He's Just Not Up for It Anymore (4 page)

25

supervision at all. Depression, like impotence, can be a sign of masculinity gone astray, and difficult to admit, even to oneself.

Virtual Sex

Men have used various forms of erotica for partnered enhancement and solitary pleasure for centuries. Erotic artifacts, some dating back thousands of years, have been found in archaeological digs. However, until very recently, pornography was limited to printed material (which allowed for rich fantasies) and seedy movie houses. The VCR made privacy possible, but content was limited and not readily accessible.

The Internet irrevocably changed all that. Now every type of exotic erotica is available, and it’s private, cheap, and virtually infinite. This is the biggest, newest, and most versatile sex toy of them all.

Why would a guy spend so much time online looking
at naked women when he has one in bed,

ready, willing, and able?

Some men view porn as a way to have imaginary sex with other women without actually cheating on their wives. There are also examples of chat rooms leading to virtual adultery and online infidelity; whether these are crimes or misdemeanors can only be determined by the couple involved. Others use the stimulation to enhance their offline experiences, and sometimes ask their partners to join in. And clearly, some guys are using porn as a complete substitute for marital sex, like this 45-year-old male who wrote:

When I was a kid, I used to love
Penthouse
and
Playboy.
What guy didn’t? But the Internet has opened up this whole world of endless pornographic experiences, beyond my wildest dreams.

26

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

I feel guilty, but after the first few years of marriage, my wife just can’t compete. I still love her, but I have no desire to have sex with her anymore.

If a woman is married to a man like this, it’s bewildering: I really can’t figure out why it happened. I was willing to have sex with him at any given time, but he just kept watching

[porn] more and more. He would tell me it was going to stop.

He would hide it from me and I would catch him. I keep getting angrier and more resentful. We are on a downward spiral, and the madder I get, the more he rejects me and watches porn. I think he enjoys it more than he enjoys it with real women, certainly more than with this real woman. (Female, 40s) Why would a guy spend so much time online looking at naked women when he has one in bed, ready, willing, and able? Well, there’s the variety, of course, and he knows for sure that he’ll get lucky. There’s no pressure of any kind, no performance anxiety, no emotion, no talk, no criticism, no foreplay. Anyone else’s pleasure is irrelevant. He’s insulated from rejection and perceived inadequacies. It may be light-years away from connected, committed, hot (or spiritual) sex, but it’s quick, it’s easy, and it doesn’t require an erection. (Male sexual pleasure and ejaculation are most definitely possible without one.) If getting or maintaining an erection is problematical, online porn can be a refuge.

He’s into You, He’s Just Not That into Sex

Inhibited sexual desire (ISD, also termed “asexual”) affects about 1 percent of the population. It is a rare condition where desire is, and always has been, completely absent. Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is more widespread and is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as any “deficiency” or “absence of sexual fantasies and desire for why men stop having sex

27

sexual activity,” producing “personal or interpersonal distress,” that is not a result of a psychological illness such as depression, a medical condition, or libido-lowering medications, alcohol, or drug abuse. This definition is intentionally broad, omitting qualifiers such as age, physical condition, and whether or not there is any “normal” level of desire, suggesting that “normal” would be whatever is necessary not to produce distress. In many cases of HSDD, appetite for physical intimacy is low, but once aroused, satisfactory performance and pleasure follow. In other words, a significant number of guys do want sex, just not a lot of it.

She Gained a Lot of Weight

There is no getting around the fact that 32 percent of our male respondents claimed they stopped having sex with their wives because they no longer found them attractive, and 38 percent said the reason was weight gain. Clearly, these may be cover-ups for depression, anger, or impotence. It is always easier to obfuscate blame, especially when the problem is, at least in part, yourself. So, let us make this clear before we write another sentence—we aren’t talking about a few extra pounds, which, without question, are an excuse, not a reason. However, if a woman is more than around thirty pounds overweight, her partner may be telling the truth. Men are visual, perhaps even more so than women, so excessive weight gain may indeed be a problem for them. Mysteriously, whether or not they themselves have added extra pounds, too, is irrelevant.

