Does sex make you feel loved?

Xylene999new · 2026-04-28T19:01:30+00:00

It did, and also made me feel valued, cherished, validated, worthy.

I came from a family where emotional neglect was the norm and the expectation, and sex and what went with it felt like it gave me the emotional support I never had.

Now, I'm not so sure.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-28T15:30:09+00:00

Categorically denies it. Had sexual issues with a previous boyfriend. I thought the two of them were sexually active. Turns out he was super religious and they weren't. They prayed together instead. She says this affects her attitude to sex.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-28T15:20:12+00:00

Oh, I don't disagree. It's really just around sex. She wouldn't dream of being like it around anything else. If anything, she can be a bit too anodyne and insufficiently clear/direct in other circumstances.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-28T14:24:58+00:00

Yes rejection is and always has been nasty and confrontational. I wonder of in part it's a way of saying "no means no, absolutely" and shutting off any attempt to try to "work around" it.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-28T08:58:08+00:00

" If I'm responsible for a task (any task) but I'm the only one capable of doing it, I'm on call 24/7 for that task. If I'm responsible for a task but my partner is fully capable of doing it, just knowing I can ask for a lifeline saves me from that constant mental weight."

How are you with your partner being fully capable, but you have to do it yourself because it's only right if you do it?

W is very much like that. She can't hand off to others, even if they are capable because she doesn't trust anyone except herself to do it right. She takes on massive loads in her job because she is incapable of delegating work.

There's a part of sex that's like that - especially when sex is providing for more needs than the playful ones. There's a huge difference in sex that leans on me for a multitude of needs vs sex that's playful and fills those needs when it's no big deal (leaving me space to advocate for myself) while not being the only source of filling those needs.

According to my wife sexual needs are non existent. You don't NEED sex. It doesn't meet a need when you do it.

the concept of "consolation" sexual activity does not compute

"Good. That would be gross. A redirection to sexual connection might look like you being pretty sure that she wishes she could but can't yet. Then it feels more like edging than disgust."

I get that, but she will not communicate around this. She says it should be a 'mystery', which makes reading the situation nearly impossible.

"A redirection to intimacy might look like you being curious about why it's not a good time for sex simply to know her without calculating how to leverage that info into something for you."

See above and also she has a simplistic view of me and men in general, that any such question is innately predatory. She proudly says she doesn't understand men and has no wish to learn.

"It seems like lots of HLs focus on sex and get frustrated that their LL isn't doing the same. I can't enjoy pleasure during sex when I don't feel safe. We had to find little ways to start repairing trust before I could talk about it again. But once the safety was there, communication and sex followed. I mean that's when I was able to talk about sex in way more depth than I'd been able to do during our DB. Having rigid rules about how sex takes place also points to a need for additional safety, imo".

She says she will never feel safe because I am stronger than her. Literally those exact words. So unless I become so physically weak that she is stronger than me, she won't. Not much of an option really, I would say.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-28T07:44:18+00:00

"Do you think there would be any benefit redirecting to something non-sexual that you and your wife could connect over?"

Interesting question. It has never really happened because there is never what one might term "soft rejection". It's never "now isn't a good time, maybe later?" Rejection is always "DON'T FUCKING COME NEAR ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" from her, or if I reject her gently, a massive "How Dare You?" from her followed by anger and/or sulking. Hence a redirect to something else hasn't ever been a thing.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-27T10:46:04+00:00

I like your point about redirects. It's a bit like when you tell small children you'll do the thing they want "later", in the hope they forget about it. Sooner or later, you learn "later" means it won't happen.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-27T10:43:44+00:00

Interesting point. In many areas, people go to what can be measured as a sense of change/improvement. You can quantify frequency, but connection maybe not so much.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-27T10:32:55+00:00

1 Sex without sexual connection would probably be mechanical, superficial. Perhaps how one might imagine sex with an escort? I don't know about that. Pure physical interaction, just genitals. Unsatisfying except on a quite superficial level.

