Is polyamorism in men correlated with sex drive?

I prefer sex to happen daily. My husband mostly keeps up but he's rarely the one to initiate. When he's tired from work or sick he loses his drive to a greater extent than I do. So usually he doesn't have chance to build up desire for me before I'm nudging him for it again.

The interesting thing I find is that a couple of times this has switched around, if his drive for sex and connection with me rises and I feel under pressure to provide it, my drive falls. We are happy together and none of this is a problem for us now but it's interesting how things ebb and flow.
 
Women are expected to perform?

More and more, so we hear, because of the ease of access to porn. It is raising the expectations of the younger generations in particular.

And there are men who aren't ready to go any time their woman hints at it?

*facepalm*

When it comes to sex I would learn and do whatever makes my woman happy as often as possible. If she did more than lie on her back and spread her legs I would be thrilled, but even that makes it a good ... week :rolleyes:

Sounds like for her it's a bad week. How about dialing it right back to non-sexual touch then, massage? A foot massage, hand massage. Or even less than touch and go back to flirting with eye contact. Married people or those in long term relationships often forget to flirt. I've been there. Or insert a little domestic romance. Housework (you doing it) has been mentioned somewhere around here before as a turn on. Cook dinner. Kiss the back of her neck when she's in the middle of the ironing, but then walk away so she stops equating sensual kisses with obligation to put out. Once she's starting to buy in to the idea again, once she no longer perceives it as an obligation, perhaps try treating her like a virgin and giving her a really drawn out (over a couple of months, not hours) sexual (re)awakening. Find out, from the beginning, what your wife's actual turn ons are. Because clearly you climbing on once a week isn't doing it for her. Help her come to the party. If she won't talk with you about it right now, then learn her other cues.

I'd say good luck, but it sound more like a dose of sensuality and sensitivity would go a lot further in your household.
 
Sure, but how would anyone know about these things if they don't even talk to me?

Before someone says, "no wonder nobody talks to him--he's soooo negative!" I just want to point out that I started out very hopeful--almost, dare I say, optimistic? But I'm just feeling beaten down at this point.
I am sorry you had bad experience with the people you met.

I only have face to face experience with Norwegian polys - and foreginers who attended Norwegian poly meetings - , and they are a friendly bunch. I quickly got enrolled in organizing events, I find it is easiest to get to know people that way. It is possable that if I had only attended I would have felt differently. But I know also people in another city don't understand why our city for at least two to three years not only was very vital but people were forming close friendships too. I think it has something to do with chance, and something to do with the specific people involved. So my advice would be to try to meet up with people somewhere else. there could be different vibes in different places.
 
Men have been trying to control women's sexuality for about 5000 years.

With the rise of agriculture and patriarchy, women, as breeders, needed to be confined to one man. That way he could be sure that the goods he accumulated personally (as opposed to tribal belongings as earlier) would be passed down to his own bio children, ahem, sons.

Before this current state of affairs, humans lived in tribes. The children belonged to, and were raised and nurtured and fed, by the tribe. So, no women needed to choose a male sex partner based on his economic status, and dependability to be around when she was in a vulnerable, pregnant or lactating state.

There is a huge amount of literature, especially Jewish and Christian, that supports the fact that men spent and are spending a lot of time reducing women's power, calling women's sex drive evil, trying to curtail it, trying to get women to belong to just one man, while men were encouraged to have more than one wife, for their own sexual release and to provide them with more bio sons.

Finally in the late 19th century, with Queen Victoria's help, culture somehow convinced women they had NO sex drive, only men did, and so to do her wifely duty to her husband, God, and country, she best lie back, get fucked and get pregnant. Women repressed their sex drives so much they became ill. Doctors had to step in with fingers and vibrators to give women "hysterical paroxysms," aka orgasms. The husbands just quickly fucked their wives and went to whores for "kinkier" stuff, like fellatio or cunnilingus.

Nowadays, women are rediscovering their sex drives! We can have raging sex drives that can't be satisfied by one male partner. We can have a couple dozen orgasms to a man's one or two. We can have sex more than once a day. We can remain unmarried and still have children if we want. We have reliable birth control that can prevent exhausting pregnancies and child rearing responsibilities.

We do not depend as much on one man to provide for and protect us and our children, since we are making a bit more money. Plus the state (like tribes of old) can help provide food and shelter for us and our children when our incomes can't cover it all. Courts are better at tracking down deadbeat dads to support the children they spawn.

So... that is the background, as I see it, to the modern polyamory movement, which benefits women greatly.

Goodness knows, I am SO much happier now than when I was married, monogamous and faithful to one man. He was a guy who wanted sex almost daily, but he was so jealous and controlling of my desires for others (although I never cheated, I did get crushes) that I became less desirous of him for years at a time, since his jealousy and possessiveness were so unattractive.
 
