Friday, November 4, 2011

Seriously? He prefers porn to sex with you?

You don't have to look far into women's magazines to find some serious male bashing. Check out this sex advice column from Redbook (h/t Instapundit).

Here is the question:
"I have been with my husband for 22 years. Lately I’ve noticed that he would much rather watch porn on his phone than have sex with me. Please tell me: Does he watch it so that he can fantasize about being with someone else?"
 If you read the answer, you will see that Redbook's expert chooses to mock the guy. And note that he does so entirely on the testimony of one (anonymous) side of the story. And he goes on to conclude that this man is addicted to porn (a type of "addiction" whose existence is not proven) on the basis of this sketchy evidence. This is man hating pure and simple.

His first question should have been, Are you being honest with yourself ? I'm quite sure your husband does look at something on his phone. You don't say what. The Page 3 people, for example, will forward a topless shot of the girl of the day to your phone if you ask them. Technically, I suppose that's porn by some definitions. But is it really true that he prefers phone porn to sex with an actual woman? If he does, then there is something seriously wrong with him or with you. That said, I think that is extremely unlikely.

There are a number of (non-exclusive) possibilities here.

The first is that this woman is so upset by her husband's looking at pictures on his cellphone that she has engaged in a little hyperbole here. If this is true, what really upsets her is porn and she needs to reach some sort of accommodation with him about this. That could mean many things from his agreeing to not do it because it offends her to his agreeing to be discreet about it. (Or, more likely, his pretending to do the first while actually doing the second.)

A second possibility is that the porn threatens her because she feels less attractive after 22 years of marriage. That's understandable. Perhaps their sex life is not what it used to be or he really has just given up on it and the phone porn is a consolation for the sex life he'd much rather have but feels he cannot. He may have decided that sex with his wife is just no longer worth the trouble given her lack or response or lack of interest in the sort of things that turn him on. He'd prefer sex with her but when he thinks of all the complications, he gives up. There is not much to say about this on the given evidence though. If this is the case then, as the Iron Duke said, they're in a dashed difficult situation and now they must work dashed hard to get out of it.

A third possibility (and the one I'm putting my money on) is that this woman tells us in so many words what her real concern is: "Please tell me: Does he watch it so that he can fantasize about being with someone else?" She doesn't say when she thinks this might be happening but I think we can take it as given that she didn't catch him with his phone in one hand and his "personal communication device" in the other. Why can we assume this? Because in that case there could be no doubt what he was thinking about and she wouldn't need to ask the question. No, I think this woman's real concern is that when they do have sex, she worries that he closes his eyes and fantasizes about women he has seen on his cellphone.

That's not an unreasonable concern. They've been married twenty two years and younger women are very attractive and it's very easy to see pictures of young women naked. What she needs to focus on, however, is not what she doesn't want but rather what she does want. She wants sex that is a loving and bonding experience between them. She wants to feel together during sex. The question then becomes, how can she best bring this about.

In cases like this, the best place to begin is with herrself. What can she do to make sex more meaningful and attractive for him? Put some real effort into it. And begin with his needs and wants rather than her own. She may strongly believe that a certain type of sex is best but he may have different views.

An aside: We should also ask if she is being honest with herself about the kind of sex she likes. It's not unheard of for a woman to push for a certain kind of sex even though this sex doesn't do much for her never mind her husband. Be honest about what really does it for you and consider the possibility that what you think you should want may differ from what actually does it for you.

Anyway, put some serious effort into this. You've been married twenty-two years? Serious effort is at least (and I mean "at least!") a year's worth. If you do that, two things should happen: 1) he should notice you are making this effort and 2) he should reciprocate. If these things don't happen, you need to talk with him and perhaps see a counselor.

Good luck.

No comments:

Post a Comment