More Weight, Less Want

Obesity also diminishes libido, so an overweight person may not be as responsive a partner as he or she once was. There is also new evidence that correlates male obesity and impotence. Mix obesity, ED, and low libido together and it may be easier to just stop trying. (Conversely, a few men said the problem was that their wives
lost
weight.) Interestingly,
only one guy mentioned that he would prefer a younger woman.

28

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

With obesity at an all-time high in America, it is not a surprise that weight gain is an issue. Some men might interpret it as just one more rejection—another example that she no longer loves and respects him. If he looks a bit deeper, of course, he’ll realize that she no longer respects herself, either.

He’s Not Too Tired, and He’s Got the Time

A
Newsweek
cover (June 30, 2003) photographs an attractive heterosexual couple in bed. She’s visibly confused and distressed, soothing her pain by spooning chocolate Häagen-Dazs straight from the carton; her guy is intently at work on his laptop, barely aware of her presence.

She might as well be alone, as suggested by the headline “No Sex Please, We’re Married—Are Stress, Kids and Work Killing Romance?”

Women’s magazines often reinforce this theory of DINS (dual income, no sex) couples. They say that for many of us, long hours at work, child care, and other responsibilities leave little time or energy left over for lovemaking. We are stressed out, or just plain exhausted, and have forgotten how to make time for love. This seems like a convincing argument, and often goes on to suggest ways to fit your spouse back into your life, culminating, usually, with the inevitable idea of “date nights”; in other words, penciling romance into your schedule and trying hard not to cross it off for something more appealing—as if sex were just one more tedious chore to check off your “to do” list.

Forcing sex back into your life won’t work. However, it is important to make time for each other, and not forget why you fell in love in the first place; indeed, to remember when you could always find time to be with your partner, because when you first met that was a top priority. A walk in the park, a movie, dinner out, and
any
time alone, especially away from the kids, is critical. It will bring you closer, it will be different, and no matter what happens, you both win.

Now, is he too tired or not? Although 44 percent of our female respondents thought that their husbands
were
too tired to be intimate, a why men stop having sex

29

mere 14 percent of the men agreed with this. Neither women (18%) nor men (6%) bought into the worn-out excuse of not enough time, perhaps remembering that if you want to do something badly enough, you can always figure out a way to pencil it in.

Why do women think guys are tired when they aren’t? Well, it can be another shift of responsibility, a belief that if
he
wasn’t tired, everything would be fine. Or the men’s fatigue might be an indicator of depression, something, as we mentioned earlier, guys are often reluctant to admit. It can also be a convenient cover-up for impotence, anger, boredom, or the unfortunate fact that he masturbated to online porn right before going to bed.

He’s Having an Affair

Has this happened because he is having an affair, or is he just not in love with me? How do you know when your husband will not talk to you about it? (Woman, 40s)

Another woman? Not likely. Only 20 percent of the men said they had, or were currently having, an affair. This number is slightly lower than the one published by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (21.2%), or the 2006 Elle Magazine/MSNBC survey dealing with long-term relationships and sex in America (21%).

Curiously, most men who
were
unfaithful did not seem to indicate any desire to leave their wives. This man (61) has been married to his wife (56) for thirty years:

I have had many affairs with other women. One of those is long-term. Yes, I’ve replaced my wife’s role as my sex partner, but I haven’t replaced her emotionally.

He indicates that he loves his wife, and wants to share his life with no one else, but is no longer aroused by her. While it’s possible 30

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

that he needs new partners, and/or the excitement of cheating to perform, it’s equally possible that a fear of intimacy is preventing him from committing fully to the woman he loves. He doesn’t say if his wife has a sexual surrogate of her own, but we strongly doubt he thinks she does.

