An Update Amidst The Drought

After not blogging for so long, it’s kind of difficult to get back into it, especially for one like this, that has a sort of narrative theme. It would seem that I have some catching up to do.

After the last encounter, Arwyn made good on the date night the next week despite the fact that she was tired, and truth be known, so was I. So afterward, we were lolling around in bed and she asked if we could move our date nights to Friday nights. That reflected my thoughts exactly, so it was easily agreed upon. This meant waiting an extra few days for the next date night, but I was okay with that. I’ve had to wait a lot longer than 10 days before, it’s not a huge deal.

This did come up during our joint therapy appointment, and the therapist was very keen on the idea of scheduled date nights. We also discussed the fact that I was entering into my busiest and most difficult time of the year, much akin to 2Amsomewhere’s Death March where I work crazily long hours and fall under a considerable amount of stress. The therapist brought up the idea that it was during such times of stress where physical intimacy might be even more important to keep the connection alive. That thought resonated with me. With Arwyn? Not so much.

Thursday came, and Arwyn had a doctor’s appointment to get her hands looked at, as they were bothering her from carpel tunnel syndrome. A shot of cortisone in each wrist and a few hours later, she was in such bad pain she could not move either hand without being in serious pain. The boys and I had to feed her, which was good for a laugh and did lift her spirits quite a bit. The fact that date night would be a wash was a foregone conclusion, and I knew she couldn’t help it, so no big deal. But she really made no special effort to offer a rain check, either. And she felt well enough to do some extensive shopping on Saturday, blowing a small fortune, but not enough to push my cart, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Still, she complained of minor pain so I didn’t make a huge deal about it.

But as time wore on, it became more of a huge deal, but I had no time to talk about it because I have been so busy trudging through the trenches. Another week goes by and Friday night comes. This time we were out late at the kids’ baseball game and both tired. She at least apologized for that and then went to do other stuff so I could watch Battlestar Galactica. Thank goodness for decent TV! And then today she was complaining of all the stuff she had to do, and there was a very, very noticeable lack of enthusiasm and urgency in getting the kids to bed. I helped move them along but she was so not involved. I guess the whole Mother’s day clause has kicked in already. I plan on either cooking something good for her or going out to eat. Going out to eat on Mother’s day involves a huge hassle factor as everyone…and their mother…are eating out.

So I figure if I’m not having sex for several weeks it’s worth blogging about!

Our therapist was sick last week so that appointment was canceled. If I wasn’t going to bring it up last week, it will certainly be a topic for this next week. No we haven’t hashed it out, and that has been costly but I’ve been extraordinarily busy. In all fairness, she’s feeling a considerable amount of her own stress, too and I have not been very available in any sense of the word to support her very much. There hasn’t been much intimacy at all and I feel I need to deal with my stresses on my own as she’s not willing or able to be available.

Perhaps a gardening update will be more optimistic:

I’ve had fresh lettuce and asparagus for the past month, and it has been mighty nice. The radishes didn’t amount to much. While parts of Georgia has enjoyed some regular rain, my part has not. I emptied my rain barrel last weekend in anticipation of it being refilled the next day. That rain never happened. We did get a brief shower of a couple tenths on Wedensday, but the anticipated rain of today totally blew by or around us. We’re going to be dry again this year and I’m going to need another rain barrel or two or three.

My garlic is ready to dig up and I think the elephant garlic should be ready. I’ve never planted the elephant variety before, but it must be ready as it is shooting up flower stalks. They look a bit weird so I might let a couple of them bloom just to see what their flower looks like. The tops aren’t dying back like the other variety, so I’m not sure when theyare supposed to be ready short of pulling them up.

Pole beans are coming along as well as some sugar snap peas. The beets didn’t make it and I’m not sure if the bush beans will. Casualties of our fickle weather. Tomatoes look good as they always get the most of whatever water I have. Blueberries look real good, as they should since they had the year off last year. Peaches don’t look good at all, but the almond tree is loaded. Those can double as peaches in a real pinch, and they’ll probably have to this year again. One apple tree totally did not make it, another looks sick and the third looks like it might be okay but we have never done overly well with apples here. And the plums have never produced anything. I think I’ll be using the prolific branches to build supports for my other stuff. If they happen to get whatever blight is going after my apple trees, I would feel bad about cutting them down.

The blackberries look good, as they always seem to do well, even during last year’s drought. They aren’t the stars that the blueberries are, but they certainly are dependable. Keeping the weeds down while giving them space to run a bit is the biggest challenge. and the garlic chives do what garlic chives do best; grow like crazy! I need to find more uses for them.

D.

Counseling: The Repulsive Factor

I had my 2^nd individual counseling session the other day, and were finally able to get into some issues.  I’m not sure there are many solutions in the making, but we’ll see.  We didn’t hit every little thing, but one can only do so much in an hour.

The counselor was keen to delve into my ENQ a bit, specifically a portion where I said that I feel Arwyn is repulsed by me.  I’m not sure if he was challenging me on that or just looking for more information, but more information he got, which is extensively documented here in this blog.  Whenever I touch her in a sexual way, she visibly stiffens and if she is not batting my hands away outright, she is backing away and avoiding my touch.  The other part to this is that she is not actively seeking my touch.  On example of this that I brought up was last weekend we went to eat out at a restaurant as a family.  This is one of those with the great big huge buffet and a big huge line to match.  As we winded our way through the line, and just wanted to have my hands on her back or shoulder or just generally be affectionate.  Sexual?  It’s not we’re going to drop our pants right there in the line while placing our order! (I’d like the blow job special, please).  No, this was just generally being affectionate.  But each time I reached out to touch her, she was moving off.  Of course, when we talked about this later she was unconscious of it and was moving along with the line, which is what I figured she would say.  But this illustrates how different things turn after dating is over and why affection generally takes a nose dive after marriage.  When we were dating, in an instance like this, she would lean into me and we would move through the line together maintaining close contact.  That notion does not even enter her mind nowadays.

Sexual touch…well we’ve been over that over and over again.  Porcupines and spiny sea urchins have an easier time with physical intimacy.  If there were sharp objects in the bedroom, I’m be lucky to have all my limbs, Lorena Bobbit notwithstanding. 