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Sounds like for her it's a bad week. How about dialing it right back to non-sexual touch then, massage? A foot massage, hand massage. Or even less than touch and go back to flirting with eye contact. Married people or those in long term relationships often forget to flirt. I've been there. Or insert a little domestic romance. Housework (you doing it) has been mentioned somewhere around here before as a turn on. Cook dinner. Kiss the back of her neck when she's in the middle of the ironing, but then walk away so she stops equating sensual kisses with obligation to put out. Once she's starting to buy in to the idea again, once she no longer perceives it as an obligation, perhaps try treating her like a virgin and giving her a really drawn out (over a couple of months, not hours) sexual (re)awakening. Find out, from the beginning, what your wife's actual turn ons are. Because clearly you climbing on once a week isn't doing it for her. Help her come to the party. If she won't talk with you about it right now, then learn her other cues.

Sounds like excellent advice. The hard part is the "jedi mind trick" of making her forget how much she knows about my sex drive. I don't say anything anymore, but if has been a few ... hours ... she knows what I want. So that foot rub (which she loves), kiss, or even flirty glance, is now understood as "Man wants sex again :eek:." I hadn't thought of a months-long retraining of the dynamic, but maybe that will change it!
 
My wife is not only demi-sexual, but also very loathe to communicate about anything. It's just not a conversation she's interested or willing to have.

This is where poly really shines and can be illuminating and expansive for both partners in a marriage. Many people are different with different partners and allow themselves to experience sex in different ways, depending on what the other brings out in them. Yes, we all have our preferences and predispositions, but there is an awful lot of room for expansion in each of us. So (in my view) nobody is "uninterested" across the board.* In a marriage especially, we get stuck in patterns of thinking and habits of behavior - often because it's easy and emotionally safe, even if it's not so sexually or personally fulfilling. Branching out to include other sexual and emotional experiences can open all kinds of doors that we never even realized were possible to open. I'm not saying that she "should" do this. I'm saying that your wife is not inherently "uninterested" just because she shows up this way with you at this time. So very much can change that many people believe is set in concrete.

What is demi-sexual, anyway? Not sure what that means....



*I get the asexual thing and am aware that there are people who do not have the desire to connect phyisically with others. Short of someone being sqaurely in that camp, I think we all have a lot of sexual expansion avialable to us.
 
According to Wiktionary, demisexual = sexually attracted to people only after a strong emotional bond has been formed.
 
According to Wiktionary, demisexual = sexually attracted to people only after a strong emotional bond has been formed.

Thanks, Kevin. Perplexing how this fits into a discussion of a married couple. Curious why it was mentioned as a "problem" or an explanation of why a wife didn't desire sex with the husband.
 
I couldn't tell ya ...
 
I am also demisexual by that definition. I have zero desire for sex with someone I don't feel emotional intimacy with. I don't find photos of men attractive, not actors or pop stars or celebrities or models or male strippers or any of the rest of it.

I do however strongly desire my husband. We have a strong emotional intimacy and I get crushes on close friends.

Who you're attracted to and why has very little to do with your capacity for enjoying sex.

How do you think your wife feels about the level of emotional intimacy in your marriage? If this is what attracts her.
 
According to Wiktionary, demisexual = sexually attracted to people only after a strong emotional bond has been formed.

Perplexing how this fits into a discussion of a married couple. Curious why it was mentioned as a "problem" or an explanation of why a wife didn't desire sex with the husband.

Looks like the term was more appropriate than I had realized: She has some long-standing complaints about me that have strained our conjugal bond (e.g., I've been building a business that is not yet profitable, so she doesn't feel I am ensuring our financial security right now in the absence of a regular paycheck), and she has even said that I am more sexually attractive, and she is more interested in sex, when I'm meeting her needs (e.g., when she feels she can count on me as the breadwinner).
 
Can you be the breadwinner?
 
....she has even said that I am more sexually attractive..... when she feels she can count on me as the breadwinner).

This isn't at all what demi-sexual means, according to Kevin's link. This is what's commonly known as gold digging, actually. She is turned off because you are entrepreneurial and not an endless fountain of cash? o_O Not having sex with you because you don't "sufficiently provide" isn't the same as having no interest in sex at all. Honestly, it sounds like there's a lot more going on with your wife than she is letting on.
 
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Performing sexually means anything one does in order to impress the other person, rather than connecting with them and organically going with the flow of whatever brings pleasure to oneself and one's partner. And believe me, women are asked or expected to perform quite often.

I feel better now. I do like it when women try to connect, and I'm more than happy to go with the flow. I encourage a few things that help to make the experience more intimate, but, other than safer sex precautions, I don't insist on anything.

When I was a young buck I was usually more experienced than my partners, and I kind of had a routine I liked to follow. Much later I learned to hold back a little and wait for my partner to come out of her shell and take the initiative. That's when sex got really interesting. Not only was it a huge turn on to have women ask me for stuff, but what they asked for was usually better than anything I could have come up with.

One thing that complicated this was when a woman wanted to please me and thought she could do it by doing things other guys had asked her for, and some guys ask for some weird shit. I have to assume they must have learned about sex from porn or something. I always tried not to refuse any reasonable request, but there were certain things I'd question.

