5 ms·

It seems rather insensitive to ruminate on future men's loss of sex because of sexual abuse. Perhaps the men in these sexless relationships should analyze if t

It seems rather insensitive to ruminate on future men's loss of sex because of sexual abuse. Perhaps the men in these sexless relationships should analyze if they are capable of sustaining this relationship, considering sex is so important to them and they are not receiving it. This entire comment does not consider the women's suffering and loss in any capacity due to abuse. Maybe it is the case that a similar complete lack of consideration is present in the perpetrators of abuse.

PaulHoule 5y ago
I don't know where you get that. The suffering of the woman is real. So is the suffering of the man. It only adds and doesn't subtract. I don't need to reiterate on the suffering of the woman because that is described very well in the article (which i posted!) You're being insensitive, treating me as a man the way that a black person might get treated in the 1950s south USA. Sexual pleasure is one of the great things about being alive in this world. If that was destroyed for a woman by female circumcision you would see that as a bad thing. If circumstances did the same for a man it is not any different. A man in a situation like that will get told to "leave" and that is not a good answer for many. For one there are many other kinds of love and a person in that kind of relationship might be able to give and receive all of the other kinds of love except for that. So many people try "serial monogamy" and it so often ends in tears. In terms of sexuality a man like that might be satisfied by a woman with average sexual responsiveness or even a standard deviation below the mean. That person is easy to find, but be much more difficult to find somebody who has all the other good traits of the current partner. A man like that might have strong loyalty and also feel that their current partner deserves to be loved in all the ways they are able to receive it even if their partner can't receive it. Their partner shouldn't be rejected and left alone because they were victimized in this past An obvious answer is polyamory and the women might well be accepting of that but if you were the kid who was bullied in school and then rejected, made invisible, and then suffered years of self-doubt because of somebody else's crime succeeding at polyamory can look like climbing a mountain. A woman can be very insensitive about this because a woman who wants a sexual relationship, snap their fingers, and get it. Some men who want that can get it easily but most can't. There is a huge focus on a small population of men who are abusive, attractive, rich or some combination, the experience of the vast majority of men is invisible.
- atombum 5y ago
  You're not necessarily wrong but it just doesn't feel like the right context to share this perspective, given the subject matter of the OP. This comes off as extremely insensitive and tone deaf to me.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    Check your privilege. Don't assume that I'm automatically insensitive because I am a male. I was the person who submitted this article! I wasn't planning to say anything about my own situation when I posted it, I felt embarrassed to do so, but also compelled when I saw other people with a viewpoint like yours write vicious insensitive comments that I felt compelled to speak up about. (I wound up posting to the main thread because the comment was deleted) There is nothing hypothetical about this scenario, it is one that I am living. I have stuck with my wife through thick and thin and I am completely dedicated and want to grow old with her. There are members of my extended family (who I love and am proud to know and would hate to be separated as much as I would from my wife) who had the same experience and suffered dramatically. Men are continuously told that we need to open up emotionally (my mother-in-law felt that way about her otherwise upstanding husband) but we're always wary that it is another cruel trap where we get punished for showing emotions.
  - elboru 5y ago
    He is OP
hnarayanan 5y ago
Thank you for stating this.
PaulHoule 5y ago
It's not in the "future", it is a lived reality of many men and women today because of something that happened in the past. Some women can be high functioning in every other aspect of their life and be rather well adjusted to being asexual. In theory a woman could benefit from several years of therapy and hard inner work but it is going be much less fruitful if they are doing it because of somebody else. A man can be completely dedicated and loving towards a woman who isn't responsive, want to grow old with them, be giving love in many ways and be very willing to give more and very motivated to work towards change but face the reality that anything they do is "pushing on a string" It's a cruel reality that Aella's sexuality is worth $103,000 a month but that a man's sexuality is worth negative. A man who comes clean in public about their experiences and feelings inevitably attracts insensitive comments and abuse simply because of their gender. It is one of the many double binds that we face that we're told on one hand that we're supposed to open up emotionally but we get consistently punished when we do so.
pessimizer 5y ago
I disagree. If the men are doing what you suggest, and find that they aren't capable of committing to a sexless lifetime and leave, that's even more misery heaped on the victim of abuse. Pretending like one pain cancels another out is counterproductive. Pain causing pain doesn't just stop there, it's nonlinear. Also suggesting that someone is basically an abuser for mentioning the pain of the families of abused people is more than counterproductive, it's gross.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  I posted this article and it's an issue I became aware of because of my personal connection. I know it is a lot bigger than the suffering I've felt. Although I think the experience of ordinary men is invisible and often systematically erased (such as by people like the one you are replying to) I am not going to say that the paper omits the impact that sexual abuse has on partners because the kind of longitudinal study that paper is doing is stupendously difficult. (Read it and they'll tell you why!) Anything that hurts one person's mental health has an extended effect on the community. If a sexual abuse victim flakes out at work because of mental health issues that hurts their employer. She might well cause suffering to her female friends. I've also seen that a woman's ability to enjoy pleasure in her own body or with other woman as a lesbian can also be impaired because of sexual abuse. A study like that can only scratch at the surface of what a crime like that does to society as a whole.
  - greenonions 5y ago
    Indeed the suffering from abuse can reach everyone around them. And the suffering of partners is very real, as a loving intimate relationship is one of life's great joys. I suppose that I was struck by the above comment mostly because it is so focused on the suffering of abused women's partners as to be jarring in the context of the OP. These sensibilities are my own however, and I should not judge so hastily
    - PaulHoule 5y ago
      Thanks for the recognition!
908B64B197 5y ago
> It seems rather insensitive to ruminate on future men's loss of sex because of sexual abuse. > This entire comment does not consider the women's suffering and loss in any capacity due to abuse. It doesn't indeed. Because pain isn't a zero-sum game. At a funeral, the grief of a friend doesn't take anything away from the grief of the widow.
Der_Einzige 5y ago
Dudes who leave sexless marriages are really hurting their partner financially, emotionally, and mentally, so the idea that doing this is not "considering the woman" is asinine.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  I'm not naturally inclined to say good things about Focus on the Family and Christian therapists but after 20 years of suffering with this I came across a YouTube video by a Christian therapist who said point blank that if you are suffering in a sexless marriage almost certainly your partner was a victim of abuse. I spoke to my wife about this one sleepless night and she said "well, are you really ready to hear about it?" Conventional therapists do the ordinary thing they do with a high failure rate. So often I see couples who are acting really cute doing the things they were told to do in couples therapy then I come around a few months they are depressed and I can swear I can smell a dead rat somewhere in the apartment. Next time I hear they broke up. Conventional therapists think that is par for the course. Christian therapists think that means the devil wins and they see it as a personal failure, so they try harder. I know nothing about the person who you are replying to but I can only image she's part of a throwaway culture were it is normal to abandon people because they aren't meeting your needs at this very moment and I have no idea if she's experienced the kind of deep attachment to another person that is possible, or that a mature person can be deeply frustrated in a situation but also be 100% committed to their family. As much as I've been angry and sad, understanding this situation has only deepened my relationship and increased my commitment even though I am planning to take actions that the Christian therapists would completely disapprove of.

