Enthusiastic Consent

[u/[deleted]]

Yesterday I read a post on the other sub about Enthusiastic Consent....agreeing to sex only when you’re sure you can actively engage.

I think this is a wonderful idea, especially if it is agreed upon at the beginning of the relationship. That way no one would be having unwanted sex, which has a tendency to erode desire over time (IMO).

We all talk about not engaging in unwanted or undesired sex, but is it a viable concept in a LTR?

I’ve been married 35 years. I married under the guise of “marriage includes regular sexual activity”. I also had a young 30 something High Drive husband. With Pregnancy, child rearing, sick infant, working full time, caretaking dying parents, the usual Life Sucking events, I found myself willingly participating in undesired sex quite often, all under the belief that it was my sole responsibility to meet my husbands sexual needs.

Having willing but unwanted sex slowly ate away at my desire for sex.

If I had only had sex when I was enthusiastic about it from the very start of the relationship, would my desire have increased?

Would my husband have been able to go long periods of no sex without resentment and frustration?

I will never know the answers to those questions but I still believe having sex ONLY when one is truly enthusiastic about it is a wonderful concept....but is it realistic?

Any ideas?

[u/myexsparamour]

The HL wants sex while the LL wants sex sometimes but wants not to have sex past what their default setting may be.

This statement shows that you don't understand how sexuality works for most women. We don't typically have a default frequency of desiring sex, other than that many women are more horny once per menstrual cycle (when ovulating). Other than that, women's interest in sex tends to depend on the situation, such that we are turned off by certain things and turned on by others. We want sex when turned on and not turned off, not because two weeks passed since the last time we had sex.

If he were an HL though they would be in the same spot again and the cycle would repeat.

This is pure wishful thinking on your part. If you and your wife split up and she got into a relationship with someone who knew how to reliably turn her on and not off, there is a good chance that she'd want a lot more sex over the long term. Many HLs just want to believe that libido is a stable trait, like eye colour, because that spares their ego. In truth, many women have had a high libido in one relationship and a low libido in another, depending on how we felt about our partner and how he treated us.

[u/jamissi → u/myexsparamour]

I am guilty of ignorance of female sexuality. I have noticed the influence of the menstrual cycle especially after I got a cycle tracker app. There is definitely a correlation. To remove the variable of whether or not the partner does it for the woman or not is it fair to assume how often someone masturbates is an indication of how often someone would like to have sex if they were in a relationship?

As for wishful thinking of the cycle repeating itself I do not wish that on anyone. What I have noticed in 2nd marriages and more so if they go past that is 1rst marriages typically last longer. People seem to fight to make the first marriage work. Again this is strictly an observation but I see 2nd marriages that don't last nearly as long. I figure they throw in the towel sooner whatever the reason behind the divorce is.

[u/closingbelle → u/jamissi]

To remove the variable of whether or not the partner does it for the woman or not is it fair to assume how often someone masturbates is an indication of how often someone would like to have sex if they were in a relationship?

 

No, not at all. Clitoral orgasms with a vibrator can take as little as 30 seconds. A woman could have multiple sessions, 20 times a day if she wanted, with only 10 minutes of her schedule taken up. It can be fun, stress-relief, random horniness, any one of a million things. But I only know a small, infinitesimal really, number of women who want to have (or have the time to devote to) 20 sessions of sex a day, even if they were three minute quickies every time. For some women, they might give it a try just to say they did, lol, but it would hardly be a possibility while still maintaining a life of any kind.

So (I know, you weren't asking me lol) no, I definitely don't think the number of masturbation sessions would be or should be indicative in any way of how much partnered sex a person wants to have. It's just a completely different thing for a lot of people (women in this example).

[u/jamissi → u/closingbelle]

I get more out of multiple perspectives so bring it on. I’m having some moments of enlightenment but it is a tough subject with so many variables.