Anyway, I was a little worried that by encouraging my partners to take a more active role I was expecting them to perform, but I was really just trying to get them to be more spontaneous. Of course that meant I had to be prepared to go with the flow even if it meant just cuddling or massaging or naked touching without sex, but I've always felt that anything is better than nothing.
 
This isn't at all what demi-sexual means, according to Kevin's link. This is what's commonly known as gold digging, actually. She is turned off because you are entrepreneurial and not an endless fountain of cash? o_O Not having sex with you because you don't "sufficiently provide" isn't the same as having no interest in sex at all. Honestly, it sounds like there's a lot more going on with your wife than she is letting on.

Speaking as Lysander's wife, I'm not a gold digger at all. I've been the primary earner for 5 years. It's exhausting. I also have two small children. I love my husband. It would be accurate to call me Demi-sexual as I find emotion/love to be essential for my sexual desire.

The fact that I find my husband more attractive when he's earning money has more to do with my stress level than anything else. I find the combination of young children, long hours at a mentally taxing job and the stress of carrying my family's financial burden to be a real libido killer.
 
Speaking as Lysander's wife, I'm not a gold digger at all. I've been the primary earner for 5 years. It's exhausting. I also have two small children. I love my husband. It would be accurate to call me Demi-sexual as I find emotion/love to be essential for my sexual desire.

The fact that I find my husband more attractive when he's earning money has more to do with my stress level than anything else. I find the combination of young children, long hours at a mentally taxing job and the stress of carrying my family's financial burden to be a real libido killer.

You in another thread described you you pre-kids had daily sex and enjoying it. It doesn't sound at all that you are demi-sexual. Connection sex to love in a relationship is very usual and has got little do do with demi-sexual as a version of asexuality. I am a woman who has never had non string sex, just slept with people I cared about (often was married to, actually) and I would never call myself demi-sexual.

I don't understand why, if you are the breadwinner, you also have the main responsability for the kids. Is he sick in any way? Don't you or him trust him to take care of the kids? It doesn't make sense.
 
I don't understand why, if you are the breadwinner, you also have the main responsability for the kids. Is he sick in any way? Don't you or him trust him to take care of the kids? It doesn't make sense.

She didn't say that she had main responsibility for the kids. But once one comes home from their wage slave job, deals with a commute, and then gets swarmed by the kids from entering the door til getting the sprouts to bed, who no doubt have missed Mama a lot, despite loving Daddy, it's friggin tiring!

I was the stay at home parent, and I had next to no sex drive for 10 years, from the time my first was born until the 3rd was 5 years old and sleeping through the night reliably.
 
Correct: We have a nanny who takes care of the kids during the day. We both work hard at our jobs. I take care of most of the domestic chores that the nanny doesn't. My wife spends more time with the kids when she's not working.

My wife works because she doesn't feel secure without a steady paycheck, but also (and perhaps primarily) because she believes in general practice that it's important for women to maintain their earning power because they can't trust a husband to take care of them, and divorce law in the U.S. is no longer adequate to ensure their financial security.

Maybe this is standard fare for type-A couples with kids and we should have simply been prepared for our relationship to take a decade-long break until the kids are able to take care of themselves.

BTW, I apologize: Didn't mean for this (or my other) thread to turn into couples therapy!
 
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Speaking as Lysander's wife, I'm not a gold digger at all. I've been the primary earner for 5 years. It's exhausting. I also have two small children my husband. It would be accurate to call me Demi-sexual as I find emotion/love to be essential for my sexual desire.

The fact that I find my husband more attractive when he's earning money has more to do with my stress level than anything else. I find the combination of young children, long hours at a mentally taxing job and the stress of carrying my family's financial burden to be a real libido killer.

That makes sense, having a partner to help ease the burden is a stress reducer. If its all on your shoulders you're tired and stressed and just not in the mood.

Is u t possible for him to be the primary earner so you can ease back? My ex and I took turns being the stay at home parent so we got a break. sounds like if more sex is desired by him he's going to have to lighten your load somehow. In your situation I would not be at all open to him going and finding a girlfriend to play with while you work your ass off to support your family.
 
Maybe this is standard fare for type-A couples with kids and we should have simply been prepared for our relationship to take a decade-long break until the kids are able to take care of themselves.

Based on my experiences with dating a woman with a young child, and hearing my other friends with young children kvetch, I would say that "a decade-long break" from your relationship is vastly overstating it, but yes, having one or more young children does drastically take away from both the time and energy that you can put into your partnership. How could it be otherwise, when time and energy are limited quantities and kids take SO much of them? This is a very, very common problem.

To answer your original question, based on my knowledge of the people in my life --
Me, f: Poly, sometimes daily, usually less than daily
Davis, m: Mono, daily
Gia, f: Poly, less than daily
Eric, m: Poly, daily
Clay, m: Poly, varies depending on what's going on in his life
Pike, m: Poly, less than daily (though not by much)

As I did in your other thread, though, I have to question the point of this data gathering. If you're trying to resolve a personal issue, what matters is how the two of you work, which may have nothing in common with statistical averages amongst similar populations.
 
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