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Saturday, May 24, 2008
Unavoidable Sadness
Forgive me, Gentle Readers. (That's what Fran calls you, so I suppose I should do the same.) I don't check my published mail account as often as I should. So when someone posts a comment against one of my old Fetish Adventures or High Heels pieces, I might not notice for a few days. But I do notice eventually...and sometimes I find myself wondering how anyone could bring himself to say certain things in a public place.
Between the asterisks, you'll find one of the pieces that's generated the most e-mail. Fran said I should repost some of them here; I hope he had this one in mind.
I've been getting some unexpected letters. They're about loss of marital desire. They ask about how to reawaken their spouses' interest in sex. They confess to complete ignorance about how the situation developed, or how it might be remedied.
They're coming from men. Husbands. Fathers of children, whose wives must have wanted them at some point.
I don't understand it. I simply don't. Maybe it's because I'm relatively young, but then, not all the letter writers are older than I am.
Long ago, I was told by a very wise woman that however much a man wants his woman sexually, there's something he wants even more: for her to desire him.
It makes sense. Men don't have the same experience of sex we have. I used to wonder why they want us at all. That makes a wife's loss of interest in her husband about the saddest thing I can imagine.
I was once a prostitute. Don't frown; it was what I had to be if I wanted to survive. I left it behind many years ago, but I remember those days very well. I wasn't any good at the trade until I learned to convince my customers that I wasn't just a paid performer, that I wanted them, not just their cash. It took a lot of work with some of them, but it was part of the job, part of what I had to do to earn my fee.
Some of those men felt compelled to tell me about their wives. The stories were never pretty, but they were seldom critical. Mostly they were just very sad.
But that was in Vietnam, where life itself was very sad. I expected things to be different in America. So far, in this regard, it hasn't been.
There are times it makes me very sad. I brim over with desire, just about all the time. Partly that's because I've been without a man for a long time, but even more it's because I see so much good in men. Here in Los Angeles it can take some effort -- the single men are always on the make and straining to present an impression of power and studliness -- but if you can get past that, you can find all sorts of assets, including a lot even they don't know they possess.
Women have so much power over men, and they don't appreciate it! All their whining about "male patriarchal oppression" is just so much childish nonsense. And they never bother to ask themselves what their lives would be like if there were no men.
(My beloved once pointed me to a science-fiction story about a future in which there were no more men. I think the title was "Houston Do You Read?" Three men popped into that world out of past time, and immediately caused so much trouble they had to be killed. It was the silliest piece of garbage I've ever read, and I told him so. I expected anything but what he said next. He said, "That's why I wanted you to read it. As moronic as it is, that's the attitude that prevails among American women today." It turned out that the author was a woman writing under a man's name. Stupid bitch.)
But there's nothing I can say to a man whose woman has "lost" her desire for him. The problem is almost always hers. I wish it were his; that way, he'd have a chance of fixing it. But what could he say to her? "You ought to want me as much as I want you" -- ? Good luck with that approach.
Middle-aged men are always being derided for their "trophy wives." How many of those September-May couples are motivated, not by the man's desire to relive his youth, but by his desperate need to feel wanted again?
Some men are clumsy about sex, even with their wives of ten and twenty years. But far more women just don't appreciate how cruel they're being toward the men who've pledged fidelity and protection to them. They don't understand the danger they're putting themselves in.
Thinking about it, I wish there were ten million of me. Maybe a hundred million. But I can't fix it all by myself.
Gentlemen, you are in my prayers. All of you.
What prodded me into reposting this here was the following comment, which was put into my moderation queue three days ago, but which I only noticed this morning:
I'm glad there's only one of you... I'm not sure the world could handle that much insight from 10 million.You're so right and this is so very true. I wish there was a way I could get my own wife to read it. We know they love us, that's not the issue.
It's that feeling of being wanted. My wife, I'm sure, would be heartbroken to lose me. But as I exist now... I don't know that she even notices.
