Your spouse mentions that you haven’t had sex in weeks. You’re not really in the mood but, hey, it has been a long time and you just don’t want to get into a thing about sex — again — so you give in. The person you’ve been seeing for a few weeks asks you to do a certain sex act; you’re uncomfortable with it, but you reluctantly agree to go along because you really want this relationship to work out. You got drunk at a college party and can’t make it home but you’re not sure you really want to sleep on the couch that you saw someone spill beer on earlier that night, so you cozy into the host’s bed thinking you might owe some action for “providing shelter.” 
Are you a man or a woman?
I’m thinking you answered correctly; most women would recognize themselves in those situations at least once, if not more, in their life. And the funny — or actually not so funny — thing about it is, women are constantly advised to have sex with their partner whether they’re interested in it or not.
Sex as relationship ‘investment’
Take psychotherapist and She Comes First author Ian Kerner’s post, Charity Sex vs. Pity Sex, on the Good in Bed blog:
You may be bristling at the phrase “charity sex.” If you’re a woman, perhaps it brings to mind past, award-worthy, faked orgasms. Or maybe it reminds you of that time you bit your tongue and had sex because you were sick of hearing him ask for it. If you’re a guy, you might be thinking, “better than nothing.” Or possibly, just possibly, you assume I’m referring to guilt-induced sex … the sort you engage in because you feel bad for not throwing your partner a bone lately … the sort you suffer through, only to feel resentment later on. But don’t equate charity sex with pity sex. Rather, see charity sex as a means of reestablishing a connection with your partner, and of making an important investment in your relationship. Think of it as a donation, rather than an assessment.
Samantha Rodman, aka Dr. Psych Mom, may be the only woman I’ve heard of who insists the same of men: “I truly believe with my whole heart that women should have sex when they don’t want to. Pick yourself off the floor and get ready to faint with shock again, because I THINK MEN SHOULD ALSO HAVE SEX WHEN THEY DON’T WANT TO.”
I generally don’t hear too many people advising men to give it up when they’re not in the mood, so kudos to her. And kudos to a gay guy on Thought Catalog for admitting that sometimes he’s not in the mood but he’s had sex anyway:
There have been times when I’ve had zero interest in having sex but I relent because I don’t want to let my partner down. WTF? Why can’t I just say, ‘I’m not in the mood’? Why do I feel like my dick gets chopped off when I say that? Women deal with a major set of pressures when it comes to having sex but men do as well.”
I don’t know if hetero men feel the same way. And, I’m pretty sure they aren’t being pressured by therapists and relationship experts to have sex when they’re not in the mood.
Often when our man isn’t in the mood, we gals tend to blame ourselves. As one woman writes in Elephant Journal, when a relationship with a boyfriend who had a much lower libido than hers ended, “for a long time afterwards, I felt I was largely to blame for the end of that relationship, and I lost one of the few men who loved me for me and wasn’t with me just to ‘get some.'”
Where were the advice columnists telling Mr. Low Libido to man up and fake it until he could make it, and give his woman some sexual pleasure?
Maybe we gals feel it’s our fault because some men actually think it is, which is what a CafeStir blogger found when she polled a bunch of guys.
And if he’s sexually bored, guess who’s advised to amp it up? Yeah, you know who.
Do you sense a familiar theme?
‘Thank you’ sex
But what was most disturbing to me was to discover in Lisa Wade’s new book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, how many young women feel that they owe a man sex because he paid for dinner or drove her home or because he was “providing shelter.”
Wade writes about Mara, a young woman whose girlfriends skipped out on her at a house party at which she drank too much and had no way to get home — clearly a bad situation. The party host offered to let her crash on the couch, but she’d seen someone spill beer on it earlier that night. “At this point it was very late,” she told Wade, “and I was very tired so I figured I just had to take my chances.”
Rather than sleep on the couch, she joined the party host in bed because, Wade writes, “she felt obligated to hook up with her host. In her mind, she owed him a hookup because he was ‘providing shelter.’ Sleeping on the couch was akin to having bad manners.”
Please just absorb that for a minute. A young man allowed her to sleep at his place and she believed it would better to offer her body — risking pregnancy and disease and perhaps self-esteem — rather than display bad manners (or, for that matter, sleep on a beer-soggy couch)?