We (the counselor and I) also talked about this business of Arwyn insisting that sex be narrowly defined by penis-vagina intercourse and that touching is pretty limited and absolutely no oral is allowed.  This causes a sort of cascading effect on my erection.  I’m hesitant going into a sexual encounter, trying not to step on any boundaries, she climbs on top and about all I can do is just lay there.  Then she wonders why I’m not holding an erection which leads to her not having an orgasm or her being less than satisfied which in turn increases my own anxiety and we are in a downward spiral.  Then there are complaints where she feels sore afterwards, which doesn’t exactly help with desire.  This dude is going to be tested in his skills on a lot of fronts.

He ended up giving me some handouts and talking about the active listening communication.   The mechanical, scripted nature of that exercise would seem to be a step backwards for Arwyn and I since we have made some meaningful strides in communicating and talking.  He suggested that if I had trouble verbalizing my thoughts, writing them beforehand might be useful and then I could just read them.  That sounded very do-able.  He also gave me a list of emotion words in order to help me better express how I’m feeling.

Do you all think I need help expressing my emotions and my feelings?  Is my vocabulary limited in this area?  I dunno.  You all have been reading me long enough and have seen enough to be able to kjnow whether I need some vocabulary lessons in expressing myself.  I think the emotional baggage is what has kept me from adequately following through with Arwyn in the past rather than a lack of descriptive vocabulary.  He seems to like pointing out the stereotypes of how men seem less able to express themselves with words and how women generally have an easier time with that.  I agree with that, generally.  But I don’t know if providing a word list is the answer here.  It’s more a matter of being emotionally free enough to indulge in a more graphic emotional discussion.  I didn’t get into it in the session, but previous forays into the descriptive emotional jungle have often been met with adverse reactions and results.

He also suggested that we buy a book and both read it.  The Celebration of Sex by Doug Rosenau.  So perhaps Arwyn will finally read one of these books, since it is the therapist’s idea and not mine.  I don’t think she’s completely finished her ENQ so we’ll see where she’s at on following through.  I order the thing and went for the speedy shipping.  I also ordered C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain.  I figured I might need something else to read after finishing the other book and waiting for Arwyn to either read it or skim over it.  That sounds snarky, but I’m still very cautious about her follow-through. 

Rosenau has some association with my therapist’s training and education so maybe this will help us arrive at some common and productive ground.  The reviews seem generally good so I’m looking forward to it.

Arwyn and I did have a post-counseling discussion which I touched on briefly above.  She wasn’t aware of what I was seeing as her aversive reactions and did ask if I still felt like she wasn’t being very affectionate.  I told her that I thought she was really trying, but wondered how much of it was her just trying and how much of it is her truly desiring.  Funny thing about desire and affection; if it isn’t given freely, it isn’t all it could be.

There was no sex as she had a headache and had a wash clothe on her head as we talked.  So the once-a-week thing that she talked about last week; not so much.  Last night we both went to bed at the same time around 9:30, but she stated it was her intention to go to sleep.  We kissed and cuddled for a couple of minutes before she rolled over and fell to sleep while I watched the public access channel on the TV.  I’m thinking we are going to need to try to schedule a Sex Night, even as disastrous as that was a few years ago. I might get deeper into that discussion later, but you got the main gist here so that if I decide to move on you won’t be left behind or catching up won’t be such an arduous exercise.

D.

My Two Choice Dilemma

When I got home from work last night, I had worked out and was physically tired.  However, getting in better shape and working out does help me mentally and emotionally and I find I’m more resilient under pressure.   I’m going to need every bit of it.

Qrwyn started earlier in the week working on me and trying to talk me into going to her church with her and boys for Good Friday services.   I was very reluctant, but she voiced how this was important to her and I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I went.  I’m willing to sacrifice in order to make my wife happy and, even though I was tired, this would be a comparatively minor sacrifice.  It was a lovely service that included all the kids and it really did fit the mood and tone of the evening, where they showed some clips from the Mel Gibson movie set to music.  Pretty graphic for the youngsters and was probably the most violent thing MY kids have ever seen.  But they did really well, despite some yawning toward the end.  I don’t many people at this church, but I do like the ones I do know and the music they sang was from more traditional hymns that I actually knew the tune for and the words were on the big screen.  They did have the big wooden cross in front and had everyone take communion in front of it.  It suitably marked the occasion which I should probably blog about but will leave that for others more capable than me.

Which might be pretty much everyone.

We got home and it was past the boys’ bedtime so they were quickly put to bed.  I was sitting in a chair just thinking, and Arwyn sort of sidled up and said, “Are you just going to sit there all night?”

Hmm.  Okay…

I was tired in anycase, and got ready for bed.  Then Arwyn stated her intention to go to sleep.

Oh.

It wasn’t even 9:00 so I considered the possibility of going back to the computer for a bit as if I go to sleep before 10, I’ll be up at 4.  But I decided that we at least needed to talk.  My opener was to ask her how long it had been since she was baptized, “Almost exactly a year ago, right?”  She stated that it was.  Regular readers might remember that it was also around this time when we had sex for the first time in over a year and what would turn out to be the last time in over a year.  I also asked her about the ENQ and she said she intended to fill it out.  Hopeful sign there.

We were both lying in bed, holding hands and then embraced and kissed for a bit.  I was stroke=ing her back and hair and she was stroking my back.  This went on for quite awhile and I was feeling less tired and more aroused.  She said she wanted me to talk, but I was at a loss as to what she was after.  So we talked a bit about the church service and then she asked the question, “Do you ever feel like you’re at war with God?”

Funny question, but I was keen to answer.  Basically, yes.  At times, it seems like God is a very sadistic Being who seems to put an enormous premium on suffering.  The Bible is all about people who have suffered at the hands of other people, at their own hand or even at His hands.  Whether or not God causes suffering can be questioned, but unquestionably He allows it and uses for His own purposes.  So, yeah, I struggle and grapple with God on any number of fronts.  However, I also subscribe to the view that a lot of the suffering we endure is largely of our own making as our fight with God is more of a fight with our own selves.

She seemed satisfied with this and didn’t really follow up accept to stress the importance of trusting God.

There was more intermittent kissing and hugging and general making out.  I wanted to make love to my wife this night.  As my hands wandered under her shirt, one hand got into the forbidden zone which would be anywhere near a nipple.  She grabbed my arm and moved it away and I asked her why.  She said it made her feel uncomfortable.

There was a long period of silence interrupted when she announced she had to  turn off some lights and take a decongestant.  when she returned some minutes later we sort of resumed the kissing and then she said she was tired.  After some silence, I asked her, “How can you say that you’re interested in sex?  I don’t get it because you don’t seem to ever want it!”

She said she was interested in only having good sex.  Which led to the next burning question, “Just what exactly would good sex look like to you?”

