Men Withhold Sex, Too
Like women, men sometimes weaponize sexuality.
By T J Jordan
When men withhold sex from an intimate partner, they are inflicting a kind of psychological abuse, a passive-aggressive punishment by withdrawal of warmth. Withholding sex is an unhealthy power play, an exercise in indifference that turns our bedrooms and our playrooms into battlegrounds, and inflicts irreversible emotional damage to the gifts of trust and respect.
Sex between intimate partners is a heart-opening experience of desire and acceptance. When one partner chooses to close down sex, they close off paths to connection and joy, and put coldness where warmth is needed. They short-circuit possibilities for intimacy and destroy a crucial part of the scaffolding of their relationship.
We aren't accustomed to women raising the issue of lack of sex in their relationships because we have adopted the false belief that men need more sex than women, and that women can always get as much sex as they want. But this misses the point that men withhold sex from their partners as a passive-aggressive way of exerting control and refusing warmth. This is a denial of essential emotional connection, which is needed by all of us regardless of gender, in order to flourish in fully lived lives.
