Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all…ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust. – Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade
One year ago today I published “Election Day”, which told of the prohibitionist persecution by power-mad perverts which eternally accompanies the approach of elections in the U.S. And while we do have one story of such a politically-motivated campaign of mass victimization today, the real unifying feature of this column is the frustrated male need for sex.
A Whore in the Bedroom (September 9th, 2010)
In this column I suggested that many a marriage would be happier if the wife were to be a bit more understanding of her husband’s sexual needs; I stated that “ignorant modern women not only feel that husbands should be satisfied with whatever sexual pickings their wives choose to dole out, however meager or restricted, but also refuse to understand that a starving man will seek food elsewhere if it isn’t available at home…If [accommodating his needs] seems too difficult, you can certainly just keep on the course you’ve set, but if your relationship hits the rocks solely because you couldn’t be bothered to tend the wheel there is nobody to blame but yourself.” I’m sure at least a few female readers felt I was overstating the importance of this; the neofeminist propaganda that sex is not a need is widely accepted in American society. But as this October 1st Huffington Post article explains, a husband’s sexual satisfaction is the single greatest indicator of whether a marriage will succeed:
…Kristina Dzara at Southern Illinois University…in her article, Assessing the Effect of Marital Sexuality on Marital Disruption…used the Marriage Matters Panel Survey of Newly Wed Couples that followed over 1000 couples in Louisiana from 1998 to 2004…The author used three measures of sexuality in the first three to six months of marriage — frequency of sexual intercourse, sexual satisfaction, and agreement between spouses about their sex life. Dzara used these measures to predict divorce by the 5th year of marriage. As we know, there are a lot of factors can contribute to divorce — marital quality, early marriage, cohabitation and many more. In order to get a better understanding of the effects of sexuality in marriage, the author controlled for many of these other factors.
…On average these young couples had intercourse between one and several times a week, but frequency didn’t seem to matter…For wives, satisfaction with physical intimacy decreased the likelihood of divorce, but overall marital quality and satisfaction with intimacy appeared to have the same effect. In other words, marital quality and satisfaction with sex could not be teased apart for wives…[However,] the probability of divorce is dramatically reduced when husbands report being sexually satisfied. Dzara writes, “a couple with a husband who has the highest self-rated satisfaction with physical intimacy, compared to a husband with the lowest self-rated satisfaction with physical intimacy, decreases their odds of experiencing a marital disruption by around 83.7%.” Overall, husbands’ satisfaction with physical intimacy is a stronger influence on divorce than any other measure in this study.
Somewhat surprisingly, agreement between husbands and wives about their sex life did not seem to have much influence on their likelihood of divorce. “Agreement about one’s sex life” may be bound up with many other factors of agreement. In short, sex seems to matter to healthy marriages — not too big of a surprise. For wives, satisfaction with physical intimacy and marital satisfaction seem to be rolled into one overall factor. Not so for men. When men report being satisfied with their marriage, this reduces their likelihood for divorce, and if they also report being sexually satisfied, then divorce is even more unlikely…
I didn’t really need a scientific study to tell me this, but validation is always welcome.
The Camel’s Nose (October 2nd, 2010)
The second part of this column discusses the case of “a man so sexually frustrated that all judgment and basic respect for others flies out the window, completely superseded by the need for sexual gratification through a perverse fantasy of sexually violating a woman unnoticed.” To be precise, he masturbated into a woman’s water bottle and was apparently surprised when she figured it out. Nor is he alone in either his filthiness or his stupidity, as reported in this October 6th AP article:
…Anthony Garcia admitted he tainted a sample of the yogurt he was handing out at Sunflower Market (in Albuquerque, New Mexico) in January. He also admitted putting some of his semen on a plastic spoon that he placed with the yogurt. Garcia then approached a female customer and offered her a sample…The woman told police that after tasting the sample, she spit on the floor several times and wiped her mouth on the garment she was wearing to get the taste out of her mouth. Investigators collected samples of the woman’s spit from the floor and took the garment she was wearing as evidence…Garcia was linked to the yogurt through DNA samples…[but] lied to investigators about the case…Garcia faces up to three years of imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release. He has been in federal custody since his arrest in July, and remained detained pending his sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.
