Why Aren't You Married?

[I'm bumping up this entry because it is as relevant as ever. I noticed that I indicated that things go well in my marriage some of the time. "Well" is a relative term. If you would have described to me the "good" time in my marriage now before I married, I wouldn't have married.]

Even when things are going well in my marriage, I’m not one of those married guys who thinks everyone should be married. Unless someone has a baby on the way, it irritates me when I see someone pressuring someone else to get married. [My thinking on this has changed.]

Whether you are officially on a marriage strike or you have decided marriage is not for you, the fact remains that most people will get married at some time in their life, and so many people assume everyone wants to get married. Whether from relatives or coworkers or women who want you to buy them drinks, or fellow religious congregants, guys get to hear it over and over again: "Why aren't you married?"

If you are a Free Man or part of Men Going Their Own Way, or you are a marriage striker, or have simply decided marriage is not for you, what works as a good reply to this annoying question? Being married, I don’t use these, of course, but let's look at a few possible replies. Please comment with any good ones you have, too.

Here are six responses, getting progressively more provocative (I keep in mind that casual sex is no loner discouraged in our culture):

Give Your Breath Away

Dr. Laura linked to this article, "5 Reasons to Make Some Noise in the Bedroom", in her daily list of recommended articles. I wonder if she noticed or cared that the author is an "open marriage" advocate, or if she figures "all truth is God’s truth" and questionable sources can still provide worthwhile reading? The author says what I've referred to as "aural sex" can be a matter of health.

Breathing deeply can increase pleasure. It can also keep the fun from ending too soon. Use your breath to regulate the speed of what’s going on. Speed it up to help get you in the mood, and slow it down to prolong the activities.

It's good to use everything we can, right?

It means your partner knows that you are enjoying it.

YES! That’s very important for me to know, anyway.

It keeps you in the moment. If you spend all of your time in bed thinking about keeping quiet so you don't sound "weird,” you’ll miss all of the fun. But, if instead of worrying about how noisy you are, you simply let the sounds fall where, when, and how they may, you can stay present and enjoy all of the presents your partner is gifting you.

We know from other areas of life that thinking about breathing and being deliberate about breathing can impact our physical and mental state.

It shows intimacy. If you can tell your partner what you want in bed, it means you feel close enough to him or her to be comfortable doing that.

I need to work on that. See below.

It means you’re comfortable with your sexuality. Letting it all out is only possible when you feel good about yourself and what you're doing, which is how everyone should feel when it comes to sex.

Here's where I get personal...

The Quiet Bed

Most of us started having orgasms though masturbation, when we were living at home with parents and, for most of us siblings, on the other side of the door. Later, we shared rentals or dorm rooms with others, and just as when we were at home, we'd try to masturbate quietly enough not to be heard.

Or, for those who fornicated while living in such situations, you likewise were likely to try to keep quiet, trying to keep moans, gasps, and whimpers quiet and keep sex talk (what some people might call "talking dirty") to a quiet minimum.

Marital lovemaking should not be an embarrassment or shameful. It is exactly right, it isn't wrong. As such, the only reason why a married couple would want to stay quiet is not to wake/disturb others who make be in the home, especially children.

Due to the layout of our house and other factors, it is unlikely the kids would hear us during their sleeping hours.

My wife is quiet. That's fine. The other night, I tried talking. I'm not talking about using derogatory terms for her or for our body parts – I'm not interested in that. But I tried talking in a sexy way about what I wanted her to do and what I wanted to do to her.

She shot that down right away, thus adding yet another thing to the "no" list. She went on to say that I've been having sex a lot longer than she has, and that she doesn't need bells and whistles (yet). I quipped that at the rate/frequency we're at, we'll never get there. She responded by citing any number of factors that are creating the existing situation, none of which I have control over. Some will change. Others will not. But the ones that do change, I expect to be replaced with others, based on past experience.

Thinking back, sex has almost always been a quiet thing for me. I can only recall My First MILF being vocal. She would moan, she would tell me I was hitting the right spot, that I was a perfect fit, that I was big, stuff like that. Come to think of it, my wife said I was big the other night. But other than that, the only other thing she says is in response to me asking her what she wants, and she'll say the generic "make love to me". Maybe I should ask her, "How exactly?"

As far as the "big" talk – ladies can almost never go wrong talking like that, unless the guy knows full well that he's unusually small. It's like telling a woman that her hair looks fantastic when she's just had a salon disaster. Still, I point out that babies come out of there, so how can I really feel all that big? I don't want her to stop talking like that, though.

