Always remember, your posts are good enough for the front page, too.
Thanks, Josh. Well, you get what you ask for. This is super-boring and personal and doesn't really belong on the front page, but I tried to post it in my journal and this guilty message popped up saying that no one had posted to the front page yet today, and am I SURE that this is really a journal entry? Fine, I'll hang all the dirty laundry in the front fucking yard, what do I care?
Is it possible to grind your mental teeth? That's how it feels.
I'm feeling nasty and unworthy and like it all needs to stop. There is not enough beer in my refrigerator to make these feelings go away. I can't sleep, can't eat, hate work, resent and tolerate my relationship, and generally spend all my free hours drowning my feelings of unfulfillment, inadequacy, guilt, and awkwardness. I am currently using killoggs as a venting box because I'm too lazy to pick up a pen and write this down in a notebook that no one will see but me.
I'm wasting my time at my job. There was a time where I loved it so much that it drove me ... I behaved responsibly because I feared occupational repercussions if I behaved irresponsibly. I felt truly privileged and excited to go do my job, as I felt it was worthwhile and important. I let it teach me discipline and self-confidence.
I don't feel that way anymore.
I'm really scared that I will always, eventually, feel this way about everything. That jobs, relationships, friendships, everything will eventually eclipse my level of interest and engagement. Getting tired of a job is one thing, and it's natural ... getting tired of interpersonal relations is another, especially when someone else's heart is at stake. I feel unequipped to hold someone else's heart and be responsible for its well-being; always I feel as though I'm going to let everyone down, because that's what I always do.
Last night I wasn't turned on, and he was. He went to bed and I stayed up watching TV. After about ten minutes I heard him calling me and I went into the bedroom, where he was masturbating. I thought, "Good!" I dirty-talked him through it and watched him get off and cleaned him up and tucked him in, then went back to watching the Fox Soccer Channel in the living room. Today he tells me that he felt unloved and unrequited because he had to jerk off. I tried to explain to him that his sexuality was not dependent on mine, and he should feel free and guiltless and completely within his rights to pull it whenever he feels it necessary. I do, after all (not that I have anything physical to pull). He says he doesn't want to do it without sharing it with me. So in the discussion of his masturbatory hangups that followed, he says the following sentence:
"So does this mean that I only get laid when you want it?"
Um. Well ...
Yeah, buddy, basically that's exactly what it means. That's what it always means. Do you really want to have sex with me when I don't want it? Because if you do, I'm in the wrong fucking relationship.
I felt really objectified. Not in a good way. Like the relationship isn't worth it to him if he isn't getting pussy on demand. Like I'm a place to stick his dick. That's how I felt. I told him that's how I felt, and he realized how it sounded, and sort of apologized, but I don't think he really understood where I was coming from.
Well, how can you? I'm a pretty irrational girl, and it's not unlikely that I'm overreacting. But it just didn't sit right with me.
josh [email] said at 10:01 AM 06-01-2005: are you still living in lake charles? move to the big cit-ay, ditch the dude, find a new job in an area that will allow for more opportunity and advancement!
anthony [email] said at 11:07 AM 06-01-2005: I'm gonna be the asshole here, but truthfully guys gain their sense of validation and appreciation differently than girls. I know there's been times in past relationships where the sex started dwindling off and it really made me start to doubt myself along with how "attractive" I was to my significant other. I think it'd be pretty easy for a girl to look at it the situation as "he doesn't care about me more than someplace to put his dick", but at the same time if you've been involved in a long term relationship where you've shared emotions and not just bodily fluids, then I think maybe you're wrong. Unless you feel like he has a complete disregard for you as a person, I'd chalk it up to him not adjusting to the changes in yalls sex life.
That said, I'm not trying to be a dick, but if you're not into the relationship anymore, you need to dip, because there's nothing worse than being with someone who's heart is somewhere else.
katie [email] said at 1:12 PM 06-01-2005: i don't really think you're being an asshole when you say that. you've articulated what i think he was trying to say to me in our last discussion on the matter. i immediately went to "posessive jerk" without understanding how he really felt, i guess. and i tried to tell him that he shouldn't feel invalidated if i don't want to have sex four times a day. ack, what a quagmire. anyway, anthony, i do see your point, and i hope this discussion doesn't degenerate into "Men = sex-driven ingrates / Women = saints" or whatever. that's not what i mean.
ed [email] said at 8:11 AM 06-02-2005: If this were self-parody, it would almost be worth the ones and zeroes it takes up. Sadly, I know it is not.
