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Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 37,191,467 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mink57
LOL! You don't see sex being pushed on us?
Seriously?
All of the advertising? Scantily clad men and women? Ads for lubricants? Toys? ED? Vaginal 'dryness'? Condoms? Different methods of birth control? Penile implants? Breast enhancers? Pills? Vitamins? Other things that would get us "in the mood", bm
Many of those things are being sold because people DO want sex, so these aids help make that happen.
People aren't going to be buying sex toys or ED pills if they don't want sex.
Many of those things are being sold because people DO want sex, so these aids help make that happen.
People aren't going to be buying sex toys or ED pills if they don't want sex.
Advertising doesn't work that way. Their job is to convince you that you want or need something even if you really don't. By pushing the products they are pushing sex. If they convince you that you need that then you are more likely to buy their stuff.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 37,191,467 times
Reputation: 40641
Quote:
Originally Posted by tamajane
Advertising doesn't work that way. Their job is to convince you that you want or need something even if you really don't. By pushing the products they are pushing sex. If they convince you that you need that then you are more likely to buy their stuff.
That is true for luxury good advertising only (you didn't know you needed this, you do.. you may not know it existed). Most advertising is about brand. Honda vs Nissan. You're going to buy a product (true for lube, condoms, ED treatments or cars, or pants, or frozen pizza), we want you to buy ours. Someone that isn't having and won't be having sex isn't buying lube or condoms and filling drawers with it.
Sex sells, so it's used in advertising. That doesn't mean anyone's trying to "push" it on or convert anyone, not that most people need it to be "pushed" on them.
And sex sells because for most average people it feels good, satisfying, intimate etc. A lot has been written about why people enjoy sex so I don't need to repeat this here.
And with all due respect to @Mink57, I think she just doesn't realize how good sex could be. And sex accessories do sell because most people want to have better sex. Of course there are exceptions...
Last edited by DefiantNJ; 12-02-2022 at 01:19 PM..
Are there men out there open to a relationship with no sex?
Short answer is no. Men don't only want sex, but they do want it. Sure, if you're 70-80-90 years old, there might be a point for some men where you lose all interest whatsoever, but doesn't seem to be the case with any/many men younger than that.
There are asexual people and I would assume some are male, but I've never met any. There seem to be many times more asexual women than men. Just basing that on every interview/reference to a [truly] asexual person I've ever seen being female. I would imagine that some and maybe most 'asexual' men may be in the closet and use asexuality as a way to avoid coming out.
Since when is having a "male partner" the end-all-be-all of relationships?
Statistically, there are more women who are miserable with their "male partner" than there are men who are miserable with their female partner.
And why being a "cat lady" somehow means that the cat lady is automatically miserable and unhappy is news to me!
There are plenty of single, unattached women on this forum alone who are THRIVING...happier than they've ever been, without a man, and with or without cats!
Being alone does NOT automatically mean that someone is lonely.
Oddly though, the only "cat ladies" I've known (like, single middle aged or older women who had no desire for dating, romance, sex, etc)...did not have cats, they had dogs. And talked about how happy they were to go home and drink wine, hike with the dogs and so on. Maybe that's a Colorado thing. They were generally divorced, had been there and done that, and knew they had no further desire to have a man in their lives ever again.
Like not just a matter of abusive or problem men either, they did not want to consult with anyone before doing whatever they wanted to do at any point. They wanted to live their own lives by their own priorities, not having to put anyone else's first. And with their quality of life at a higher point than it had ever been with a man around, they did not feel any particular loss or problem with sex not being part of it.
And I think this kind of points to something shelato brings up a lot, from a book we both recommend (Come As You Are), which is that "spontaneous vs. responsive sexual desire" thing, or more to the point, a piece of thinking I pulled from another book I've read (The Tao of Love & Sex)... I have found that the more I have really GOOD sexual experiences, the more I want them. Which means that sadly, if I hit a "dry spell" in a relationship, like maybe somebody was sick or something...unless my partner helps me to come back to desire, I might just drift further and further away from it. And if over time, my desire wanes enough, it really won't be on my mind. It won't be something that I miss. I will feel like...I don't know why this has to matter at all...I really could go on indefinitely without it... But if I am getting the good stuff, then I will want more, more, more. It's like a switch, it's on or it's off, and it can be really on...or really, really off. And when it's off, I'm not suffering. I just don't care.
I suspect this is difficult for most guys to understand, how this might feel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mink57
LOL! You don't see sex being pushed on us?
Seriously?
All of the advertising? Scantily clad men and women? Ads for lubricants? Toys? ED? Vaginal 'dryness'? Condoms? Different methods of birth control? Penile implants? Breast enhancers? Pills? Vitamins? Other things that would get us "in the mood", because, after all, we're ALL supposed to be "in the mood" REGARDLESS of what else is going on in our lives, at a given moment...right?
Seems like we're ALL supposed to be "horney and ready" at any given moment.
...and GOD FORBID if we're not! Oh, the price we pay, for NOT being "willing" and "ready" at the drop of someone's zipper.
