As a start, get a second opinion. She might have vaginismus or a similar condition that makes sex painful.If that's not the case (and, actually, even if it is,) try reading Dr. Emily Nagosi's book Come as You Are. It's very accessible, science-based, and written by an expert in the field. Each section has a TLDR; summary at the end and it's full of good information on how (cis) women's sexual needs differ from (cis) men's. I think it addresses some of the issues you've mentioned.
Edit to add link:
https://www.amazon.com/Come-You-Are-Surprising-Transform/dp/1476762090
If you haven't read Come As You Are , I highly recommend it. It's not a Nirvana biography, it's a book about women's sexuality. Orgasms are talked about in depth. My IUD and antidepressants make it difficult for me to orgasm like I used to. This book really helped me understand what was going on and recognize tat I was having orgasms, just they are different than the screaming, shuddering ones in porn flicks. I'm much more ok with not having those every time and knowing what I want from sex. Like you said, there are times when I don't come and the sex is fucking incredible. Sometimes I want to remember every detail, and if I'm focused on coming, I can't do that.
Understanding what leads to political polarization is a first step in building bridges. The moral psychology research exploring the moral differences between political and religious ideologies is explored in the book <em>The Righteous Mind</em> by Jonathan Haidt, and it is often used by non-partisan citizen groups (such as Citizens' Climate Lobby) as a model for building multipartisan coalitions.
eta: links, author of book
In this vein, I'd like to plug the book Ordinary Men, which examines how people went from being normal middle class people with normal jobs, from bakers to bankers, to routinely killing thousands of people.
Because they were too old or out of shape for combat, hundreds of these men were conscripted into Reserve Police Battalion 101. The first order to kill came while they were in the Polish town of Jozefow. The battalion's commander was choking back tears as he gave the order to his men. He even gave everyone the opportunity to step down if they didn't feel they could carry out the order. Only 12 of the hundreds of men stepped down. 1500 Jews were executed before a mass grave that day. Some didn't die immediately and were instead suffocated by the bodies that fell on them.
That battalion of "ordinary men" went on to kill 38,000 men, women, and children; and sent another 45,000 to camps to be executed.
The author examines how they went from average citizens to mass murderers. Much of it comes from their own testimony at their trials. Some is speculation based on current psychology. Both make you really think.
I highly recommend everyone read it, as it seems more relevant today than at any time since.
I too enjoyed reading Sapiens.
The book goes in-depth how much of the world is a "fiction" around us - LLCs aren't real, baseball's rules aren't real, capitalism isn't real. But if the reader's takeaway means that "fiction" == "not real and therefore meaningless", they've hugely missed the point.
You should read this...
https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068
It notes the transition of relatively normal, every day individuals before the war, into someone who could execute naked pregnant women in fields by moon light.
The sooner we all realize that under the right conditions we're all capable of this, the better.
To orgasm, you need to know your own anatomy, including your brain. This book has helped me a bunch: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476762090?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
It explains how we orgasm and it has completely changed how I masturbate.
It should be mandatory that everyone either read or watch the documentary Guns Germs and Steel. Because on the face of it it wouldnt be a unfair question to ask why did Europeans become the most advanced and dominated other cultures. Guns Germs and Steel lays out a rock solid case on and to sum up the answer comes down to Geography and timing not because of superiority of any race. But the answer is even more complicated then that... andv to sit there and argue with these knuckleheads with this long complicated arguments is pointless. It would be better if kids learn young about why these discrepancies exist so we can shut down those questions early on.
A big thing for my husband and I, when we're not both in the mood/mindset for sex at the same time, is to still be present for the other, with no expectations. Often this means that one of us will masturbate while the other just holds, cuddles, or caresses. This provides connection and intimacy without either of us having to "perform" when we're not feeling it. The happy bonus is that around 50% of the time, whichever one of us wasn't in the mood ends up being in the mood. Other times, it's just cuddles, no masturbation, and that's good too, as it usually puts us closer to being in sync for sex in the near future.
If you haven't already, try reading Come as You Are. It may provide some insight and ideas to both you and your wife.
