Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 13:12     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:When the female dog isn't in heat, the male goes looking for another female to mate with.

One that is in heat. But he will go month in-between and doesn't care.

Um, no. Male dogs (studs) are pretty much always ready to go and looking for mating opportunities. If he can't locate a receptive female he will try mating with your leg or the sofa. Where do you come up with fiction like "he doesn't care" ?


Dogs only care to have sex if the smell a dog in heat.

Dogs that mate with a couch were taken from their moms too early.

Maybe you have mommy issues too.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 11:07     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:When the female dog isn't in heat, the male goes looking for another female to mate with.

One that is in heat. But he will go month in-between and doesn't care.

Um, no. Male dogs (studs) are pretty much always ready to go and looking for mating opportunities. If he can't locate a receptive female he will try mating with your leg or the sofa. Where do you come up with fiction like "he doesn't care" ?
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 11:02     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We were 25 and 26 when we got engaged. Nobody told us what would happen.

What should they have said? "Monogamy is boring. Don't do it." ???


What planet are you living on?? LOL. People say this ALLLLL the damn time. No one listens. Then they end up in this same situation in their late thirties or forties and look around like they are the first person this ever happened to. Never fails.


Well, yes, people are saying it. But not too newlyweds. Not in places that 20-somethings are looking. Would you tell a 27 year old that she was going to be bored in just 10 short years? But will have another 40 years with her spouse? No. That's a rotten wedding gift.


Well, and even when young people express hesitation about getting married, people gloss over all of that and encourage them to get married. It's the same with having kids.

People will complain in certain circles, but they won't around people who aren't married or who don't have kids. Or they'll complain but with the caveat "it's still the best thing I ever did!"

I just think as a society, we aren't very tolerant of people who suspect marriage and/or kids aren't for them -- especially women. I also think that we have kind of accepted as gospel that women *naturally* lose their sex drive, and so we assume that in marriage, if a woman loses interest in her spouse, that's totally normal. Have there actually been studies about this? I mean, comparing single women to married women and sex drive? I just think that it's a very complex thing, but we downplay the complexity and just go along with certain old, entrenched views.


They might mean it though. Very few worthwhile things can be had in life without any effort needing to be put in.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 10:55     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A healthy male sex drive doesn't fade much. Its not a want. If you have never felt a strong drive, there is no analogy. But turn on the Discovery channel, watch a couple of male rams but heads for the right to mate. Or wolves fight to the death, or lions kill cubs to get the female in heat.

Yes, yes of course humans have rational brains that can control a man fro, raping, killing. But the drive is still there, eating away until it's released. Our species depends on the it


Not true.

By 40 men's testosterone has decreased by 10%. Also they don't get as big and hard, their recovery time is longer.

http://www.healthline.com/health/mens-health/sex-drive#Overview1

Men are socialized to not control their desires it's not biology.


With respect, there are experiences in life some genders will never understand. I will never know what its like to give birth, to nurse, to feel totally tapped and touched out and never want sex when there are toddlers. I can relate but I won't get it.

If you aren't a man, with normal testosterone, you won't ever understand what a male sex drive feels like. How obsessive it can become to want and seek sex. Which is why men sleep with random prostitutes. And consume endless porn. And occupy Ashley Madison at 10:1 ratios over women. Pour money away at strip clubs. Have sex in rest areas when closeted.

Yes, it's controllable which is why 99% of men have no problem going through life without sexually assaulting women. Yes, my sex drive at 40 isn't what it was at 18 - I generally only masturbate 1x per day, when I was 18 it was 2-3x a day. Erections aren't as good as they used to be. I think about sex often but not constantly.


If this is the case, perhaps men as a demographic whole are a problem society needs to deal with for the good of all. Other than Ashley Madison and the rest stop sex (which are both presumably consensual, non-transactional encounters), these urges of men lead them to supporting industries that are based in the exploitation of other human beings.