Ladies, aural sex is a good thing. Talking and making "appreciative" noises can enhance the lovemaking for your hubby. I don't mean telling him about what color you'd like the room painted. Tell him what he's doing right, give him constructive suggestions, tell him what you want him to do or what you want to do. Tell him how he's making you feel.

Do you have any good things to say, in addition to "You're so big!"? Go ahead and share them. Or, what do you like to hear?

Decide to Enjoy It More

A study indicates that women can think themselves into having a better sex life. Betty Klinck reports in USA Today.

Researchers at the Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of Texas-Austin found that women experienced improvements in symptoms such as low sex drive just from getting a placebo in a clinical trial.

A placebo is a control for the study. What that means is that a study might separate people into three groups. One will take the real pill being tested. The second group will take a sugar pill or some other substance that shouldn't have a a physical impact on what's being tested – that's a placebo. The third group will get nothing. If the second group shows significant positive changes, then the indication is that at least some of the problem is psychological and can be improved simply by changing one's thinking.

I am reminded of when I'd bought a brand new air filter and the girlfriend I was seeing back then borrowed it new out of the box because a friend of hers who supposedly had severe allergies, including an allery to cats, was going to be visiting my girlfriend, who had a cat. My girlfriend reported back to me that the air filter worked perfectly to keep her cat from triggering her friend's allergic reactions. And then I read the directions and realized there was some plastic I had yet to remove that actually made the filter functional.

So yes, a lot of our problems and pain can be dealt with by changing our thinking. We can remove self-defeating behaviors that way. The problem comes in when someone extrapolates that idea and thinks all problems – such as all diseases – can be cured by changing one's thinking. Every few years, someone repackages that false notion and makes a lot of money selling it to people. (If your religion is based on this notion, I don't mean to insult you. If my beliefs are true, than this notion must necessarily be false - and I do believe my beliefs, after all.)

But I digress.

Women may have experienced increased satisfaction simply because they decided to take action and experienced increased hope, says researcher Andrea Bradford. The study was published in September in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

There's something for your coffee table.

"It's not going to change if you just wait for it to happen," Bradford says. "Changing how you approach the problem might in itself make a big difference."

Ladies, if you decide to enjoy lovemaking more, then you just might.

Measuring female sexual dysfunction and satisfaction can be difficult sometimes, because it is very much based on the woman's own observations of her symptoms, says Meston.

"Sexual dysfunction is, in a way, what a woman says it is."

Yes, dear. Most women know on some level that their attitude can make a difference. Think of the women that claim they need to be romanced with gifts and dinners and all of these other things to get turned on, but if their favorite celebrity crush were to walk around the corner and take her in a closet for five minutes, she'd need almost no foreplay whatsoever, and certainly no romance.

She notes also that decreased sex drive in a long-term relationship is normal for women.

Testosterone levels in men also drop when they marry and have children. So if a higher sex drive is more important to a person than loving one person, this is something that supports their decision to avoid commitment to someone other than themselves.

But for marrieds, it is important to note that we have more reason to believe that attitude matters.

Something New in Bed

I wrote recently about becoming sexually compatible with your spouse by seeking to do what brings them pleasure, even if it isn't a turn-on to you. Married Man Sex Life brings up the same concept in this entry, "Return the Favor".

However sometimes your partner likes something and you don't. It's not so much of a dislike of anything, just not a turn on, so the idea of doing it to your partner may never occur to you.

He brings up biting, which he was definitely not into.

Anyway over the last few months I'd noticed Jennifer giving me a couple little nips on the neck during playtime. In general I appreciated the passion, but got nothing from them as a turn on. In fact I think I told her to knock it off during a longer session where I racked up several little nips.

If it was turning her on, go with it.

Last night as an experiment I gave her a little nip... and she did this whole clutch / moan / writhe and sigh routine. So I think she might have liked it. I repeated the experiment a few times and post playtime recap reveals 1-2 little nips good for her, 3+ is a distraction please stop. Which is no problem because biting her isn't much of a turn on for me, but I don't mind doing it to turn her on.

So sometimes what your partner does to you is actually what they want to be done to them and turns them on.

Yes – sometimes.

It Can Be Better

The Generous Husband says sex can be much better than it is.

As with a better marriage, a vital step is to believe it’s possible. Your sex life is unlikely to ever be better than you think it can be – set low goals, and you will achieve nothing more than that low goal. Set a higher goal, convinced that it’s possible, and it may happen. Get your bride on board believing it’s possible, and LOOK OUT! No matter how poor or great you sex life is now, it can be better.

Attitude certainly is important. The caution to this statement is that, with anything in life, one must be willing to positively deal with disappointment should a high goal not be met. And in this case. We're not talking about losing weight or breaking a personal best in an individual sport; we're talking about something that depends on someone else's cooperation.