I can’t help thinking that our efforts to “empower” (a word I hate, BTW) women has failed if a woman believes she has to give up her body to thank a man whose is doing something nice but not, you know, really going out of his way. It’s not like he had to struggle or suffer in any way — emotionally, physically, economically or all three — to make his couch be a reasonable bed substitute or, even, better, offer to sleep on the couch so she could sleep on his bed.
The idea of hookup culture — versus pleasurable casual sex — is disturbing. But more disturbing is the idea that women believe — and still are told — that we owe men sex.
We don’t. Not for a dinner, not for a drink, not for a ride home, not for a beer-soaked couch or a shared bed, not for any kindness. A heartfelt “thank you” or a reciprocal meal or drink is probably good enough.
And that thinking contributes to a society where men feel entitled to our bodies — to often horrific results (I’m thinking of Santa Barbara mass murderer Elliot Rodger).
Sex in relationships
While some couples are quite happy not having sex, most are not and an argument can be made that if you’re in a committed relationship and you’re not in the mood for sex for a length of time, well, OK — you might want to be open to exploring why; there’s probably a treasure trove of reasons, some complicated (a history of sexual abuse, religious upbringing, body shame, etc.) and some not (raising young kids, menopause, emotional labor, etc.). I don’t think it’s OK to let it continue without introspection and honesty; people who are stuck in a sexless marriage suffer, too.
But in times like this, when women’s reproductive rights are coming under assault, when men view women as “hosts” for babies and when even having access to contraception is threatened, it’s irresponsible and dangerous to tell women that they owe men sex — even if it’s “charity” sex to make an “investment in your relationship.” If that “investment” costs us our health, mental or physical, or results in a pregnancy we may not want, well, that’s a price we may want to pay.
Want to explore consensual non-monogamy? (Of course you do!) Read The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels (Seal Press). Order the book on Amazon.
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I only want to have a sexual encounter or relationship if it is mutual. If I have ever not been in the mood (it has actually happened on occasion) I have been okay with being talked into it. I have done without for long periods of time and finding a willing partner is not always easy, but the results are much better. I hope I have never made anyone feel obligated.
No woman owes me sex. However, if she is not hot for me and ready to hit the sack early on (say 2-3 dates) then there are plenty of others out there who will. That is the beauty of being single. You don’t have to put up with entitled, prudish behavior from women but if you are married you are stuck.
Since so many women out there (esp. American women) expect you to pay their way these days I don’t spend much money on them unless I am relatively certain I am going to get sex earlier rather than later. If they put out then they get wined and dined. If not, then: next, please!! 😉
Do woman owe men sex? Answer – No
Do woman who have married a man, restricted him to only having sex with her for the rest of his life, OWE their man a some effort to participate in sex once a week? Yes they damn well do. And if they don’t, a man does not owe his wife loyalty within the marriage. He does not owe her flowers, he does not owe her his time or respect. Successful marriages are based on loving your partner and having a desire to make them feel special and wanted. How wanted can a person (man or woman) feel when they make an intimate advance and it is always always met with excuses and rejection.
Men don’t owe women anything in marriage, not refraining from violence, not access to birth control, not help with the children, nothing. Men still don’t owe women anything in marriage. There is a reason this country is full of untested rape kits, that women kills their husbands usually get 20 years in jail and men who kill their wives often get a year or two of probation. There is a reason 70% of abusers get custody of the children in family court. (Yeah yeah I didn’t make it up to Google it.) This men don’t owe thejr wives time or respect is less of a shocking threat and more like a “well obviously”. Men owe their wives nothing and never did. Men still don’t. Successful marriages are based on keeping women pregnant and economically dependent to prevent women from filing for divorce. This is why conservatives oppose legalized abortion, access to birth control and equal pay or maternity leave and a social approach to childcare. As you say, a man who is rejected won’t feel wanted, and since he doesn’t have to waist time and respect in his wife she will probably leave him she can. Either he will abandon the kids, or they will work something out, outside of court, or he will get violent and accuse her of parental alienation and get custody and she will owe child support. (maternal alienation is documented, verified, researched scientific phenomenon, parental alientarion is a self published opinion price by a guy trying to normalize pediophelia…ago no seriously go look Richard Gardner quotes…I couldn’t make this stuff up really). Men owe women nothing either way.
WT actual F
Hell yeah! Women owe men sex.
