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The smartest thing I’ve ever heard about men and women and sex is something Matthew Lickona said. I couldn’t find the exact quote, but it was like this:
Men need to have sex in order to feel taken care of. But women need to feel taken care of in order to want to have sex.
You could see this situation as an insurmountable dilemma and a cruel trick of nature. Or you can see it as God’s way of making sure that men and women are good to each other.
Isn’t that right? It only works if we have to work for it.
And now, just because I recently rediscovered Patty Loveless (I couldn’t get the Lettermman intro off, but the song starts at 17 seconds):
I have to sit down 
Exactly. Also, as I discussed here, if men have a lousy day, they’d like a little sex to cheer them up. But women need to be feeling good in the first place to want sex.
Hey Simcha,
On an unrelated note to your post, you might want to look into turning off the “possibly related posts” feature on your blog. When I read this, it suggested “Women won’t go nude for nookie,” which didn’t sound like a title you’d necessarily use, but hey, you never know.
When I clicked it, it took me to an article on the British tabloid The Sun, which definitely has no problems with publishing nudity, whether they get any nookie for it or not.
Not sure what WordPress is trying to pull here, but thought you might want to know.
Ugh – sorry, and thanks for the heads-up. I’ll see if I can wrestle WordPress in submission (uh-oh — I wonder what’s possibly related to that). My blog page looks different from readers’ pages, so I wonder what else I don’t know.
Umm, I think I could guess not to click on an Internet link with the word “nude” in it if I wanted to stay away from nudity.
Well, The Jerk, it looked like an internal link to Simcha’s blog, considering that it said “possibly related posts.” I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t make much sense for that to link to another site. Nor did it seem likely that Simcha (though we all know her for her licentiousness) would link to anything with actual nudity in it.
But there I go contextualizing things, which is always getting me into trouble.
This would have been helpful info to get in pre cana class. Took me years to figure it out myself.
I don’t know, I can imagine hearing it without hearing it. I think these things just take a while, period. (For our marriage preparation, we were advised to (a) keep the lines of communication open and (b) invest in gold.
Back in our Protestant days I heard a shorter version of the quote – “Men give love to get sex. Women give sex to get love.”
Echh – if I may say so, that sounds so protestant! It’s not about doing what you have to do get what you want (I mean, okay, sometimes it is — but ideally, and overall, it’s not about that). It’s about realizing that you have to back off from what you want because you love the other person, and then being rewarded by the other person doing the same for you. There’s some kind of Catholic/Protestant- faith/good works connection here, but I’m too dopey to draw it out at the moment. Anyone?
I think Protestants mean a similar thing – an idea of reciprocity. But many lack an understanding of sacramentality, of things (including human bodies) as visible signs of invisible grace. It’s the whole “Theology of the Body” thing that I’m too dense to read
Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to be harsh. Protestants do seem to have a weirdly workmanlike approach to sex. Remember that pastor who gave a sermon from a bed in front of his church, and dared his congregation to have sex with their spouse every night for a year? I remember reading an interview where the woman was laughing about how her husband had the flu and vertigo, but she insisted they forge ahead. Yay!
Speaking of links… I was checking out comments in your past post on NFP (priceless), and there was a huge ad for lesbian couples wishing to conceive. 84% success rate! Or something similar. Gross, yes, but I figure some wording in the comments triggered it. Don’t know if you can get that stuff off. We’ll just ignore. 😉
Martha, I didn’t even know they were there (they don’t show up if you’re logged in to WordPress, it seems). It’s frustrating, but I can’t do anything about it at the moment – please do just ignore!
Hey, where’dja get that cool picture?
Joey, it’s from Artistic Judaic Promotions, and is a ketubah. From Wikipedia:
I found it by doing a Google image search for “intertwine.”
I just read your piece about the gift of siblings on Faith and Family Live, and I had to come over and read more.
I love the beautiful image of intertwining trees, and I agree that is the smartest thing I’ve read about women, men, and sex.
My sometimes-exhausted-from-a-long-day-of-working husband used to wonder why I would be so, um, eager sometimes when he wasn’t really. Now I can tell him it must be because of the amazing ways he cares for me. 🙂 He isn’t selfless in hopes of getting some action, he’s selfless as an act of worship, but hopefully he enjoys the side effect!
Okay, loved the article, but uhm… I’m protestant… and I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never been to a service where the pastor really even talked about sex. I figure if you love each other, you’re going to supply each other’s needs, no matter what they may be. (???)
Sorry, Fiesty! I guess I hear something here and there, and apply it to all protestants everywhere – not fair at all.
Wow, Simcha. How very kind of you to mention it.