>On Friday, August 8, 2003, at 09:52 AM, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
>>I don't understand how this idea is supposed to be
>>patriarchical unless it is not reciprocal, i.e.,
>>unless the idea is that a woman may not also go
>>elsewhere if she isn't getting (ebough) sex from her
>>husband,m or theright sort. Are you saying that if you
>>don't get enough sex from your spouse, you should
>>either forego it or get a divorce, regardless of the
>>other costs, for example to the kids, and indeed the
>>benefits of the relationship, which need not all be
>>sexual? That sounds very rigid and Puritanical to me,
>>bot at all like you, Kells. jks
>
>Of course, another alternative is counseling. Or, if the couple in
>question has sufficient communication skills, sitting down and talking
>about it.
yeah. i think most folks recognize that arguments over sex, like arguments over money, which is the basis of, what?, most arguments in a relationship are arguments about power. my partner's best friend is not getting any from his wife. he spends his time in sex chat rooms looking at titty shows from the women in the room for two hours each night. i don't know exactly what's up with this situation but i'm gonna take a guess and say this: she's works her ass off every day. she suffers from carpal tunnel syndrome from the work. he got laid off some years back, went to work for another place, hated it, quit and has been making a living doing odd jobs and scheming about different ways to own his own business but never managing to make much of his plans.
he's isn't especially eager to work, turning down jobs so he can watch the soaps for two hours each day. kinda pissed off at life, angry that he got shafted, angry that he never did anything exciting in life.
she's working her ass off in a job that doesn't blow her skirt up either, but somehow this is supposed to be something that wounds him deeply while she's just supposed to take it in stride. (the social power imbalance between men and women thing again). he wallows in his lack of success in life but since she's supposed to obtain her identity from being mom, wife, lover to her husband then she has no "legit reason" to wallow in it.
meanwhile, he doesn't do terribly much around the house. he does a bit, but nowhere near half. he should be doing half even with a full time job, but he can't even be bothered to do half with less than a full time job. when he does lift a finger, it's to do "interesting" things--like make meals with a dutch oven from recipes he gets from some dutch oven cooking association on the web. oh, and BBQ. he'll BBQ. But dust, sweep, mom, laundry? fugghedaboudit.
and you wonder why he's not getting any sex? they don't just need therabpy, but political outlets for these two folks to understand what is going on, a space that gives them a language to understand why it's not just "psychology" or "individual problems" but that their personal problems are political.
they are left with the conventional means of waging war between the sexes or therapy where the whole gender power/class power dynamic gets left outside the office for 50 minutes.
(as an aside, "keeping it together for the kids" carries a bit of puritanical luggage.
kelley