The woman who has 4 kids to feed/tend to all who are under 8 years old. What? She doesn't want SEX? What's WRONG with her? Aren't we ALL supposed to want sex regardless? Sheesh!
Even people who DO want sex, don't want it ALL the time.
Take way all of the "advertising". You'd probably find a LOT of people who don't want sex at the drop of a hat.
LOL this reminds me of a complaint that I've heard in the kink community. So much of that, which I have mentioned here and there over the years, had NOTHING to do with sex. And as has been mentioned, too, in this thread, it's probably one of the likelier places one might find an asexual partner, which I suspect would be a counterintuitive notion to anyone who has had no exposure to the subculture. But as a member of that group...I always imagine that "vanilla" people think that the "kinksters" are obsessed with sex, when in fact we look out at mainstream society and see this combo of repression and obsession that just...twists things. You've literally got different groups of people who each think that the other is kind of sick in how they go about sexuality....and it's always been a funny thing, to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timberline742
That is true for luxury good advertising only (you didn't know you needed this, you do.. you may not know it existed). Most advertising is about brand. Honda vs Nissan. You're going to buy a product (true for lube, condoms, ED treatments or cars, or pants, or frozen pizza), we want you to buy ours. Someone that isn't having and won't be having sex isn't buying lube or condoms and filling drawers with it.
I don't know about that. My son, when he was 15, said that he thought he should get some condoms because "sex could happen at any time." At that particular moment, he was going through a very awkward phase in terms of experimentation with questionable fashion choices, and I had to bite my tongue, because the reply that sprang to mind was, "Not if you're gonna dress like that, it's not."
But I gave him some money and told him to go buy himself some condoms. And he did. And he kept a drawer full of them, although it was years before he needed them. But in the meantime, I know from collecting the trash from around the house, he experimented and learned how to use them, which I think was fine and good. Might as well get comfortable with the idea of them and how they work, before it becomes a practical necessity.
I also, though, think that there is a misconception about "toys" as being mainly for the use of people who are not getting sex, to satisfy themselves in the absence of a partner. I am not the only person I know who isn't at all into them for that purpose. I much prefer having them be part of partnered activity and do not need them for solo time. But I'm sure that people's preferences vary on that subject. I suspect that if more people felt more comfortable using them together, more men would know a thing or two about pleasing their female partners, I'll say that much.
And I think this kind of points to something shelato brings up a lot, from a book we both recommend (Come As You Are), which is that "spontaneous vs. responsive sexual desire" thing
And that's the tricky bit, we don't know if it's off topic or not. And as I've said, I really feel that the questions that would have to get asked and answered of the OP are just too graphic and personal, I am not even comfortable asking a stranger such things and I'm pretty open to talking about all sorts of stuff, you know?
But I can say that if her lack of interest in sex with a partner is because the experiences she had with men were either emotionally hurtful and not satisfying, or weren't fulfilling in the sense perhaps that this, that, and the other partner in particular just did not elicit desire and she want along to make them happy...
If there is any part of her mind asking, "Is this the way it has to be?" or wondering if a satisfying sex life that involves sex is a thing she could possibly have under different circumstances with a better partner...
I would recommend Emily's books, podcast, what have you, very VERY highly.
Now if none of this is the case...which, again, none of my business really the particulars of what all has gone into this declaration...and if she is just flat out asexual, end of story...then maybe not.
Though actually I would be surprised if Emily has not addressed that subject as well, somewhere. She's pretty thorough.
This is from the transcript of the podcast episode on horniness that kind of relates to the OP:
Quote:
Emily Nagoski:
But even more than that, I think people do feel this obligation to be interested in sex. We're told that if
you're not interested in sex, there's some sort of problem with you and your body. You need to always be
trying to want sex, to try sexy new things. And we can't just allow our brains and bodies to just shift away
from sexuality for a while. And here's the irony. If you believe you are supposed to be interested in sex all
the time and you are not interested in sex, does that activate your accelerator?
Mo Laborde:
No.
Emily Nagoski:
The reverse, right? It just that feeling of, "I'm supposed to want sex but I don't want sex," it just hits your
brakes some more. So if you believe you need to juice the accelerator, that belief is probably just making
it more difficult for you to want any sexual experience that might present itself to you.
That is true for luxury good advertising only (you didn't know you needed this, you do.. you may not know it existed). Most advertising is about brand. Honda vs Nissan. You're going to buy a product (true for lube, condoms, ED treatments or cars, or pants, or frozen pizza), we want you to buy ours. Someone that isn't having and won't be having sex isn't buying lube or condoms and filling drawers with it.
Then you don't get advertising. People advertise because they WANT others to 'buy' what they're 'selling', REGARDLESS of whether they want to buy or not.
Even if someone doesn't want sex, if it's 'pushed' enough, that person just may have sex.
Someone may hear, sex is Great! Wonderful! Fantastic! Terrific! Stupendous! Better than any drug out there!
...and think to themselves, "Um, o.k. I'll try it." After all, it's supposed to be great, wonderful, terrific, etc. When it isn't, they may figure that there's something "wrong" with them...
...which couldn't be farther from the truth...
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