Women's Sex Drive -- Dealing with Decrease Libido!

On May 4, 1999, Oprah Winfrey aired a show about wives with decrease in sex drive -- decrease libido. I was very excited when the program was announced and I was hoping  to learn a lot from the show. I believe these women would be discussing a serious problem which in many cases had destroyed many marriages. Oprah had done many shows in the past which were very informative and good, but this one deserved more substance to it. Sadly, at the end of the show, more myths were created about sex within marriage than were solved because of many reasons. Many husbands  in the nation who watched that show were probably very confused as the show created more reasons for the wives phobia of intimacy and the coldness of the marital bed.

A marriage without intimacy is not a marriage, but a living arrangement, such a relationship will end up in the wilderness of passionless love eventually leading to a divorce. A husband is as responsible for taking care of his wife's needs just as the wife is as responsible for taking care of her husband's needs.

Myths Generated by the Show

Sex within a marriage is not a privilege, it is part of the marriage contract that a husband and wife should have sex. It is not okay for a wife to say she does not want to have sex the same way it is not okay for the man to say he does not feel like working. We should stop accepting lies, fantasies and excuses generated for not wanting to do something. Just because I am a woman, I don't feel like it, and it is supposed to be okay! No! that is wrong!  Most husbands  do not hesitate to have sex with their wives when the women initiate intimacy. Why should men have to beg? Most of the time men don't get it even when they beg for it. Yet, the wives still want the mortgage payment paid for the month!

Years ago, women complained that men are not doing enough house work. Many of the husbands were lured to the kitchen. As soon as the men get comfortable preparing meals the same wives  abandoned the kitchen and threw their cooking aprons into the trash can. No wonder the grocery lines that used to be dominated by women are now dominated by men in suits after office hours getting ready to cook dinner. The same wives are now abandoning the bedroom as they abandoned the kitchen and we are wondering what is happening to the American family!

Many of the wives on the show had the "Prima-Donna Complex" and they are saying, "I'm married to you and I don't have to have to be intimate with you because I got the gold or diamond on my finger." Many times I have over heard some married women saying that, they only have sex with their husbands only if they wish to do so as if doing the men some favor. Marriage romance is a joint venture not a combat zone or a place to exercise ego. Women who continued this prima-donna complex eventually lose their husbands to the mistress or the other woman.

The issue discussed on this show was not about sex but about intimacy. It was very shocking that none of the women on the show knew the difference between sex and intimacy -- or better still, the difference between having sex and making love. The wives were not running away from sex, they were running away from the emotional and physical intimacy with their husbands. Ramming it in, with bumping and grinding is sex, but not intimacy or making love. In marriage, people do not have sex, I beg your pardon Oprah, people make love -- there is a big difference! The entire show was centered on sex, but the problems being discussed were not about sex, but emotional intimacy.

Sex in a marriage is brief and short. Making love in a marriage takes time. It starts from outside the bedroom from sending each other sexy and erotic notes announcing the scheduled sexual adventure for the evening. This is followed by a psychological commitment to spend quality time with your spouse that evening, and the time is already agreed upon and no excuse in most cases will change the schedule except a case of  emergency. In a good relationship, couples take this date seriously. Just imagine how prompt on the date if he or she is getting ready to have an extra marital affair, compared to an affair with a spouse taking a back seat. Both husband and wife starts to position their minds for intimacy --  igniting the fire of passion. On leaving work, the stage is set for the evening excitement and the kids are sent to grandparents or baby sitter -- getting rid of all obstacles on the way. Some couples may prefer to check in a local motel to change the monotony of the same bed, others may stop at a restaurant -- as if making a date with their spouse. 

By the time the cuddling, hugging and kissing start, any spouse truly committed to the marriage would have gotten rid of all other problems from work, friends, parents, or kids. Sometimes it is not easy, if a person has a problem and it is interfering with intimacy, professional help is needed. In most cases, actively getting rid of issues from a person's mind is enough to set the fire of erotic desire burning for the night instead of staring at the ceiling. By the time the couple enter the house, a stage is already set for a romantic adventure leading to kissing, taking bath together, and washing each other's back. On the bed, the excitement is fired up as the couple enter a stage of curdling playing and talking sexy to each other. Most experienced couples will follow this with a brief period of erotic massage of each other. By the time they arrive at a stage of physical sex, the headache has disappeared, all ridiculous excuses have vanished and the fire of erotica is burning wildly.

