"My partner prefers masturbation" - body+soul

"My partner prefers masturbation" - body+soul

Is it normal for loved-up men to prefer masturbation over sex with their partner? Dr Grabrielle Morrissey discusses.

(Q) I have been in a relationship with my partner
for two two years. We had a healthy sexual relationship when the
relationship started but lately his preference has been masturbation to
the point of staying up after I go to bed so he can do the deed. I have a
healthy sex drive and have spoken to him about the dissatisfaction I am
feeling. Is it normal for men to prefer masturbation over sex with
their partner? Am I being unreasonable?



(A) You're
not being unreasonable and you're probably feeling confused, rejected
and hurt, to name a few emotions that would be natural in this
situation. Two years into a relationship is not long and the passionate
side should still be thriving. Research shows the initial intense 'lust
phase' of a relationship, mostly fueled by our sexual bio-chemicals,
isn't designed to last more than eighteen months before it cools off.
But that doesn't mean that by two years your sex life should have
fizzled to the point of dissatisfaction, as in your case. We never match
the same kind of crazy obsessive sexual chemistry as when two people
first discover each other in the beginning stages of a relationship, but
a couple, with some investment, this should remain hot and excited for
years together.



Research indicates that "great sex" revolves
around feeling connected, rather than any one physical technique. In
your current situation there is a definite lack of connection between
you two, not just in your sex life, but in your communication. How can
you change the pattern in your intimacy if you can't get through to each
other about your feelings?



The way you are communicating about
your dissatisfaction clearly isn't working because it hasn't brought
about satisfactory change. In a healthy relationship partners want each
other to be happy, so if it's clear that they aren't generally a genuine
effort is made to work together to fix the issue so that both partners
can get back to being happy together again.



Rather than focus on
the dissatisfaction you are feeling yourself, try to explore with him
what's triggering his dissatisfaction with your sex life.



What
does he account for the shift from a great sexual relationship to now,
the preference to act as a single man and self service himself? Ask him
if he feels the distance and disconnection between you also, and if he'd
like to work on reigniting the intimacy. If you can reconnect as a
couple in your communication and time spent outside the bedroom, the
distance won't feel so great and it will be much easier to initiate sex
between you. Build up to this by spending more romantic time together.



If
you create shared experiences together that feel good and enable you to
feel closer, that will translate into the bedroom. If it doesn't, then
you know there is a hiccup or obstacle to your intimacy as a couple that
needs deeper investigation and analysis to unearth what is wrong and
how you can then fix it. This may require more honesty, and guided by a
counselor can be very successful. Do not be surprised at how issues that
seemingly have nothing to do with your sex life project themselves into
your sexual intimacy and manifest there. While many couples engage in
masturbation together and separately, it's not healthy for it to replace
shared mutual pleasure to the extent that one partner remains
dissatisfied, even after communicating about it. It's not only
reasonable how you feel, it's essential that you do something about
changing it.



Discover more from our sex and relationship expert Dr Gabrielle Morrissey here.

Find out more about Dr Gabrielle Morrissey.

Breakdown of traditional family means two million over-40s will face old age alone | Mail Online

Breakdown of traditional family means two million over-40s will face old age alone | Mail Online

• Study predicts one in ten over-60s will live solitary lives by 2033
• Suggests German scheme where older people 'adopt' grandchildren
• IPPR warns development could have major effect on Britain's care bill

By
Jason Groves

Published:
09:58 AEST, 24 April 2014

|
Updated:
17:21 AEST, 24 April 2014

0

View

comments

Two million over-40s will face
‘chronic loneliness’ in their old age because of the breakdown of
traditional families, a report warns today.

Despite
‘significant falls’ in the number of pensioners living in poverty, many
face a bleak retirement, according to the Institute for Public Policy
Research (IPPR).

The
situation is so stark that the report suggests copying a German scheme
where older people with no children, or whose families live far away,
are encouraged to ‘adopt’ grandchildren raised in single parent families
to help them in old age.

