4 ms·
Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education. I knew a guy older than me who came of age in the hippie era. He had slept with a lot more people tha
by Mz 9y ago
Sex probably includes factors of better sexual education.
I knew a guy older than me who came of age in the hippie era. He had slept with a lot more people than me. He once said "TV channels stopped broadcasting at 9pm. There wasn't anything else to do after 9 o'clock at night besides sex and drugs."
You can now get TV and internet 24/7 and even in small towns you can sometimes find stores and eateries open at all hours. Also, I think historically people turned to sex to get certain emotional needs met that can now be met a variety of ways.
As one flippant example: These days, you can post selfies to get adoration from many internet strangers telling you how gorgeous you are. You don't necessarily need a sex life to get that kind of feedback. Back in the day, an ordinary person who was not a celebrity could not get something like that any way but from a sexual relationship.
In my marriage, we spent thousands of dollars on furniture because it was one of the few things we agreed on and, outside of sex, furniture shopping was about the only time I had his undivided attention. We could have saved scads of money if he had just been willing to have more of a goddamn relationship with his goddamn wife.
For that and other reasons, I have spent a lot of years thinking long and hard about the myriad different reasons people do things. And we just have a lot more options these days for getting some need met without sex that, at one time, we would have had sex to try to meet.
I don't think that's a bad thing.
- mercer 9y agoI agree that it's not a bad thing necessarily, but I think the increase in mental health issues and loneliness (which often go together) might in part be caused by this ability to get some of our needs met in ways that at best provide a surrogate for other or perhaps deeper needs. Looking at myself, for example, I can safely say that I'm a bit of a loner. But the truth is that I get a fairly decent amount of social interaction through the internet. In some ways this meets my needs better than real life: I can't think of any real-world 'community' quite like this one, for example. But in other ways it's become very clear to me, usually when I am forced to get out and be around people and suddenly realize how much I needed that kind of interaction, that my online communities are lacking in fundamental ways. I suppose porn is an even more concrete example of this. Another example would be the ridiculous amount of 'quality' shows/movies that offer a surrogate for experiencing relationships and places and events. The convenience I have of being able to stay at home and 'interact' with others in particular way, on my own terms, has the disadvantage that it requires me to know what is good for me and actively manage that, in the same way that the convenience of porn makes it easy for me to not bother 'grooming my feathers', so to speak, and heading out to meet potential mates. That's not to say any of these things are inherently bad, of course.
- Mz 9y agoI was much lonelier in my marriage than I have been since my divorce. This has been very eye opening. Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing and not necessarily even related. Loneliness is an unmet emotional hunger that is not automatically met by being around other people. Being lonely while not alone is a kind of hell that simply being alone does not begin to match. While married, I really thought I could never tolerate being single. But it turns out my marriage was emotionally vampiric and actively draining me of any ability to experience contentment. My post divorce experience has not gone remotely like I expected. It has been wonderfully better than the dystopian nightmare I had envisioned for so very long. Which is not a rebuttal of your remarks. Just some late night thoughts on the topic that hopefully add something to the conversation.
- da02 9y agoLooking back with hindsight, were there any signs he would not have been a good husband before getting married? Did any of your friends tried to warn you against getting married to him?
- Mz 9y agoLooking back, I made the best choice available to me in an imperfect world. He wasn't a bad husband, though I would have been happier if he had been more attentive.
- sigi45 9y agoWhy? Did she/him held you back from something you are doing now you didn't do before?
- wvh 9y agoSo your ex preferred sex over social contact with you, as the poster above mentions the use of pornography over social contact; and between the lines, you prefer a free social life over the dominance of sex (apart from other issues your marriage might have had). Sounds like a familiar source of contention... Without wanting to generalise individual needs, I wonder if men and women are having trouble bridging their differences now there is less pressure of being a married couple. I imagine that's a large factor in young people trying to stay independent for longer.