PaulHoule 5y ago

I don't know where you get that. The suffering of the woman is real. So is the suffering of the man. It only adds and doesn't subtract. I don't need to reiterate on the suffering of the woman because that is described very well in the article (which i posted!) You're being insensitive, treating me as a man the way that a black person might get treated in the 1950s south USA. Sexual pleasure is one of the great things about being alive in this world. If that was destroyed for a woman by female circumcision you would see that as a bad thing. If circumstances did the same for a man it is not any different. A man in a situation like that will get told to "leave" and that is not a good answer for many. For one there are many other kinds of love and a person in that kind of relationship might be able to give and receive all of the other kinds of love except for that. So many people try "serial monogamy" and it so often ends in tears. In terms of sexuality a man like that might be satisfied by a woman with average sexual responsiveness or even a standard deviation below the mean. That person is easy to find, but be much more difficult to find somebody who has all the other good traits of the current partner. A man like that might have strong loyalty and also feel that their current partner deserves to be loved in all the ways they are able to receive it even if their partner can't receive it. Their partner shouldn't be rejected and left alone because they were victimized in this past An obvious answer is polyamory and the women might well be accepting of that but if you were the kid who was bullied in school and then rejected, made invisible, and then suffered years of self-doubt because of somebody else's crime succeeding at polyamory can look like climbing a mountain. A woman can be very insensitive about this because a woman who wants a sexual relationship, snap their fingers, and get it. Some men who want that can get it easily but most can't. There is a huge focus on a small population of men who are abusive, attractive, rich or some combination, the experience of the vast majority of men is invisible.

atombum 5y ago
You're not necessarily wrong but it just doesn't feel like the right context to share this perspective, given the subject matter of the OP. This comes off as extremely insensitive and tone deaf to me.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  Check your privilege. Don't assume that I'm automatically insensitive because I am a male. I was the person who submitted this article! I wasn't planning to say anything about my own situation when I posted it, I felt embarrassed to do so, but also compelled when I saw other people with a viewpoint like yours write vicious insensitive comments that I felt compelled to speak up about. (I wound up posting to the main thread because the comment was deleted) There is nothing hypothetical about this scenario, it is one that I am living. I have stuck with my wife through thick and thin and I am completely dedicated and want to grow old with her. There are members of my extended family (who I love and am proud to know and would hate to be separated as much as I would from my wife) who had the same experience and suffered dramatically. Men are continuously told that we need to open up emotionally (my mother-in-law felt that way about her otherwise upstanding husband) but we're always wary that it is another cruel trap where we get punished for showing emotions.
- elboru 5y ago
  He is OP

hnarayanan 5y ago

Thank you for stating this.