….Hence the trend of just not getting married. Who wants to be with someone who thinks you owe them something? Fine all you guys voting YES. Just know that inside, your women resent the hell out of you.
Well, let’s make a deal, guys. Women will owe men sex when men give women pleasure. If men don’t give women pleasure, women don’t owe men sex. Women are entitled to sexual pleasure. If you don’t give us pleasure, we don’t have a desire for sex. So, give it up, guys (the pleasure, I mean).
If your man isnt pleasing you there are more problems than the lack of sex
You’ve heard of the orgasm gap. It’s not a newsflash that men aren’t pleasing their women sexually. Findings from the Cosmo Female orgasm survey show that women are losing out on orgasms in their long-term relationships with men and their men are not helping them get there (which means men aren’t giving us pleasure so we can have a chance to have an orgasm): Only 12% of men in their long-term relationships are giving their women orgasms from oral, 9% from manual stimulation and 2% from sex toy stimulation on our sex organs, our clits; a measly 23% of men in long-term relationships are touching their women’s sex organs and giving us orgasms. Meanwhile, a whopping 59% of women in their long-term relationships are masturbating themselves to orgasm (39% of women orgasm from their own hands or a sex toy and 20% orgasm during penetrative sex while stimulating their clits). How many men would put up with having to masturbate themselves every time they had partner sex? That was a rhetorical question. When women were asked why they didn’t orgasm during partner sex, 38% said it was from not enough clit stimulation and 35% said it was from not the right kind of stimulation (meaning that it felt good). Yes, there are more problems than the lack of sex. There is also a lack of pleasure given to us from our men. Instead of men complaining about their women not giving them enough sex, address the elephant in the room: Women aren’t getting enough pleasure out of sex to have a desire for sex. If you get little to no pleasure out of sex, you won’t have a desire for sex. Women don’t dislike sex but we get very, very bored of sex that doesn’t include our sex organs. And so would men if their sex organs were ignored during partner sex. Instead of complaining about a lack of sex or coming up with reasons/excuses for why women owe men sex, men should educate themselves about female arousal and pleasure. Put in the time and effort to learn how to touch a woman’s sex organ, her clit, so she can have some pleasure too. You reap what you sow. Ignore women’s pleasure and they won’t want sex. Give your women pleasure and they will have a desire for sex and will gladly return the pleasure to you.
On the topic of not owing another sex, I absolutely agree. But, You’re looking at too simplistic an understanding of what it means to withhold sex, and I suppose I’m more talking about the “in a relationship” version. And even though not sex, you do owe your partner something. When you take vows, when you agree to have an exclusive relationship, you are taking on the responsibility of your partners sexuality and giving them that same responsibility towards you, a stewardship if you will. It doesn’t mean that you owe them sex, it means that you owe them direct honesty should you decide to make a change to your involvement in the physical exchange of that sexuality. Should you come to a point that you no longer intend to continue a sex life with your dedicated partner and you are not direct about it, you absolutely are being manipulative, cruel, and a bit sick & twisted. It is extremely morally corrupt to expect a partner to live in some sort of faithful celibacy while you have abandoned the same vows that you tell them to abide by, I would call that coersed or forced celibacy. The ethical standards in abandoning your significant other sexually are troubling to begin with, but the ethical toilet of requiring said spouse to stay true to you in that abandonment is a very dark place to swim. Do remember that when you entered your relationship, you gave an impression of your intent in terms of your sexuality weather implied in action or verbally discussed. If you are going to make a notable change in that arena, you owe your partner an update to the arrangement (both in terms of the having and holding and the forsaking others) and allows them to update their end, surrounding that original impression, otherwise, you are at best manipulating, more likely you are morally bankrupt.
Part of a committed relationship is the agreement to sexually satisfy each other as needed. Not on demand though, but there should be some sort of mutual understanding of each others sexual needs. Naturally, no one should feel forced, but that’s part you need to pick the right partner for your needs. Obviously I’m deathly I’ll, but my wife needs something, climb on top and get what you need. Wife doesn’t feel like intercourse, oral or hand jobs, or the husband does a take a night without sex. No one should expect their spouse to be subservient about it, it should a mutual benefit. Help me, I help you next time. You dont feel well tonight, get me another night, preferably not 6 months later
all my gf cheated on me cause I am very bad in the bed. You got to live with it.