I have never had a deeply committed relationship. Ever.

@fifthlimbtim That makes me curious how you approached the question. Without having had a deeply committed relationship, do you think of sex as something essential to one, or can you imagine a committed relationship being fulfilling without it?

An exclusive committed ideal relationship, yes, it would need to be part of the picture.

There is a concept I carry which is easily misunderstood, so I share it rarely: Physical intimacy which is playful, curious, yet impersonal, focusing not on who we are, but on what we are. To me BW is a context where many would understand that, much more than general society would. I have the need to celebrate what we are with other males, and to me that is satisfying in its own way. A romantic relationship in which the person is the focus is also desirable, but my life experiences and unique upbringing did not set me up for that at all. In that sense, many would consider me to be perverted.

I think I understand the distinction you’re making. You’re describing two different kinds of intimacy rather than treating all physical intimacy as an expression of romantic attachment. One is very much about the particular person: affection, attachment, commitment, desire, and being known by someone. The other, as you describe it, is more about shared physicality, curiosity, playfulness, and experiencing something together without necessarily wanting it to become a romantic relationship.

I’m also struck by the last sentence. “Perverted” carries an enormous amount of judgment, and I wonder whether that word describes how you actually see yourself or how you learned to expect other people to see you. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

You’ve mentioned your upbringing a couple of times now as having shaped what intimacy means to you. I’d be interested in what you mean when you say it didn’t set you up for a romantic relationship. Not the intimate details of your upbringing unless you want to share them, but what you think you learned about closeness, attachment, and relationships from it.

I was too emotionally close to my mother. When they had conflict she turned to me for emotional comfort. But aside from that, she had a pet name for me that was never acted upon, but it slowly and persistently set the tone for our relationship: "little lover", and Dad was "big lover". So there was this sense of rivalry with him for her affection. He had no resentment of this at all, and seemed fine with it. The groundwork of a boundary was never solidified as it is for most boys. She and I never did anything, but when I watch BTTF2, and Marty is parking with Lorraine, it doesn't make me the least bit uneasy. She would compensate by telling me "that girl's got her eye on you", and it was BS. Then too, Dad was Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes he was my buddy and other times he would be verbally abusive, so the self-esteem I needed to take initiative with a girl was missing. Read my blogs on BW and you'll see how I developed a fixation on dad's cock, and attraction to males, and I had near zero chance of heterosexual involvement.

Thank you for sharing that. It gives me a much clearer sense of what you meant about boundaries not being well established growing up, and the complicated messages you received about closeness and relationships.

You’ve clearly spent a lot of time thinking about how those experiences fit into your story. I’m most curious where that leaves you today. When you imagine the committed relationship you described earlier, do you still want that? Or have you found that the kinds of connection and intimacy you have now fit you better?

Hard to say.

It would be too good to be true to finally lose my virginity on the woman meant for me. The one sensation I most long for is what I read in Masters & Johnson about how when she climaxes, the vagina has rhythmic contractions, a hard squeeze of the penis followed by softer ones. Then if followed by the ego boost of knowing that I had knocked her up, making me feel like a total stud.

Or, finding a studbudbro, a dude who is a best buddy who turns me on and thinks the way I do, and who has zero infections in his crotch, that would also be awesome.

Either of these are rapidly fading as my body is showing subtle signs of aging and my stamina is not what it used to be. 

I hear two very different possibilities in that answer, but they seem to have something important in common: you want a connection where sexuality doesn’t have to be separated from feeling wanted, accepted, and fully yourself.

The part that catches me most, though, is “rapidly fading.” Aging certainly changes the possibilities, but I’m not sure it automatically closes them. Maybe the more interesting question now is whether either of those possibilities has to look exactly as you once imagined it in order to still be worth finding.

Define "sex"! For me, masturbation is sex. In fact, it's the most important kind of sex in my life. Since discovering it at age 11, I have almost never gone a day without masturbating. Partnered sex is great and wonderful on a psychological level, but masturbation is a necessity on a physiological level. Seldom has anyone given me the pleasure and satisfaction I can give myself.

Of course, fucking is wonderful too. I'm a top, and I absolutely crave the feeling of circlusion, just as I enjoy the animal feeling of my hips and abs working in tandem as I thrust into my partner. I love taking care of my partner and making him feel loved. Yet, my current partner (with whom I've been for 16 years now) isn't as sexually needy as I am. I am not unhappy, though, because masturbation has always been the most important kind of sex in my life. This means that when we have penetrative sex, it is meaningful for both of us, and I don't feel rejected or frustrated because he doesn't feel like it.

You know, that’s a really good point. I asked the question using the word “sex” as though we all automatically mean the same thing by it. Clearly, we don’t.

I also find what you said about your relationship interesting. You and your partner don’t have exactly the same sexual needs, but after 16 years together, you’ve apparently found a balance where that doesn’t have to become a source of frustration or rejection.

I think that actually changes the question a little for me. Maybe it isn’t simply whether sex is still part of a relationship, but what role we expect sex to play in making that relationship fulfilling.

Thanks for making me think about my own question differently!