Granting that both husband and wife are working and such activities can not happen every night, a couple of times a week can be set aside for romance, making love and spending quality time with your spouse. This can be very therapeutic if the couple takes their relationship seriously and care about each other. Your spouse should always be your best friend or you married the wrong person!

Seven reasons given during the program for wives' lack of desires are lies! These are not reasons, but excuses which can be better defined as hindrances. When we define them as reasons, we have now created and validated more excuses why some women should avoid intimacy. Why is sex on vacation fun for some couples? Because the mind is out of the combating zone of stress and other challenges of life. Consequently, a mind set can be designed such as when on vacation to create that precious moment to be intimate with your spouse if you really care for each other.

The women on the show were not dealing with reality. Take the color of hair for example. How many of those women are real blondes. This may sound trivial, but this is the core of the problem of how we have created fictions, lies and fantasies. Later, we get lost in the shuffle and confuse fantasy with reality. In other words, most of those women are living a lie they created or is created by society. They are fooling themselves about the  fictitious image of what defines a sexy and erotic woman, but not  an intimately romantic wife. Even Christina Ferrare admitted to getting so carried away as a model selling sex that in the process she lost her sexuality -- because she was busy selling  a fictitious image in front of magazines!

The show implied that women fully understand men's sexuality. Men are not always chasing women for sex from bedroom to the bathroom for goodness sake! Why can't wives initiate romance if they take their relationship seriously? Just as most men are confused and ignorant about the female's romantic and sexual needs, so are many wives ignorant about their husbands' romantic and sexual needs. Similarly, individual women are sensorily wired differently for erotic stimulation, just as  men's sexual responses differ from that of women. It is one of the reasons why foreplay is very important to women. Men have to work hard to cover all these other unknown erogenous zones in women such as the back of the neck, side of the face, back of the thigh, waste, ankle, inside the ear, toes and the list of unusual spots continues! That is a big headache for men in itself -- it is like searching for something in the dark!

Most men have true sexual desire about two or three times a week and the desire is very short lived. On the other hand, women can retain sustained sexual desire mediated by hormonal level from morning till evening and still remain on fire -- most men's sex desires have already died hours later. Nature is not fair and women always have the upper hand when it comes to sex anyway. Otherwise Monica Lewinsky would never have gotten that far after exposing herself to the President! Men are always at the mercy of the panties! What else is new? Sometimes women want sex and pretend as if they don't want it, other times they don't want it and will pretend they want it so the husband can open his wallet. After she gets what she wants, she says she has headache and no sex tonight. How confusing! The poor husband crashes into depression laying next to the wife in bed and is finally rescued by sleep. This is the power of the panties in action -- it works all the time! Lord have mercy!

Because men receive so much rejection from women and men do not have an idea when women are going to accept the offer, they therefore ask women for sex more than men actually want it. Most of the time when women accept to do men sexual favors and drop the panties (so some wives sometimes think they are doing, or giving him some candies) the man's drive has already vanished. The subsequent sex with the wife is not as satisfying to the husband -- most women don't know this, they think each time a man has an erection, he can always have a satisfying sex. This is not true. If the wife is in the habit of accepting intimacy at the wrong times, the next time he gets sexually aroused, he calls his mistress who is always willing and waiting to please!  So, the man knows he will not get true romantic sex from the mistress because they may not be in love, but he will get a replacement with a damn good recreational sex from her. In most cases, the man tends to fall in love with the mistress and he drops his wife like he drops his shoes. Later, the scorned wife will call a news conference with her friends telling them what a horrible man she married and totally oblivious to how she contributed to the demise of the marriage -- and the divorce lawyer gets richer.

God is the solution to good sex -- is the most ridiculous garbage I have ever heard said by Christina Ferrare,  a model turned relationship specialist (so she thinks), because of a personal experience. She is the author of the book, "Okay, So I Don't Have a Headache." Men know that already! Who do you think you are kidding? Big men don't cry for sex -- they just call their mistresses!