+3

As divorce among the middle-aged soars, the Institute of Public Policy Research warned of chronic loneliness

The study predicts that
the number of over-60s will soar from five million to 20 million by the
year 2033. Of these, around one in ten will be leading chronically
lonely lives.

‘Longer life
expectancy, the breakdown of extended families and the growing number of
older people living alone is making it harder for older people to
sustain strong relationships and connections to community life,’ the
report says.

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‘On current projections it can be expected that nearly two million people will be experiencing chronic loneliness by 2033.

‘This
includes over 800,000 people in their 80s and 90s who typically have
mobility problems that make it hard for them to stay active.

‘We
are not doing enough in Britain to ensure that this rapidly growing
group of people has the necessary opportunities to sustain their
relationships and take part in activities that give meaning to their
lives.’

The IPPR says the development will have major consequences for Britain’s social care bill unless action is taken. 

+3

The study warned the number of over-60s will soar to 20 million by 2033 - and one in ten will live alone

It warns that ever more older people will
become dependent on the state for care as they lose touch with family
members who might once have helped them lead more independent lives.

The study predicts the number of older
people in need of care will outstrip the number of family members able
to provide unpaid help for the first time in 2017.

By
2030, an estimated 230,000 older people in England who need more than
20 hours a week of care will be left without relatives to help.

The
report stresses that older people are not just recipients of care –
they are also among the main providers. The number of people providing
significant care for an ageing spouse is forecast to rise by 90 per cent
by 2030.

It suggests that
Britain should follow the lead of countries such as Germany and
Australia in building greater alternative care provision for the future.

Authorities
in Berlin are encouraging the childless to ‘adopt’ grandchildren from
single parent families in the hope they may look after them in old age.

+3

Elderly people are being advised to 'adopt' grandchildren following schemes set up in Germany

The state-backed scheme
helps people find suitable families who have children under ten. In many
cases, children have lost contact with their own grandparents who may
live far away.

Their new ‘grandparents’ socialise with the family and may help with things such as babysitting.

Some
480 matches have been made to date, with many of the youngsters keeping
in touch with their adoptive grandparents into adulthood.

In Western Australia, each community has a dedicated ‘neighbourhood care co-ordinator’ who looks out for those living alone.

Clare
McNeil, of the IPPR, urged the Government to take action to prevent  a
care crisis, saying: ‘The supply of unpaid care to older people with
support needs by their adult children will not keep pace with future
demand.’

#1 Living in a Feminist, Man-Hating Matriarchy - part 1 of 5

Amy Webb: How I hacked online dating

#1 Living in a Feminist, Man-Hating Matriarchy - part 1 of 5

Feminism: Recipe for slavery (1 of 8)

Feminism: Recipe for slavery (1 of 8)

Why I'm Anti-Feminist and why Feminism does NOT equal equality (mirror)

A Feminist's Dream Date

Maybe Men Cheat Because They Love Their Partners -

Maybe Men Cheat Because They Love Their Partners -:


An insane idea? Mark McCormack thinks otherwise. “Can men and women ever be just good friends?” This question has long been a staple of women’s magazines, self-help books, and day-time television shows. And as conservative morality lessens, inspiring a culture of ‘hooking up’ particularly among young people, the question has fresh relevance. As highlighted by the film Friends with Benefits, where Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis collide (passionately and repeatedly) in search of sexual satisfaction without commitment, contemporary culture is throwing up a host of scenarios where the question can be asked with renewed zeal. Yet the question belies an aggravatingly simplistic understanding of men, women, sex and love. Ignoring the assumption that all men and women are heterosexual, it is problematic because it conflates emotional closeness with sexual passion. While a seemingly innocuous question about the tribulations of heterosexual friendship, its implicit beliefs are that sex has to be emotionally-charged and that romantic love is necessarily sexual. If you like her, you must want to fuck her. And while Hollywood, Disney, and almost all of popular culture continue to promote this view of sex and love, increasing numbers of people are dissatisfied by its tenets—including those in open relationships and the majority of those who cheat. ♦◊♦ In the past, I resorted to just grumbling about the inanity of the question, bemoaning the simplistic understandings of sex, love, and the exclusion of sexual minorities from the mix. It was therefore with great joy that I read my friend’s new book that provides a brilliant analysis of sex, love and the human condition. The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love and the Reality of Cheating, by Professor Eric Anderson, offers a provocative exploration of sex and love, critiquing monogamy as a failed social institution that works to limit our sexual pleasure and restrict our ability to form long-lasting, loving relationships. While Professor Anderson’s main target is monogamy, the book resonated with me so powerfully because it draws on sociology and psychology, alongside several branches of science, to demonstrate the problems of conflating sex and love. He provides an array of biological explanations as to why these men’s illicit desires are fundamentally natural, arguing that sexual desire is not biologically linked to emotional relationships, even if it can produce an emotional response. Anderson’s argument is that monogamy is a social ideal, and not a biological one. He shows that it normally comes at considerable cost, either through suppressing sexual desire or risking being caught cheating. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Anderson suggests that monogamy is an irrational ideal because it fails to provide a lifetime of sexual fulfilment. Cheating becomes the rational response to an irrational situation. Of course, one of the main reasons for this conflation of sex and love is precisely to keep monogamy in its hallowed place. For without the idea that sex is necessarily an emotionally-imbued act, the reasons to stick with just one sexual partner fall away. Academic feminists have long highlighted the links between monogamy and misogyny (arguing that monogamy has historically been about the possession of women), and rather than rehearse the same arguments, Anderson highlights how monogamy also does not work for men. He argues that just as we would grow bored of the same food day after day, and just as we need more than one friend to keep us emotionally secure and intellectually stimulated, our mammalian bodies need multiple sexual partners to remain sexually satisfied. This is why couples have less and less sex the longer they are together, even though women’s sexual appetite peaks in their mid-30s. Anderson shows that sex dies as love grows and his argument matters because many couples view this decline in sex as evidence of a problem in a relationship, rather than a natural phenomenon of monogamous sexual relationships. ♦◊♦ Anderson also charts how society is beginning to understand the problems with monogamy, arguing that the requirements of what it means to be monogamous changes over time: from not masturbating in the 1950s, to not thinking of another woman while masturbating, to not watching porn, to not kissing another woman, to some men today allowed to do no more than kissing another woman. From this historical perspective, the possibility of having multiple sexual partners while maintaining a committed emotional relationship looks closer than we might otherwise think. Indeed, it demonstrates the effects that a more expansive and open sexual morality has on socially-enforced institutions like monogamy. And it is at this stage that Anderson provides his most provocative argument: Men cheat because they love their partners. It is the ‘because’ that makes the statement so challenging. Yet Anderson’s argument is convincing: Intentionally focusing on younger men unburdened by marriage and parenthood, he argues that if these men did not love their partners, they could break up with them. Existing in the open sexual marketplace of university culture, and fuelled by high consumption of both alcohol and porn, these men do not need to be with their partners for access to sex (unlike undergraduates of past generations). In other words, if the 78% of university-attending men he interviewed who had cheated on their current partners did not love them, they would have left them. The logic, then, is clear—these men are with their girlfriends because of the emotional bond they share. Having undergone a rapid process of sexual habituation in a culture that is highly sexualized, it is men’s sexual dissatisfaction rather than any emotional one which propels them to have sex with others. Anderson’s argument is contrary to what we have been told by our parents, religion, and Disney, yet it is nonetheless compelling. And it also makes clear that yes, men and women can be ‘just friends.’ With the conflation between sex and love unpicked, the capacity for sexless friendship and emotion-free sex becomes apparent. I suggest that ‘friends with benefits’ is a further weakening of the dominant position of monogamy. While still removed from the anonymity of ‘hooking up,’ it is nonetheless a search for sexual satisfaction without emotional baggage. The next thing society has to learn is that emotional relationships can be stronger without the complications of sex, and certainly without the strictures of sexual fidelity. And it is for these reasons that Anderson’s book is a must-read for all those who feel strongly about sex, love, and monogamy. - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/maybe-men-cheat-because-they-love-their-partners/#sthash.JMG8jisA.dpuf