Maybe she feels the same about me. But as far as sex goes, I've pretty much given up trying to show her I want her... I've been rejected too many times. As if I've got some kind of unnatural interest in the physical.
I'm lucky now if we have sex once a month. And I know I'm not the only man in the same boat (I'm sure there are some women here too, but... this is strangely mostly a male phenomenon.)
If my wife knew what you knew... and wow, if she actually DID seem to desire me the way she used to before I proposed and those times when we were "trying" to have children... it wouldn't just change our time in the bedroom, or even just our marriage.
I'm fully confident it would change my outlook on life. And, dare I venture it, maybe hers too.
Thanks again and best of luck out there. You maybe single. But should you end up with anybody in the future, that person will be lucky indeed.
My correspondent signed himself as "Anonymous."
That note had tears running down my face. Is this condition as widespread as I fear? I can only hope not...but Anonymous could have many millions of co-sufferers out there, who've decided to bear their crosses in silence.
The thought is next to unendurable.
Comments
i don’t normally comment here, but i hope that my current relationship will become a permanent one and that, maybe i am being a bit naive, but i can’t possibly envision myself ever losing sexual interest in my boyfriend, who is already six years older than i am.
i hope against hope that he never feels like i put him in that position. then again, we’re both relatively young, with him being in his 30’s and i in my 20’s.
it saddens me greatly though, to hear that so many women lose sexual interest in their mates as they grow older. i never want to mature into one of those women.
Posted by sarcazm on 05/24/2008 at 11:56 AMFetiche, I agreed with this piece when I first read it, and I agree with it now. I believe that all marriages have their rough spots, and if the couple is not careful they could end up in a downward spiral of rejection leading to further rejection. In my experience it can be overcome, but it takes work and commitment from both partners—this is a team thing, not an individual effort. Being able to talk with one’s spouse about such difficult subjects is absolutely necessary, hard as it is (especially for men).
Another thing I’ve noticed is that it helps if her friends’ husbands are not as attentive and thoughtful as you are (or at least if you exceed them once in a while). That is noticed by her friends and communicated to your own wife in no uncertain terms, and tends to raise your standing in her eyes dramatically. Until the next time you screw up, of course!
But honestly, people are people and familiarity often breeds, if not contempt, then ennui. And it has to be said, lots of men quickly take their wives for granted and really let the flowers-and-foot-rubs romance lapse after a while. It takes work to maintain a marriage; not for nothing has it often been compared to a tending a garden.
Posted by on 05/24/2008 at 01:25 PMThe problem with this piece is that Fetiche sounds too good to be true. No woman could be that perfect, could they?
Posted by on 05/25/2008 at 08:19 AMFetiche is what she represents herself to be, Paul. I don’t know anyone else who’s nearly as gracious, considerate, open-hearted, or womanly-wise. Plays a mean game of chess, too.
Just don’t criticize her taste in shoes.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 05/25/2008 at 08:38 AMFrom listening to and observing long-married people around me, marriages where intimacy has faded into the distant past are legion. It’s like the joke, “when you get married, buy a big jar, and in the first year, put a jellybean in it every time you make love. After the first anniversary, take a jellybean out every time. The jar will never go empty.”
Being single, I just figure that’s the way it goes for married people. That’s why some of those guys have fantastic model railroad layouts in their basements, why some live in their photo darkrooms, and why they go ice fishing once the lakes freeze. Why else would a married guy be on ice at 4 a.m. instead of bed, unless the bed is colder?
Once they’re cut off from intimacy (she’s just putting him in his place and showing him who’s boss), they put their energies into these things. Nothing to get all sad over. C’est la vie.
Posted by mts on 05/26/2008 at 11:01 PM"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Posted by on 05/27/2008 at 06:30 PMA very interesting piece. There is another discussion of this issue <a href=%2
Posted by Col. B. Bunny on 06/04/2008 at 01:36 AMSorry. That discussion is here: Daily Mail.
Posted by Col. B. Bunny on 06/04/2008 at 02:03 AM
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