What We Can Learn From The Hets

Sometimes getting out of something your husband wants to get into takes a little ingenuity.   Honesty can make you look mean, but a good excuse can make you look like a victim. My friend Lisa knows.   She can only say “I don’t feel like it” so many times before her husband Bob thinks she’s just being a bitch.

But if she’s got a headache, or she’s gotta get up early in the morning or she’s too stressed with the kitchen renovation, then she can use pity as a shield.  Now, it’s not that Lisa doesn’t love Bob.  Hell, she’s been married to him 10 years.  It’s that her sexual desire got lost somewhere between Kid Two and Three.   She was explaining the situation to her single friend Susan over coffee one day.

Lisa:  I took one for the team last night.

Susan:  What do you mean?

Lisa:  I had sex on behalf of all women who didn’t feel like it but ran out of excuses.

Susan:  I know what you mean.  How many times can you fake a headache before you give in?

Lisa:  Exactly.  I knew it was coming too when he offered me a massage.

Susan:  Yeah, a massage is never a massage to guys.  It’s always a springboard to sex.

Lisa:   Bob’s an expert in the eleven finger massage.

Susan:  So you had sex when you didn’t want to.   Is that like the marital equivalent of date rape?

Lisa:  Well, it’s only rape if he forces you do it; not if YOU force yourself to do it.

Susan:  Then what’s it called when you force yourself to have sex?

Lisa:  Marriage.

Susan:   Oh, come on!

Lisa:  It’s true. Just you wait.

Susan:  So, did you get into it once you started?

Lisa:  In the beginning I was like, “Stick it in; I got laundry to fold.”  But as it went on I have to admit I started to like it.  And by the end of it I didn’t even have to…

Susan:  …fake your orgasm.

Lisa:  Exactly!  It’s so weird.  I didn’t feel like doing it at all but it ended with one of the most intense orgasms I’ve ever had!

Susan:  If that’s what waited for me at the end of the road I’d burn up the concrete getting there.  Why wouldn’t you want more sex?

Lisa:  Only a single woman with no kids would ask that.  We’ve been through this before—I’ve got the kids pulling on me all day.  You know how when you’re single and you don’t get touched enough and you’ve got like this sort of ‘skin hunger’ that drives you nuts?

Susan:  Tell me about it!

Lisa:  Well, I get so much affection from the kids that I don’t have that kind of ‘skin hunger’ anymore.  By the time Bob comes home at night I’m all touched out.

Susan:  And exhausted from all the housework and stuff.

Lisa:  Exactly.

Susan:  So why doesn’t Bob help out?

Lisa:  Only a single woman without kids would ask that.

…

Lisa doesn’t know it but she’s stumbled onto a classic strategy for feeding the sex-starved marriage—consenting to sex when you don’t really feel like having it.

Here’s why it works:  Ever turned down food because you weren’t hungry?  Then somebody brings out a home-made apple pie and cuts you a slice.  You take a nibble just to be polite and then the next thing you know you’ve hoovered the plate and asked for seconds.  Well, sex is like that.  You may not feel like having it but once you get a taste of it, next thing you know you’ve hoovered his, well, you get the idea.

If you’re the low-desire partner in a relationship marked by mismatched libidos you need to have sex when you don’t necessarily feel like it.  It’s not about forcing yourself to do something you absolutely don’t feel like doing.  It’s about nudging yourself into something pleasurable, knowing that what starts with a whimper can end in a bang.