TheVine - Here's how often men and women masturbate - Life & pop culture, untangled

TheVine - Here's how often men and women masturbate - Life & pop culture, untangled



Previously: Why It's So Important To Master Masturbation

I have a vivid memory of a segment on Rove Live years
and years ago in which Clare Danes was given a hypothetical about if
she could bang any celebrity, who she'd choose, and her response was:
"What's wrong with self-love?" Maybe I'm remembering that wrong, but I
definitely remember thinking that's the coolest fucking thing I've heard on network television.

Masturbation
rules, although because of the Victorian hangover we're still slightly
nursing, we're still shouldering some shame as a society over the
one-handed watusi. To get to the root of our current attitudes, FiveThirtyEight, the numbers blog made famous when it predicted Obama's win in 2012, has done the dirty data.

FiveThirtyEight's
Mona Chalabi breaks down the National Survey of Sexual Health and
Behaviour, a study conducted by Indiana University and published in 2009
which is the “largest nationally representative study of sexual and
sexual-health behaviors ever fielded." So, pretty solid evidence,
basically. Here are the two relevant graphs:

The obvious takeaways offer perhaps obvious results: more men
have (or at least admit to having) masturbated than women, most
early-to-middle aged men do it "A few times a month to weekly" whereas
most women do it either "A few times a year to monthly" or "Not in the
past year." I primarily make a living typing about what Jack White is up
to, not crunching numbers, but it seems safe to conclude that the
numbers reflect the double standards applied to men and women about sex.FiveThirtyEight's
analysis is all about one letter writer's feelings of being abnormal.
Now look, normalcy is one thing, but here's an important reminder: if
it's not causing you or your partners physical or emotional problems,
you can pretty much scrub the tarmac, grease the fireman's pole, rub the
genie's lamp, or ride the two-knuckled bull as much as you want. Do
what makes you feel good! And it harm none, so mote it be.

Incidentally, it's National Masturbation Month. Do your part for the cause.

More at FiveThirtyEight.

Sexist comments aren't just private banter

Sexist comments aren't just private banter

Clementine Ford >>>
View more
articles
from Clementine Ford

Richard Scudamore.

A few days ago, I posted a story on my public Facebook page about a young disabled girl whose underarms had been forcibly shaved by a teacher.
A few hours later, I received a private message from a young man who
wasn’t a friend of mine, but who’d taken the time to pen the following
missive to me:

“Clementine Ford you’re an idiot. Women should shave
their armpit [sic], whether you like it or not it’s part of life. This
is the part where you will claim that women can make up their own mind
because their [sic] individuals because your [sic] a stupid feminist.
Seriously why don’t you argue for something which will actually improve
the society we live in instead of making attention grabbing headlines.”

I screencapped the photo and posted it directly onto my page
with a derisive comment about the young man’s elite private school.
Fairly or not, he was ridiculed for his grammar and rigid views on what
constitutes appropriate femininity. Within a few short hours, his
friends had descended on the page to defend their school against such
horrible charges of sexism by incorporating the language of horrible
sexism (feminists are ugly, women are stupid, I’m a ‘just a plain bitch’
etc - no, the irony was not lost on me). Among their objections were
the fact I’d shared what they called a ‘private’ message. It was unfair
and hypocritical of me to do this, they thought.

Embarrassing leaks: Snapchat co-founder and chief executive Evan Spiegel. Photo: Getty Images

I thought it was a pretty keen insight into the potential for
entitlement that’s felt by young men, especially those who attend
private schools which have a financial interest in reminding them at
every turn of their own superiority. The way these young prestigious
graduates saw it, they had every right to pop up privately to abuse
women, ridicule them and attempt to make them feel small while
simultaneously expecting to be protected from being subjected to such
treatment themselves.

