revelations about sex

clairefontaine

This is quite an amusing and thoughtful article by Alain de Botton published this January in Psychology Today.

What I like about it is it explains why it is so difficult to be both domestic and erotic with someone. It's about more than just getting bored.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201212/12-rude-revelations-about-sex

Am excerpt:

"Does marriage ruin sex?

A gradual decline in the intensity and frequency of sex between a married couple is an inevitable fact of biological life, and as such, evidence of deep normality—although the sex-therapy industry has focused most of its efforts on assuring us that marriage should be enlivened by constant desire.

Most innocently, the paucity of sex within established relationships has to do with the difficulty of shifting registers between the everyday and the erotic. The qualities demanded of us when we have sex stand in sharp opposition to those we employ in conducting the majority of our other, daily activities. Marriage tends to involve—if not immediately, then within a few years—the running of a household and the raising of children, tasks that often feel akin to the administration of a small business and call on many of the same skills.

Sex, with its contrary emphases on expansiveness, imagination, playfulness, and a loss of control, must by its very nature interrupt this routine of regulation and self-restraint. We avoid sex not because it isn't fun but because its pleasures erode our subsequent capacity to endure the strenuous demands that our domestic arrangements place on us."

Honey-ec

Haven't read the article as I know by the very title that trying to access it will set the red phone ringing in IT in work, but does he differentiate between married and cohabiting couples?

Just going on the short synopsis provided it would seem to me that marriage itself isn't the problem, it's cohabitation/parenting in general.

Das Kitty

Honey-ec wrote: »

Haven't read the article as I know by the very title that trying to access it will set the red phone ringing in IT in work.

I also haven't read the article, even though I'm the keeper of the red phone where I work.

From what you've quoted, I think there is a very close tie between how love changes over time and the way sex does. The obsession dies away and hopefully you're left with something better.

I do think a lot of people aren't prepared for the fact that there will be sexual and emotional droughts in longer term relationships and when it happens the first time they can freak out. I know I did! I think we were lucky(?) enough to have experienced more than one trough in our relationship before having children, for a lot of people that can be the first time. So when the time came, we were happy to accept that there would be some months where it would be impossible and were relaxed about it.

We've been together 13 years, and in the early days, we had a lot of sex. But it wasn't as satisfying as it could have been as we were in that whirlwind stage and had numerous hangups and insecurities. Now we have very few, and I certainly feel more satisfied and closer to my husband than I did. If anything having a baby improved things for us by making us realise that our time alone is limited and precious.

lazygal

I find sex after having a baby much better. I'm more confident and relaxed about my body and its far more intimate than before. Sure we're not having as much sex as before but the quality of our sex life has really improved, which I was pleasantly delighted by.

Wompa1

I also have not read the study because Research Psychology tends to be horse sh!t. But, I would say that sex just declines after a period of time with a person, whether you are married or not. As you have other things to focus on in life such as kids, mortgage etc. it's not on your mind as much I'd bet.

aob85

Honestly, too afraid to read the article....
I love sex too much to think id have to sacrifice it by getting married :O

flutterflye

I just read that whole thing - What a load of nonsensical drivel!!
Not really referring to the op, more the entire article.
It continuously implies that we all have depraved, deranged, disturbing sexual fantasies and desires, that we are so ashamed of that we never divulge these desires to anyone, and will lie about them to everyone.
In among the drivel, there are one or two decent points, but it is difficult to locate a needle in a pile of mashed up words that have been blended up and flung on a page any which way.
You seriously wonder sometimes.
Did some 16 year old school boy write that on the bathroom walls while getting his head shoved down the toilet?

I've just realised what it was about the article that bothered me so much - It was written as if it were fact. As if it were some wise professor teaching his students.
It doesn't read as an opinion. It reads more like 'this is the way it is'.

On the point raised by op - I don't personally find that to be the case at all.
The only things that I find get in the way are when one or both of you are just tired and worn out from working/raising kids etc...
The first year after a baby's born does tend to be a bit more draining - you can be up multiple times a night, you're constantly in 'baby mode'.
So it may not be quite as frequent, but still regularly enough.
Marriage itself, or domesticity, has no bearing on the frequency, the passion, the intensity, the playfulness, the imagination, the openness, the anything at all.
If you are tired/stressed/busy etc... then sex may wane in frequency and enthusiasm.
You can get stuck in a rut when you are married, when you live with someone, or when you live separately.
Whatever the domestic situations, couples all go through different patches where sex waxes and wanes. There can be any amount of reasons - there are so many variables, but in my opinion anyway, the reasons generally have nothing to do with any of the reasons given in that article.