind of thing what matters isn’t right or wrong or rational or irrational, what matters is working with our biological and mental realities. [/quote]

That's very true. But the book - one that comes from a perspective that is very understanding of the low libido wife's point of view - is among the gentlest forms of trying to correct a libido gap one can think of. So, the alternative seems to be saying nothing and nothing changing. [/quote]

My point is that I’m surprised PP would take his wife’s not wanting to read if so personally. The intro, the part that PP said his wife read, says:

“ “The information in this book will show you that whatever you’re experiencing in your sexuality—whether it’s challenges with arousal, desire, orgasm, pain, no sexual sensations—is the result of your sexual response mechanism functioning appropriately . . . in an inappropriate world. You are normal; it is the world around you that’s broken.”

In a later chapter the author discusses situations where some women cannot experience desire if they feel like they are expected to have sex.

This is just how some women are wired and it’s normal. Of course it’s disappointing but PP’s wife is not metaphorically slapping her husband in her face, according to the very book he wants her to read.

(Nagoski also spends a lot of time refuting the idea that sex is a need and she is vehemently opposed to the idea that women (or men) are obligated to have sex with their spouses, and that people should consent only to what they find pleasurable. So it doesn’t seem to me like she would think that giving your spouse her book as a way of solving her issue of lack of desire is a great idea. I am sure she has ideas for better options).

[/quote]

Well, as you (or another PP) says, "Objectively, there is nothing wrong with it, and it might even be really helpful. But our unconscious (and the part of our brains that decide whether or not we want to have sex is unconscious) isn’t objective. With sex, all of us respond to stimuli that aren’t objectively sexual or not sexual." Taking personally the decision not to read the book isn't any less rational (or any more surprising) than the wife feeling pressured or decreased libido by being asked to read the book. [/quote]

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