“Well, I can’t go for an hour.  An hour would be too long.”

“Okay, an hour is too long for you.  That still doesn’t tell me what good sex looks like for you.”

“Well, I’d like to be satisfied>”

“Oh, you mean you’d like an orgasm!”

“Yes.”

“And that’s been a problem for pretty much most of our marriage.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve gone on our entire marriage without mentioning this?”

“Yes.”

“Because you were afraid of hurting me?”

“Yes, that’s a big part of it.”

She was not telling me anything I didn’t already know or suspect, anyway.  I was past  being hurt by that.  But the next round did put me squarely in the two-choice dilemma.

“So you want to have more orgasm?” I asked, trying to reinforce the point.

“Yes, but I don’t want them through your hands, through your mouth pr through any mechanical means.”

“Which pretty much means only through intercourse.”

“Yes.”

“Only about 1 in 5 women have orgasms that way.” I countered.  I was pulling the statistic out of the air, or so I thought.  As it turns out, I was just about right. (that’s the youtube link, here’s one to the text.and here’s one byDr. Phil.

” I have had them in the past.”

“Well yeah, when you and your partner were  both younger and in better shape.  We’re both older now, and in different shape. “  I did not point out that I was in better shape than I was when we got married or that the pubic bone she liked grinding up against was now more exposed for her enjoyment thanks to the weight loss.

But I went in a different (and perhaps predictable)  direction.  “Have you ever had an orgasm with me?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever faked an orgasm?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So you want good sex, where you have orgasms, but if it isn’t just intercourse, you don’t want it. You don’t want me to use my hands because it makes you feel uncomfortable.”

“Yes.”

“So that’s why you’re uncomfortable using your hands on me.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot of it.”

“So if I ever got injured or paralized, sex would pretty much be over.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

It’s now midnight, she’s tired and I am frustrated beyond words.  Sex tonight is out.

As she falls asleep, I lie awake, wondering what the future holds for us.  It seems impossibly bleak to me beyond words.  Basically, I’m not going to have much of a sex life (if any) with this woman unless she decides to change.  She shows no signs of changing or maturing or developing sexually.  I’m changing the things I can within myself and I do try to do things she likes but she seems unwilling or unable to reciprocate.  She wants orgasms but is unwilling to to let me out of the procrustean bed in order to accomodate her.

So basically, I can

a. Stay with her, and totally sacrifice my sexuality and my integrity as a sexual person but my family remains somewhat intact

b. Leave her,  and sacrifice my family but keep remnants of my sexual integrity

Or wait around hoping that an option c becomes available.

D.

Another Year; 1:1 Counseling

It was my day to do the 1:1 session with the counselor.  For the past couple of weeks, the ENQ kept popping into my mind, so I decided that I needed to talk about it.  In fact, right be fore I left, I took my completed questionnaire with me.  I’m very glad that I did.

This session, like al the others, involved getting the counselor up to speed on things.  This time it was about some things I’ve tried (like Relationship Rescue, praying togeth and a few other things, but notably NOT the cage) as well as how our daily routine generally runs and why it’s hard to find time to talk.  The one hour whizzed by faster than about any other I’ve ever been through.  Next thing, he was saying “Well, we’ve only got a few minutes left of our time…”

 

Wha…??

So I took out the ENQ.  He said he was familiar with it, but with a little more questioning I discovered he had never laid eyes on one before.  He was keen to have it, so I gave it to him.  I can always do another one.  There was some discussion about how that was one more attempt by me to move things along and how Arwyn did not follow through.  He was keen for her to do one and I said that I would speak to her about it and he said that he would also put in a word, if she wouldn’t listen to me.  He said that he does have couples do a similar questionnaire but his wasn’t as in-depth as the one I had by Harley.  I got the distinct impression that I was going to have to keep goosing this guy to get things moving.  We talked about whether we should have a joint session next time or do another seperate round.  I opted for another separate round, in order that Arwyn could get a chance to do her own ENQ and that we might actually have something significant to discuss when we came together.  I voiced some concern about where we were headed and whether or not we were actually going anywhere.  I can’t remember his exact response, but he agreed that we could benefit from another separate round of counseling.  Maybe he was making more headway with her than me.

I’m thinking that perhaps next time I might go ahead and bring up the cage/chastity play as, if nothing else, it might make these sessions feel more interesting.  He’s the only Christian therapist around, and I’m thinking that he might benefit from broadening his horizons a little bit.  He might discover a new favorite kink   I do like him, despite the feeling that we’re sort of dragging/drifting along.  He’s very skilled at active listening which may endear him more to Arwyn.  I’m just wondering aloud here if I might have had better luck with a female therapist since they are often better at confronting women than the men are.  Or maybe they might be better at confronting, in general.

Heck if I know.

In other news, our roof is fixed just in time for more weather.  Arwyn also had a few minor medical tests/procedures done and I’m glad everything went okay.  I never know how exactly to react to these health things, as she has always had several different things going on at any given time.  I try to act concerned because I am, and I’m equally relieved she was able to be treated so easily.  But empathy and emotionalism isn’t my strong suit  I know she doesn’t like it if I don’t act sufficiently concerned and I don’t think I made the grade this time around because we were so busy with other things (counseling being just one of them).  Oh well.

Happy anniversary; another year of involuntary celibacy.

D.

 

Blown Away

Just a short update on stuff around here.  For those of you that were hoping for something more profound in my podcast on my other blog, stay tuned.  I’m putting something a bit more significant together that better extends my own thoughts and feelings, but it might not be posted for a bit because life is busy.

Speaking of RL, we did have one of those tornadoes decide  to touch down in our backyard.  Maybe 60 seconds of terror and it was all over.  I felt it before I heard it, as the walls started shaking.  The power blinked but it was otherwise okay and by the time I tuned in to the TV, it was over for us.  We had some minor roof damage, but that will be fixed today thanks to a neighbor who has some roofing experience.  Our neighborhood seems to be the only one that was hit around the county, as most folks were grousing more about the hail.  We got that, too, but not quite as scary as a twister.  Everyone was shook up but okay.  The kids slept through the whole thing, lucky for them.  There were a few trees down and a carport and a porch was lost, but the houses all held up pretty well.  Georgia gets as many tornadoes as anyone else, but we tend to get them spread around the year as opposed the northern folks who get them in April and May.  Having lived in Ames, which is part of Tornado Alley, I’m no stranger to these things but it has been awhile since I’ve been that close to one.  It’s a lot scarier at night when you can not see when it’s coming.