I presume this is a federal case because its occurrence in a supermarket made it a violation of the federal food purity laws. Presumably, a 32-year-old man who works as a food sample distributor in a supermarket couldn’t afford an escort, but a streetwalker or at least some porn might’ve been a wise investment. I’m rather beginning to wonder what the deal is with Albuquerque, though. And here’s a warning to any would-be spooge sneakers out there: Nearly all adult women know what the stuff tastes like, moron.
Something Rotten in Sweden (November 13th, 2010)
Last November I predicted that “more and more prohibitionists would shift to the Swedish rhetoric in order to capitalize on “human trafficking” hysteria, deflect arguments based on women’s right to control our own bodies and win the support of fence-sitters and even some misguided whores.” Police departments have been especially enthusiastic about “end demand” rhetoric because it allows them to attack other men instead of women, thus pumping up their male egos by denying women agency and feeding their “pimps and hos” masturbatory fantasies while simultaneously avoiding criticism of their violence against sex workers and allowing them the pretense of “saving victims” when they’re actually persecuting adults for private behavior. Early last month, police departments across the U.S. staged a joint victimization campaign against clients; here’s an October 11th story from the Chicago Tribune:
Cook County sheriff’s officers…took part in a nationwide prostitution sting…that netted more than 200 arrests – most of which were of men soliciting sex acts…Dubbed “The National Day of Johns Arrest,” the crackdown involved police in eight different jurisdictions targeting commercial sex on streets, in brothels and over the internet, according to a statement from the sheriff’s department, which said the enforcement action was the first nationally coordinated operation of its kind. According to the statement, the pilot program is expected to be the first of several national sweeps to be aimed primarily at men who seek out prostitutes and who are increasingly seen by law enforcement as the true perpetrators of the sex trade, rather than the women who are often economically desperate or the victims of pimps. In addition to the three Chicago-area departments, police in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Cincinnati and Newport News, Va., participated. All told, the various departments arrested 233 people – 216 of them men seeking to patronize a prostitute – and levied $238,000 in fines…The action was conducted in conjunction with the Hunt Alternatives Fund, a Massachusetts-based social foundation that is attempting to combat demand for commercial sex and sex trafficking in the United States.
You may recall that the Hunt Alternatives Fund also bankrolled Melissa Farley’s recent attempt to cast all men as abusive monsters; as Laura Agustín pointed out over a year ago, funding campaigns to hunt men down like animals is only one part of Hunt’s and her neofeminist allies’ larger crusade to make sex workers’ lives miserable (without being seen as the misogynists they are) by targeting “demand”. I know that a number of my readers are interested in the Men’s Rights Movement; I suggest that those of you who are ought to spread the word about Swanee Hunt’s repugnant and dangerous crusade against male sexuality and female sexual autonomy.
I’ve been married for 25 years to my wife and the sex has been awesome – she really has been an absolute treasure. Never cheated on her until recently when she started having hormonal problems and lost her desire for sex. Then I went and hired an escort – on a business trip to Europe where I’d be gone for more than a month. At this point, I’ll seek sex outside of the marriage if I have to – hopefully with pros – though there are some non-professional women I know that I think about all the time. However – the wife and I have too much water under the bridge for me to leave her just because her desire has fallen off.
But – if we were in our first few years of marriage at this point and something like this happened. I’d be looking for an exit strategy.
Concerning these terds who seem obsessed with making women consume their semen … I have no sympathy for them. I think they are beta males actually – I mean the ones who sneak about and try to slip it into yogurt and what not. Even when a woman’s nice enough to perform oral – a real man still gives her a ten-second warning so she can make the final decision. I don’t know – I guess I don’t have any real fetishes, and sodomy in just about any form really doesn’t turn me on, maybe I’d be more understanding if I did. I’m not sure those guys would pay a hooker to address those needs – I think part of their need is to force a woman without her consent. Guys like that aren’t men – just my opinion. I’m not talking about a guy who ties a woman up or spanks her through mutual agreement – that’s totally different and I can understand that – even though I have no personal experience with it.
I’m sure at least a few female readers felt I was overstating the importance of this; the neofeminist propaganda that sex is not a need is widely accepted in American society.
Neofeminists find a good friend in St. Paul, who had identical views, especially on sex within marriage (though they’d clash on other topics). Their overwhelming consensus seems be summed up as “ick!” Fair enough, just leave the rest of us alone.
