The eternal question now has an answer. Go on, read Prager’s stellar insight into why women, and women alone, hold the power of a happy marriage… and are subsequently at fault when the marriage fails.
Prager gives us 8 reasons – which he promptly discards as nonsense before instructing women to lie back and think of England.
Let’s review them, shall we…
1. If most women wait until they are in the mood before making love with their husband, many women will be waiting a month or more until they next have sex. When most women are young, and for some older women, spontaneously getting in the mood to have sex with the man they love can easily occur. But for most women, for myriad reasons — female nature, childhood trauma, not feeling sexy, being preoccupied with some problem, fatigue after a day with the children and/or other work, just not being interested — there is little comparable to a man’s “out of nowhere,” and seemingly constant, desire for sex.
Ladies, are you paying attention? It’s our fault. Hell, it’s our nature! What happened to the sex kitten he married? God knows, he hasn’t changed his behavior towards sex.
2. Why would a loving, wise woman allow mood to determine whether or not she will give her husband one of the most important expressions of love she can show him? What else in life, of such significance, do we allow to be governed by mood?
What if your husband woke up one day and announced that he was not in the mood to go to work? If this happened a few times a year, any wife would have sympathy for her hardworking husband. But what if this happened as often as many wives announce that they are not in the mood to have sex? Most women would gradually stop respecting and therefore eventually stop loving such a man.
What woman would love a man who was so governed by feelings and moods that he allowed them to determine whether he would do something as important as go to work? Why do we assume that it is terribly irresponsible for a man to refuse to go to work because he is not in the mood, but a woman can — indeed, ought to — refuse sex because she is not in the mood? Why?
Where to begin? Should we start with woman must overcome their moods? Because, we all know, that the reason a woman may not want to have sex has nothing to do with her partner’s behavior or mood. Or, should we focus on Prager’s comparison of not going to work to not having sex. And while certain acts can be called jobs, most women aren’t prostitutes. At this point I’m beginning to understand why Prager felt the need to write this article – He’s not getting any, and after reading this tripe we all know why.
3. The baby boom generation elevated feelings to a status higher than codes of behavior. In determining how one ought to act, feelings, not some code higher than one’s feelings, became decisive: “No shoulds, no oughts.” In the case of sex, therefore, the only right time for a wife to have sex with her husband is when she feels like having it. She never “should” have it. But marriage and life are filled with “shoulds.”
It’s those damn Baby Boomer’s fault! I don’t even know where to begin with the “should” vs “want” argument. To me, sex is best when both partners want it, but, then again, I’m a woman so reason escapes me.
4. Thus, in the past generation we have witnessed the demise of the concept of obligation in personal relations. We have been nurtured in a culture of rights, not a culture of obligations. To many women, especially among the best educated, the notion that a woman owes her husband sex seems absurd, if not actually immoral. They have been taught that such a sense of obligation renders her “property.” Of course, the very fact that she can always say “no” — and that this “no” must be honored — renders the “property” argument absurd. A woman is not “property” when she feels she owes her husband conjugal relations. She is simply wise enough to recognize that marriages based on mutual obligations — as opposed to rights alone and certainly as opposed to moods — are likely to be the best marriages.
Did Prager just dismiss “No, means no?” He’s dancing pretty close to justifying marital rape. And what’s with the slur against educated women? Granted, an educated woman would never consent to having sex with a Neanderthal like Prager. Also, notice his use of the word owes followed by his dismissal of the term property. Oh yeah, there’s absurdity here.
5. Partially in response to the historical denigration of women’s worth, since the 1960s, there has been an idealization of women and their feelings. So, if a husband is in the mood for sex and the wife is not, her feelings are deemed of greater significance — because women’s feelings are of more importance than men’s. One proof is that even if the roles are reversed — she is in the mood for sex and he is not — our sympathies again go to the woman and her feelings.
Utter nonsense. Is all this word vomit really just a ploy for sympathy? I’ve been married for seventeen years, and during that time we have experienced all the normal ebbs and flows in a relationship. The point, and one Prager completely misses, is that there are two people in a relationship. If there’s trouble in the bedroom my guess is that there’s trouble outside it. And this is what Prager doesn’t get. In Prager’s world foreplay begins and ends in the bedroom. How’s that working for him?
