short version: a married british woman argues that a sexless marriage must be common experience and is proclaiming the same thing in a book that will be published. long version here.
commentary: as i said, it’s courtesy of elsewhere, which in this case means another of my online haunts. now, in the resulting discussion, i observed that it’s not like she has a duty to have sex with her husband or anything—and promptly, two of the folks there disagreed.
she admits she stays in her sexless relationship for the sake of her children, aged nine and 11, and will remain celibate until the day they are grown up and she feels able to leave. at which point, she confesses, she will probably abandon her husband and begin a sexual odyssey to find the satisfaction that eludes her.
now, me personally, i think that almost every problem in a relationship takes 2 to tango, but i think that she ought to leave the marriage rather than stay for the sake of the kids—i know several people here on SC would argue the same.
so yes, i think she’s a bad person, but what about the husband, who apparently makes advances but evidently has not tried to address the question of “why”? to me, he bears half the responsibility for never asking that question.
but that’s not really the question i want to ask: the question i want to ask is simple: in marriage, is sex a duty? and what does “duty” mean to you, at least in this context?
ed
