Thinking recently about how many men I still come across who claim they respect or love their partner too much and so cannot sexualise them. I’ve experienced this recently even from men who seem to have had a good and healthy upbringing. I just wondered why this happens as it’s a real shame for both parties within a relationship. I tried to put this on the psychology subreddit but they don’t allow posts with text.
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Systemic misogyny, unfortunately. It’s been around for millennia and still persists.
Men who have had traumatic sexual experiences in their past (not necessarily abuse) can associate sex negatively. Once they find someone who is stable and they feel safe with, in their mind, sex can corrupt that relationship and destroy it.
They value the relationship and bond over the physical intimacy. Like not sleeping with your best friend because if things go sideways, they wouldn’t want to lose that connection.
Sex and looks are temporary. Genuine human connections can last a lifetime.
It’s like the bad boy complex. Some women feel less special if their man is nice to everyone. If he’s a complete dick to everyone else, but nice to her – that’s magic.
Some men get off on the idea that the most “socially acceptable”, innocent woman who never gives other men ideas will magically become a sexual animal *just for him*. Means he’s just that special/manly/etc.
Religion
I cant say Ive ever heard this. A lot of the married guys I know actually fantasize about their wives, myself included. My wife is sexy, and I want her all of the time. We have been together for 11 years, and I still think she is as sexy as they day I met her. I still get excited just watching her step out of the shower.
I love and respect her dearly. She is my rock and we hold each other up.
If there are guys who actually say this, the only thing I can point to is deflection. Either he is lonely in his marriage, tired of having his advances rejected so he deflects and lies to himself (if this is the case, he should really read Come As Your Are)…or he could have his head filled with the “sex-negative feminist messaging.” Messages like “Women are not some sexual objects for you to oogle and drool over” for example. It could be a subconscious or anxious defense mechanism developed by that kind of messaging.
Or he could just be being totally honest and in which case, that couple needs to work on their communication skills and they should read some literature together. Again, I recommend Come As You Are. Or seek some counseling.
Mind you, I am not a mental health professional. I’m just a dude who is in a fantastic marriage, who regrets not majoring in psychology like he wanted to, and is sitting at his desk at work wondering why the hell he is leaving a long-winded comment on reddit…
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Sounds like he considers sex/the stuff he did to hookups degrading to the woman so when he’s really invested he doesn’t want to degrade her.
I think many people just like the thrill of the chase or the new relationship feel so it’s less exciting in a long term relationship.
I’m not sure it’s as common as you seem to think it is. Although I guess my mates might not be comfortable outing if they have erection problems.
I think it has a lot to do with puritanical cultures that treat sex as dirty or wrong
For me it had to do with easy access of porn and I was able to explore every kink and fantasy I could conjure with a women. However when I found someone I was romantically interested its as if my brain didn’t have that pathway to be aroused from them.
Pretty much every negative trait is caused by insecurity. “good upbringing” doesn’t mean a whole lot honestly, you don’t need overt trauma to be fucked up. In fact being too comfortable growing up is also bad.
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Edit: to add to this because I didn’t read most of the comments here before commenting, keeping attraction alive in a long term relationship is THE major issue in relationships, bar none. To simply let that fall to “mysogeny” is just not accurate, since all genders are subject to it and it’s a problem as old as time. The reality is that nothing about marriage is sexy, nothing about having kids is sexy, nothing about getting older is sexy, nothing about knowing your partner’s flaws is sexy. Esther Perel talks about the paradox of relationships and attraction in a way that makes the most sense of all: trust requires closeness but at the expense of desire. We all WANT to be super intimate (meaning close not sexual) with our partners but when that happens our attraction wanes because there’s no separation. Desire REQUIRES separation. Her book Mating in Captivity explains it very well, but you need separateness in order to maintain attraction. the Madonna-Whofe complex is a fruedian concept and therefore super outdated. The reality is that long term relationships are hard and attraction is the hardest part to maintain.
In my opinion it’s men who have been taught one way or another that their sexual wants are bad and dirty so when they have a woman who they really care for they couldn’t possibly expose her to that. It’s seems like a combination of puritanism and some sort of self-hatred.
I practice bdsm safely and with consent. My last partner I’d love to “use” as like my personal sex doll. Do whatever/whenever and we both enjoyed it because we both did aftercare and took care of each other
This isn’t exclusive to men and honestly, this seems like a non issue in modern times. I think when this concept was first thought of, the dynamics between men and women were vastly different. The only place I see this happening is highly religious cultures.
I would argue that a lot of men actually want the stereotypical “freak in the sheets” because of the availability of online porn.
I think a lot of it comes from (internalized?) slut shaming. Women who fuck are less respectable somehow, and thus less worthy of love. But the pure, nurturing woman is a perfect wife, which means she cannot also be a ‘whore’. If you desire her in too dirty a way, she’s ruined and can no longer be the same object of love. It’s really just sex negativity at its finest, and probably stems from sexual shame.
I have experienced this in two relationships. I absolutely hated it. Basically, the guys I was seeing felt guilty about how attracted they were to me. When I asked questions, I basically got explanations that suggested a lot of self flagellation and overcorrection. Like “a lot of guys I know are misogynistic, so I want to be beyond that.” I get this in theory but feeling guilty for enjoying sex with someone you’re in a relationship with is hugely frustrating for all involved. It also seemed to coincide with black and white thinking and limited self awareness.
I probably sound frustrated, lol, it’s because those were some very sexually frustrating months of my life which I never want to relive.
