He's Just Not Up for It Anymore (19 page)

caught in the net

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NO ERECTION REQUIRED

It is not unusual for an impotent man to reject partnered sex to avoid embarrassment. An erection isn’t necessary for orgasm, however, as sex therapist Julian Slowinski emphasized. He believes that erotic material can provide at least some outlet for pleasure when a man is otherwise choosing celibacy over potential failure. For example, a woman told us her husband stopped all intimacy with her because “he was depressed and had health issues that interfered with his sexuality,”

then added he was a regular viewer of online and DVD pornography.

This 54-year-old woman is also married to a man who has ED: He used to be an attentive lover. Suddenly he became “too tired,” and our lovemaking fell off. Now all he wants is oral sex, if anything at all. I found out he is addicted to Internet porn, and watches it right next to me when he thinks I’m asleep. Just this week I discovered he is soliciting cybersex online. I am beside myself—I love him dearly and I am devastated.

Elsewhere, we explore the psychological and physiological reasons why men develop erectile dysfunction, stressing that ED does not necessarily mean low libido. But if it does unfortunately and irrationally lead to an avoidance of partnered sex, online pornography can offer an alternative—women who are seemingly insatiable, yet always satisfied. (And when it’s over, who cares if they are, anyway?) Or, more simply put, it’s better than failure or nothing at all.

NO INTIMACY REQUIRED, EITHER

Although some couples may occasionally use sexual material available on the Internet to add some variety and spice things up a bit, others go 158

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online to avoid being intimate with their partners. As a female survey respondent puts it:

Porn is his way to deal with sex without risking emotional intimacy. I think that he believes, deep down in his heart, that he is bad, even evil, and he is afraid to show that to anyone.

Being intimate with me would make him too vulnerable. (Female, 30s)

Some men go online to avoid being intimate
with their partners.

The following 32-year-old woman, married to her 36-year-old husband for less than five years, has offered to try and replicate what he likes online, but he’s turned her down, possibly because of his embarrassment and shame about his sexual interests: He swears that pornography isn’t a substitute for sex with me, but I think it is. There have been times when we have not had sex for a month and then I find out that he has been download-ing porn every day. I have asked him what he gets from porn that he would like to do with me; I’m pretty open-minded. He can’t tell me. I don’t have a problem with my partner viewing porn from time to time without me, but I take offense when things have been wrong in our sex life for over two years and he does this. My gut instinct tells me he has a fear of intimacy, and I think it’s also his way of asserting himself against me, as if he were saying “look who is in control now.”

Many of the women in our survey told us that the marriage was very hot at the beginning, but it cooled down rapidly. In some of caught in the net

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these situations, the men might have been so afraid when things were going well they had to pull back in order to avoid being vulnerable. Often men who are afraid of intensely committed relationships suffered a childhood trauma, the most usual being early loss of a parent through death or divorce. The traumatic experience becomes something to be avoided; and so, paradoxically, if the man loves his wife deeply, he may try to prevent the pain of future loss by rejecting her sexually and having one or multiple affairs. Phone sex used to be ideal for such a man and now Internet chat is even better, especially if he believes that virtual infidelity isn’t cheating.

He may be having “relationships” with several women, but they are superficial and interchangeable; he would suffer no pain if they ended. And although fearful of the consequences if his wife finds out, he thinks there is a good chance she would forgive him and stay because he has never really been unfaithful. Of course, he has never been committed, either, although if his secret activities are discovered by his partner and she agrees to stay, they may discover, with the help of therapy, that this crisis enriches their marriage.

After all, the worst has happened and his love is with him still; the ability to be intimate may follow.

THE GREAT INSULATOR

Pornography can be a thick emotional buffer zone, separating a man from rejection, masking his insecurities and perceived inadequacies.

When viewed in secret, there is probably shame, but also a lot of adrenaline-fueled excitement that comes from furtively entering this forbidden world. If a man believes his masculinity is diminished, pornography can restore some order to his life. It can give him control when his world seems spiraling out of it. There is a risk of being caught, but not for a serious crime. Indeed, it can be perceived as no-fault cheating.

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The problem is, if it is done frequently and surreptitiously, it may or may not be infidelity, but it is most definitely cheating—preventing the couple from attaining an emotionally complete relationship.

And, to be realistic, if the guy is over 40, secretly masturbating to orgasm will most likely prevent partnered sex; the refractory period is too long, and his wife too familiar, to bring about the Coolidge effect.

ten

NO SEX PLEASE,

WE’RE EATING

My wife was never thin but was attractive when we met. When I asked her to be my wife, I was honest and told her that her extra weight bothered me. I asked her to promise to try to lose it after we married. She agreed. It wasn’t long before I realized she had little intention of doing anything about her weight.

Soon after that the fighting began and really hasn’t stopped.

We have been married for twenty-three years and have had no sex whatsoever for the past fifteen years. (Male, 50s) I lost forty pounds for our wedding in September 2004. We probably had sex at least ten times in the week after the wedding. I gained back the forty pounds in the last year. We have had sex only once in the past seven months. I think if the situation does not improve, I may leave. I feel that our connection is lost.

(Female, 30s)

If a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, is a soft penis sometimes, well, just uninspired? Thirty-eight percent of the male respondents to our survey agreed that their wife had “gained a significant amount of 162

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weight,” and this was as at least one of the reasons they were no longer interested in being sexual with her. They might be accurate, at least about the extra pounds. The latest data from the United States National Center for Health Statistics state that over 60 million adults over the age of 20 are obese, and that although the percentage of adults who are overweight but not obese has remained at a steady 32–34 percent since 1960, obesity has increased from 13 percent to 34 percent during the same time period. We are obsessed with thinness in a fat society, hoping to lose weight even as we’re supersizing.