And yes, here I come to defend the gynos. And I know you'll say that's what I always do, but you're wrong. When you wrote about not getting the job you wanted, did I defend them in any way? No. Why? Because their position seems indefensible. From what you have described, you were in the right. But you have allowed your personal experiences, real or imagined, to do exactly what you have just accused them of: act on emotion, not rational thinking!
myriam [email] said at 10:31 AM 06-02-2005: girls do too--at least i and many girls i know do. everyone knows sex is partly about validation.
if it really bothered you that much, katie, chances are there's something underneath that you don't like about what's going on, and this is just the triggering of a superficial reaction on top of that.
myriam [email] said at 10:31 AM 06-02-2005: girls do too--at least i and many girls i know do. everyone knows sex is partly about validation.
if it really bothered you that much, katie, chances are there's something underneath that you don't like about what's going on, and this is just the triggering of a superficial reaction on top of that.
mary [email] said at 12:21 PM 06-01-2005: I don't think you're overreacting. It'd be one thing if you were turning him down all the time for no real reason.
What if you were sick? Or depressed? Would he still think it was always your job to fuck him when he wanted? Is he willing to commit himself to getting you off whenever you're in the mood, regardless of how he feels? If he says no, does he make up some excuse about it being physically impossible since he couldn't get an erection, etc?
Thing is, you *were* part of his masturbation effort that night. If you didn't care about him, you wouldn't have bothered with all that dirty talking and such.
katie [email] said at 1:19 PM 06-01-2005: and thing is, I *am* depressed. (see the top part of this post?) i feel as though i can't discuss this with him because he wouldn't understand what depression does to your sex drive, and that he would blame himself or take it too close to heart. i think that for a chronically depressed person in a slight downswing, i'm being extremely accessible and accomodating.
and yes, he is absolutely willing to get me off whenever i'm in the mood, at least thus far; he's pretty much always up for it.
that he says he's hurt because he had to masturbate - this is what infuriates me. "i have a beautiful girlfriend and i'm by myself in my room jerking off?"
THAT's what doesn't set right with me.`
anthony [email] said at 12:55 PM 06-01-2005: i'd hope that someone i'm living with and trying to share my life with wouldn't feel so offput by this. I guess relationships are all about give and take, and maybe this dude isn't giving enough of something to cause these harbored feelings.
katie [email] said at 1:15 PM 06-01-2005: i'm not put off by his need to masturbate or his desire to have me be a part of it. i did that quite willingly.
i'm put off by the atmosphere of neediness i perceive when he says things to me like "i won't get myself off when you're not around to share it with me". maybe i'm paranoid, maybe i'm damaged goods, maybe i've never had a good-hearted man really try to love me - but something in the tone, and indeed the very nature of the conversation made me feel apprehensive about our future.
shauna [email] said at 12:02 AM 06-02-2005: that phrase has a ring of control to it. a 'you have to be part of what i need now' versus 'what can we do now that suits both our needs and interest levels.' to suck all the fun out of it. you can experiment with all sorts of roles and such, build to fit, reassess later on.
when i lost interest for an extended period of time, i discovered that i just wanted to really sumbissive at that point, to play out other stuff in my life (sex always does). you might hit something fun.
woody [email] said at 11:32 PM 06-01-2005: I still think she could have lent him a hand. Is that really so hard? I would do the same, if I was too tired for anything else. In theory.
anthony [email] said at 12:51 PM 06-01-2005: I'd also like to say that if dudes had the sex drive of the average girl, there'd be no people in this world.
meredith [email] said at 1:08 PM 06-01-2005: I can definitely empathize with this. I've been in the same situation. If I feel like I'm expected or obligated to put out then it makes it much less attractive and makes me much more tense and makes me want to do it even less. I don't know of many girls who have tried to guilt their boyfriends into sex when they didn't want it by saying, "Guess I'll just go masturbate then" in THAT tone, but guys do it frequently.
