Expert: Dr. Dennis W. Neder - 3/7/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello Dennis,

After marriage, what is a healthy amount of sex for a wife and husband? Because of busy schedules and kids this number is going down, it is important for a married couple to set some "romance" time to themselves each week.

Is 2-3 times a week the optimum amount?

Also, it seems like the media reports that women's sex drives go down with age...but I actually think the man's is the one going on.

What do you think?

thanks,
Danielle

ANSWER: Hello Danielle!

You've asked a number of questions here. Let me address them all:

First of all, sex and romance are different things. Sometimes they are combined, but especially when you're busy with kids and family and work and life, that can be more difficult to accomplish. Thus, you have to make time for BOTH of them.

Think of sex as the body's maintenance and romance as the relationship's maintenance. This is why at least one weekly "date night" is a good idea. This is where you work on the relationship itself away from the stresses. If you do it right, that can easily fill up your cup for a week.

On the other hand, if you're only having sex one a week, that isn't going to be enough for many people.

The reality is that this sort of time management isn't as romantic as you'd like, but what's the alternative? Family stresses don't lend themselves well to spontaneity.

Ok, with that said, let's get to frequency:

The answer is: it depends on the individuals. 2-3 times a week is a reported AVERAGE. That doesn't make it "optimum" or "normal" or "common" or "healthy" or anything like that. It depends on many factors including the levels of health and stress and connection and many other things.

Age is also a factor in a way, but NOT the way the media reports it. Keep in mind that the media's job is to sell media. They don't care whether you're educated or not or even that the information they give you is really correct. What they care about is you "consuming" more of their media and not getting sued.

Let me tell you the reality about age and it's affect on libido: There is absolutely NO direct correlation!

In fact, many women (AND men!) let their health go as they get older and there *IS* a direct correlation between health and libido! The amount you exercise, your weight, your rest, the drugs you take and many, many other health-based factors directly affect libido. Thus, if you want a powerful, lust- and romance-filled marriage, simply keep your health up!

Now; one more important point to consider:

Many times, women's libidos are driven by their emotional fulfillment whereas men's are more often driven by physical need. In other words, even if men don't feel particularly connected emotionally (as long as they are not DISCONNECTED emotionally - that's a very different thing!) they still have a more-regular libido. Women tend to not be as scheduled in this way and can even have more pronounced cycles to their libido.

With that said, you need to realize that as the wife in a marriage, you have to help manage your husband's libido! The worst thing you can do is to send him out day after day after day, into the "world of women" with his trigger cocked! Realizing that his libido is likely to be pretty consistent, you will do very well for yourself to deal with it.

On the days where you can't have sex together, a quick blowjob or handjob really helps to keep his interests at home. I also have recommendations for men in this regard for their wives, but being a woman, we're dealing with you, and your marriage situation here.

Even if you can't help him occasionally, you should be encouraging him to masturbate as well - and you should be too. A marriage doesn't eliminate the physical needs of the body any more than it eliminates the attraction to others outside of it.

So, when you add all this up, maybe 2-3 times a week is fine for some people. Seven to 10 times a week is fine for others while once every 2-3 weeks is fine for yet others. As you can see, there are many factors involved that a simple statistic doesn't address.

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
President/CEO
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Remington Publications
BAM! TV
818.334.8826
http://beingaman.com
http://beingaman.tv
Publishers of "Being a Man in a Woman's World I & II"
Producers of "BAM! TV"


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Ok this isn't true all the time, but...

Why is it that in many cultures the woman is required to be a virgin until her wedding night and can only have sex with one man her whole life? Whereas a guy can have sex with a million girls, but for marriage he wants a virgin bride. Seems a bit odd, doesn't it. I mean, wouldn't an experienced man want an experienced woman? Why the virgin fascination, it's some huge ego boost.

Even some cultures go as far as vaginal mutilation, where they sew up the vagina so that she can't have sex. On the wedding night the man unsews it, which is horrendous pain for the woman.

Also, if she is not a virgin, she is hung and stoned to death. That's insane!

Ok maybe this is not happening as much anymore. But certainly all around the world women's sexuality is always controlled.

Women who watch porn, masturbate, enjoy sex toys, enjoy sex are labelled whores. Even if it's only her husband she enjoys it with, she is labelled as kinky or freaky.

But men can do whatever...no one cares...

why are women viewed this way?

Answer
Hello Danielle!

In cultures where this is practiced, it's a combination of many things including misunderstanding human sexuality, perceived value, fear, culture and many other factors. We even used to practice a form of this here in the US at one time. It was called "Victorianism".

In many ways, we still do a lot of really dumb, sad things to women in our culture today. Stigma, guilt, control and other pressures inflicted on women are hold overs from these types of mentalities.

There are just as many sources of this as their are examples, but one I write a lot about is the control aspect. You see, there is nothing more powerful; nor foundationally important than a person's sexuality. It dictates everything about that person from the clothes they wear to the friends they have to the words they choose to use to the way they walk and quite literally; everything else about their outward expressions.

Churches and governments got wind of this hundreds of years ago; in some cases, thousands. The reality is this: because of the foundational nature of sexuality, there is no greater key to controlling someone! Once you get control of their sexuality including how, when, where and with whom they have sex, you literally OWN that person (at least until they decide to take back that control).

Consider the Catholic Church for instance that preaches total abstinence outside of marriage.

Do you know where this doctrine came from? It wasn't part of the original beliefs at all and actually came into being only about 300-400 years ago. It began when the church started losing it's assets.

You see, Catholic priests at one time were allowed to marry and have families. The problem was that church assets started leaving the church itself by being willed to heirs.

In order to prevent this, the church decided not to try to control the will process, but instead, figured that if it could keep priests from having sex altogether, it would protect it's assets. Further, it would get better followers in the priests, prevent marriage and other things. Thus, it implemented the "vow of chastity" in these priests during the 1200's.

It worked so well that around the 1700's it also began doing the same thing with parishioners. The church began "sanctifying marriage" - something it had never done before. Many believers actually think this is something that has always existed when in fact, it was simply a political move by the church and a relatively new one at that.

Governments also got this figured out years ago and even our own government enacted the "Comstock Act" in 1873 that made it illegal to send anything that had any sexual context whatsoever through the mails including birth control information, breast cancer information or anything else. This extended right into the types of sex a person could have (or more so, couldn't have) in their own bedrooms!

While much of these laws have been correct, many of the stigma still remain, but you can start to see just how powerful these things are and how much damage they can do not just to individuals but to entire societies.

Attitudes about sexuality are often established very young in people and are very difficult to change. Just by hinting or alluding to some ridiculous notion that sex is "dirty" or "wrong" can persist throughout a person's entire life and very few are willing to stand up and mock it for fear of being ridiculed. (I happen to have no such sensitivities however!)

In this regard, women are viewed as more controllable than men sexually (and often that's true by the way) and thus, have become the primary vehicle of this control through all sorts of negative oppression including instilling the belief that virginity has any place whatsoever in normal healthy adult relationships.

The bottom line is this: There is not simple, easy answer to this question. In fact, men directly benefit from women with lots of experience and I continue to promote the idea that it's women's responsibilities to earn that experience just as it is with men.

Knowledge really is power and many other things like health, happiness, self-control, etc. Anything less *IS* insane, but then, people in power often are.

Aren't you sorry you asked now?

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
President/CEO
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Remington Publications
BAM! TV
818.334.8826
http://beingaman.com
http://beingaman.tv
Publishers of "Being a Man in a Woman's World I & II"
Producers of "BAM! TV"