Catholicism basically
Personally speaking I grew up as a true romantic at heart and learnt a lot of lessons about love through bollywood movies, some were good lessons others screwed me however the way “true love” is portrayed in the movies makes it seem like the man is always falling head over heals for the woman and the woman is shown as this innocent, pure angelic figure which needs to be protected and treasured. The problem is that those movies rarely ever shows the other side, lust and passion. bollywood movies focus very much on romance than passion and because of that I never got to associate passion and lust to “true love”, and only time I’d experience watching lust being portrayed was through porn or some other junk media. Which in turn caused a divide in my brain in terms of women you lust for vs love. However through effort and reflection I’ve been able to break the madonna where complex within my own mind and can now see my gf as a three dimensional being who is capable of being both angelic and pure as well as succubus like demon.
Growing up we get our internal concepts of things through experience, and through teaching. In puritanical societies, the overwhelming example shown, and the story told, is that good women are pure virgins and that anything else degrades them, or corrupts them.
This is of course a bullshit way to look at women.
As the world is experienced another desirable image of a woman arises as a sexual deviant, one to satisfy all your desires. This image is fed by porn and other media. When a woman’s sexuality is parsed by the mind that holds up the iconic image of the pure virgin there is a cognitive dissonance. They cannot see a woman as both simultaneously.
In reality a woman is neither, but is actually a real person with depth and complexities and desires of her own. This creates a problem in the mind of the person with the complex as her normal behavior as a human can jump quickly from one of their incompatible ideals to the other rather quickly and their mind just cannot keep up.
My Theorie is that man (still) get taught that they are dirty and there sexual desires are dirty while woman are innocent an pure which leads to the thinking that a “good” woman would not want to do the dirty things the man wants to do and would only step so low as to please the man with no pleasure of there own.
Mix in some unhealthy putting people on pedastel and the problem that follows of “never meet your heros (goddess in this case)” and you have the Madonna-whore complex.
That’s why you see the Madonna-whore complex far more often with man who have bad view of sex as something dirty while more sex positive man suffer far less from it.
Almost reminds me of “Sex is bad and dirty and awful, so make sure you save it for someone you reaaaaally love.”
Thank you so much for posting OP! I wish there was more discussion around the MWC. I feel like this has impacted every long term relationship I’ve been in. My current partner is a feminist and we’re in alignment in all important areas of life except for sex. We had wild, fun sex when we were casual. We openly talked about our sexual desires. Now we have rinse and repeat sex 3-5 times a month. Talking about sex, and the lack thereof, makes him super uncomfortable. We don’t have kids and have been together for less than two years. He seems to prioritize our connection / friendship / relationship and puts way less emphasis on sex. Sex for me is very positive. I’m starting to feel resentful because I feel like his needs are being met, but mine are not. He’s getting what he wants out of our relationship, but I am not. I know he has a rich, perverse mind and I love that about him. I thought our sex life would become more expansive over time since we’re both pretty dirty. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to sexualize me like he can a casual partner. I’m not anti porn, but I 100% attribute these behaviors to early porn consumption (and patriarchy)! Again, glad you asked and I hope more people will chime in.
Mostly religion. Virginity is seen as this sacred concept that only your husband can have. Otherwise you’re seen as “dirty” or “used”.
Internalizing ideas about desiring women being disrespectful to them and about women who are desirable being morally inferior.
This is a complex question and the issue is watching fantasies and doing those things to those you love are very different things.
I’m not sure. As a man with a healthy relationship, I think my wife is beyond sexy. She Bangin with a capital B. The hottest woman I’ve ever been with. I regularly fantasize about her. And none of that takes away from the fact that I appreciate how intelligent and grounded she is. To me it seems odd to not be able to do both.
I am not sure what causes the complex, but I have seen the other side, guys saying that they couldn’t do what they do to me when having sex to their wives/mothers of their children. They think of them like chaste saints with no sexual pulse but a reproduction value. On the other hand they let all their desires run free with me. If I ever mention I want to be a mum in the future, they say things like that I am not cut for that, that I couldn’t do what I do (sex wise). I dont fully understand it, but it is like because I like very kinky sex, I am promiscuous and sexual (which is what they like in me!) I cant be a mother,. They divide the women in two different kinds, the Madonna and the whores, and they tell me so but with different words.
From personal experience, sex always seemed like something wrong as a kid, something only guys enjoyed and that women suffered… to have something in a relationship where I’d be getting pleasure at the person I loved’s expense while at the same time straying from God makes sex just not seem like something good. I mean I thought people that got married maybe had sex like 3-5 times total in their entire lives because sex just seemed wrong.
When there isn’t much bond between two people it’s easier to just feel more into them and to act on that carnal urge more easily… if you don’t feel like it’s something wrong to do. When it comes to a partner, for me at least I’d get more attracted to them, but love complicates things. For every bit it seems they get more beautiful, it becomes more difficult to think of hurting them in any way.
I guess the purity/obsession with like virginity insecurity thing comes down to a line of thinking like this: that if women get no pleasure from sex, then they must only want to do it for wanting someone to the point of their own pain for the guy’s pleasure. If they want him that much, then there’s really no point in wanting to get closer to them because they could never really feel the same way for you. It leads to a painful insecurity that doesn’t easily resolve itself, imagine loving someone and constantly thinking they’d rather be with someone else; that you’re wasting their time.
Also with like kinks and stuff, having someone you love want you to choke/tie up/degrade/force them seems wrong when you only see that as hurting them and there’s that whole love thing too. Thinking on one hand that they’re self destructive and somehow you’ve made them only want to get hurt and on the other that what they want at their core isn’t something you can provide