anthony [email] said at 1:17 PM 06-01-2005: i could really argue this point, and i really understand what yall are saying, but sometimes a dude just wants to have sex and sometimes it's alright to us if you just lay there. I'm not saying that makes for great sex or anything but maybe you'd have to be a guy to understand. This totally sounds gross, but and degrading, but it's not like that, or at least not for me.
katie [email] said at 1:25 PM 06-01-2005: so even though we DON'T WANT TO, we should just suck it up and lie there and let him fuck us because we're the girlfriend and that's relationship give-and-take?????
it may be all right for you if we just lie there, but how great do you think that is for us? i mean, if we don't want to have participatory, engaging sex in the first place, don't you think that nonparticipatory "bad sex" would be an even less desirable option??
maybe you'd have to be a girl to understand.
please understand that i'm not trying to be snide or combative, i'm just trying to get my head around this side of the story.
meredith [email] said at 1:28 PM 06-01-2005: Yeah. I mean, even though I have a boyfriend, I don't consider that grounds for sex with him any time I want. I don't think a girl should have to lie down and let her self be done if she doesn't feel like it just because she has a boyfriend and therefore should be available 24/7.
anthony [email] said at 2:14 PM 06-01-2005: I'm really sounding like a douche in this thread of posts. I think you're right, and this is probably just a sporadic thing that happened. I was speculating, but I think if it's something that's happening with any frequency, then some lines of communication definitely need to be opened.
shauna [email] said at 12:06 AM 06-02-2005: it was hard to think about wanting to be an object to be fucked from my own feminist perspective (his, too. this was quite a change in demeanor), but from my gutteral, pervy one, submission made for some interesting communication. more...mammilian.
anthony [email] said at 10:23 AM 06-02-2005: Sometimes people are just selfish, and what I meant by give and take, is that there are definitely things I've done, sexually and non-sexually, that I really didn't want to do, but I did anyways because my s.o. wanted to. This is how I'm looking at it. It took up my time, my energy, and I gained nothing except the happiness of my s.o.
chrisx [email] said at 2:06 PM 06-01-2005: Girls use other (usually less obvious) means to guilt their men into sex, or to guilt them regarding lack of sex. Both sides do it, just in different ways. In a long-term relationship, sex drives go up and down, stress levels go up and down, and the problems caused by this seem to be mostly of the "hurt feelings" variety on both sides, which again are manifested in different ways.
The solution to this sort of thing is of course for both parties to be more understanding of the other's needs, and for both parties to strive to not be so damn sensitive in their reactions. It ain't easy.
milky [email] said at 2:01 PM 06-01-2005: My ex played this great little game called "I wanna have sex when I know you can't," like when I was drunk or studying. Then got pissed when I didn't get when she said "I'm not in the mood...work is stressing me out."
milky [email] said at 2:34 PM 06-01-2005: My other favorite is when women make you promise to do housework during foreplay because they know you'll say yes to shut em up.
cecil [email] said at 5:04 PM 06-01-2005: At first I thought you meant during foreplay the woman makes a promise to do housework for you. Now that's a great idea.
milky [email] said at 5:06 PM 06-01-2005: It never works that way...any reminder for her to pay her part of the bills was ignored, but she'd jump up after sex to go shoe shopping...
cecil [email] said at 5:14 PM 06-01-2005: Right. but I'm just saying I've never had a live-in girlfriend who seemed to do her share of the housework. So now, "I'll do the dishes, I'll scrub the bathtub..." works as talking dirty to me.
milky [email] said at 6:57 PM 06-01-2005: Good God would it have worked for me. That and all the fucking cooking I did, only for her to come home and say "we're going out!"
milky [email] said at 6:26 PM 06-01-2005: Brain, if you have no money and no law degree and you're engaged to someone who has all the capital and you've bought the marriage thing from her end that you'll be financially stable, and you're poor, guess what....
You WILL be the househusband punk bitch until you get out of it.
I'd never contort a woman like that.
But there's a line around the block who will fuck me over.
Don't get anyone pregnant, chief, or you'll be somebody's bitch in the same way I was.
Me said at 1:43 AM 06-02-2005: Bottom line. Guys want sex. It's the only reason we put up with your bullshit women. If you want us to not want to have sex with you, put on a couple of extra pounds and stop your bitching.
