Bettina Arndt on sex starved husbands

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Hello fellow Catholics!

Today, a friend of mine gets married, and I stumbled across this video on sex in marriage and dead bedrooms. I thought it raised some really good points and I pass it along for all the married Catholics to prayerfully consider.

Bettina Arndt is an Australian sex therapist, journalist and clinical psychologist, who has focused on the “dead bedroom” issue and how to solve it.

My favorite quote: “Women do crazy things…to try to please their husbands. They’ll cook three course meals, they’ll spend hours searching for his favorite underpants in a shopping center, when a 10 minute bonk every now again will make that man a lot happier than a lot of the things that she’ll do for him.”

Peace and God bless!
 
I must be realy bored because I can’t believe I actually watch the first 10 minutes of this video.

I think the whole thing is degrading to humanity. 15 minutes into the video and not once did she mention how God create us that way and the gift He gave married couples.

As much as it may be an issue for men, to portray all men as being sex starved and all women as being fridgid was sick at best

The woman sounds like a nut. Did she really think people who would respond to her survey would be the norm?

Angie
 
smichhertz said:
Hello fellow Catholics!

Today, a friend of mine gets married, and I stumbled across this video on sex in marriage and dead bedrooms. I thought it raised some really good points and I pass it along for all the married Catholics to prayerfully consider.

Bettina Arndt is an Australian sex therapist, journalist and clinical psychologist, who has focused on the “dead bedroom” issue and how to solve it.

My favorite quote: “Women do crazy things…to try to please their husbands. They’ll cook three course meals, they’ll spend hours searching for his favorite underpants in a shopping center, when a 10 minute bonk every now again will make that man a lot happier than a lot of the things that she’ll do for him.”

Peace and God bless!
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Wow, I didn’t really expect to see the term “10 minute boink” used so approvingly on CAF.

I’m not sure that John Paul II would have approved.

Also, I suspect that Arndt’s views are distorted by her specialty. There’s a famous saying that in couples where sex is OK, it’s 10% of the marriage, whereas in marriages where it’s a problem, it’s 90% of the marriage (or something like that).

In practice, there are a lot of other ways to irritate or disappoint one’s husband. I say yes to my husband probably 90% of the time. However, it is not true that my husband is always happy with me–which tends to be the promise of sex people. Do this one weird trick (i.e. have lots of sex) and you will never fight, never be disappointed with each other, never be tired, never want to watch different TV shows, never dislike each other’s cooking or parenting or spending habits or mother or sister, etc.

That’s not really how things work for adults.

Also, we’re Catholic, and a “10 minute boink” might need to be named George in 9 months. If we aren’t prepared to deal with George (for example, because we’ve had our uterus cut up several times because of previous “10 minute boinks”), then we can’t have the “10 minute boink.”

That attitude (that it’s just a 10 minute time investment) is not the reality that practicing Catholics live with–it’s predicated on “the contraceptive mentality.”
 
I too have a strong feeling that this lady’s musings don’t really pertain to me or my marriage. I didn’t marry a man whose entire physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs can be satisfied with a 10 minute “boink”. Most of the time, when he’s getting cranky, he just needs some mac and cheese or crackers with peanut butter.
 
Allegra said:
I too have a strong feeling that this lady’s musings don’t really pertain to me or my marriage. I didn’t marry a man whose entire physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs can be satisfied with a 10 minute “boink”. Most of the time, when he’s getting cranky, he just needs some mac and cheese or crackers with peanut butter.
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Or a Snickers.
 
Allegra said:
I too have a strong feeling that this lady’s musings don’t really pertain to me or my marriage. I didn’t marry a man whose entire physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs can be satisfied with a 10 minute “boink”. Most of the time, when he’s getting cranky, he just needs some mac and cheese or crackers with peanut butter.
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I think part of the problem is that some women aren’t interested in the marital embrace and sometimes they think they can make up for it in other ways. If things aren’t happening in a marriage, then something needs to change. Some have pushed the “just do it” approach, although I am not sure how well that works. That is part of the problem, we just don’t have much data on how couples navigate the sex issue. When things go bad in that area it can be very difficult to get out of that ditch.
 