And this man has been married for sixteen years: I was faithful for the first fifteen years of our marriage, even though she stopped being intimate—emotionally, not sexually—with me after five or six years. About a year ago I started having an affair with a woman I met on a business trip. I really like her, but I’m so afraid if I remarry the whole thing will happen all over again. Also, I don’t want to leave my 13-year-old son. (Male, 46)

The man in the preceding quote is interesting for a variety of reasons. He breaks the stereotype that men want sex and women want love; he is openly admitting that he wants more of an emotional connection than he believes his wife is capable of giving.

However, he doesn’t seem to have discussed this with her, or explored why their fifteen-year marriage has been, at least to him, emotionally starved for the last nine or ten years. What happened after year five? Instead of looking for causatives, he’s using the problem as an excuse for an affair—shifting responsibility for his behavior from himself to his wife. And now he wants it all—wife, son, and mistress.

Of course, this guy will likely have to leave his captain’s paradise, one way or the other. His empty promises may transform the mistress into a less available woman, giving him a convenient reason to reject her, too. Or she may just get tired of his false promises and leave. His wife may discover his secret, and, if so, he stands a good chance of losing his son’s respect along with his marriage.

It is theorized that many if not most couples do not survive the why men stop having sex

31

revelation of an affair, even if it is dealt with in couple’s therapy, probably because it is the most often cited reason for divorce. However, it seems clear that honest and controlled statistics are difficult to ob-tain, and that the couples who choose not to divorce but work through their painful issues privately cannot be quantified. It is possible, perhaps, with counseling and definitely with hard work, to use the pain of infidelity as a catalyst for change, that is, as a way of finding out what is preventing a real relationship.

The vast majority of men, even if they aren’t making love to
their wives, aren’t making love to anyone else, either.

At the end of our survey, the question was phrased differently. We asked “Did you have an affair
after
[italics ours] you stopped having sex with your wife?” and the percentage increased to 27 percent.

Those men seemed to be longing for validation—someone to say that they were lovable, acceptable, and, above all, desirable.

I had forgotten what it was like to have a woman actually desire me and want to be with me physically. We talked on the phone daily for at least two hours. When we had our weekly trysts, we would spend as much time talking as making love. (Man, 50) Of course, there are men who can’t be validated enough no matter what their wife, lover, girlfriend, virtual pen pal, or anyone else tells them. There simply isn’t enough love in the world to make them feel worthwhile. They need therapy to exist within a committed relationship. The thing to focus on is this: The vast majority of men, even if they aren’t making love to their wives, aren’t making love to anyone else, either. They may say their wives lack adventure, but they aren’t, for the most part, looking elsewhere to find it.

32

HE’S JUST NOT UP FOR IT ANYMORE

He’s Gay . . . or Is He?

Is our marriage just a cover for homosexuality? (Female, 59) Sometimes a woman in a sexless marriage thinks that maybe, just maybe, her husband is gay. It would explain a lot, and take the responsibility off her completely. There would be no “other woman” to contend with. Divorce might be inevitable, but guilt free. In our survey, some women even expressed hope that this was the case.

About 4 percent of the male population is homosexual; this percentage goes up to an average of 9 percent in the twelve-largest American cities. Of course, the vast majority of gay men choose same-sex partners, making it possible, but highly improbable, that your husband is gay. So, we’ll say it again. He probably has no other sex partner than his imagination.

two

WHY WOMEN THINK THEIR

HUSBANDS STOP HAVING SEX

I’ve tried all sorts of things to interest him—suggestive comments, coming to bed naked, lingerie. So far nothing has worked and I’m really at a loss. (Female, 30) Many women seem to be reaching into their sexual bag of tricks but, sadly, what once resulted in passionate sex is now met with indifference. It is extremely confusing to have the man you planned on sharing your life, dreams,
everything
with suddenly reject you. It hurts; and to compound the problem, most men don’t want to talk about it, leaving their wives to try and solve the mystery without any clues.