Rub and tug perils

Dear Sasha,

I have been married for 12 years. My wife and I have one child. From the time we got married, my wife has been fairly frigid and anytime we’ve had sex it has been initiated by me. She doesn’t let me kiss her on the lips and only gets aroused when I perform oral sex on her. She lies there like a statue as I have intercourse. My wife is also quite an abusive woman. Truth be told, if it were not for the child, I would have left long ago. Well, as you can imagine, I am quite sexually frustrated.

I began to deal with this by watching pornographic movies on pay television in my basement and masturbating. There are some attractive women in my office, and I began having sexual fantasies about them. Last winter, my friend took me to a strip club and allowed me to experience my first lap dance. It made me feel like a man. The lovely dancer took me to a private booth, allowed me to touch her anywhere above the waste and gyrated on me until I exploded. I have gone back to two other venues for lap dances since then. Last week I graduated to a new course of action.

Since lap dances can cost about $100 or more, I decided to explore the world of massage parlours. I booked an appointment, had a “presentation” of two lovely ladies and chose one. For $80, she gave me a full body massage, which included the best handjob I have ever had. I felt fantastic about myself. Is there a worry that I’ll become addicted to this type of sex trade, or am I just relieving my sexual frustration?

Dear Roger,

Yessiree, no shortage of letters to segue into another discussion of the book I brought up last week called The Sex-Starved Marriage, written by Michele Weiner-Davis. A short overview: it’s a self-help guide for heterosexual couples dealing with the overwhelmingly common problem of divergent sexual desires. On one hand, I appreciate the author’s suggestion that change requires action and some of the discussion exercises she suggests are really useful. On the other hand, her vision of what constitutes a marriage is inflexibly single-minded—my impression is that she would endorse whatever traditions the specific culture or era she came from valued.

Seeing as how she’s a modern Westerner though, Weiner-Davis believes the sanctity of this institution involves monogamous and consistent sex at any cost: pills and expensive treatments (some of which, since the book was published in 2003, have been discredited or poorly reviewed), lotions, lingerie and the invocation of Nike’s famous slogan, “Just Do It.” It’s marriage she believes in, the particulars of life, not so much. Still, when I consider the complexities of committed relationships as well as the ebbs and flows of sexual desire, for which most of us are ill-equipped and unprepared, I cannot disagree that this kind of blunt force action is often required to keep such an overreaching agreement intact. Marriage by Michele Weiner-Davis is not for thinky, sissy-types.

When I look at the contemporary Western standard of marriage, I see a construct doing its best to oblige various interpretations of Judeo-Christian demands, sexual equality, family, romantic love and social and legal recognition. All of these ingredients are intended to work well in favour of monogamous marriage, but as we shoehorn new rules in to accommodate and update the old ones, it becomes clear that marriage isn’t done yet, it’s simultaneously constant yet fluid. I believe we need meaningful ways to mark unions in our lives, but when you start behaving like you don’t have a choice in how these unions play out, I think you’re just being lazy.

Roger, has it occurred to you that talking to your wife about your shit sex life should be a more pressing concern than your growing interest in hookers? And that staying in a passionless, uncommunicative marriage for your kid is just a convenient excuse for not taking action within your household? Do you think kids enjoy living in a home where the prevailing atmosphere is one of roiling resignation? What you’re actually teaching your child is that it’s better to live in seething despair than change.

Sure, nobody can dispute that you’ve taken action, and I can’t blame you for wanting to fuck someone who at least pretends they’re into you, but how is it that you entered into this sacred covenant and the effort you make to maintain it is by finding the best and cheapest handjob in town? Come on man, you can do better than that. You can try, anyway.

Got any questions for Sasha? E-MAIL: POULEDELUXE@YAHOO.COM