I'm a high-libido woman, so you're right, I can't understand what a male sex drive feels like. But my high libido doesn't correlate with a need to exploit others.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 10:46     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:A healthy male sex drive doesn't fade much. Its not a want. If you have never felt a strong drive, there is no analogy. But turn on the Discovery channel, watch a couple of male rams but heads for the right to mate. Or wolves fight to the death, or lions kill cubs to get the female in heat.

Yes, yes of course humans have rational brains that can control a man fro, raping, killing. But the drive is still there, eating away until it's released. Our species depends on the it


Not true.

By 40 men's testosterone has decreased by 10%. Also they don't get as big and hard, their recovery time is longer.

http://www.healthline.com/health/mens-health/sex-drive#Overview1

Men are socialized to not control their desires it's not biology.


Exactly.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 10:34     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
DH and I have sex pretty much every other night, (save for periods,illness or chaos) we've been together for 20 years and we will regularly refer to each other as the gift that keeps on giving.

We have far more sex now than we did in our late 20's or mid 30's; we have three kids and all the stress that goes along with them. Ive never understood why some make such a big deal out of sex in long term relationships- it's 20 minutes, if you're not into it in the beginning you will be after a few minutes, everybody has an orgasm (or 4) and you go to bed and wake up happy. It's a lot harder to be mad at someone who refuses to turn his socks right side out when you've ridden him less than 12 hrs before.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 10:30     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We were 25 and 26 when we got engaged. Nobody told us what would happen.

What should they have said? "Monogamy is boring. Don't do it." ???


What planet are you living on?? LOL. People say this ALLLLL the damn time. No one listens. Then they end up in this same situation in their late thirties or forties and look around like they are the first person this ever happened to. Never fails.


Well, yes, people are saying it. But not too newlyweds. Not in places that 20-somethings are looking. Would you tell a 27 year old that she was going to be bored in just 10 short years? But will have another 40 years with her spouse? No. That's a rotten wedding gift.


Well, and even when young people express hesitation about getting married, people gloss over all of that and encourage them to get married. It's the same with having kids.

People will complain in certain circles, but they won't around people who aren't married or who don't have kids. Or they'll complain but with the caveat "it's still the best thing I ever did!"

I just think as a society, we aren't very tolerant of people who suspect marriage and/or kids aren't for them -- especially women. I also think that we have kind of accepted as gospel that women *naturally* lose their sex drive, and so we assume that in marriage, if a woman loses interest in her spouse, that's totally normal. Have there actually been studies about this? I mean, comparing single women to married women and sex drive? I just think that it's a very complex thing, but we downplay the complexity and just go along with certain old, entrenched views.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 10:16     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?


I don't think you know what you're talking about. The desire to procreate, which for women means pregnancy and for men means sex is most definitely hard wired into our biology. It outs hard wired into the entire animal kingdoms biology because it's how a species survives. That is not socialized into us.

Men and women can fight these urges or may not even feel them but that will always be anomalous because a species made up of women who don't want children would die out. It is a bad mutation for humanity.

Modern society has made the whole process more dignified but if anything we've built our societal encouragement around our biological proclivities not the other way around.


I actually don't think it is as simple as you claim it is. It's like trying to understand hunger and eating and metabolism. There are biological systems in place that have an evolutionary basis, but those systems are complicated, and we don't fully understand the subtleties. We never will if we keep insisting, "It's simple!"

In nature, you don't find that it always amounts to males with huge sex drives wanting to mate with as many females as possible and females wanting to have as many babies as possible. Some animals, like crows and swans, mate for life. Some animals have social structures wherein only one pair actually mates and procreates. Some animals actually procreate less when there are environmental pressures because the survival of the species doesn't JUST depend on procreating; it also depends on the ability of the group to function as a group, and if there are too many mouths to feed and not enough food, the group breaks down.