Women, you see, are expected to absorb the impact of private
abuse lest they be accused of being just as bad if not worse as those
small, petty shits who take pleasure in imagining that the target of
their derision has been reduced to a quivering ball who’ll think twice
the next time she opens her mouth to speak.

It causes no small amount of fury then to watch as, once
again, people fall over backwards to excuse the behaviour of misogynist
men as either unintentional, humourous or - worse - ‘private’. A few
weeks ago, English Premier League's Chief Executive Richard Scudamore, was exposed in the British press as the kind of man who thinks it’s acceptable to,
among other things, refer to women as ‘gash’ and describe China’s one
child policy as a helpful solution to preventing women’s increased
irrationality after having children. Emails in which he’d used this
language were leaked by his former PA, Rani Abraham, who believed she
had a duty to speak out against Scudamore’s behaviour lest she be
complicit in condoning it.

Critics have been quick to argue that Abraham was wrong in
sharing Scudamore’s emails with the public, citing it as an invasion of
privacy. As Abraham points out, the emails weren’t stolen but sent using
Scudamore’s work account - an account she was responsible for
monitoring and whose frequent language could therefore arguably be
considered an ongoing example of sexual harassment.

But the privacy or lack thereof of Scudamore’s emails should be beside the point. As Sarah Ditum writes in the New Statesman,
“Every time the male degradation of women is classed as ‘private’, what
we are saying is that men’s loathing of women is something beyond our
scrutiny, something that cannot be challenged or discussed...If these
emails had been on any other topic, the idea of classing them as
‘private’ would be laughable; it’s only because they’re misogynistic that people are anxious to separate them from Scudamore’s public role.”

Scudamore heads up one of the most profitable businesses in
Britain, a country in which football and footballers are treated with
the reverence reserved for Olympian gods. Private emails or not, isn’t
it relevant that the Chief Executive to an organisation which has such a
huge influence on British culture thinks it’s okay to use
correspondence - whether professional or private - to refer to women as
‘gash’? Are we supposed to be reassured when misogyny is only practiced
privately instead of publicly?

The founder of Snapchat has faced similar judgments recently after emails he sent while at a fraternity at Stanford were leaked
on Valleywag. In the sordid exchanges, Evan Spiegel referred to
sorority women as ‘sororisluts’ and joked about urinating on one of
them. He now claims to be ‘mortified’ by the views he held as a freshman
and says they in no way reflect his view of women now. Well, that’s
great - but the fact is that misogyny still permeates on university
campuses and is practiced to such an extent that 1 in 4 women will be a victim of sexual assault during her academic career.

As embarrassing as Siegel might find it to now have the
repugnant views he held as a 19 year old old exposed for all the world
to see, why should he be given a free pass because we like to believe
that ‘boys will be boys’ especially when they’re young enough that we
can excuse them from knowing any better? Women are rarely given the same
leeway to make mistakes, with their behaviour instead being held
responsible for sexual assault, harassment or the simple inequality they
experience by ‘refusing to stand up for themselves’. And without
intervention, today’s young and impressionable misogynists become
tomorrow’s CEOs. Don’t want to be embarrassed by your grotesque
misogyny? Don’t be a grotesque misogynist.

The horrible events of the Isla Vista shootings have helped
shine a much needed light on the logical end point of misogyny and its
dehumanisation of women. But all violence occurs on a continuum, and
misogyny is no different. Dismissing the impact of what people would
like to view as ‘benign’ misogyny then isn’t just distressing - it’s
also dangerous. Now more than ever, it’s important to expose the
language and actions of misogyny, from its daily microagressions to its
more determined attempts to degrade and silence women. If that means
that a few men in privileged positions of power have to suffer the
embarrassment of having their views made public, so be it.

Because frankly, we’ve all been silent too long.