There is one other very important thing. I think what limits our sex lives more than anything, even more than porn use or sexual abuse, is a lukewarm marriage. Our marriage in general is the foundation for our sex life. A small or weak foundation cannot support a great, large building, and a small, weak marriage cannot support an active, deeply pleasurable sex life.

It's a chicken-and-egg sort of thing, really. A better sex life can mean a better marriage, and a better marriage can mean a better sex life. If someone is having trouble improving the lovemaking, perhaps focusing on improving other aspect of the marriage will help and the improvement of the lovemaking will follow.

Unfortunately, many (the majority?) of husbands are so deeply dissatisfied with their sex lives, and frankly are so “hard up”, that they can think of little other than sex. It’s not that they don’t care about their marriage, and it’s not that they don’t want their marriage to be better – but the constant screaming of their sex drive makes it very difficult to hear, much less focus on, anything else.

That is a very important truth about the male mind that women can't automatically know, and may not believe, but it is true. As good as we men are at compartmentalizing most things, if we're sexually frustrated, it can seem that "everything" is wrong and it can be hard for us to function well mentally and emotionally. Throw in the outside sexuality and images of women we're bombarded with every day, and we get distracted. The flip side of this is that if the lovemaking is awesome, then everything else is better, too. Seriously, if you need to tell us you put a major dent in our prize automobile, tell us after you've just given us a mind-blowing lovemaking session.

I see two ways to work past this “blockage”.

Go read the entry for those two ways.

One of the ways I like to look at sex is as a hobby. Sure, marital lovemaking is a reproductive experience (in most marriages), spiritual experience, bonding experience, an expression and communication of love, play, exercise, and so many other things. But it is also a hobby, an art if you will. If we practice at it, research it, and try new things, we can get better and better at it.

A Quiz For Wives

I'm getting back to the swing of things. I'll probably explain more later.

For fun and marital improvement, I have posted my quiz for wives on a new page. Go ahead and check it out. Let me know you think, whether you are a wife, a husband, or unmarried.

Men Are Visual Creatures

Talk radio host, columnist, author, lecturer, and teacher Dennis Prager devotes a whole hour of his show every week to "male/female" issues, and he frequently tries to explain male sexuality to women. On his website, you'll find Prager University, featuring short videos. Here is some transcript text from one titled "Men and the Power of the Visual".

The visual for the man has no analog in the woman. That doesn't mean women don't get turned on by some men, of course they do, but it’s some men. Whereas men get turned on by just any sight of female flesh on any female that they will find attractive.

And...

And just in case you think that this is because our society fosters it, or it's a Playboy culture, gay men are the proof: gay men look at male bodies and parts of bodies just the way that heterosexual men look at female bodies and parts of bodies. That’s the proof that's it's built into males. That whatever is the object of our desire – male or female – just seeing is stimulating.

He speaks the truth.

Wives can use this information both to reassure themselves and to their advantage.

Wives should be reassured if they catch their main taking a second look or staring at the image of a woman or a woman in person. Yes, he likes what he sees, but this is normal. He's not thinking, "I want to leave my wife for her, or at least cheat on my wife with her." This is not to excuse a husband of being mindful of where he's choosing to look, nor of his obligation to honor his wife. But a wife should be reassured that this is a normal male tendency.

Wives should use this to their advantage in many ways. Here's just one of them. We all have a tendency to become familiar with what and who we see every day, from our living room furniture to our family members. Our brains know what the familiar looks like, and so we stop paying such close attention (just compare driving somewhere new vs. driving your daily route and daydreaming but still getting there safely). As such, your husband may be so caught up in his job and being a daddy and doing chores and honey-dos and his favorite show or hobbies that he's lately neglected to stop and really take a look at you. I mean really take a good look at you. So, do something about it. Make some private time together with him so that he'll actually be able to take a good look at you. It can be in the shower, it can be in bed, it can be with candlelight or by a fire or a lamp - just make sure he can get a goog look at you. Use lingerie or body paint to get him to really focus on you or a specific part of you (could even be your eyes, especially if you're good at flirting with them). Tell him you want him to take a good look, and give him time to do so. You might feel a little shy or silly, but he’ll enjoy it. And... he'll seek to thank you.

Keep the Fires Burning

I found a page titled "Protecting and Enhancing Sexuality in Marriage", which gives a brief overview of that subject, but also talks a little about why it is important.

Before we talk any further about the challenges of sex in marriage, it's worth noting that married women and men report being significantly more satisfied with their sex lives than either single or cohabiting people.