PaulHoule 5y ago

It's not in the "future", it is a lived reality of many men and women today because of something that happened in the past. Some women can be high functioning in every other aspect of their life and be rather well adjusted to being asexual. In theory a woman could benefit from several years of therapy and hard inner work but it is going be much less fruitful if they are doing it because of somebody else. A man can be completely dedicated and loving towards a woman who isn't responsive, want to grow old with them, be giving love in many ways and be very willing to give more and very motivated to work towards change but face the reality that anything they do is "pushing on a string" It's a cruel reality that Aella's sexuality is worth $103,000 a month but that a man's sexuality is worth negative. A man who comes clean in public about their experiences and feelings inevitably attracts insensitive comments and abuse simply because of their gender. It is one of the many double binds that we face that we're told on one hand that we're supposed to open up emotionally but we get consistently punished when we do so.

pessimizer 5y ago

I disagree. If the men are doing what you suggest, and find that they aren't capable of committing to a sexless lifetime and leave, that's even more misery heaped on the victim of abuse. Pretending like one pain cancels another out is counterproductive. Pain causing pain doesn't just stop there, it's nonlinear. Also suggesting that someone is basically an abuser for mentioning the pain of the families of abused people is more than counterproductive, it's gross.

PaulHoule 5y ago
I posted this article and it's an issue I became aware of because of my personal connection. I know it is a lot bigger than the suffering I've felt. Although I think the experience of ordinary men is invisible and often systematically erased (such as by people like the one you are replying to) I am not going to say that the paper omits the impact that sexual abuse has on partners because the kind of longitudinal study that paper is doing is stupendously difficult. (Read it and they'll tell you why!) Anything that hurts one person's mental health has an extended effect on the community. If a sexual abuse victim flakes out at work because of mental health issues that hurts their employer. She might well cause suffering to her female friends. I've also seen that a woman's ability to enjoy pleasure in her own body or with other woman as a lesbian can also be impaired because of sexual abuse. A study like that can only scratch at the surface of what a crime like that does to society as a whole.
- greenonions 5y ago
  Indeed the suffering from abuse can reach everyone around them. And the suffering of partners is very real, as a loving intimate relationship is one of life's great joys. I suppose that I was struck by the above comment mostly because it is so focused on the suffering of abused women's partners as to be jarring in the context of the OP. These sensibilities are my own however, and I should not judge so hastily
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    Thanks for the recognition!

908B64B197 5y ago

> It seems rather insensitive to ruminate on future men's loss of sex because of sexual abuse. > This entire comment does not consider the women's suffering and loss in any capacity due to abuse. It doesn't indeed. Because pain isn't a zero-sum game. At a funeral, the grief of a friend doesn't take anything away from the grief of the widow.

Der_Einzige 5y ago

Dudes who leave sexless marriages are really hurting their partner financially, emotionally, and mentally, so the idea that doing this is not "considering the woman" is asinine.

PaulHoule 5y ago
I'm not naturally inclined to say good things about Focus on the Family and Christian therapists but after 20 years of suffering with this I came across a YouTube video by a Christian therapist who said point blank that if you are suffering in a sexless marriage almost certainly your partner was a victim of abuse. I spoke to my wife about this one sleepless night and she said "well, are you really ready to hear about it?" Conventional therapists do the ordinary thing they do with a high failure rate. So often I see couples who are acting really cute doing the things they were told to do in couples therapy then I come around a few months they are depressed and I can swear I can smell a dead rat somewhere in the apartment. Next time I hear they broke up. Conventional therapists think that is par for the course. Christian therapists think that means the devil wins and they see it as a personal failure, so they try harder. I know nothing about the person who you are replying to but I can only image she's part of a throwaway culture were it is normal to abandon people because they aren't meeting your needs at this very moment and I have no idea if she's experienced the kind of deep attachment to another person that is possible, or that a mature person can be deeply frustrated in a situation but also be 100% committed to their family. As much as I've been angry and sad, understanding this situation has only deepened my relationship and increased my commitment even though I am planning to take actions that the Christian therapists would completely disapprove of.