So stop putting forth this simplistic notion that men biologically want to have lots of sex with lots of women and move on and women biologically want to have lots of babies and lose any sex drive when they get all of the babies. That's not the full picture. For one, many women have a enhanced sex drive when they go through menopause. If it were all about procreation and making babies, then biologically, there would be no basis for that. But it's possible that, as with animals who live in groups, sex is connected to bonding and lifelong mates because having lifelong mates helps ensure the long-term success of the entire group, the entire social structure. I'm just saying that is a possibility.

All of that aside, I think people are unrealistic about long-term relationships the same way they are unrealistic about children. Look at all of the posts about people contemplating having kids and all of the posters who suggest that whether it's hard or not having kids, it's the "best thing that ever happened to them!" It causes a lot of people who perhaps really don't want to have kids to feel pressured to go along that path. I think the same is true of marriage. I don't think it's wrong for someone to think marriage isn't for them, but women constantly get the message that they'll end up a lonely spinster when their beauty fades if they don't nail down a mate immediately. And men who perhaps don't want to get married get pressured into it with the suggestion that by not marrying whatever girlfriend they happen to be with, they are somehow doing wrong by her (even if they are clear and upfront that marriage isn't something they want).

Marriage and kids are both things that, because of the social messages around and pressures, people can easily kind of get pushed along into without really considering if it is maybe not for them. And then they are shocked when they realize how hard both of those things are, because we kind of gloss over that as a society. Sure, we depict the struggles of changing diapers or dealing with the small issues that arise in marriage, but we treat them as jokes and always with the underlying message that "it's all worth it! it all works out!"
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 10:12     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:ok OP, so you have a low drive. no biggie. but some of us have a high drive and also have a spouse with a high drive. is it always 4th of July fireworks every time we have sex, no. but I'm lucky my DH is a great lover and takes care of my needs first. so that is just one of many reasons I want to have sex multiple times a week with him - and he's a pretty happy guy.

and we have 3 kids (teens/pre-teens) and both work full-time.


High drive high drive marriage here. My spouse is a great lover. However, doesn't much matter. Having sex with the same person 3xs a week is a complete bore

I love scallops. I don't want to eat scallops for dinner every single night, for the next 20 years, no matter how incredible the diversity of the preparation. I'm sure others would be happy with scallops forever and ever.


THIS!!!! Human beings just want new and strange. That's how it is. We (mostly) take it personally but maybe we shouldn't.


No thanks. The vast majority of the guys my age I see out there? No, just no.
I like the hubs. I want to keep the hubs so I put in the effort. He's good at it, no frills just some fun.
It's good enough.
It seems as if some people are using sex as a power struggle - if you aren't giving me this, I'm not giving you this.
Sounds like an awful way to live. I'd make sure to stay tuned if for a manipulative personality before I tied the knot.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 09:57     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We were 25 and 26 when we got engaged. Nobody told us what would happen.

What should they have said? "Monogamy is boring. Don't do it." ???


What planet are you living on?? LOL. People say this ALLLLL the damn time. No one listens. Then they end up in this same situation in their late thirties or forties and look around like they are the first person this ever happened to. Never fails.


Well, yes, people are saying it. But not too newlyweds. Not in places that 20-somethings are looking. Would you tell a 27 year old that she was going to be bored in just 10 short years? But will have another 40 years with her spouse? No. That's a rotten wedding gift.


+1
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 09:50     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We were 25 and 26 when we got engaged. Nobody told us what would happen.

What should they have said? "Monogamy is boring. Don't do it." ???


What planet are you living on?? LOL. People say this ALLLLL the damn time. No one listens. Then they end up in this same situation in their late thirties or forties and look around like they are the first person this ever happened to. Never fails.


