A new book, Sex Diaries, says men are miserable, as their need for sex is disregarded in relationships
A new book, Sex Diaries, says men are miserable, as their need for sex is disregarded in relationships
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Coming 40 years after Women's Lib taught women to say 'no' to their partners' demands for sex, the book, The Sex Diaries, concludes that differing libidos were creating a generation of men who were "miserable, angry and really disappointed" that their need for sex was "being totally disregarded in their relationship".
The book by sex therapist and psychologist Bettina Arndt reveals that women dread bedtime and men suffer rejection.
98 couples
The book is based on the diaries of 98 couples, who kept records of their sex lives for periods from six to 12
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desires: Men complain in the book that they have to fight with their partners for sex |
It quotes a 54-year-old woman from Hobart, Tasma-nia, spending the first 10 years of her marriage "fighting about sex... always nervous about an unwanted advance".
She says, "He'd be snoring loudly and I'd still lie there worrying that the hand would come creeping over."
On the other hand, a 43-year-old New South Wales man wrote, "I just feel so lonely. We get on really well, we don't fight or argue, but when it comes to intimacy or sex, she doesn't want to know."
Fragile libido
The author says that while giving women the right to say "no" to sex was an undisputed success of the women's liberation movement, "the female libido tends to be a fragile, easily distracted thing that gets buffeted by normal life, and a couple can't afford to have their intimacy reliant on that fragility".
Arndt says, "Mismatched fragility is the burning issue: it's what is filling the waiting rooms of sex therapists all over the world.
"I have spent half my life hearing from sex-starved men and the women saying: 'Oh, do I have to?"
Surprised at the 'openness' of men, who, hitherto have been reluctant to discuss such matters, Arndt says: "Sex is just one area in relationships where men now are on the back foot.
"They listen to what women want, try to please them and ... this need that is so important to them is totally ignored."
She writes a 66-year-old man from Darwin (Australia) eventually gave up and told his wife: "I'll make no advances or ask for sex until you ask me."
The result? she asks, replying, "In the last eight years there has been no sex in our marriage at all," she quotes him as writing.
The author says low-libido partners, most of them being women, needed to "put sex on their 'to-do' list even if they didn't feel like doing it.
"The notion that women have to have sex to enjoy it has been a really misguided idea that has caused havoc in relationships over the last 40 years."
She says, "With the right approach from a loving partner, if women were willing to be receptive and allow themselves to relax, they would enjoy it."
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