Yes, and I've written extensively about this, especially the frequency side of it. The difference is, socially speaking, it is much easier for a person to look for a better/more compatible sexual partner and go after better sex if they're not married. If two people want to stay married to each other and really want to please each other, then it is going to take work, compromise, etc. And in some cases, part of the work is convincing the other person to try in the first place. Some people says that's good, some people don't. God's opinion matters most, but how many people listen to that anymore?

One of the most fundamental challenges is the decline in sexual novelty. Novelty is a major sexual stimulant. Novelty is automatic early in your relationship. Later, sex naturally becomes more familiar and less novel with your partner.

This means that to find novelty, the spouses have to be creative and have to be willing to experiment.

While most couples don’t want to make love while they are in the middle of a fight, it's a mistake to put aside your sex life for an extended period because of disagreements.

This is mainly a wife tactic – cutting off sex because of a fight. Most guys can and will have sex with the wife even if they are ticked off about something. (Heck, guys will do it right before they dump a woman, or right before they hand over the divorce papers.) The exceptions are primarily when there's a disagreement over having a child or the wife has made negative comments about the husband's sexual prowess or his genitals. But if a guy is ticked off before the sex, much of the anger will leave him about the same time his semen does.

Lack of time is one of the most often cited reasons for infrequency of sex. One of the most common myths is that sex has to take a certain amount of time. Of course, leisurely sex can be wonderful. But it’s a luxury that few couples can afford on a regular basis.

Funny – unmarried couples seem to be able to find the time.

Ok, so go for quickies.

Another top myth is that sex must be spontaneous. It’s a fact of modern life that we plan and schedule everything that is a priority.

No, we're not talking about "I expect to get laid tonight." We're talking about scheduling sex like an appointment with your accountant. Marriage is sounding better all of the time, eh?

Ok, so go for quickies but be sure to schedule a long block of time for some extensive lovin'.

Couples often avoid sex because their sex life has become dissatisfying or conflictual.

I think that means things like – he wants her to suck it like she used to and she doesn't want to anymore, or she never did want to and is unwilling to pretend she does, even though she pretended to like it before. Things like that.

Anxiety is another frequent interfering factor. Sometimes anxiety is related to inhibitions acquired earlier in life. Performance is another big source of anxiety. Performance used to be a male concern—now women, too, feel pressure to perform sexually. It's hard for mere mortals to live up to the sexual expectations and images promoted by the media.

Yes, but that's true about just about everything in life. We don't just curl up into the fetal position and die.

Fantasy can be another important source of stimulation and variety for a sex life that has become routine. Fantasy can be anything from reading sexy stories to watching sexy videos to talking about things you’d like to do (whether or not you actually go on to do them).

Wait – isn't that media?

Reviewing together the early days of your relationship and what you found so alluring in each other can be very stimulating.

That's a good tip, just as long as you avoid mentioning appearances if they’ve changed dramatically. Nobody who is obese will get turned on by their spouse talking about how the fact that they were in shape when they met was one of the attracting factors.

Tips at Starbucks

Recently, a California court ruled that Starbucks “baristas” in California were due money because they had to share tips with shift supervisors, who got a portion of the tips in the store tip jar.

I don’t get this.

Shift supervisors are the first level of management, true, but they are working right there on the front lines with the baristas. If I was a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in California, I would henceforth refuse to do anything but “manage”. Down a barista and the baristas who showed up are overwhelmed? Too bad! Why should a shift supervisor have to do work that baristas are tipped for, but be denied the tips?

Noelle Kooler of Beverly Hills wrote in to the Los Angeles Times, making my point:

As a former barista and shift supervisor at Starbucks, I am angered by the court's decision. Yes, I am a part of the class-action group that would receive additional tip money. However, the principles behind this lawsuit are outrageous. I've worked in three stores, and in every one, the shift supervisor does almost double the work of a barista. They help customers, make drinks, train new baristas and ensure that the store functions when the managers are away. They earn only a few dollars an hour more than a barista. When I worked at Starbucks, I was a struggling college student and needed those tips. To rule that baristas are more deserving is ludicrous -- tips should be shared evenly.

But I have to wonder why courts are involved in this anyway. I mean really – if some baristas were not happy with the tip situation, why didn’t they just quit and work elsewhere? That’s what people should do when they don’t like a company’s policies or procedures. Nobody is holding a gun to your head to keep you there.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, why are people tipping other people for doing their jobs? I tip for personalized service. Putting coffee into a cup is not personalized service. Carrying my bags a distance is. Waiting on me is. But don’t worry, you baristas – you won’t be making coffee for me and then not getting a tip from me - I don’t frequent Starbucks because it is incredibly overpriced and the whole thing is pretentious.

Hmmm, maybe I should put a tip jar on my desk at the office. Or maybe on my office door, right under my name.