Well, yes, people are saying it. But not too newlyweds. Not in places that 20-somethings are looking. Would you tell a 27 year old that she was going to be bored in just 10 short years? But will have another 40 years with her spouse? No. That's a rotten wedding gift.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 09:46     Subject: Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:ok OP, so you have a low drive. no biggie. but some of us have a high drive and also have a spouse with a high drive. is it always 4th of July fireworks every time we have sex, no. but I'm lucky my DH is a great lover and takes care of my needs first. so that is just one of many reasons I want to have sex multiple times a week with him - and he's a pretty happy guy.

and we have 3 kids (teens/pre-teens) and both work full-time.


Are there people that don't have the wife go 1st?


Hahaha. Serious question?
Of course. My do often goes first, but he does stay hard so I can use him like a dildo.
Anonymous
Post 09/11/2016 09:12     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
We tell teens/young adults that mastrabation is a normal healthy exploration of your own body. But men are socialized to believe that mastrabation after marriage is a failure to "get it from your wife" and women are socialized to believe they need to "give it to their husbands" instead of enjoying it alone. Men make women feel like they "cheated" if they mastrabate once a week and have sex with their H once a week. The H want that 2nd time too, as if the woman is not allowed to enjoy herself without her H anymore.



Masturbation isn't the same as sex. A lot of women seem to think a man's desire for sex is just a desire for orgasm. But it's more than that. My wife's body isn't some sort of overly-complicated masturbation aid. It's a way I can feel that she loves me. When she's rejecting my initiations, we have sex once a month or less, and she's masturbating in the interim -- you bet I feel rejected and unloved. It means she wants sexual activity, just not with me. I know it's more complicated than that (after all I just said that masturbation isn't the same as sex), but that doesn't change the feeling of rejection and being unloved.

Even more so because I check all the boxes that supposedly lead to love (and, by extension I irrationally assume, sex). I've been loyal and faithful for the 20 years of our marriage. I'm a good, active dad. I do plenty around the house. I bring home a good income. I'm in good shape. I'm funny (and modest!). I treat her with kindness and respect. I enjoy foreplay and enjoy sex much more if she's having orgasms. I'd be up for just about any sexual twist, kink, or fantasy if she had one and would tell me. I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty good. And our marriage is pretty good. But the sex is pretty much gone, and it sucks.
Anonymous
Post 09/10/2016 16:09     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
I described the lack of sexual drive as a mutation.

Humans are not the only animal that has sex for pleasure but sure its rare. I was responding directly to a poster that claimed men's desire for sex and women's desire for children was socialized into us and not a biological function of our gender. The nuances of marriage are more complicated than that yes but desire for sex and procreation is not a social phenomenon, it's a biological one.


Desire for sex 3 times a week is socialization. Expectation for sex on the 1st date, 3rd date... Whatever date is a product of socialization of what is masculine. Desire for a woman yo "like it more" is socialization of masculinity.

Here is another weird masculine socialization.

We tell teens/young adults that mastrabation is a normal healthy exploration of your own body. But men are socialized to believe that mastrabation after marriage is a failure to "get it from your wife" and women are socialized to believe they need to "give it to their husbands" instead of enjoying it alone. Men make women feel like they "cheated" if they mastrabate once a week and have sex with their H once a week. The H want that 2nd time too, as if the woman is not allowed to enjoy herself without her H anymore.

Anonymous
Post 09/10/2016 16:00     Subject: Re:Why do people refuse to be realistic about the consequences of long term relationships?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yes, there is a biological desire to mate. Is that what you are trying to do? Mate? Sex /=/ mating. ... There are many studies on sex when procreation is not possible. Look at the studies of how often animals mate when they are not fertile, The urge to have sex is low. I am not sure you will like that answer, if you want to use animal biology to describe a human martial relationship. Have you observed male dogs when a female is in heat, and then when she isn't. I am sure that was not your intent, to compare animal to human, since that would be sophmorian.

But you did describe human sexuality as a mutation.

You may not want to see the reasearch...

1) it would disprove your point about desire for sex.
2) it does not correlate to human sexual relationships.

When the female dog isn't in heat, the male goes looking for another female to mate with.


One that is in heat. But he will go month in-between and doesn't care.