Another single gal and I were discussing Chris Rock’s highly underestimated movie, I Think I Love My Wife. I remember quite a while ago standing in line to buy a ticket to see it and consciously expecting nothing but funny antics from Chris with a few of his unique insights about life sprinkled in here and there. I was pleased to witness quite the opposite. I Think I Love My Wife was noticeably light on Chris-is-funny-as-hell antics and heavy on nuanced portrayals of the quiet difficulties of married life. Specifically, married suburban life that came with kids, middle class angst and painstakingly mundane routines. It struck me as a very honest and humane depiction of how easily infidelity can creep into a marriage – regardless of how committed both partners were to the mate they loved and trusted enough to marry.
And this is what floored my single gal friend once she had gotten around to seeing the movie on DVD. Chris Rock’s character came dangerously close to cheating on his wife because he and the wife had not had sex in MONTHS. (I think they were working on one full year by the time they both went to the requisite marriage counselor.) “Who are these crazy ass women refusing to sleep with their husbands,” my friend wondered. And why were they all outraged when their sexless husbands found themselves in hotel rooms with an eager to please secretary or waitress or Starbucks barista or any other woman with an inviting smile and a libido?
I laughed at my friend’s genuine shock of wives who refused their husbands sex. Her point, of course, was if you don’t sleep with your husband for months on end, well, what else is there for him to do but end up in bed with some other woman. I remember being confused by Chris Rock’s character’s sexless marriage when I first saw the movie, also. But, I don’t think that part of the movie stood out for me simply because the wife was representing a bunch of wives who clear the path to infidelity when they withhold sex from their husbands. I was and still am baffled by this concept of SEXLESS MARRIAGE. The fact that they really exist and that often it is the wife who is not giving it up. Like many things in life…I don’t get it.
Perhaps it is because I am a single gal. And as a single gal, a fair amount of my life is spent strategizing how to have greater access to the happy stick. While those who possess the happy stick would probably wonder why I would need to strategize in the first place, for many single women, getting sex from a man worth having sex with is…well, it’s like having a part-time job that only pays enough to give you pocket change, but still requires an inordinate amount of your energy. There is the attraction and initial flirtation that is often fun and if it were up to him could easily result in access to the happy stick without progressing to the next stage at all. But, for all of the single gals I know, the initial attraction stage is not all that is needed to result in partaking of the happy stick.
And this is where I envy the few wives I know. They no longer have to bother with the work that comes after the initial attraction/flirtation stage. There are no requisite “getting to know you” activities staged in the midst of sexual tension that is so thick it is damn near suffocating both of you, but neither you nor he feel comfortable enough to acknowledge your loss of oxygen just yet. There are no scheduling conflicts that get in the way of these “getting to know you” activities in the first place. There are no clenched teeth when he says or does something asinine as you realize that this guy may not be worth shaving above the knee for. And once you have progressed to enjoying the happy stick as often as possible, there are no complicated readjustments of schedules, no traveling involved, no negotiating and analyzing what enjoying the happy stick now means for the both of you.
To think that these wives have the happy stick right next to them EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and they say…”No, thanks, Hon.” I. DON’T. GET. IT.
I see these wives on Oprah sometimes explaining themselves. They say stuff like, “I am so tired by the time we get in the bed.” “I am so stressed with the kids and arranging for the pool guy to come and clean the pool and then getting the kids to softball practice…” “I feel like I’ve lost my sex drive.” When I hear these wives discuss their very legitimate ailments, I am even more baffled by why they are not having sex with their husbands. If you are fatigued, spend a few moments with the happy stick. I imagine that would give you a little more energy. After all, the happy stick can’t solve every problem in a marriage, bit it can make you…well, happy at least. Stress? Hello, what better way to relieve tension than by enjoying the happy stick? And perhaps a key way to find your lost sex drive is to…HAVE SEX. I mean, I’m no therapist, but…
I do not intend to judge women who find themselves in sexless marriages. Life and love are complicated so I am willing to acknowledge that there are real, hard to articulate reasons why a wife would choose the running of a household and raising of children over a healthy sex life with her husband. I do admonish these women to simply remember their lives before being blessed with 24 hour access to the happy stick, though. How often they wished they could just get this one little thing easily…without effort. Without work. I encourage wives to not take such a gift for granted. We single gals, although well adjusted and happy with our lives, envy you.
PICK UP THE HAPPY STICK, WIVES.
That is all…
I think.
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Yet Another Single Gal 
An admirer of both the happy stick and sex, I have had the sexless marriage experience all the same. And I know women, many, listless lifeless creatures who complain about the office, taxes and the endless obligations to church, family and children before they feel the sexual life of their marriage even warrants discussion. Married women (often) drown in the miasma of entitlement and resentment.