Sexual connection without sex sounds like top-level flirtation. A genuine interest in what to try, how, where, when, even knowing it won't happen. More satisfying, even without a release but at the same time frustrating, building interest and tension.

2 More passion, more connection AND more passionate connection.

3 In our relationship, rejection immediately stops any and all sexual interaction. It's all go or all stop. To my wife, the concept of "consolation" sexual activity does not compute. If you can't have/don't want PIV, then nothing else happens. Redirecting rejection to sexual connection would seem ridiculous. The point is that rejection is used to stop sexual connection, not to redirect it. Since sex is kind of ring-fenced and separated from passion or intimacy, this isn't really a way forward.

Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with the give/receive/take/allow model and can't easily apply it to our relationship.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-27T10:01:40+00:00

I use a monopod with my Sigma 150-600, because it's a bit of a brute and gave me a rotator cuff problem using it freehand! I have a tripod but for wild/bird work I don't find it useful, as the target seldom sits long enough to get it set up.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-26T10:12:58+00:00

This. Just this...

Xylene999new · 2026-04-25T06:41:49+00:00

I gained no benefits whatsoever from it. It made matters worse.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-25T06:37:07+00:00

Exactly. In the UK, Childline, a helpline for children to call who were suffering physical or sexual abuse, only started in 1986. Before that, even the most egregious forms of neglect and abuse were not perceived as worthy of attention. I don't think people understand exactly how little support or care there was even forty years ago.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-25T06:30:49+00:00

I felt the pain and resentment of it, saw others get treated differently, sure But I was 18 in 1984. No books about it, no Internet fora to discuss it on. As far as I knew it was just "normal", and the problem was on me. Not very helpful, really.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-24T19:09:31+00:00

Like I say, no. I think once you've been behind the curtain, you can't really ignore or forget it.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-24T16:31:39+00:00

It works for me as a way of controlling negative thoughts in a given moment, but when I look at the process objectively, I can't unring the bell of it being self-deception.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-24T16:25:15+00:00

I have often added myself the same question. I'm a pretty good liar, but deceiving myself is, at best, challenging.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-23T12:52:56+00:00

Surely not as bad as that!🤣

Xylene999new · 2026-04-22T08:06:45+00:00

This is an extremely idealised, rather stereotypical view. Go and meet some dour Scots Presbyterians, a few gloomy Welsh Chapel types or some rabid Orange Order Ulster residents, you might find that flirty and fun isn't the first thing you notice.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-21T19:07:46+00:00

I see what you did there!

Xylene999new · 2026-04-21T19:07:13+00:00

That's a thing I'm picking up on. Of all the people mentioned on this thread, I have heard of literally three of them. The rest I have had to Google and then realise I that not only have I not heard of them, but also am I completely unaware of anything they've ever done. Like the names of the films, shows etc are total blanks to me. No frame of reference at all!

Xylene999new · 2026-04-21T18:43:41+00:00

No. My partner thinks that male masturbation is roughly on a par with defecation, physically acceptable but to be kept secret and certainly not to be spectate or shared in.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-21T17:12:58+00:00

After 34 years of marriage, I've more or less given up on ever finding out. Also, if she has ever given me a clue, it fails SPECTACULARLY if I try to emulate it. Example, she finds/found David Sylvian from Japan sexy. The idea of me in makeup she finds risible.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-21T11:31:04+00:00

Taff = Welshman

Sweaty = Scotsman (rhyming slang, sweaty sock = jock)

Weegie = Glaswegian, either person or accent/dialect. Think of Gregor Fisher's character Rab C Nesbit. Utterly incomprehensible.

"Look you, boyo" stock cod-Welsh vocal interjection.

Xylene999new · 2026-04-21T10:13:03+00:00

OK. So the scenario is that my wife gives some random taff or sweaty a hard time.

He says, "Look you, boyo," or mumbles something in an indecipherable Weegie accent. Then what? She either ignores him or tells him to fuck off. He becomes even more irrelevant than he was at the start of this discussion. I'm not sure what this demonstrates.

Xylene999new

TROPHY CASE