My anti-snark, anti-Lori post on relationships

[2xx1xy1JD]

I just came back from vacation. While I was gone, I didn't check the internet and didn't read Lori's blog....and I felt pretty good. At the airport, there was wifi and I briefly looked at her blog. The familiar headache and blood pressure spike returned as I read about how sex only with mutual consent is a bad thing, and I stopped reading.

Everyone else here seems to have figured out that sex without consent of all partners = rape, so I'm going to spare myself reading her crap.

Instead, I want to totally banish the notion that sex with consent means being a wimp, or not getting any, or not being a good wife, or any of the other complete BS that Lori and her pals are peddling. I know we have fundies and former fundies here who may not have a clear idea of what respect and mutual consent look like, so I want to celebrate it.

Mutual consent has nothing to do with frequency. If both are happy getting it on all the time, go for it!

Mutual consent doesn't mean that always wait until everyone is "in the mood". In a busy family with kids, it will often mean planning ahead so that everyone is ready and willing and awake. If both parties are part of that planning, all is good.

Mutual consent doesn't mean that someone who has a problem doesn't make an effort to deal with it. It means that the other partner, even if they are horny and possibly disappointed, knows that it would be totally wrong to force or pressure someone into having unpleasant or even painful sex, and they wouldn't even want to have sex that was clearly bad for their partner. [Here is a blog that chronicles one couple's struggle with painful sex. It clearly was not an easy journey, but she never stopped looking for a solution, and he never forced her or stopped being supportive. They finally solved the problem, and the blog has some links to really good resources. unconsummated.blogspot.ca/]

If someone claims that they have physical "needs" which must be relieved immediately, there's a simple solution. It's at the end of your arm, and it's called your hand. Now, some will say that relieving yourself this way is selfish and only about the physical and there's nothing holy or intimate about it. I suppose that's true. If someone's going to be selfish, though, they SHOULD do it alone so that nobody gets hurt. What's bad is being totally selfish and only about your own physical pleasure and not caring about the other person when you are actually having sex with someone else.

A real man doesn't force sex, whine about it, or use threats to get it (and yes, forcing your wife to stop working and then threatening to toss her out, deny her the kids and leave her without a cent = threats and coercion). He cares about his partner's pleasure as well as his own, and takes a certain amount of pride in being able to satisfy her. [sorry, I'm using heterosexist language here. Partly for convenience, partly because I only have experience with heterosexual sex, and partly because I'm refuting the fundie model of how husband/wife sex should work. Substitute pronouns as appropriate.]

Sex isn't something that the wife gives or withholds. It's something that she enjoys and shares together with her husband. Ideally, it's about creating intimacy. Each of them will sometimes say, "Oooh, I like THAT" or "ouch - a little to the left please", and want to please the other. If being tired is a problem, they will figure out how to solve it. How, for example, can she have a chance to take a hot bath and maybe exercise a bit and get some more sleep, so that she'll physically respond better? If one of them always nods off, maybe waiting until night doesn't work and they decide to try to get some action early in the morning, or during naptime.

[EmiGirl]

You should post this to cabinetman's blog.

[Loveday]

You should post this to cabinetman's blog.

I second this suggestion.

[2xx1xy1JD]

We know that Cupboard Boy, Lori and Ken read here.

If I go to his blog, I'll lose whatever zen I gained during my vacation and start ranting. Aside from that, I don't really want to give him the traffic, and I really don't want him to be able to connect my screen name here to my IP address. Call me crazy, but I don't feel safe allowing someone who advocates rape to have that information.

If someone else wants to cut and paste my post or send him a link to it (assuming it's okay with Free Jinger TOU), they have my permission to do so.

[Hane]

2xx1xy1jd, BRAVISSIMA!!!

I will never forget the time when, right in the middle of coitus ( nearly got autocorrected to "vomitus"!), I burst into tears. I had been guilted into having sex I really didn't feel like having, and thought, "I feel like such a fuck- thing."

Some years later, when I had made up mind to divorce him, in our marriage counselor's office I announced that I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than spend it being told what a lousy lay I was. The counselor got all quiet; then he said, "NOBODY should be told a thing like that."