God is a spiritual being and it is very blasphemous to humanize God because of the physical problems we humans created. It is important to stress that both a husband and a wife need to develop emotional closeness leading to emotional and romantic intimacy consequently helping to break from a life enshrouded with many misconceptions and lies. Later, a couple who is honest with each other opening to social and emotional intercourse will eventually discover the intimate and spiritual involvement with sexuality. However, this type of spiritual experience is different and at a different level from the one we have with our Creator. Please don't confuse the two!

Men want sex, while women want romance -- this was another lie that was portrayed in the show. It is as if all these wives envisage when thinking about sex with their husbands is the punishment the husband is waiting to dish out with his penis! The husband did not want her to "put out," but to share some intimate moments as a couple. Dedicated husbands who have been married to their wives for years will convince these wives that men love romance with sex. Sex is always much better when in love -- hopefully with your spouse.  Depression sometimes follows a man's orgasm with a strange women -- some wives don't know this!

Recreational sex is teenage sex because it is devoid of responsibility and obligations. Sometimes, some husbands including some wives will "screw out their frustration" by taking a new sex partner away from home. This is even more common during a fight within the marriage. Years ago, society created this lie that men are biologically different from women because men want more sex partners and women are only interested in romantic sex with their husbands. What a big lie? This notion is contrary to what we are seeing today. More working wives are dangerously taking up secret lovers to screw out their frustration in form of recreational sex.

In one situation, a husband called his angry wife at work apologizing for making her mad a night before. Since the wife earned more money than the husband, she immediately put herself in the position of power over her husband within the family.   Despite her husband's plea and begging for forgiveness, the wife remained angry. On her way home from work, she stopped over at her boyfriend's apartment to release her anger with sexual thrills. This appears to be a power struggle within the family and such behavior will eventually destroy the relationship. It is not a case of justified adultery as much as the exercise of human ego.

When husbands were engaging in recreational sex  outside the family years ago as a result of job stress and being away from home as salesmen on the road, the wives could not understand. "Men are just no good, period!" Now traveling saleswomen including over-worked and over-stressed wives and sometimes angry wives are doing just the same thing. Now, they want society to understand that some women may have more sexual appetite than men and at the same time refuse to make love to their husbands because they are angry! How ironic and how annoying? Perhaps a case for the need for female castration! Just kidding! In this respect, how is a woman's behavior different from that of a man in dealing with job stress and recreational desires? Isn't this the reason why more women are now smoking more than men and a hell lot more are in stress centers?

Explaining the Truth!

The issue being discussed on this particular Oprah show was seemingly about sex. But in reality, the show was not about sex, but about broken promises, dying passion and lack of romantic intimacy and commitment inside the marriage.

Many of the wives on the show had serious psychological problems which needed immediate  psychotherapy sessions. Just because a person feels one way does not make it right. Some times we feel like killing people who make us angry! Does that make it right? Sadly, we want to validate every crazy feeling crafted by women for not wanting to do something and we want to say, it is okay just because they are women. No, damn it! It is not okay! Your marriage bed is your responsibility and if you refuse to be intimate with your spouse, another woman may as well take him away from you! Husbands have been told for years by their fathers that if they refuse to take care of their wives' needs, other men would -- a case of justified adultery! (I'm sorry).

Some of the women created dramas for themselves as if a monster penetrated their minds and stole away their will to want intimacy with their husbands. A person can be a master of his or her own destiny. Similarly, anybody can create his or her own reality and live it, just the same way nonsense fiction can be created to replace common sense. A marriage is not an isolation. It is a joint venture between two people. Caring for a spouse is not to watch him or her suffer or bleed to death during the time of crisis, but to help nurture and Band-Aid his or her wounds. If you care enough for your spouse, you will  try and in most cases able to meet critical needs.

A real psychotherapist was missing from the show. If a psychotherapist or a sex therapist was included in the show, it could have made a big difference instead of women sitting down and massaging each other's ego about how wonderful it is to say no to your husband tonight. Most men's problem with impotence have been associated with psychological problems. Similarly, most of the wives' lack of desire is associated with the same thing. Even in unusual cases of real biological problems, couples can gradually work their way towards sexual satisfaction if they are willing. Paraplegic husbands or wives learn to overcome physical obstacles and later are able to build fulfilling romance and satisfying sex with their spouses. To some people, it is a lot of work to be creative about loving, therefore, they will rather shut down intimacy than work on the problems.