St. Paul never claimed sex is not a need; he just said people should live without it if possible, but if they DO need it too much to live without it, they should get married. Paul said married men should not have sex with their wives unless they absolutely couldn’t help it, so he did understand that men sometimes absolutely need sex.
I’m a Christian but I have a problem with Paul’s views on sex; nowhere else in the Bible does it say that married men shouldn’t have sex with their own wives, so to some extent Paul was just making up his own rules that aren’t God’s rules.
That’s amounting to sex not being a need. Substitute sex for food. Does that still make sense? He’d be labeled an anorexic.
Have you by any chance read Tarzan Triumphant?
No, Sailor Barsoom, I haven’t read any of the Tarzan books.
In the one to which he refers, Tarzan discovers an illiterate tribe living in the interior of an extinct volcano (cut off from the outside world) who were converted to Pauline Christianity but got the story confused over time and totally forgot Jesus, teaching that Paul was the Son of God and getting the theology more and more mangled (in favor of repression and negativity) with every generation.
Interestingly, though most people think of Tarzan as always being in the jungle, he actually ranges all over Africa; several of his adventures take place in the Ethiopian Highlands, and in one of them he is asked to investigate something by Haile Selassie (who was still only Ras Tafari Makonnen in those days).
Hi Sailor,
What is your take on the upcoming John Carter movie from Disney? Bold retelling or travesty in waiting?
Stand back!
I have been waiting for this movie since I was thirteen years old, and I’m forty-five now. There are 4 months, 5 days, 1 hour, 5 minutes and 10 seconds ’till opening night as I type this.
Every time I find out something new about this upcoming movie, I see more that I like, and more that I do NOT. I believe that it will turn out to be the best John Carter of Mars movie to date, which considering that there’s only been one already, isn’t saying a whole, whole lot.
Actually, it may turn out to be a fine movie, but I now have serious doubts that it will be a good adaptation.
Sounds like it might be interesting. I read the Mars and Venus books by Burroughs before I was 10 years old and have not re-visited them. I think I’ll watch the movie before re-reading so the movie can stand on its own ground instead of being compared, almost inevitably unfavorably, to the book.
Based on the trailer you linked have to admit that it appears that Tracy Lords is well preserved.
Interestingly, Jewish and Christian theologies differ on the importance of sex to marriage and attitudes toward sex in general.
Under (relatively ancient, dating to ~0 AD) rabbinic law, a request for divorce is automatically justified when either husband or wife denies sex to the other. In fact, the husband has specific time constraints on how frequently he must get down with his girl, depending on occupation (for example, farmers could go without for a week, but sailors for six months), which had the relevant side effect of preventing long absences from home on the part of married men. It might be interesting to note that the obligation is placed most directly on the husband, not the wife: I can only assume that it was a duty most Hebrew men were happy to fulfill!
Though extramarital sex is (strictly) forbidden, even premarital sex is not necessarily a problem for rabbinic period Jews; it could, under certain circumstances, be seen as a highly informal method of getting engaged.
There are some restrictions on how sex may be performed (coitus interruptus, the prevalent form of birth control at the time, if forbidden, for example), but sex is seen as a necessary and desirable part of life, and (married) Jews are specifically commanded to have it regularly, even when there is no specific procreative purpose in mind.
I’ve never learned why this set of attitudes was not adopted by Christians; I’d be interested if anyone has information or insight as to when or why the two theologies diverged.
I suspect the divergence was due in part to the powerful influence of Paul, and in part to the absorption of some Gnostic theology; the early Church was as much Gnostic as it was Christian, and a great deal of traditional but extra-Biblical Christian dogma is Gnostic in origin. The Gnostics thought of the world as inherently degraded, impure and evil (since it was created by the evil demiurge Gnostic Christians identified with Satan and the violent Old Testament Yahweh), so anything physical, especially sex, had to be shunned as much as possible.
I think that an argument could also be made for a strong dose of Neo-Platonism being part of the mix. The ideal world of thought and spirit being degraded by interaction with the physical and feminine.
I wholly agree.
That is the first time I’ve read Neoplatonism described in such a way. A great many modern Pagans look to Neoplatonism for theurgical Methodology, especially the work of Iamblichus. It is my understanding that the neoplatonists did not view the material world or body as degraded or evil; especially not the late neoplatonists.