Other news…

Last week, after Arwyn’s counseling session she was keen to talk, so we did for a bit.   I don’t feel like we really got anywhere, tho.  Her stance mirrors what a lot of you have said in that all this is going to take time and that the sex will just have to follow along behind trust, and closeness and other intimacy.  My stance is that one of the problems is that sex follows behind everything and therefore gets left behind every time.  It could help build trust, intimacy and closeness but she’s not on board with that.  This week is my week with the therapist and I’ve got a head of steam built up about it that maybe we can work on.  She did say that he did bring up the “sex stuff” so at least he’s not ignoring it altogether.  If his specialty was in any other area, avoiding would be a major issue.

Okay, time to get to work on the video!

D.

355

“A woman is a lot like an old car.  How many times on a cold morning, when you really needed it, she wouldn’t turn over?” - Rodney Dangerfield

I said I was going to vent, but then I didn’t have anything real specific to vent about.  But if I dig deep enough or hold out long enough, something is bound to turn up.  It always does.

Thinking on the discussion of my last post, it will be interesting to see if/when we ever get into moving in a more concrete direction and towards some tangible solutions.  Arwyn has been going along with this, which is more than I can say about any of the other things that I have tried.  That’s something, right there.  It will be interesting to see if she is the one to cut and run when or if we get into deeper waters.  She’s gotten better at introspection thanks somewhat to her 12-step group.  However, when it comes to actually doing something, she is a lot less committed and resilient.  That’s where I start to have problems with therapy based more on talk than actual behavior.  People seem to believe that they can talk themselves in to or out of anything regardless of what they actually do.  Verbal behavior is a starting point, but if that’s all there is, we might as well live apart and talk on the phone.

When I said Arwyn had turned her sleeping posture where her head is at my head, it’s worth pointing out that this is not a consistent thing.  Some nights, her head is at the other end of the bed but this seems to be happening less and less.  However, she is still wrapped in a totally separate blanket, so there isn’t even any shared body heat during the cold nights.  She’d rather wear extra layers of clothing.

This morning, I did try snuggling up a bit before the alarm went off.  I would classify this as trying to initiate something.  What I’m initiating, I’m not sure.  Physical intimacy of some sort, certainly.  I snuggled into her back and put my arm around her and when my hand landed on her breast, she didn’t jerk away.  But neither did I get any encouragement.  Of any sort.  In fact, Arwyn was inching over…in the opposite direction away from me until she finally spoke up and complained that I was pushing her off the bed.

It was a bit chilly because Arwyn had the fan on, but it became obvious that there was no warmth to be had there.  So I curled up completely under the blankets (which I suppose you could call my blankets) and determined that I needed to warm and comfort myself.  And then the alrm went off.  She felt around for my face to give me a good morning kiss and discovered I was totally underneath them, pulled them back,giggled and kissed me before padding off to the shower. 

We are coming up to a certain anniversary celibation I entitled last year 442.  That was the number of days we had gone without any sort of sexual encounter.  At this point we are at day 355.  If we get to 442 again, I don’t think it would be unfair to say that we might be beyond the skills of this particular Christian sex therapist.  We already have a baseline and it is pretty low.  It’s not as if we’re setting a high standard and asking to go to 2x a day here.  It just has to be better than the previous year.  How hard can that be?  Is that asking to much?

D.

Out of Sync

I’m not sure what to write by way of an update. In some ways, it seems like there is progress. In other ways, it is the same old thing.

Since the Shower Scene, there has not been a repeat of that. However, I have spent time in the bathroom while she showers and I shave and we can generally talk. Generally. But her gut reaction to me being there remains; get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Over time, that reaction has become more and more pronounced. I’ve asked her more than once if she minded and she said she didn’t but…

The idea of this, from my POV is just to be around each other in an “adult” way without the kids hanging all over us. Being comfortable with each other’s and our own nakedness is a big developmental task. However, I’m seeing her shift back into the old pattern. It isn’t just her being naked around me, it’s her comfort with my nakedness. Now I admit that bleeds over into my own thinking sometimes and it is difficult being naked around her for that reason. I sense her anxiety and unease about it and it gets my own anxiety going. But I get on with it. These times still have this over hanging tension to them, though. I was hoping some familiarity might help alleviate things. Like any other stage of development, when a body first tries it is awkward and uncomfortable but eventually you get the hang of it and master it. Tying your shoes isn’t a big deal anymore once you’ve mastered it. Neither is swimming or running. Getting over the fear of the water involves having some good times in the water over a period of time.

But there is a deeper more pervasive pattern that I am trying to overcome, here. It’s the pattern of avoidance. Yep. I am sick and tired of being an avoider. I am also sick and tired of living with an avoider. Outside of moving out of the house (still an option) I can only realistically control how much of an avoider I am. Arwyn is going to be whatever she is going to be as long as she decides to be that way. I can enrich the environment and put out the salt block, but she isn’t going for it until she decides. And one reality I’m dealing with is the unpleasant realization that she is every bit of a selfish prick as I am. I’ve been in denial about that since forever.

Instead of stayiing up until 1 a.m., I’ve been going to bed earlier in hopes that her and I might be able to share some sort of meaningful time together. That has not happened as she rolls over to sleep as soon as she hits the pillow. Or she stays up after midnight. So I’ve tried the other end of it in the morning, and that involves the bathroom time mentioned above. Typically, I used to stay in bed while she showered and then I would get up while she was getting the boys ready for school. Now I get up when she does, and then I’m synced up with her and the boys. But there have been no gains in the intimacy department there. She gets dressed and out of the bathroom as quickly as possible. This morning as she was darting out I said, “I’m tired of being an avoider.”

“I need to make breakfast!” was her only reply. She was running 10 minutes ahead of her own schedule because she doesn’t work today and doesn’t shower until after we are all gone. She’s got the day to her self.

The avoider theme has been a constant one and it is one that I’m keen to change. I don’t know if I can live like that anymore.

And then there is the ongoing theme of sexlessness. We’re just a month or so shy of another sexless 12 months. There’s a whole lot of other people bitching and moaning about their pathetic sex lives who have sex a lot more often than that! I would rather have no sex than lousy sex, except here’s the thing; how do you know how lousy it is, unless you actually have it once in a while? It would be nice to have a refresher course in Lousy Sex more often than updating my CPR certificate, you know? And there have been no moves in that direction at all, except from my right palm. And once a week is plenty for that. I find myself reaching for that sort of comfort more when I’m feeling in a pissy mood which is quite a lot over the past few days.

