Maximillion

"Bronwyn, surely if a woman is doing her best to give her man the relationship he wants, and isn't satisfied with her own side of it, then it's up to her to communicate that fact?"

I agree. My point is that there are many women who have tried their level best to do just that and to no avail. They are forced to accept that their partner can not, or does not want to, put the effort required into creating the close, caring and ongoing communication that is needed to sustain a meaningful relationship. Women in this situation can 'put the canoe in the water' to please their partner. They can do this for years, and many do. There comes a point though, where these women can feel they're doing little more than prostituting themselves. That's when withdrawing or at least not inviting sex can begin to seem like the only way to maintain a sense of one's worth and integrity.

I'm not talking about the young men you mention that are "working their butts off to be sensitive." I'm talking about the ones who aren't.

Fractelle

"I regard myself as having a very healthy libido BTW. The problem was the relationship."

I'm sure those words would strike a chord with many women, and with some men too it must be said. Not every one in that position though is able to walk away, and for many the more they've invested in the relationship the harder it is. It's something that people like Bettina Arndt just don't get.

Yabby

"Actually Romany, a lot of what I wrote in that last post came straight from Bettina herself.."

That's interesting. I don't remember seeing any quotation marks or links or references. That a habit of yours, Yabby?

"Its far greater then an Australian problem and IMHO there are good evolutionary reasons for it, but that is another story."

Not like you to hold back. If and when you do spill the beans and enlighten us all, just make sure we know when you're quoting and when you're not, won't you.

*That's interesting. I don't remember seeing any quotation marks or links or references*

Ah Bronwyn, but I had provided the link to that URL, just a few posts ago.
"Negotiating the sex supply" came from Bettina. What I learned
was that Romany had not even bothered to read what Bettina had
written, despite the URL. Fair enough, that is her choice.

Fractelle, this study alone involved 98 couples. 30 something years
studying a subject generally gives people some knowledge. You have
done much like may female OLO posters, ie. your own experience
is how you see the world, never mind the qualified experts.

You are of course free to keep trading in husbands and boyfriends
for new ones, when they don't live up to your standards, but not
all women want to do that. Some still need hubby around to cough
up that paycheck, to raise the offspring. Bettina would have
been addressing those women as well.

I googled "libido' and found all sorts of interesting information.
It can be caused by medications and all sorts of mental reasons
unrelated to hubby. Clearly those women need solutions and advice
too. Cancelling the love life, is not exactly going to strengthen
the marriage.

Sure a woman has the right to cut off a husbands sex life. She
has the power after all and some people of both genders misuse
power when they have it. If she is not interested in him anymore
fair enough, but in the next breath she should not complain if
he then sleeps with somebody else.

“Romany had not even bothered to read what Bettina had written, despite the URL. Fair enough, that is her choice.” Actually, I had skimmed the article – but that’s beside the point. I’m not arguing with Ms. Arndt here. I’m arguing about using dysfunctional marriages to typify all marriages. Unarguably dysfunctional marriages are the lady’s forte, yeah? I repeat: how does that then get utilized as a blueprint for all marriages?

If Ms. Arndt had experience of 98,000 marriages the fact remains that her expertise is NOT marriage .Her field is dysfunctional marriage. Whether those who accept her advice and ideas end up with fulfilling, happy relationships is also beside the point.

What is significant is that these dysfunctional marriages are operating under completely different parameters to functioning, happy marriages. The responses on this forum unarguably support this observation: - people who have been in a relationship where both partners are not investing in the marriage to the same degree report break down.

Those who have volunteered that their relationships differ from the quoted “contractual” model have reported happy relationships. Surely it therefore follows that thousands and millions of people who have no need of Ms. Arndt’s services have successfully managed to sustain their relationships. The commonality seems to be that they don’t go into them with pre-conceived ideas of genderised roles or attributes but instead see their partners as unique, much-loved people with differing needs at different times which are worked at together.

The only way that this conclusion is not obvious is to dismiss opposing evidence as aberrant. To use Mrs. Arndt’s experiences to make generalized conclusions about women in general seems only to prove that one has tightly-held beliefs that women as an entire gender behave in the same way, have the same ideas, the same views and all need the same come-uppance. Bizarre.

p.s. Providing a URL in a different post doesn't release us from the obligation of clarifying when we are making use of someone else's words and ideas in subsequent posts.

One of biggest and most accepted flaws with Freud was that much of his philosophy was based on his clientele predominately Middle class frustrated Viennese women. Despite his “experience” today much of what he taught i.e. “we all want to express sex” is regarded as belonging to the above context and not applicable today.
Likewise dealing with aberrant is hardly good reference for the sound (what ever that may mean given every relationship is different). Bettina IMO serves the same purpose in society as the rest of the self help book authors. A reasonable read for those who need that sort direction. For better or worse I don’t give any of them much stock as they tend to be about ‘other people’ and not me.

Sorry about this … the thrust of crisis counselling it to help the individual to deal with issue on their own terms…to get them over the hump until they can cope on their own or access professional help. For all of the above reasons Bettina’s wisdom must be taken in context not as blinding insight into your personal lives. (Sex or otherwise). If Yabby wants real insight into sex his or how it plays out there are better sources and documentation around.

As an observation the more I read of yabby on this topic the more I’m convinced he needs to talk to someone about his issues. Like the show on TV ‘lie to me’ (fascination but highly over stated) we declare our problems by body language, ‘Freudian ‘slips and characteristic word patterns, usages, colour preference the way we handle our personal space and the way we dress etc.

His comment about “trading in husbands and boy friends” is one such example. It sticks out because of its superfluousness
His response to a throw away line by Foxy in an unrelated topic also says something. I don’t purport to know what.

PS Romany just to prove I’m not aberrant I’d use a prostitute if I could find one who charged by the minute. :-(

Examinator, I threw Freud and Jung out, around 30 years ago. Perhaps you should
swat up your endocrinology and neuroscience, if you want to make sense of
human behaviour. Things won’t make much sense either, unless you understand
what drives the genders sexually. That is why my interest in the topic.

Foxy once again jumped to the wrong conclusions. Floating on emotional
clouds seemingly gets confusing at times :) So I set the record straight, seeing
that my name was mentioned.

Romany, what is a functional or dysfunctional marriage is really up to the
participants to decide. Not everyone has the same expectations in life.

Could you point out where it was written that all these 98 couples have
dysfunctional marriages? Or was that just another guess?

Mismatched libido can happen with all couples, so how they variously
deal with it, is what was documented. I’ll ignore Examinator’s snobby
comment on that one.

If you girls want men who spend endless hours listening to your every
emotional pondering, perhaps you should discuss these things before
you get married.

I once had a very similar discussion with 4 of my female staff, around
the morning coffee table. I suggested that honesty was a pretty good
policy, when it came to dating. All four were horrified at the thought,
for each one was trying to snare a husband after all.

Lots of blokes don’t change that much, before and after marriage. The
problem seems to be when women marry them and then want to
change them into something that they never were, before they snared
their husband.

If it means cutting off his bit of nooky to try and enforce those changes,
some even try that. Next stop is invariably the divorce courts

Yabby,
Examinator expressed what I was getting at pretty well. I expect I was being just a little too subtle. Or 'snobby'?

You have not really engaged with any of the posters you have replied to and don't seem actually to have taken anyone's comments on board. It also seems that there is quite a bit of transference going on - especially with your comments to Foxy which were what drew me in to reply originally. I honestly thought you genuinely were open to a discussion.

Never mind, mate. You, I guess like most of us, seem to have been battered around the edges by life a bit too. Cheers.