I’m SO attracted to my boyfriend but much to my horror, we’re having less and less sex. It’s like he just doesn’t want to do it anymore. We’ve only been together for a year! I thought this shit happened after like, 5 years. I feel like he’s not attracted to me anymore. When I finally asked him why he keeps rejecting me in bed he said, “Did you ever think it’s because I love you now?” Can falling in love with someone make you less attracted to him sexually? Or is he cheating on me with someone else?
— Don’t Get It
Dear Don’t Get It:
Your sex life should be getting better, not rarer. Your boyfriend is suffering from a modified Madonna/Whore complex. And no, it has nothing to do with the Material Girl or Paris Hilton. Originally, Freud theorized that men with cold, distant mothers seek out women with their mother’s qualities so they could re-enact the intimacy they never got. Soon they start seeing their wives as their mothers—a Madonna figure—somebody they DO NOT want to have sex with. Hence, men with the Madonna/Whore complex can’t mix love and sex because they subconsciously see it as a form of incest.
So how does this hetero theory apply to you two ‘mos? Think of it as an Adonis/Whore complex. He can’t love guys that sexually satisfy him and he can’t get sexually satisfied by guys he loves.
Meaning: YOU’RE FUCKED.
The more he falls in love with you, the less he wants to have sex. This phenomenon is more common than you think. There are lots of guys who can’t mix lust with love. That’s why they say donkey-crazy things like,
“I can’t screw you because I love you.” Or “I can’t love you because you’re such a good screw.”
This brand of insanity is caused by growing up in a religious, conservative culture that sees sex as dirty, wrong or something to be ashamed of. Which it is, but only when you go home with a troglodyte that could scare the fur off your dog. Anyway, it’s easy to internalize anti-sex religious dogma. Which reminds me, do fundamentalists do it dogma-style? Just a thought. If you internalize the idea that love is meant for your husband but your dick is meant for your trick, you get, well, *your* relationship.
What’s really surprising is that we don’t have more men thinking like that. Almost everything around us enforces the idea that there’s something wrong with sex. Abstinence classes or virginity pledges? There’s obviously something bad about sex if you go to those lengths to stay away from it. TV and movies? Sex is only appropriate when it’s fueled by lust, not love. That’s why they show such few married couples porking each other.
If you don’t get him to go to therapy, he’s going to Elizabeth-Kubler Ross your relationship. That’s a funny joke, by the way–look her up if you don’t get it. Fortunately, you’ve got a better chance to salvage your relationship than most because he seems so aware of what he’s feeling. But awareness without action is a recipe for stasis. If he doesn’t agree to therapy, I’d start looking for the emergency exit signs. Unless you want lifetime monogamy with your right hand.