Self, Sex

Are Women Emasculating Men?

What a treacherous, mania-inducing little duo of the wilty penis and the not-tonight-honey-I'm-tired combo. Let. Us. Count. The. Ways.

Since when have men been allowed to turn down sex, we later shriek to our girlfriends. Is there someone else? Is he gay? Am I fat? Too skinny? Something I said? Does my breath smell?

The finicky male sex drive has served as fodder to female questioning and hypothesizing since the first time a man told a woman "no." We're not used to that kind of behavior. Men have reliably wanted sex, and we have reliably been able to pick and choose when we get it.

Right?

When this equilibrium is thrown out of whack, you might as well tell us the sun won't rise tomorrow and summer is cancelled. It's that traumatic.

Well if the UK's Sun is to be believed, the annoying trend of men turning down sex is a straight-up epidemic across the pond. British relationship service Relate has reported a 40% increase in men saying they had "gone off sex" compared to ten years ago, while "anecdotal reports from experts in the field" say, yes, men are turning down sex more than ever.

In fact (and this won't make us feel any better) The Sun's Agony Aunt Deidre Sanders even adds that "this problem [has increased] in leaps and bounds during the 29 years I have been an agony aunt. When I started I never heard about the male of the species suffering from low sex drive — but now there are so many that I’ve had to write a special leaflet all about reviving a man’s sex drive."

So here's our second question. Why?!

"The stories readers tell me most commonly link the problem with over-long working hours and with men getting so hooked on extreme internet porn that they can’t respond to the normal flesh-and-blood woman in their bed," she says. "But men are also put off initiating sex by the feeling they are getting it wrong. Now that it’s seen as just about compulsory for women to reach orgasm, men feel failures if their partner isn’t in ecstasy — but both men and women find it difficult to talk about. Women don’t know how to explain to their partner how to get it right, and men find it hard to listen. Instead, they tend to go off in a defensive sulk—and avoid sex.”

So is this just a case of over-thinking the whole sex thing? We doubt women are less satisfied then they were 30 years ago, so why the increase in male sexual withholding? And color us naive, but aren't women being more vocal than ever? So perhaps it's the women's sexual liberation movement experiencing a nasty backlash?

Probably, says Chicago-based therapist Michele Weiner-Davis. She thinks when women collectively made the shift to grow balls, own their sex drives, and go to work (perhaps making more than their mate) the results caused "tears at the fabric of male sexuality" adding that "Western men feel marginalized."

Marginalized? Really? So is every wilty man a demure, ego-stroking lady away from getting the blood flowing and cooing in bed?

Oh. OK. (Yawn) (Shrug) We'll get on that.