Allegra said:
I too have a strong feeling that this lady’s musings don’t really pertain to me or my marriage. I didn’t marry a man whose entire physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs can be satisfied with a 10 minute “boink”. Most of the time, when he’s getting cranky, he just needs some mac and cheese or crackers with peanut butter.
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Sure, although I think there is something to the idea that enough deprivation will cause even a well adjusted person to lose sight of other (physical, emotional, social and spiritual) things. Sex, at least for a non-celibate person, is like air: when you’re getting sufficient amounts, you don’t really worry about it. If you’re not getting enough, it’s going to be really hard to focus on anything else.

That’s not to say that women need to be their husband’s sex slaves, ready to hop into bed for a “quickie” anytime he wants. Husbands have to be loving and charitable too, and roll with it gracefully if their wife isn’t in the mood. But I do think when you marry someone and begin a lifelong relationship of sexual exclusivity, you do have the responsibility to attend to that need to a reasonable level. And to be fair, it’s not always the men who have the bigger libido. It’s a reciprocal responsibility.
 
Allegra said:
I too have a strong feeling that this lady’s musings don’t really pertain to me or my marriage. I didn’t marry a man whose entire physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs can be satisfied with a 10 minute “boink”. Most of the time, when he’s getting cranky, he just needs some mac and cheese or crackers with peanut butter.
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Funny!

I started listening to a few minutes of it (when I was officially supposed to be grocery shopping) and the first thing that stood out for me is that her data on how couples negotiate intimacy is from 98 people’s sex diaries.

How many normal people would be willing to give that much access to some internet lady? I wouldn’t even do a food diary for somebody who wasn’t my doctor or other health care provider. The self-selection issue here are potentially huge.

By the way, I also have to mention that the podcast format (41 minutes on sexless marriages!) is pretty mom-unfriendly. I’m not going to either blast sex radio at my preschooler, tween and teen or put on headphones so I can’t hear what’s going on at home. Skimming text is way easier to do with kids underfoot.
 
Xantippe said:
Funny!

I started listening to a few minutes of it (when I was officially supposed to be grocery shopping) and the first thing that stood out for me is that her data on how couples negotiate intimacy is from 98 people’s sex diaries.

How many normal people would be willing to give that much access to some internet lady? I wouldn’t even do a food diary for somebody who wasn’t my doctor or other health care provider. The self-selection issue here are potentially huge.

By the way, I also have to mention that the podcast format (41 minutes on sexless marriages!) is pretty mom-unfriendly. I’m not going to either blast sex radio at my preschooler, tween and teen or put on headphones so I can’t hear what’s going on at home. Skimming text is way easier to do with kids underfoot.
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Yeah, I didn’t get too far into it. Maybe the good stuff comes later, but I don’t think my husband is “sex-starved” anyway. As long as there isn’t a baby sticker on the day, I’m pretty convincable.
 
Allegra said:
Yeah, I didn’t get too far into it. Maybe the good stuff comes later, but I don’t think my husband is “sex-starved” anyway. As long as there isn’t a baby sticker on the day, I’m pretty convincable.
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NFP makes a big difference.

Here’s a (hopefully not inappropriate) summary of the beginning of Happy Fun Time for an NFP couple:

Day 1: RAAAWRR!!
Day 2: RAAAWRR!!
Day 3 [both of us]: I wonder what’s on Netflix?

I would encourage the OP to remember that 99% of secular sex advice is based on the assumption of contraception, sterilization, childless families, very small families, double income professional families, etc.

A practicing Catholic couple is dealing with completely different limitations with regard to their intimate life than a non-Catholic couple where one of the spouses got sterilized in their early 30s. In one’s 40s, one is looking at a risk of miscarriage that goes from 33% or so, rising into the 90s, not to mention the uncertainties and limitations of perimenopausal NFP. Plus, at some point, chromosomal abnormalities become increasingly likely:

embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Genetic_risk_maternal_age

It’s a 1 in 66 risk at 40, 1 in 33 at 43, 1 in 16 at 46 and 1 in 8 at 49.

As you can see, the risk of chromosomal abnormality doubles every three years in the 40s.

So, it’s not exactly a mystery why one might become less interested in marital intimacy as the risks of marital intimacy go steadily up and up.
 
I am not going to listen, I’ll take y’alls word for it.

It goes both ways. Not all men are interested, for various reasons (porn often) and their wives are starving for physical affection/intimacy. We have several threads on caf that show plenty of people suffer with this situation.

I hate the jovial euphemism also.

This isn’t funny, and trite handling of such a serious matter by someone speaking like a hack hack is insulting.