Standard Responses:
Thank you for this. I think I need to figure out a way to have a situation somewhat like this.
Right now, he's so frustrated in general about it, he's like, "LET'S BONE! WHY DON'T YOU WANT TO!!??" And when I tell him I don't know, he gets mad, doesn't believe me, makes crazy assumptions like I'm cheating.
All of that definitely doesn't help me get in the mood. And right now, I'm not able to just say, "SEX, let's do it." I don't like it. I know he's upset. But to have sex when I don't feel it, it just doesn't seem right.
EDIT: Since this is a higher comment, I'll put this here. Thanks everyone for the advice and wonderful words.
I ordered Come as You Are and Mating in Captivity. I'm going to give them a read and not-so-subtly leave the books out so he can see I'm doing something for the cause.
Buy Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men" and loan it to him . It's not a difficult read, well the topic is, but the language is not.
You see that paperbacks are pretty cheap.
This is not about thinking. There have been studies showing that education can make you better at defending incorrect information.
We spread and defend incorrect information because it reinforces a pre-existing bias, often subconscious. Information that is shared virally tends to align with one of humanity's trigger points:
When we focus on intelligence, we are demonstrating the Democratic bias toward rules. Education = competence = success. The Republican brain wants to reward personal exceptionalism. "I succeeded, not because of how hard I worked, but because of who I am."
If we don't understand these triggers, we will continue to be manipulated by them.
Edit: thanks very much to my anonymous gilder, but the ideas are cribbed from Jonathan Haidt's work. Highly recommend you check out either his book or his TED talk.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777/ref=asc_df_0307455777/
You should read Sapiens, the author explains how the agricultural revolution was a horrible thing for mankind.
tl;dr : We stopped eating diverse foods, which were then more prone to parasites, began to live together and spread diseases among us, stopped running like our bodies are supposed to and began working with our backs curved, which gave us hernias and stuff, etc.
The book isn't just about the agricultural revolution, it's about the history of our species from the first homo sapiens to right now. Amazing book, very trippy.
The BEST BEST BEST book either my partner or I have ever read about all of this is Come As You Are . Get it. Read it. Make your partner read it.
It will change your sex life. We recommend it to everyone. (And it covers arousal, which is why it’s relevant here).
There's actually a decent amount of Academia dedicated to figuring out how the Irish transitioned from identifiable ethnic minority to other white people. The most famous example is about how the Irish came to become oppressors, which is oF cOuRsE synonymous with white.
But the most profound way in which they became what was... they assimilated.
First year, but this is why I got into it. I had a question about how were the German people swayed to follow Hitler, and I was handed a book. Then I wanted more. Then I took a World War 2 class and read this book.
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060995068/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_WWsoCbJX1P4QK
Seriously. If you even have a REMOTE interest in how it happened, and how it was executed. Read this book. It is haunting. We cant stop history from repeating itself without knowing how it happened before.
You might be interested in The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt which has to do with the moral psychology of the left and right.
The main gist of the book is that people have several different hard wired foundations for morality... things that we are predisposed by human psychology to see as good vs. evil. He tentatively identified five of them as: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation (and he later added another: Liberty/Oppression). He ran a variety of studies to get people to rank how important each of these foundations were to them and discovered that people on the left prioritized Care/Harm over all others (Fairness/Cheating was also important to leftists but less so... the other three were not important at all). The right surprisingly was almost as compassionate ranking Care/Harm only slightly lower than the left did but they ranked all others much higher to the point where all five (and later six) moral foundations are ranked roughly equally in the right wing world view. In instances where left and right disagree there is almost always one or more of the other moral foundations which the right is balancing against compassion and which the left is disregarding as unimportant.
The book is of course much more involved that that discussing where and how he came up with his thesis, the experiments he did and his speculation about the social utility of each of the moral foundations and why they appear to be hard-wired in our heads and changes he made to his theory along the way. It's definitely worth reading.