If we do manage to remain fit, we’re jubilant and maybe even a little smug. When female respondents described themselves as attractive, the adjective “slim” was the most common descriptive and single-digit dress sizes were announced with pride. Some seemed to believe their very “thinness” should be sufficient to elicit an erotic response from their partner, and they were puzzled if it didn’t.

For many men excess weight prevents passion.

Some men either prefer a woman who is a bit heavier or don’t consider extra pounds a deterrent to a healthy sex life, but for many men excess weight prevents passion. When we asked Dr. Julian Slowinski about men’s sexual reaction to obesity in their partners, he mentioned that in his private practice this is something very difficult to deal with or to even bring up. A man might love his wife and be embarrassed that he doesn’t have sex with her because she is no longer physically attractive to him, not something he can easily communicate. Although Slowinski believes every couple to be unique, when asked if a man not having sex with his wife because she is overweight is a cover-up for other issues he said yes, it can be, but “very often that’s all it is.” We were both skeptical and surprised at the large number of men who claimed that weight was a reason they stopped having sex with their partners, but we must infer no sex please, we’re eating

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that this really is the case at least some of the time. Indeed, Joseph LoPiccolo and Jerry Friedman, two leading sex therapists and researchers, state that “lack of attraction to partner, usually weight gain” can be a primary causative of male hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

It is important to distinguish obesity from being a few pounds overweight, which may in fact be a healthy weight in any culture not preoc-cupied with unrealistic images and goals.
And it may seem insensitive to say that a woman’s weight gain is the reason her partner has stopped being sexual with her (and ludicrous to say it if her husband has put on weight, too). But it also may be true.

HOW MUCH
SHOULD
YOU WEIGH?

Since 1998 the body mass index, or BMI, has been used to determine optimal weight. Dividing your weight in pounds by your height in inches squared, and multiplying the result by 704.5, will establish your BMI. Less than 18.9 is “underweight”; 19 to 24.9, “normal”; 25 to 29.9, “overweight”; and 30 and above, “obese.” This is a fairly rigorous standard, not to mention complicated and almost impossible to remember. However, if you take out your calculator to determine your BMI and find that the number is over 30, you should consider losing weight for a wide variety of reasons. Hypertension, type II diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer, stroke, and erectile dysfunction are just some of the serious health issues exacerbated by obesity.

If impotence is a man’s Achilles’ heel, a woman’s
is weight gain.

But it probably isn’t necessary to take out your calculator, or even to get on a scale. If you are overweight to the point of obesity, you 164

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know it. And, although it isn’t a pleasant thought, it might mean that you are less desirable to your spouse than you once were, assuming you were thinner when you met. We are well aware how sensitive an issue this is, especially to women. If impotence is a man’s Achilles’

heel, a woman’s is weight gain. It is extremely painful to think you are no longer desired by the man you love just because you don’t fit his ideal body image.

This has been the hardest three and a half years for me. I love my husband very much, and it would be hard for me to leave him. I want things back the way they used to be. I feel he does not find me attractive anymore because I have gained weight.

(Female, 20s)

When we asked the woman in the preceding quote how much weight she had gained, she replied, “About 50 pounds, total. I have since lost 30 of that and I’m working on the rest.”

We are aware that men put on weight, too, and are less appealing sexually because of it. However, we are unfortunately in a culture that puts more of a premium on female physical beauty than male.

In addition, and we have noted this elsewhere, but it is worth repeating, there has been recent evidence of a link between obesity and impotence.

WHY DO SOME WOMEN BECOME OBESE?

No one becomes seriously overweight or obese in a year, and the reasons for women gaining inappropriate amounts of excess weight are as varied as why men stop having sex. There are speculations about genetic predetermination, making obesity not inevitable but more likely, and hormonal imbalances. A recent Tufts University School of Medicine study following 820 men and women from childhood to no sex please, we’re eating

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young adulthood has linked a history of depression and anxiety to obesity in women, finding that females who developed depression at an early age weighed more as adults. In addition, they determined a possibility that some depressed women self-medicate with food, perhaps because carbohydrates elevate levels of serotonin, which are lowered by depression. (Young men identified as depressed did not gain weight.) One can certainly speculate that a woman whose husband stops showing affection and desire might become depressed and overeat, and the resulting weight gain can seem a reason, albeit the wrong one, for his lack of passion. Her elevated serotonin levels might possibly lower
her
libido, making her less receptive to his sexual advances, and so they are, in fact, each contributing to the lack of intimacy, while “blaming” the other. As one respondent said: He recently told me, after years of denying it, that he doesn’t find me physically attractive anymore. The sex stopped even before I gained weight and after I went into my depression, I gained a lot of weight. I’m sure that has something to do with it, but not everything. I’ve recently lost twenty-five pounds and haven’t noticed a change in his attitude toward sex. (Female, 20s)

The American Psychiatric Association does not link any psychiatric disorder to obesity, and it is therefore not listed in the
Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
It has been theorized that female obesity is grounded in a rejection of all things feminine and, conversely, a rejection of men; a denial of being a sexual being or the opposite, an excuse to stop being one; a defense against pregnancy or a psychologically symbolic pregnancy; a result of personal trauma; or a self-punishing lack of motivational skills. However, no evidence-based proof exists that any of these contradictory psychological speculations are valid. Hilde Bruch, a psychiatrist and pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders, mentions that obese 166

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women often believe that to be “big” means to be more like a father than a mother—that is, stronger and more important, a desire to be neither man nor woman, but both. Greeks called this “the third sex.”