I’m rereading the Schnarch book to pick up what I left out or missed. But I know I’ll end up at the same place: the two-choice dilemma. If I stay married to Arwyn it is likely that my sex life will stay the same. That is, there will be no sex. No bad sex, no good sex, no mediocre sex. There will be no sex. Marriage = no sex. I can hold off and see if there is another equation and I can hope for a different outcome and I can pray for a different outcome. But as long as there is no different outcome, there is no different outcome. There’s the way it ought to be and then there’s the way it is. The way it is, is that there’s no sex within the confines of this marriage. That doesn’t mean it will stay that way, but it isn’t moving any time soon.

I’m frustrated and much of that is a rebound from a couple weeks ago. I guess I hadn’t let go of the hope that I cling to as much as I thought. When I see Arwyn NOT trying, that really makes it difficult for me to even give a shit, you know? It’s like the crack addict who is homeless and is always begging money; do you keep giving them a hand out despite the fact that they show no interest in breaking their addiction or getting a job? It’s like she continues to attend 12-step meetings and knows all the lingo but it seems to translate into zero work on her actual marriage relationship.

Basically we’re back to normal which is out of sync, as usual. We spend a lot more time out than in, it seems.

BTW, my weight went down to 187.6 yesterday. That’s a new low of a more positive sort. My ultimate goal was around 185, even though I haven’t been pushing it very hard. I haven’t been working out as much but I’m still eating a lot better.

D.

189.8

I haven’t updated my weight in awhile, so I think I’ll do that for a minute. My weight loss efforts actually do figure into things. This morning I was at 189.8 which is about 3 pounds off from my eventual target. Over the holidays, I maxed out at about 196 but fluctuated between there and 192, which my body seems to like. I work on the elliptical and the step mat but not every day or even every other day. Maybe I get 2-3 times a week if I’m lucky simply because demands at work have been quite heavy the past couple of weeks. I did manage to download Stepmania 4.0 CSV which is a very nice looking release and I like many of the new display features. But it has slowed me down and I’ve had to adjust to it.

When I first began losing weight and posting about it, it was largely driven by my need for better health and a changing self-image. I needed to get rid of the pounds because my knees were driving me nuts. Anyone else who struggles know of what I speak. So I did some research, found an exercise that I adore, some foods that I also adore and went for it. The little “Biggest Loser” competition didn’t hurt either. But somewhere towards the end, I mused on these pages; how much weight do I have to lose to get my wife to want me? It’s at that point that Rod Smith chimed in with a comment that I really needed to get Passionate Marriage. I had been following 2amsomewhere’s posts on the subject and was somewhat familiar with Schnarch and his writings from lurking alt.support.marriage. This name would come up on other relationship blogs on occasion also.

In November Rod and I did make efforts to contact each other by telephone. One time I woke him up after he was asleep! He was very nice about it, and told me to call back earlier the day the next day, which I did try but got an answering machine. He left voice messages on my phone as well as by email. I’m okay with all of this because just knowing he was there was sufficient. Plus I got the book and figured after reading it I might have more to talk about afterwards. The point being that I was too busy (and careless) to even make a phone therapy connection but as it turned out his advice was spot-on. He gave me a small shove in the right direction.

The last time I had a major discussion with Arwyn, it was almost like an assault or a guerrilla attack. It was short and a skirmish that left more questions than answers and certainly didn’t do anything to make me feel better about our marriage. It was bad timing all around.

This time, it was not planned at all. I went to the store after work and she and the boys had gone to church. We got home about the same time and she put the boys to be while I got ready for the next day. I was tired and was ready to go to bed. This is highly unusual as she normally goes to bed early and I stay up late, mostly after midnight. She was in already bed when I came in the bedroom. I sat for a minute contemplating whether to turn in or go back to the living room and turn on the computer. I laid down and attempted to snuggle up to her in the inverted position. To my surprise, all I found at the foot of the bed was her legs. Her hands reached down in the dark and moved over my legs and bum and wondered what i was doing. I switched positions, feeling a bit embarrassed but was able to snuggle without her moving off. And then we began to talk.

At first it was about her church, where the senior pastor is taking a leave of absence “to recharge” and another pastor there just left the ministry with no known explanation. More casualties of “church.” I shared with her my evolving views of church. She’s known that my views were under construction, as it were. She thought I was fancying starting my own church as part of a “house church” movement. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but I’ve come to realize that conflict is just part of the growing process. Leaving and starting a church would be a futile attempt to escape and avoid that growth; there really is no escape anyway because conflict is inherent in me. And to carry this where I’m going, leaving my marriage for someone else wouldn’t solve my conflicts because the conflicts that I have with Arwyn are conflicts I have with me.

In that sense, it is about me and my own deficiencies. Confronting my own mess has been a major part of this process. Meanwhile, Arwyn has been working on step 4 in her 12-step program for the second time. This step closely mirrors the process that I was going through as I was learning to confront my own issues. We were going through identical steps at identical times. We did discuss this process. Arwyn went through all 12 steps last year, and I knew she was doing it. I waited for step 8 and step 9 to come around. It never did, at least for me. So when she told me she was doing the 12 steps again, I was skeptical that it was doing her any good at all as she was obviously in some deep, deep denial about what she was doing to me.

She admitted that she had “forgotten” to deal with me in those steps, and I corrected her and told her she had most likely simply chosen to avoid it altogether. She admitted to that and we went into a discussion about our avoidance issues and the fact that we were both first class avoiders. One of the major problems is that neither of us was interested in listening to what the other had to say and so we simply avoided the major issues. We agreed that this was likely something we both acquired from our respective backgrounds and that we would need to work in order to overcome that. Much of arwyn’s avoidance stems directly from issues I brought up in that long thread “XH and Me” where most people forgot all about the “me” part and wanted to talk about XH. Fact is, I have many of the same exact issues as I related there. My brain allows me to intellectually out-flank a whole lot of people and I have my own sense of moral rightness that makes others feel small, stupid and wrong. I can effectively use this to keep people from getting too close and intimidate them while beaming with pride when others tell me how great a Sunday school teacher I am or how great and smart I am in general. Smartness is a long way from wisdom, as evidenced by me stupidly asserting my moral and intellectual superiority over my wife.

Nothing says “I love you” like making a person feel small, stupid and wrong.