You have a very special wife. She's admitted to you that she has a lower drive than you but she is still right there with you, having, and enjoying, sex 3-5 times a week. Never take that for granted. I know it's fantastic to feel desired and wanted by a partner that can't wait to tear your clothes off and throw you on the bed, but that's just not what some people do. The fact that after all these years your wife is still an active and enthusiastic participant in your sex life is her showing you how much she wants and desires you.
I think you might both benefit from reading Come as You Are, which explains Responsive Desire. It's not a reflection on you at all, it's just the way some people work sexually, and there's nothing wrong with it. Knowing what it is, and how it works can make a world of difference.
Hey, no problem: Here's a couple I really enjoyed that helped me learn how to really articulate what I think and understand what others were saying about politics in those sorts of discussions:
You should also read come as you are
Your statements seem more shaming her for having responsive sexual arousal when in fact75% of women do. So it sounds like your shaming her by saying her natural type is wrong because it’s not like the mostly male spontaneous type.
You and her should both read his book . Unfortunately women’s sexuality has been treated to much like men’s and we’re completely different. This book is the most accurate one out there. I loved it.
Pain during sex = see your doctor/gynecologist. That needs to be investigated.
Also, I strongly recommend you read, "Come as You Are", by Dr. Emily Nagoski. You're going to learn a TON about yourself, and what you're feeling. The book is not about sex positions or techniques. It's a great read, super approachable and informative. Also recommend that your boyfriend read it, too. Check it out.
EDIT: You're not broken. You are normal! You do not need to find a girlfriend for your boyfriend!!! Read the book.
Thomas Sowell and a number of others have argued African American hip hop culture is basically white redneck behavior, Sowell in "Black Rednecks And White Liberals" which I'm about to begin. Colin Woodward's "American Nation's" touches on this as well, as do other authors who've penned books on the topic, although his book is more about all of the regional cultures that make up our country dating back to the groups that founded those regions and how their beliefs are still resoundingly alive and well and how politicians actively exploit these differences we have between one another. There are other academics I've heard doing research like this but I'm having trouble recall their names, I heard about them in some podcasts. But, there's definitely more reading you can do to explore this idea more.
Amazon links to check out both titles I mentioned:
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029
Not even remotely.
For a better and much more comprehensive view, read American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Collin Woodard.
It shouldn’t all be on you, he needs to be an active participant as well. I only provide suggestions for you because you can control your own actions.
I’m currently reading Come As You Are. It’s pretty popular lately, and might be an interesting read for you both.
It's incredibly rare for people to be reasonable nowadays, especially on the internet.
Being reasonable and measured makes it very difficult to feel/signal virtuous and self-righteous and better than anyone else - and people do seek that sort of reward, especially in increasingly emotional societies. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Prof. Jonathan Haidt addresses this and why that addictive feeling of self-righteousness often drives people to zealotry and extreme positions - they want to be seen as "pure" and "uncompromising". It used to be typical adolescent/teenager behaviour but it's becoming increasingly generalized in adults.
Everyone here has great advice about not pressuring yourself and being honest with your needs. A book that really gave me some good perspective on my libido was Come as you are. I personally have the opposite problem. I have a very high libido and two low libido partners.
The book is a fairly dense and scientifically focused look at sexuality (from a mainly cis-fem perspective, its only flaw I think). There are quizzes sprinkled throughout to help you gain insight into what “gets you going”, as well as any unconscious emotional baggage you may have about your sexuality, among other topics.
Religion probably served a really important evolutionary function, as well, by ensuring social cohesion around a shared set of beliefs and identities, allowing for tight group bonding which gave some groups a selective advantage. Of course, in today's world this can actually become harmful- particularly when the shared beliefs require a suspension of the sort of objective and reasoned thinking necessary to function in this modern society, or when they inform or motivate antisocial economic or political activities- but I'm not sure it's fair to say that humanity would be better off without it. Maybe on net today, but it's also possible that we may have relied on it in our evolutionary past.
Source, a wonderful book which can really aid in understanding those with whom our worldviews disagree.
People interested in this should try to read Brownings "Ordinary men" sometime.
https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068
It goes into some depth about what regular soldiers did in the holocaust. One of his points is that it wasn't really fear of punishment but more fear of letting ones comrades down that made people participate in mass murder.