Women do not handle job stress well. Part of the side effects of the women's liberation movement besides some good outcomes is the increase in job stress many women encounter on the job due to downsizing today. Undoubtedly, many men have been displaced from some jobs because of the increase number of women in the job force. However, many of these women are not used to dealing with this type of stress -- the result is a disaster in raising children and another disaster in the bedroom. But people do not want to deal with the issue because making money for some women is another way to re-event themselves partly for ego gratification. Most women working full time job can live a comfortable life working part-time while their husbands work full time. Today, the stress centers including massage parlors that used to be filled with men are now flooded with women after work.

Women express emotions different from men. There is a major psychological difference between the ways women express some emotions compared to the ways men express emotions. Partly cultural, and partly biological, the intensity of women's emotional responses to problems differ from that of men. Society expects women to cry showing more emotions while men learn to crush the anger within. Women's emotional expression is influenced and in some cases amplified by the levels of hormones at different times of the month. A woman can respond with tears and smile to exactly the same situation at different stages of her hormonal cycle. Most women have these all-or-none responses to situations primarily because these responses become outlets for stress release. For example, a husband can have a fight with his wife and jump in bed  to be ready for  a romantic adventure with his spouse a few minutes later. For most women, they are still agonizing over the fight and the result is no sex for that night. At this time,  they resort to the strategy of  "I have a headache" lie. Most husbands know their wives don't have headache, they are just still pissed!  Who are you kidding, husbands are not that dumb!

Men find it very disturbing when women cry over a piece of  broken nail or when the husband buys a wrong birthday present, or wrong color of blouse. Women who cry over dying trees are not necessarily crazy, they are ventilating their stored emotions over unrelated issues intensified by hormonal level to the wrong outlet. She probably don't give a damn about the dying tree as much as she needed to cry for stress release over the issues causing her unhappiness. In most cases, she would remain in denial and discuss about the dying tree instead! The good thing is, she feels better after the therapeutic tears. So, many times men are confused as to the reason for a women's lack of satisfaction and the most annoying thing is the same women telling the men they themselves don't know why.

Some women are using sex as a form of empowerment. On this Oprah Winfrey show, look at the wife who had her nose in the air while her husband was weeping because she refused to have sex with him. This is the solid evidence that some wives are using sex as a form of empowerment due to selfishness. Years ago, when the same woman was doing house work, she could not wait for her husband to come home from work. Now that she has replaced the "expectation of her husband coming home" with her professional ego gratification, she only wants to have sex when she wants it. Due to her selfishness, she does not care about the husband's sexual needs anymore. And the poor husband has to put up with this? The weeping husband was probably not crying because of sex, he was crying because of lack of  romantic intimacy between himself and his wife and the emotional detachment it created hurts! It is like living with a stranger. That was the reason he said he loved his wife as a person, but he was no longer in love with her because the man felt rejected. So wives, when you turn your husband down for sex, using that "stupid headache excuse," it is not having sex which hurts as much as the rejection! 

Some wives have requested to their husbands to find a lover outside the relationship to relieve them of their marital sexual obligation. What they don't realize is the sex with a stranger, called recreational sex is not as satisfying, nurturing, comforting and pleasing as sex with somebody you truly love with both emotional and fellowship investment. Some husbands can crank up an erection for any strange female but depression usually follows such an orgasm due to the emptiness of the physical adventure.

Why punishing him for bad relationships of the past. Inadvertently, some wives derive satisfaction from punishing their present husbands for the crime of past lovers or the sexual abuse suffered from home. With an abuser, she had no power, but with a nice and kind loving husband, it was time for revenge. The old saying is still true, women don't like nice guys, that is why nice guys always get laid last! Only heaven knows why!

Some wives engage in token sex -- pissing off their husbands. It's like this, "You behave yourself today little man -- do a little house work, or baby-sit our kids and you will be rewarded with a piece of candy I have inside my panties." Most husbands got angry and find prostitutes than go on their knees begging for sex! What a humiliating experience!