Keep in mind, this intellectual power was what fueled her initial attraction to me. She came to the young adult Sunday school class I was teaching and really liked my teaching skillz. She was hungry for knowledge and saw me as being a person who had a lot to offer her.

But later, she always felt judged and controlled by me, and gave up arguing with me a long time ago. To wit: I was always “right” and she was always “wrong.” My “rightness” pretty much put us on a collision course with disaster. God was using my marriage to wring that self-righteous pride out of me. I’ve still got plenty of it so there will be more wringing, I’m sure. But avoidance was about her only choice, as she saw it. She felt she was always walking on egg shells around me. Yeah, I see it, now. I really was judging her and found her wanting most of the time. The more she withdrew from me, the more I judged her as being inadequate which pretty much guaranteed that we would overheat and become disconnected. There was no such thing as a “discussion” because differing views automatically made us adversaries and if I become an adversary with anyone, I play to win. This is not a winning strategy for making friends and influencing people.

For her part, Arwyn had her own way of winning a fighting which was almost a form of emotional jujutso. To wit:

Jujutsu evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan as a method for dispatching an armed and armored opponent in situations where the use of weapons was impractical or forbidden.

My emotional fusion made me an easy target for this sort of thing. While I was using my intellect, she was using my own heart against me.

We talked about the whole business of marital sadism. I have a sadistic streak so wide, it’s pretty pointless denying it. Arwyn heartily agreed with that. But the real revelation to her was when I talked about my struggle in dealing with her sadistic side. And that opened the big can of worms that you have all been waiting for.

I told her that based on Passionate Marriage I had figured out that early part of our relationship that was so vexing to me. Namely that we were having sex all the time and then after we were married, sex had dwindled to pretty much nothing. The reason for that early sex wasn’t desire, but it was insecurity. Arwyn and I share very rich, deep wells of the fear of abandonment. Her sexual behavior was her attempt to avoid that whole abandonment scenario, and so it was all fueled by her insecurities. She would have sex even though many times she didn’t want to because insecurity reigned. However, she was also feeling guilt and shame over our premarital sexual behavior. By the time we actually got married, the shame and guilt had grown to a point where it overcame her insecurity about our relationship. Once the commitment of marriage was finalized, that insecurity disappeared but the guilt did not.

On top of this, we can add a generous dose of resentment. I was pretty much in total reptilian mode in the early years of our marriage. I really liked sex, and my self worth was totally tied to it. If we had enough sex, I felt loved. When I didn’t, I felt rejected and unloved. Arwyn’s self-worth was also tied to sex. But the more sex we had that she didn’t want, the more she felt used. She felt that in my view, sex was the answer to all our problems. She was pretty much right. She resented me for my controlling ways and then wanting sex on top of that. At the same time, her guilt increased because now I’m really making her feel like the bad wife.

And then we tried to fix each other. A classic example of this is the 3^rd year of our marriage, Arwyn bought Relationship Rescue. She went through about 4 chapters and then didn’t read anymore but did leave the book lying around thinking I really needed to read it. I did glance over it back then and thought it wasn’t too bad of a book for her. Two years later, I picked it up off a dusty shelf and then went through every single exercise. When I came to her at the appropriate time and attempted to follow Dr. Phil’s advice, she really wanted nothing to do with it. A few months later, I bought her the workbook for her birthday. That workbook has never been opened. To say she regretted buying that book is an understatement! She bought it with the idea of changing me, but when I did do it, she resisted it! Because it was another case of me controlling her, she wanted none of it.

A major part of this discussion involved our differing ways of getting to this point. Arwyn does better as part of a group-type structured process where I am able to get stuff from a book and learn independently. I went through Dr. Phil’s book alone. I was able to exercise and diet and lose weight without weekly meetings. I was able to discover and apply vital things from Passionate Marriage without a therapist or a support group — apart from my blogger friends, of course! I play with computers with very little in the way of classwork. I even play around a bit in Linux just getting things off the internet. But this is not at all typical, which is what makes me exceptional as a teacher. It’s what makes XH able to do much of what he does. But it also results in some problems relating to others who are not on the same page. I get exasperated at others for being too slow. Arwyn seemed to always be too slow and she didn’t appreciate me reminding her of it. Her going and finding her own group of friends in a different church through a 12 step group seems to be just what was needed for her to work on herself. And she has been doing it with the help of the group and her sponsor. It was helpful having my own background in 12 step groups because much of what Schnarch talks about translates fairly easily into 12-step-ese. I was able to share what I had learned from reading this book pretty much what I shared here. Writing has been another vital part of processing what I’ve learned and I’m getting better at harnessing that in order to internalize and retain it.

I shared with her my revelation about her own sadism in watching me suffer all of these years in virtual sexlessness, knowing perfectly well that I was suffering. She stood by and watched and participated in it while doing nothing or even rejecting my efforts to resolve it. I treaded carefully here, because I knew this was extremely sensitive territory we were in. Almost every previous discussion of sex has resulted in her and I both getting defensive and her totally melting down. But she did not meltdown at all. She took the hit and held it together. That was truly an amazing thing to witness.

Then we got to some nitty gritty. Basically, for pretty much our whole marriage, the sex has been awful. I did point out that she might have been ahead of me in that department for not wanting bad sex, while I was willing to ask for a double portion of it. She pretty much agreed with my assessment: it’s not that she did not like sex. She did not want it from me. It took me all this time to really figure it out to a point where I could deal with it and handle that without falling apart.

This is what emotional gridlock and critical mass does for a marriage. It makes emotional fusion such a totally untenable position that we are forced to move away from it and grow like a hermit crab that outgrows its shell and has to shed it to go find a new one. We were both ready to listen because the alternative was too much to take.

We discovered that we were on the same page in a lot of areas. We both wanted good sex and not bad sex. We each affirmed the right of the other to avoid bad sex and go for good sex. What entails “good sex” was not discussed, however. Just getting to this point was nothing short of monumental. I told her that I wanted to pursue that with her. I think the act of choosing her was an important one, at least for me. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly done that, before. Honestly, it comes to me that I’ve accepted her, settled for her, preferred her, cared for her, tried to win her, and done other things. But I don’t know if I’ve ever truly chosen her. She asked me out the first time we went out. Schnarch did write extensively about this, and I’m going to have to look it up again as it didn’t register first time through and i didn’t write about it because it didn’t hit me.

