Revisiting My Series on the Claim Married Men Get More Sex

[Bumped up from December 2016] I wrote a seven-part series for this blog that ran in February and March of 2010. A lot has happened since then. I have done more reflection, I've had significant life experiences since then, I have learned much more about my wife, and so I thought it would be a good time to revisit what I wrote back then.

From Part One:

We've been having quick, rather vanilla/repetitive/almost clinical, once-a-week, mostly one-sided sessions for quite a while now, usually involving her waking me up from a dead sleep (I don't get enough sleep as it is), though not as creatively as she could. That means we've been doing it 4-5 times a month (and usually not taking her to climax, which I really, really like doing). There's no way we've averaged 9.94 times a month when considering the whole marriage.
Verdict: I am currently one of the people who can say I got more sex while unmarried than married.

Geez, I thought I had it bad then. It's been more like once every three weeks now, although my wife has just agreed to try to get it up to three times per week. The problem is, after everything that's happened and the things she's said repeatedly, including recently, and done, it is difficult for me to be turned on to her. Sex is a burden and chore for her and she deliberately avoids orgasms except for rare times. Yes, I'm still physically attracted to her and want to enjoy her body and treat her well, but treating her well seems to be leaving her alone, and emotionally it's a mess. Like just about every other plan to which she agrees, the plan to at least make out more often will probably be dropped quickly.

I also addressed the sleeping habits of the kids and our overall schedules. Those have changed a bit. I still get way too little sleep. The kids refuse to align their sleep schedules.  Also, we have one of my wife's siblings and that sibling's spouse living with us now. There's usually a block of hours once per week during which the wife and I will both be home without the kids, but my wife needs to sleep during that time. So, the only opportunities we have are when I'm exhausted and struggling to stay awake.

I don't really have much to say about Part Two other than what I said in Part Five. It's bogus for people to compare all unmarried men to all married men when figuring out who has more sex. Unmarried men who "have game" or do Leykis 101 and seek out and active sex life are probably getting a lot more sex than their married counterparts.

From Part Three:

So even if it was proven that marriage means less sex than being unmarried, that reason alone is not enough for me to discourage marriage. [*] The more sex a person has outside of marriage, the more damage they are doing to themselves and others. A loose analogy is that someone who engages in counterfeiting money may have a lot more money than someone is doing an honest job. But the counterfeiter isn't supposed to have that money. It doesn't matter if the clerk knows the money is counterfeit and still accepts it – it is still wrong.

...

[*] Since marriage is more than sex, evidence that getting married means more sex may not be enough reason to get married. In other words, either way, there is much to consider in deciding to marry or not marry other than sex.

I can no longer encourage men to get legally married under the current laws and in the current culture. What our laws now call "marriage" has almost no resemblance to Biblical marriage and even militates against it.

As far as being spiritually married, there's no formula for a ceremony in the Bible, other than a man leaving his parents and becoming "one flesh" with a woman. Certainly there is no requirement to get a state "marriage" license from some secular state government.

I'm also now questioning what the Bible says and doesn't say about sex. I know what English interpretations of the Bible say. I know what traditions and various churches say. But what is the actual meaning of relevant passages in the original languages? For example, what constitutes "sexual immorality"? Some churches even today will include kissing, others seem to frown slightly at openly engaging in casual intercourse. I want to seriously study what the texts actually say. Of course, in addition to the Bible, there's what makes sense in terms of treating others and yourself well. Even if the Bible didn't exist, I'd think it a terrible idea to go around knocking up horrible women.


From Part Four:

What about everything else? Marriage can't be reduced to mere sex. Not legally, not socially, not practically, not morally, not religiously. Marriage brings with it many factors in all of those areas in addition to sex – obligations, expectations, benefits, challenges, strengths, vulnerabilities, and more. As such, there are trade-offs.

I don't see what our laws and culture call "marriage" as any benefit to a breadwinning man who has his act together, now.

Married men may get more sex. They also...
-Share their earnings.
-Become responsible for any children born to their wife during their marriage, even if he’s not the guy who had fun getting her pregnant
-Are sometimes assigned lifetime responsibility for children their wife brings into the marriage
-Are definitely more likely to experience divorce (and everything that involves...see above) than unmarried men (Duh! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But nothing lost, either.).
-Are forced to endure the same complaints/problems over and over (unmarried men can simply walk away without legal/financial penalty).
-Change more diapers.
...you get the idea.

Many obligations. What are the benefits?

From Part Six:

Since I wrote about how an unmarried man can get more sex than a married man (see Part 1 and Part 5), I think I should balance it out by pointing out that there are ways for a man to lower his risk of getting divorced. Statistics that say that anyone who marries is facing a 50% divorce rate are misleading, but they are frequently used as a reason men should avoid marriage.

Even without a (bad) divorce, unless you've found an extremely rare woman (and chances are, like I discovered, you haven't), what we now call marriage isn't a good idea.

From Part Seven:

It is easy for an unmarried man to get sex, and get a lot of it (see Part 1 and Part 5). Rejection by some women isn't a problem if he's willing to keep pursuing the ample supply of women who will engage in casual sex "even" with him.

But a married man who refuses to have sex with anyone other than his wife is in a different situation. If he's not getting enough sex to satisfy him, how can he get more sex from his wife?

There's a list of suggestions there that married men might find helpful. They don't really apply to me. None of them will change the fact that my wife's physical and mental illnesses, combined  with my own personality, mean our sex life is going to be minimal and very restrained. Advice that has been picked up and received to add to the list (again, it won't really apply to me) is that the average wife is more likely to feel more of a sexual attraction to a husband who takes charge, takes worries off her shoulders and tells her he'll take care of them, is a bit of a mystery, and whose words and actions indicate he's desired by other women and he knows it (but he's loyal).

Legal marriage has further changed for the worse since I wrote the original series, and technology and the culture continue to increase the ability for wives to cheat on and cuckold their husbands and for unmarried men to get inexpensive sex with a variety of young, hot women without even revealing their true identities or spending much time or effort on them. This is true whether we like or not.

The bottom line remains that no man should get married for sex. Getting married because you want sex is like buying a shopping mall because you want to get your Apple products serviced.

UPDATE from May 2020