Why men shirk their bedroom responsibilities

A unique chama meeting was held last weekend. Chama is the women’s welfare group of which I am the only male member. I am invited to attend meetings whenever sex issues are being discussed.

“We are holding this special meeting to resolve a sticky issue in our country,” the chairperson said in introducing the subject, “we have three special guests today who have sought our help.

The three guests were introduced as Rose, Mary and Esther. They had participated in several street demonstrations because their husbands had abdicated their conjugal responsibilities.

“I have not had sex with my husband for the last four months,” Rose explained, “last year we had sex only three times.”

“In fact she is better off,” interjected Mary, “mine stopped two years ago and any time I make advances we quarrel.”

The problem of women going to the streets to protest their husbands neglect for sex is an old problem in some parts of the country. Many times it has been blamed on alcohol; that the men are drunkards and as a result lack energy and responsibility to satisfy their wives.

But it is difficult to know whether these men have gone into alcohol due to relationship problems or even sex problems in the first place or whether it is actually the use of alcohol stopping them from having sex.

COLLAPSED SYSTEMS

From a number of studies on stability of marriages, it has been found that the best predictor for a stable marriage is a man’s sexual satisfaction. Women, on the other hand, look at marriage in a broader perspective with sex being only one of the considerations for marital satisfaction.

That being the case, is it possible that men are running out of the bedroom into alcohol because sexual satisfaction is in itself lacking?

“What do you mean by that?” Esther interrupted, “I am always there for him. I have never stopped offering myself to satisfy him!”

But it is not just a matter of offering oneself. Sexual satisfaction happens in a functional relationship. When couples are facing difficult relational problems, they shut off sexually. The conflict can arise from any source: money, relatives, lack of communication, etc. For some couples conflicts have happened for a while before sex ultimately ceased.

In some cases the problem in the marriage is lack of intimacy and love skills. Nobody is born with these skills. In the traditional African communities, men and women were coached on how to have sex.

Those traditional systems have collapsed. Unfortunately the modern sex coaching systems have not commensurately picked up and a number of married couples are at a loss on how to satisfy their spouses.

The boredom in the bedroom can be tolerated for only a while before hell breaks loose.

There is also a mentality that sex is dirty and taboo and this makes people not seek for help when they have challenges in the bedroom. It is taken that decent people do not talk about sex.

Women who have gone to the streets to demonstrate should be credited for making the public aware that these problems exist.

The better way, however is to seek the help of a sex professional in privacy and candidly talk about sex and the difficulties a couple is going through. There is no alternative to this and in fact a couple does not have to wait for problems to happen before seeking help.

EVENTUAL CATASTROPHE

If you are doing well, seek help to even get better. This matters if you value your relationship and want it to last.

Other than relationship problems and lack of intimacy and love skills, there are times when either the man or the woman has an illness. The illness could be causing painful sex, lack of lubrication, inability to get orgasm or any other problems in a woman.

The man could be having erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, or other problems as a result of an illness. Some of the illnesses may be as serious as diabetes or sex hormone imbalances.

Whatever the problem may be, the natural response is to get discouraged in the bedroom and avoid sex altogether. Some men may then choose to drown their frustrations in alcohol. The illness on the other hand advances. It helps to seek professional help to avoid the eventual catastrophe.

“Members the message is clear, let us seek professional help as couples when bedroom problems arise, let us not shame our men in public,” explained the chairperson in closing the meeting.

“Although the man may appear to be the problem, the cause of bedroom troubles is shared and we should not put all the blame on them, in fact sometimes we are the cause of the problem,” she concluded.