Moving on to better sex might be a daunting challenge, but I think she might be up for at least approaching the challenge of it. She seemed to be very open to it last night at least. No we did not have sex. By the time we concluded, it was already 1:30 a.m. and we both had to get up early and I was tired before we started the conversation. But we were snuggled together and touching and holding hands and it really was probably more intimacy than we had shared at any other time. Hence the proposed title “This is the most significant conversation we’ve ever had” which is a statement Arwyn made.

We concluded by deciding that we would avoid more positively. Namely that we were going to avoid avoiding these sorts of conversations in the future!

D.

The Two Choice Dilemma, Marital Sadism and the Mercy Fuck

Some of you will love this and some of you won’t.  This is the part where we finally weigh in on the cost of being an avoider.

 

Basically in life we tend to not like making the hard choices.  We like making choices where it is win-win.  The lose-lose propositions require a certain amount of pain.  So we avoid making those choices, hoping that a more favorable option eventually comes around.  Sometimes it does.  But in the area of sexual disparity, it mostly won’t, at least without making a choice.

 

To quote Schnarch:

 

“Pop psychology tells us what we want to hear: you should expect your partner to accept, understand and validate your position even if he doesn’t agree– he should even say you make sense!  That strategy works as long as there’s enough room for everyone to have his or her own feelings and act upon them.  But many marital therapy approaches don’t work in the bedroom because they try to avoid two-choice dilemmas.  We can agree to disagree as long as we are focused on feelings and perceptions.  When the issue is behavior, however, flexibility is reduced significantly.  You can’t agree to disagree about sex.  When your spouse says he or she is never doing a sexual behavior– or never having sex again– you don’t feel like saying, “Thanks for sharing!”

 

When we say we have no choice, what we’re really saying is that there is no choice we want.  There is always a choice, but it is often a choice that we don’t want.  What we really want to do is make a choice that suits us at the expense of the other person.  Some people think monogamy is a great thing…for the other person.  The choice to not have sex is based on the assumption that the other person will not exercise their choice to have sex.

 

In the ’60’s and ’70’s it was popular to say that it was unrealistic to expect one person to meet all of your needs.  The have-it-all saying was based on avoiding the 2 choice dilemma.  In fact, that’s at the crux of the “Have-it-all” mentality.  It pretty much avoids the whole reality of making hard choices and the economic reality of the principle of scarcity.

 

So we have this couple who we can call Digger and Arwyn.  Schnarch names them Audrey and Peter.  Arwyn seems to care less about sex while Digger is frustrated at the lack of sex. 

 

Arwyn’s gambit is based on the idea that she can not have sex because there is too much pressure.  She says that if there wasn’t so much pressure, she might be more open to sex.  Plus, with Digger initiating she never has a chance to initiate.  So Digger agrees not to initiate and thus not to pressure Arwyn.  So a week goes by and Arwyn does not initiate because then she would simply be responding to the pressure of the agreement.  Another week goes by and she does not initiate.  As time passes, Digger’s frustration grows and Arwyn knows it but does not initiate because she is feeling pressured by her own thoughts of having to do what she does not want to do.  She doesn’t want to want Digger while she does want him to want her.  New “if only’s” surface as she continues to try to hold out just enough hope to keep the marriage intact.  She may even try to improve in other areas in order to compensate for this one marital lack.

 

So where does that leave Digger?  Anything he possibly does will increase pressure.  Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.  So now he faces a 2 choice dilemma.  No sex or force growth through making a choice whether or not to have sex.

 

2amsomewhere referred to this a bit earlier in a comment about those bloggers who choose to have affairs.  They essentially take the choice away from their partner while trying to have their cake and eat it too.  Two choice dilemmas are a pathway to growth and an affair essentially robs themselves of that opportunity as well as that of their partner.

 

So I get that I’ve helped enable this sad state of affairs in perpetuating a sexless marriage.  Arwyn holds all the cards, sexually speaking.  What little sex we’ve had over the past few years has been not so good so I’m not really wanting it too badly from her at the moment.  I’d like to be in a monogamous sexually-fulfilling marriage but it remains to be seen whether I’m willing to pay the freight in order to get there. 

 

The scenario described in chapter 11 perfectly matches where I’m at with Arwyn more or less.  It’s irritating that I had to read through so many other chapters to get here, but here I am. 

 

What really drove me mad getting to this chapter was the section on marital sadism.  I know I have a very thick red line of sadism running through me.  A very bad nastiness that has nothing to do with the good nastiness of sex.  It’s in all of us and it occurs in pretty much every marriage.  Deep down, in our heart of hearts we hate our spouse.  That bit was hard to grapple with as I read it, but the realization of it lead me right into that old saying: the opposite of love isn’t hate, it is apathy.  Hate seems like maybe we’re putting it more strongly than it really is, but our squeamishness about that is a result of some false beliefs.  Namely we think that love and hate can not coexist.  Where hate is, love can not be and where love is, hate must be absent.  This belief leads us into denial which pretty much guarantees that we’re going to behave worse towards our chosen spouse.  The fact is, hate exists in the world of love and love exists in the world of hate.  We have to confront that evil nasty side before we can move on.  The whole idea behind the reflected sense of self is so that other people won’t make a fuss about the nastiness we have inside of us.  We want to be loved by others so that we can love ourselves.  By focusing on how great we are (through listening to what our itching ears want to hear) we can deny our evil nasty side.

 

Differentiation comes from confronting our evil side and truly repenting.  That’s my take, not Schnarch’s but this is a dot that he left to be connected.  We get all self-righteous and inflict cruelty on others to justify ourselves.  We elevate ourselves by depressing others which isn’t exactly a recipe for self-respect.  On the other side, we constantly compromise our integrity by accepting the bullshit of others.  The perpetrator/victim mentality has gotten me no where. 

 

In this section we encounter the mercy fuck and the mind fuck.  I’m willing to wager that most of you know exactly what I mean, at least if you’re married.  This is not to be confused with the pity fuck that Chelsea Summers wrote about recently. 

 

The mercy fuck is the penultimate of marital sadism.  Basically the mercy fucker says, “Okay, I don’t want to have sex with you but I’m going to allow you to mount me and I’ll do the minimum to get you off.  You’d bloody well better appreciate it, too!”

 

This is followed by the mind fuck, where the mercy fucker doesn’t respect the fuckee because he is so willing to accept such poor sex.  “See?  This only proves that all you want is to use my body!” when that is all that is ever offered.

 

The person who is offered the mercy fuck is basically given a choice between sex even a hooker would be ashamed of giving or no sex at all.  The only real way of dealing with the mercy fucker is to stop doing it.