Degraded and imperfect, not evil; however, it’s only a small step from the former to the latter.
“the neofeminist propaganda that [b]sex is not a need[/b] is widely accepted in American society.”
My response: you don’t need a person to talk to you – ever – yet you’d be pretty pissed off if your boyfriend/girlfriend refused to speak to you and said that talking is not needed in a relationship.
And you’d be doubly upset if nobody ever talked to you!
Good point.
The neofeminist position is that since a lack of sex is not immediately fatal, it is not a real “need”. A similar argument could be made that as long as a person can survive homelessness, then shelter isn’t a real need either.
Somebody pulled the “you can live without it” thing on me. I answered, “you can live without music, but would you want to?” That shut her up, because she’s big on music.
BTW, this wasn’t her making an excuse not to have sex with me. We were talking about sex in general, not whether she’d have it with me or not.
Anthony Garcia might or might not have tricked a woman into swallowing his semen in a yogurt sample if he had had access to a prostitute. Maybe sexual frustration just drove him over the edge, or maybe he gets off on non-consensual sexual acts and would not be satisfied with a consenting prostitute. Impossible to know for sure.
I wonder if there isn’t more going on in regards to the “whore in the bedroom” article. I told a bit of my personal story in the comments there, so while I realize my situation may be exceptional and anecdotal, I still think men are lousy about communicating their sexual needs.
I’ve noticed that sex seems to taper off in long-term relationships, even if the woman enjoys sex and makes herself available to her man. I have plenty of girlfriends in long-term relationships and marriages who haven’t gotten laid in months, sometimes years. It isn’t because she isn’t interested or horny – her significant other just seems uninterested for whatever reasons.
I think that while there are the wives/girlfriends who parcel out the sex as punishment, or negotiation chips or whatever, there are plenty of women who wonder why their man doesn’t initiate sex either very often or at all. It’s always shocking to me if I find out they’ve been seeing a pro (or using some other outlet) when there is an option at home just begging to be seduced.
Maybe its a function of the Madonna/Whore complex, but I’m not sure that’s the whole story. Maybe guys read these ridiculous articles promulgated by the neofeminists and think women really aren’t all that into sex and/or they fear rejection – even if they’ve never personally experienced rejection in the relationship. I’m not sure what to think, really.
I think a lot of that is probably the Coolidge Effect. There’s an easy way to test if it is; all a woman has to do is trick her man’s hindbrain by appearing “different” than usual via a makeover, hair color change, sexy lingerie, etc. If he gets interested again, it’s the Coolidge Effect; if he doesn’t, it’s something more complex.
Each situation is different. I’ve been married 12 years to a still-attractive woman (even after 2 large babies that changed her figure), and I’d have intercourse with her nearly daily if she wanted to. She is not a very affectionate person in the first place, and being an educator with a somewhat OCD personality, her whole world is now consumed with the education of our children. It’s the first thing she talks about in the morning and the last thing she talks about before bed. Combine that with what I believe is becoming an internet addiction (social media and the WWW have BIG downsides), and you have the recipe for a nearly non-existent sex life.
I also think the Madonna/Whore complex is part of the story. Ever since our older child was born in 2006, she has stopped ever trying to look sexy (she does dress well, just not “sexy”), and only ever wears sweats to bed. It’s as though she thinks humans are not allowed to have multiple aspects to their personalities. I think I can be a great father and husband but also want to ravish my wife and do dirty things to her in bed, with great frequency. I see no contradiction or incoherence there.
I stoppped initiating sex a LONG time ago because I got tired of the rejection. We now only have quickie sex (15 minutes tops) about once a month when she feels like it. Were I an overweight, unattractive, lazy butt-hole of a husband, I could understand it. But I’m tall and fit, decent-looking and help out PLENTY around the house and with the kids. Hence, I have turned to pros.
I’d love to comment more, but time is short and I’m not sure what I’ve written is really clear and well thought-out. I wanted to thank Maggie for her blog. It has been a source of enrichment for me as I work through many issues surrounding my (lack of a) sex life at home and my sex life in the P4P world (which has been nothing short of incredible in many ways). And thanks for allowing a place to vent a bit of my frustration.