Solutions

The solution to lack of intimacy in a marriage is very simple. Every husband and wife must take the marriage intimacy as important as the job that brings home money. Prioritizing romance, not sex in a marriage is very important. They must find a time to play. Orgasm has a very powerful and therapeutic value within a marriage -- it keeps people from going nuts! Neutral zones should be created for each person to be human without bringing any emotional baggage from work or elsewhere.

The same way couples design and create neutral zones to discuss sensitive problems without creating a need for igniting defense mechanisms is the same way a couple has to develop neutral zones to enrich romance within the relationship. If either refuses to take intimacy very important within the marriage, or refuse to seek help, then a permission has been granted for the other spouse to get his or her satisfaction elsewhere. This is not to encourage extramarital affairs, but to highlight the consequences of behavior that may result due to a spouse's foolishness. Passively granting permission for a spouse to find a new lover pending the time she turns around may be a convenient solution for some wives. However, they should think about the possibility of the other woman totally seducing her husband's passion away from the wife, and eventually leading to a divorce. Perhaps, this painful outcome will wake some wives up about their intimate responsibility in the marriage bed. Just like the old saying, "Women always drop their panties where they can feed because of money,"    -- men too sometimes ignite passion and romance where they can get good sex.

Wives need to stop lying to themselves and frankly discuss their romantic, intimate and sexual needs with their husbands. If there is a "fear of intimacy," a professional help is needed to sort out the problems and psychotherapy will help to heal the wounded soul instead of blaming it on one person or thing. So, stop lying and carrying on with all that fakeness! Be real!

Sometimes hot passionate desire for sex grows cold in a relationship, but the fire can be re-ignited as a couple work together trying variety of things to keep them interested. Husband and wife must stay tuned to each other's needs, "good sex is not for rookies" there is a lot of sexual and romantic manuals including video tapes out there to help. Husband, if  your wife is really cold in bed, send her to a professional and licensed massage parlor and let her be pampered with a full body massage by a person of her choice. By the times she leaves the massage parlor, the husband is better waiting in the car outside because his wife's body will light up like a Christmas tree! If she is too shy to go to a massage parlor, bring the massage to her at home -- some massage parlors are making house calls today.

Marriage is more than just legal physical sex. It involves the friendship between the couple, commitment to deflate ego, processes of relating to each other and the need for the development of emotional intimacy to nurture each other. For God's sake what's the matter with these women!

Get rid of baggage, lies and unrealistic images created based on vanity perpetuated by society. When we submerge ourselves in all kinds of lies and unrealistic expectations, dealing with the real person becomes difficult, and truths becomes elusive. The blonde hair doesn't make a beautiful woman, not all men prefer blonde, and true beauty comes from within -- not from the crazy hair-do! What women don't realize is that, as soon as some men see the fake blonde hair and fake boobs some of them immediately assume they are dealing with a fake or plastic woman. The excessive superficiality of human nature stuck with the physical precludes us from reaching out for the real person inside -- just like Iyanla Vanzant implied at the Los Angeles BookExpo on Sunday, May 2, 1999.

Wives should not try to be like anybody else -- image or model, they should be themselves.  Pamper the real person inside you and forget about all these superficial being created inside your heads. The fictitious images create the madness many wives have to embrace leading to disappointments. Everybody is never going to be as rich as Oprah -- you better forget it now and be real! Walk on your own journey of life, get in touch with your spirituality and Creator, find internal serenity, peace and happiness and embrace the unique being within, not what somebody else wants you to be.

Good sex starts with a good and intimate communication between a married loving couple who care about one another, and are each other's best friends. Don't do me a favor spouse, our sex life is both our responsibility! Marriage is a commitment from the hearts not from the legal paper or the diamond ring.

"If I truly care about you and if you are truly my friend, together we cannot only able to lift mountain, we can also find true happiness in a marriage with honest and true commitment." --- 'Yinka Vidal, author of the books: Overcoming the Invisible Crime and MOLESTED -- Sins of Her Parents.

Article by 'Yinka Vidal

OUTCRY Magazine, May, 1999.