 

Then we have the woman who fakes orgasms and then resents her husband for feeling so good about the job he’s doing.  That’s a mind fuck.  “Yes dear” is a mind fuck because we all know that it means “Yes, but don’t complain if it’s not done with enthusiasm.”

 

Basically, marital sadism allows partners to screw each other two ways at once.  Lousy oral sex technique while feigning ignorance and other passive-aggressive war mongering techniques are all part of “normal” marital sadism.

 

We hate our partners, but that is a reflection of how much we loathe ourselves.  We need to deal with our self loathing in order to get along with each other.  We need to confront our hate and deal with it.  Notice I’m not saying make it go away, I’m saying deal.  Stop blaming and start standing.

 

What that means for Arwyn and I remains to be seen.  But I’m digesting this and thinking about it.  I’m sure you all might have something to add to this discussion in the way of experiences.  You can read pretty big chunks of that chapter here, if you want.

 

D.

Fucking

Yes, that’s pretty much the theme and part of the title for chapter 10 of Schnarch’s Passionate Marriage. Anyone who has read this book knows that Schnarch uses the word fuck fairly freely but not gratuitously in his writing. Some might argue it is never appropriate to use the word but Schnarch starts of by explaining why and how he uses it.

As for me, I will fling that word out on occasion just because of its nature which is aggressive, lascivious and salacious at the same time. It’s precisely the way it grabs the imagination and emotions which makes its judicious use effective. But it loses its power with over use. When I was in the Army, it was pretty much a standard adjective to describe anything and everything to the point where one pretty much ceased to hear it or even realize they were saying it. “Grab your fucking rifle and a fucking rag and then clean the fucking thing for a fucking hour or so before it is fucking chow time.” “Pass the fucking salt” just rolled off the (fucking) tongue too (fucking) easily while in the (fucking) chow hall.

Now that I’ve totally desensitized you or turned you off, we’ll proceed to the word’s real meaning as opposed to its abuse and misuse in the military.

Schnarch breaks it down by first talking about doing the other person and about being done. The elegance of doing someone is in the fact that both partners are essentially giving but it is done in different ways. The partner doing the doing is being sexually generous in their actions while the partner being done is being generous in their response. Those of us who struggle with intimacy know the barren landscape of both when it is absent. In fact, when we actually have sex, we are doing something but it isn’t necessarily each other. At least with masturbation we are doing ourselves. But in the emotionally fused relationship there is such a minefield around sex with so many rules and boundaries that it is almost impossible to really cut loose.

I can’t really do Arwyn because she has so many narrow boundaries. If she even lets me on top, it’s pretty much confined to a little kissing and some in and out. There is no erotic touching and no licking allowed at all. I need to stick to the script and it involves coming pretty much as quickly as possible. And as far as being done, I don’t know if we’ve ever really even approached that ever. So I’m wondering if I would even know what to do if it ever happened. Would I even be able to handle it? Would I be able to enjoy it? I have no idea, except it would be a shocking experience. I’d need practice to actually learn to enjoy it, I think.

The essence of doing and being done simultaneously is fucking. There’s really no other term that captures the aggressive, desirous and carnal nature of it. As Schnarch quotes D.H. Lawrence “The woman who doesn’t have at least a bit of harlot in her is a very dry stick, indeed.” There is lots of fucking that takes place in the world between married people but unfortunately most of it is done with and to people who are not married to each other! For some reason, our culture almost instantly turns married sex into some sort of insipid, tepid, luke warm experience. Suddenly we’re supposed to be “making love” and the art of fucking becomes profane. However, the reality is just the opposite. As soon as a couple stops fucking, they inhibit their desire, their passion and their constructive aggression and eroticism sort of whithers up, dries up and gets blown away by other competing priorities.

The most notable example of this within our little blogging circle is Tajalude and her husband Brady. From her past posting, we see that Taja really, really would like Brady to just take her and fuck her occasionally with some degree of carnal passion (actually, you won’t see that because she’s flushed most of her archives but trust me). We saw that Brady often responded positively to Taja’s passion when she decides to take control and do him. If I’m reading her correctly, she’d like a bit of reciprocation in kind from him. But for some reason he doesn’t do it, and it might be a fear of his own aggressive nature. I think us men sometimes have our aggression socialized and censored right out of us. The good news is that we can learn to channel it into our passion but we have to be confident and differentiated enough to do it. Emotional fusion can kill male carnality the same way it kills desire in women. There’s comfort in routines and safety in not rocking the boat too much.

The emotional fusion goes both ways. Taja really gets anxious about Brady’s disengagement and she pulls away in order to lessen her own emotional tension which probably makes him feel more anxious. And next thing you know, there is emotional gridlock. If he could learn to deal with some actual good old fashioned fucking, he could foster the growth of his own differentiation and learn to take the lead a bit more. The whole trying to have a baby thing probably really tests the marital machinery even more. There’s some stellar potential for growth if they could both learn to get along a bit better, forget about making a baby and just fucking fuck.

Taja, along with many of her other female bloggers, nicely illustrates another point Schnarch makes in this chapter that I might otherwise totally not wrap my mind around. That is that women generally have a better understanding and comfort level about doing and being done than men. My experience has been exactly the opposite but he points out that he gets more feedback at his lectures from women. The topic of sex and sexuality is more often discussed in women’s magazines than men’s. Women tend to have more of a comfort level when talking about body fluids and orifices, according to Schnarch. And I’ll admit that sometimes it really is hard to fully appreciate the fact that women might enjoy anal sex, although not as difficult as those men who have not reached the developmental milestone of having their own anal regions penetrated. Penetration is something men seem to have a more difficult time with, along with getting our minds around menstrual flow, tampons and the like.

I still have a difficult time with this particular section of chapter 10. While many female bloggers seem to be very much in touch with their own carnal eroticism, most of the guys on my blogroll are married to women who are exactly the opposite. If there is some deeper erotic energy in there, it’s been pretty well hidden.

Perhaps I should spend a minute explaining what fucking is not. It is not manipulation or doing things to intentionally hurt the other person. It is not rape. Fucking is not a perversion and it is not something that is inherently profane. It is not using a partner as a receptacle or a scratching post. It is not subjugation, violation or subordination. It is tinged with aggression and power, but it is not pitted against a partner. The power does not minimize the other person but maximizes their enjoyment through projecting desire in a strong and confident manner.

The fantasy of fucking involves being ridden hard and put up wet. It is doing and being done until both partners are exhausted. It is rigorous, vigorous and virile.

D.