6. Yet another outgrowth of ’60s thinking is the notion that it is “hypocritical” or wrong in some other way to act contrary to one’s feelings. One should always act, post-’60s theory teaches, consistent with one’s feelings. Therefore, many women believe that it would simply be wrong to have sex with their husband when they are not in the mood to. Of course, most women never regard it as hypocritical and rightly regard it as admirable when they meet their child’s or parent’s or friend’s needs when they are not in the mood to do so. They do what is right in those cases, rather than what their mood dictates. Why not apply this attitude to sex with one’s husband? Given how important it is to most husbands, isn’t the payoff — a happier, more communicative, and loving husband and a happier home — worth it?
Wow! Putting out equals a brand new man? Look, I’m not denying that sex can improve a man’s mood. It can improve a woman’s mood too. And that’s what’s missing from Prager’s rant – the woman. Honestly, this guy would be just as satisfied with a blow-up doll. I also love the way Prager transforms sex – the ultimate want to – into ultimate have to. Funny, but I really don’t want to add sex with my husband to my list of chores. Hmmm… let’s see, pick up the kids’ prescription from Happy Harry’s, get the oil changed in the car, screw hubby, attend PTA meeting. Check!
7. Many contemporary women have an almost exclusively romantic notion of sex: It should always be mutually desired and equally satisfying or one should not engage in it. Therefore, if a couple engages in sexual relations when he wants it and she does not, the act is “dehumanizing” and “mechanical.” Now, ideally, every time a husband and wife have sex, they would equally desire it and equally enjoy it. But, given the different sexual natures of men and women, this cannot always be the case. If it is romance a woman seeks — and she has every reason to seek it — it would help her to realize how much more romantic her husband and her marriage are likely to be if he is not regularly denied sex, even of the non-romantic variety.
Deep breath. Yet again Prager puts forth the Sex will turn your man into Prince Charming argument. And isn’t Prager guilty of exactly what he’s accusing women of? Using sex as a bargaining chip.
8. In the rest of life, not just in marital sex, it is almost always a poor idea to allow feelings or mood to determine one’s behavior. Far wiser is to use behavior to shape one’s feelings. Act happy no matter what your mood and you will feel happier. Act loving and you will feel more loving. Act religious, no matter how deep your religious doubts, and you will feel more religious. Act generous even if you have a selfish nature, and you will end with a more a generous nature. With regard to virtually anything in life that is good for us, if we wait until we are in the mood to do it, we will wait too long.
So… faking orgasms is now a good thing? Relationships based on fake emotions are the key to happiness? And, it’s the woman’s duty to fake it while catering to her partner’s real needs. Geez, the only thing I agree with in this article is that Prager needs to get laid. Maybe if he was having sex he’d have less time at the keyboard.
The best solution to the problem of a wife not being in the mood is so simple that many women, after thinking about it, react with profound regret that they had not thought of it earlier in their marriage. As one bright and attractive woman in her 50s ruefully said to me, “Had I known this while I was married, he would never have divorced me.”
That solution is for a wife who loves her husband — if she doesn’t love him, mood is not the problem — to be guided by her mind, not her mood, in deciding whether to deny her husband sex.
If her husband is a decent man — if he is not, nothing written here applies — a woman will be rewarded many times over outside the bedroom (and if her man is smart, inside the bedroom as well) with a happy, open, grateful, loving, and faithful husband. That is a prospect that should get any rational woman into the mood more often.
OMFG! I am speechless. Did you read that, Ladies? If your relationship didn’t work out it’s your fault. Had you only “put out” more he would have never left you for that other woman. He has needs. Your needs? Geez, haven’t you been paying attention? Your needs don’t count because they’re not really needs – they’re moods. And rational women will overcome their moods in order to create the perfect man. I need a drink.
Frankly, I think this article reveals a lot more about Prager than anything else. What a loser. No wonder he’s not having sex.
Now, I’m not denying that – in most cases – men want to have sex more than women and that this can lead to problems. Biology has a lot to with this, but that’s a topic for another day. My problem with Prager is that he places all the responsibility for a happy, successful relationship solely on the woman. It’s like he’s written a blueprint for grounds for divorce – a blueprint that absolves the man with the boys will be boys excuse.
Is sex vital to a relationship. Of course. But, what happens to a relationship if one partner gets exactly what they want while the other partner fakes it? A rational man would be wise to consider this scenario lest he’s left scratching his head saying, “I don’t know why she left me? Our sex life was great.”