This is because once the selfless “getting to know you” stage of courtship has abated, and a woman has endured the tremulous road to “you get to be my wife” they are angry at the post nuptual let down (which they might not feel if not for all the pre nuptual build up) and their focus on themselves, goals, needs resumes. So here comes a baby and the exhaustion of it and the husband’s desire feels less like a “happy” gift and more like a violation. Man tries and tries, complains and get some “shut up” booty, but the tense power struggle stand off about her body is officially on. Que sad music, enter hot secretary left.
Many wives “let themselves go” because having a husband was the endpoint, not the great beginning, and yet when the promised experience of everlasting fairytale love is broken up by reality , someone (usually husband) has to be to blame.
I myself never understood why a happy stick should be within close proximity and not be made use of. But I came to understand perfectly that marriage is a complex brew of fragile emotions and ego led behaviors that leave us vulnerable to another person often unprepared for the responsability of gatekeeper for the sensitivities that make us who we are. It’s so natural to turn away from those who chafe us, and in marriage if it wasn’t for the chafing, might not be any exchange at all…
Withholding is not a good power play, but those married women are experts at what they don’t reveal, mostly what that HBO show covered pretty effectively, that intimacy is as troublesome as global politics. That the work of it exhausts most people before they even get started, and the giver won’t keep giving if she has no hope of satisfaction or can dream of a man desiring to please her instead of a man desiring to have an O before the game comes on.
Great response. Hey Keturah, as I read your blog, I laughed, and thought, spoken like a true single girl. Having sex when you have your own home and you can go home and spend time with yourself is very different from having sex with your co-worker who may or may not be holding up his end of the bargain. Sex when you’re single and you don’t live with the person is creative, exciting, both parties try to make it fun. Sex when you live with the person and have limited time and are both stressed about the household is more often rushed and less about–as the respondent above said–“a man desiring to please” his wife and more about “a man desiring to have an O before the game comes on.” Or vice versa, less about a woman doing what she has to do to look sexy, sound sexy and be sexy and alluring to her man, and more about please me muthf*@a cuz it’s your fault I’m so tired in the first place.
Oh the dynamics. What annoyed me about the Chris Rock movie is that he was guiltless. His wife just wouldn’t give him sex for god knows why. Don’t buy the bullshit. A lot of men who aren’t getting it from their wives know why. I’m not saying she was right, but I’m saying the movie could have been way more interesting if they would have actually engaged in the issue that the couple was having. The wife didn’t really have a voice. I don’t think Chris Rock’s ego could take him being criticized and he didn’t have the sensitivity to actually go there and put on blast what the real issues are in a marriage that make a couple stop having sex.
I’m not married, nor am I cohabitating, and I also find the not having sex thing shocking. I am a mother, however, and I get many conversations and phone calls from mothers who are married and quite a few of them say sex is not happening in their house. You wrote:
There are no scheduling conflicts that get in the way of these “getting to know you” activities in the first place. There are no clenched teeth when he says or does something asinine as you realize that this guy may not be worth shaving above the knee for. And once you have progressed to enjoying the happy stick as often as possible, there are no complicated readjustments of schedules, no traveling involved, no negotiating and analyzing what enjoying the happy stick now means for the both of you.
Oh but there is ALL OF THAT in marriage. ALL OF IT!!! Scheduling conflicts? Sure. One married couple I know joke that they both feel like single parents. Why because one always has the kid/s while the other is working. When you see them out, it’s one or other with the kids. How do they schedule intimacy time. The time that precedes the sex, the time that makes you want to have sex in the first place. Without the intimacy, it’s just a physical act and when it becomes just a physical act, that’s when many women check out of the whole deal.
No clenched teeth when he says or does something asinine as you realize that this guy may not be worth shaving above the knee for? Or but there is that in a marriage. That’s called “Why the hell did I marry this guy.” Another wife who doesn’t have sex with her husband because he doesn’t get her and doesn’t treasure her. He used to, and now he just forgets… repeatedly, except when she nags. Then he ups his game momentarily, then forgets again. She feels taken advantage of and she doesn’t want to have sex in that kind of dynamic.
And once you have progressed to enjoying the happy stick as often as possible, there is no negotiating and analyzing what enjoying the happy stick now means for the both of you. You think not?!? It seems like that negotiating and analyzing becomes even more intense, b/c as the responder above said marriages are fraught with emotional tension and intimacy issues. A third woman who is not sleeping with her husband because she just doesn’t like her husband’s jump her bones mentality. So she withholds. She wants sensuality. He just needs the sex. Men and women are so different that if they/we aren’t committed to meeting in the middle someone gets the short end of the stick. And NOBODY’s happy about that!
I tell my married friends all the time… y’all don’t make that shit look good.
My husband wants to invite you to dinner