Tag Archives: Headache

What should wives do when they are not in the mood for sex?

Dennis Prager features a lot of discussions about male-female relationships on his show, particularly during the male-female hour. I think this is one of the parts of his show that I really like best, because he knows what he is talking about and has on great female guests like Alison Armstrong.

He did a two part series a while back on 1) male sexuality and 2) what women should do about it within a marriage.

Part 1 is here.

Excerpt:

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

First, women need to recognize how a man understands a wife’s refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny). This is, therefore, usually a revelation to a woman. Many women think men’s natures are similar to theirs, and this is so different from a woman’s nature, that few women know this about men unless told about it.

This is a major reason many husbands clam up. A man whose wife frequently denies him sex will first be hurt, then sad, then angry, then quiet. And most men will never tell their wives why they have become quiet and distant. They are afraid to tell their wives. They are often made to feel ashamed of their male sexual nature, and they are humiliated (indeed emasculated) by feeling that they are reduced to having to beg for sex.

When first told this about men, women generally react in one or more of five ways…

He then explains the 5 ways that women respond to this. I think this whole problem of women not understanding men, of treating men as objects, and of demeaning male feelings and values, is very serious. In my opinion, there is a whole lot of work that needs to be done by women in order to fix this problem.

Part 2 is here.

Excerpt:

Here are eight reasons for a woman not to allow not being in the mood for sex to determine whether she denies her husband sex.

He then explains the eight reasons and then makes a general point about women that I think needs to be emphasized over and over and over. (This is one of the things that makes me not want to marry)

That solution is for a wife who loves her husband — if she doesn’t love him, mood is not the problem — to be guided by her mind, not her mood, in deciding whether to deny her husband sex.

I think he overdoes it in describing how sex-crazed men really are, but he is probably talking about men in general as opposed to Christian men. Christian men have other things that they are trying to do with women, such as influence their worldviews and make them stronger in apologetics.

We have a few brave female commenters on the Wintery Knight blog, and they are all wonderful, so I am wondering whether they are brave enough to comment on this topic. Or maybe they can send me their comments by e-mail and give me permission to post them anonymously instead.

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