Xantippe is correct maybe some of this is built in to physiology.
 
egretps said:
I am not going to listen, I’ll take y’alls word for it.

It goes both ways. Not all men are interested, for various reasons (porn often) and their wives are starving for physical affection/intimacy. We have several threads on caf that show plenty of people suffer with this situation.

I hate the jovial euphemism also.

This isn’t funny, and trite handling of such a serious matter by someone speaking like a hack hack is insulting.

Xantippe is correct maybe some of this is built in to physiology.
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I get a lot of home magazines (which are aimed at the mature female audience) and I can’t help but notice that there are A LOT of ads for pharmaceutical products out there designed to help perimenopausal/menopausal women with dryness/pain/etc. during intercourse.

There are a lot of gynecological issues that afflict women as we get older.
 
I didn’t watch it but read the comments here.

So is this lady saying its quantity over quality? I can’t imagine a “10 minute bonk” is going to do much of anything but a superficial release? I suppose that might be ‘nice’. Is it really serving its function though? The church teaches that in marriage sex serves a purpose. Its a nice gesture it seems, but is it really good? Does it do any good? Seems to me it focuses more on the flesh than the union and real bonding.

Having said that, I was listening to the local Christian radio and they had a talk show going on about this idea that if couples are in trouble with the sex life, they make this promise to have sex every day for like months, regardless of whether they wanted to, or weren’t in the mood, or if was good or not, but that just by doing it, they were connecting intimately and that it would help things out. Like it was a promise to each other of really committing to coming together every day, very intimately. I think they said the results were good, and when I thought about it I thought it might possibly be very good advice- despite not being from a Catholic point of view but rather Protestant. We are told that the sexual union does create a bond. Maybe that only works for the woman to grow more closer to the man? I heard men don’t bond with sex, or at least its not as big deal to them or that they can ‘compartmentalize’ it. ? What good** as a couple **would that be then?

^ edit… I suppose I like this idea because Mass has been likened to a wedding feast, and reception of Holy Communion itself, the consummation of those promises. We are told to go as frequently as possible to get closer to The Lord and remain bonded, close to God. It seems to me, it make sense that a couple try and do the same thing. There are days you don’t want to go to daily Mass even though you’ve made it something important to do, but you still go because you want to continue your commitment to The Lord. … And usually I’m quite happy that I did, even if I was cranky or sleepy or what-have-you. I’d think this Protestant idea of the commitment of 'doing it anyway, every day at least once, despite feelings/moods/what-ever" is good advice for couples who are still committed fully to their marriage. Can’t see it working on persons who want to stray though.
 
AnneElizabeth said:
I didn’t watch it but read the comments here.

…, I was listening to the local Christian radio and they had a talk show going on about this idea that if couples are in trouble with the sex life, they make this promise to have sex every day for like months, regardless of whether they wanted to, or weren’t in the mood, or if was good or not, but that just by doing it, they were connecting intimately and that it would help things out. Like it was a promise to each other of really committing to coming together every day, very intimately. I think they said the results were good, and when I thought about it I thought it might possibly be very good advice- despite not being from a Catholic point of view but rather Protestant. We are told that the sexual union does create a bond. Maybe that only works for the woman to grow more closer to the man? I heard men don’t bond with sex, or at least its not as big deal to them or that they can ‘compartmentalize’ it. ? What good** as a couple **would that be then?
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I suppose if you contracept or don’t mind another baby this might be a possibility.

But, for me I don’t even want to eat ice cream every day.
 
egretps said:
I suppose if you contracept or don’t mind another baby this might be a possibility.

But, for me I don’t even want to eat ice cream every day.
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Oh! Good point! Wasn’t thinking about that. But you are right.
 
Oh all those poor helpless men who don’t get enough…
Those poor poor poor guys.
Victimized by thier cold Elsa wives…
 
I have been married for 18 years and suffer a dead bedroom. It destroys me.

I am the wife.

Oh and of course here I have to say, I am not fat nor ugly, nor am I a nag or whatever the hundred other excuses a woman has to defend when it is she who suffers this terrible cross.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Oh all those poor helpless men who don’t get enough…
Those poor poor poor guys.
Victimized by thier cold Elsa wives…
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i find your attitude rather disturbing. There are husbands who have not had sex with their wives for more than a year with no hope in sight of that ever changing. These guys definitely are victims
 
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