You’re welcome, Bobby; what you’ve written seems very clear to me, and I’m glad if my blog has helped you in some small way. 🙂
I really don’t think we can generalise with this. Sure, there are trends like with all groups of people, but like all trends of behaviour, there are always exceptions. The individual’s own concepts & notions about sex would come in as well. Case example: middle aged couple with both between 40-50, kid old enough to know that adults have sex, still sleep in separate beds. Didn’t really have anything going on even when they still slept together. Now, the wife’s perky enough for people to think she’s just a kinda frumpy old-fashioned twenty year old. Menopause hasn’t set in yet. Still makes an effort to look nice. Enjoys looking nice rather. But the husband simply isn’t interested. For him, the goal of sex was achieved the day their kid was born. He can’t afford any more kids, he’s not having any more sex. Simply can’t see the point of it. We just have a pair of sexually inactive adults pouring all their energy into work & earning money, their kid being the only reason they still live together. People have tons of different reasons.
Well, all those wives who didn’t allow sex, or who were so conservative that they only allowed missionary position with the lights out just made more business for me when I was on the game.
But it’s not just straight couples. There’s even a term for it with lesbian couples, “lesbian bed death” when the sex just dwindles.
Rampant capitalism has put most people under so much stress trying to pay their bills and maintain the lifestyle that the media tells them they are supposed to have that many are too exhausted for sex, they fall in bed at night exhausted, or too stressed.
It’s not like the olden days where there were long, cold winters on the farm with not much outdoors work to do, or light to do it in. So there was time for sex.
Couples would often finish the day by eating and falling into bed, too tired for much of anything. A few hours later, they would wake up, engage in talk and/or love-making, and then go back to sleep. It’s actually quite natural to sleep in two stages like that, but we hardly do any more.
Actually, my first thought on reading the part about the arrests was:”Gee.. LA and Chicago. I’ve worked both cities. I hope none of the men I saw got caught up in this.”
And then, like always, I get angry at the stupidity of the whole thing. 231 men, their lives upset, for what? Seeking another adult to have some recreational sex with. Now had they picked up someone in a bar, the cops would have nothing to say about it. But because they chose what’s probably actually the safer route, and hired a pro, they’re getting the treatment.
I’m so fed up with this. How many lives have to be destroyed, jobs lost, families broken over this kind of stupidity?
Exactly as many as it will take for judges to recognize just how evil it is, so they are moved to overturn the laws. That’s how it always happens in the U.S.
LOL! Newsflash…men who are getting steak at home don’t go out for mcdonalds……men who are getting mcdonalds at home venture out for steak.
And by the way? When a man IS faithful despite being terribly treated by his wife? He will STILL be hated on in divorce by all the other women.
Yep…newsflash. Sex is important to men. Sure glad they made a study to tell me that! LOL!!
I used to use the food analogy with my wife. Her response was “you won’t die if you don’t get sex”.
I am so glad I met eastern european women. I really am.
And Maggie?
Your feminist sisters and my feminist brothers keep talking about how empowered women are and how women are able to do “anything a man can do”. Yet, as you have pointed out so many times, women who choose prostitution for a job are always portrayed by these SAME FEMINISTS as feckless moronic idiots who need protection from equally stupid and feckless “evil men”.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea for prostitutes to denounce the feminists, both male and female, as bunch of liars? I mean. You take the position that women who are prostitutes are NOT a bunch of moron feckless idiots….why not denounce those who say you are?
I have worked in ASIA a great deal. And in Germany. Prostitution is everywhere. What happens between two consenting adults is between two consenting adults…end of story. No one elses business. I noted some time ago that fathers and prostitutes are having very much the same experience.
Just had a GREAT idea. Maybe the way to give these lying women the wake up call they deserve is to get THEM arrested as “suspected prostitutes”. See how they like does of their own medicine. A few “anonymous tips” could be in order! LOL!!
We do denounce them! Take a look at your average sex worker rights blog.
OK. I will look around. I just don’t go to those places.
Try Feminisn’t (link at right) for starters.
Or a few “sting operations” by prostitutes against corrupt politicians……..;-)
On the Hunt sisters:
the fun ranty part starts at 4:55
That was actually worth ten minutes and thirty-four seconds. Thanks for linking it.
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