I do not have the amount of partnered sex with my partner that I would like. However, I am emotionally bonded to her and have been for over 25 years. She’s the one. I’m sticking with her.

However, if I were to (hypothetically) find myself, “back in the market,” finding a partner with a similar sex drive would be significantly important to me. It would not be the only characteristic, however. 

To @Funky007’s point, I am consistently sexually active through masturbation and have been since age twelve. I desire partnered sex to complement my masturbation lifestyle, but I have never expected nor desired for partnered sex to replace it.

What strikes me in your answer is how clearly you separate two things that often get tangled together. You'd like more partnered sex than you're having, and yet the commitment itself isn't in question at all. After 25 years, "She's the one. I'm sticking with her." says a lot about what actually holds a relationship together for you.

It's also interesting that you and @Funky007 arrived at something similar from different directions. For both of you, masturbation isn't a substitute for partnered sex or a sign that something is missing. It's a constant, and partnered sex complements it rather than replaces it. I suspect a lot of men live that way without ever saying it out loud, partly because we're taught that still needing it once you're in a relationship means something has gone wrong.

Your hypothetical makes me curious, though. If you were back on the market, you said a similar sex drive would matter a great deal. Knowing what you know now, after 25 years, what would you look for that you might not have known to look for the first time around?

“Knowing what you know now, after 25 years, what would you look for that you might not have known to look for the first time around?”

It’s a great question, @Tony-admin. The answer may surprise you. 

If I could do it all over again, I would choose the same path. We had a heathy sex life. We conceived and raised our children. We navigated through difficult times and appreciated the high points. To a large degree, we still do.

Men and women age differently, however. I’ll never experience menopause. My sex drive remained relatively constant over the past 25 years (since age 12, actually). My spouse’s diminished. It is what it is. I’m not about to abandon her just because our libidos diverged. I made the right decision 25 years ago. I would make it again. 

My hypothetical wasn’t about going back in time, but going forward. If, for whatever reason, I found myself on my own and “back in the market” I would seek someone with a similar desire for partnered sex that I still maintain. I miss it. I would not, however, seek someone to help me raise children or support me through my career. I’m in different place now than I was 25 years ago. That’s the difference.

The answer to your question, “knowing what you know now, after 25 years, what would you look for that you might not have known to look for the first time around?” is, therefore, nothing.

What I would recognize, however, is that libidos do not necessarily remain constant or consistent over time. They often change. That’s the wisdom 25 years has afforded me.

For both of you, masturbation isn't a substitute for partnered sex or a sign that something is missing. It's a constant, and partnered sex complements it rather than replaces it.

Masturbation is a constant for me and has been since age 12. Since I started masturbating long before engaging in partnered sex, I refer to partnered sex as complementary to masturbation, but in reality each holds its own value.

Another way to look at it is through the metaphor of baseball. Suppose that I was an adolescent baseball fanatic. I loved the sport. I loved playing it. I was good at playing it. I liked to watch others playing it. I spent a large amount of my free time focused on baseball.

And then I discovered partnered sex. I had a girlfriend (or boyfriend), and we engaged in partnered sex as often as we could. Would this mean that I’d give up baseball? Why would I? I may focus less on baseball to free up time for sex, but I would continue to be passionate about it. I would endeavor to balance the two. 

Masturbation is no different. Yes, both masturbation and partnered sex involve ejaculation, so there is a stamina component here. You may not be able to engage in partnered sex quite as quickly after masturbating as you would after playing baseball. But outside of that, there is no difference. There’s no reason one must replace the other. There’s no reason one should replace the other. There is room for both in this life.

@proud-archer That actually doesn’t surprise me, and I think I understand the distinction better now. You’re not looking back at 25 years and thinking you chose the wrong person because one part of the relationship changed. You’re saying the person and relationship were right for that stage of your life, and still are, even though you've both changed in different ways.

I think your last point is probably the most interesting one. At 25, I’m not sure many of us really understood how much we would change, much less how differently two people in the same relationship might change. We tend to think compatibility means finding someone who fits us. Twenty-five years later, maybe the bigger lesson is realizing that compatibility also has to accommodate the fact that neither person is going to remain exactly who they were when they started.

@proud-archer That analogy actually works pretty well for me because it separates the two without putting one above the other. They may involve some of the same physical machinery, but they are different experiences with different purposes.

I think where people sometimes get tangled up is in assuming that masturbation must be compensating for something. If partnered sex is available, then why would you still masturbate? But that question only makes sense if you assume the two are competing for the same role.

Your baseball example makes the opposite case. One thing can remain personally meaningful even after another, very different kind of pleasure enters your life. Maybe the more interesting question isn’t why masturbation continues, but why we ever assumed partnered sex was supposed to make it unnecessary.

Posted by: @proud-archer

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There’s no reason one must replace the other. There’s no reason one should replace the other. There is room for both in this life.

We are raised to believe the exact opposite, and that is terribly sad. I'm happy @proud-archer mentions this. Granted, for some people (men or women), masturbation can be an avoidant behaviour, but it is not for most. When I masturbate, I'm not doing it because I can't or don't want to have partnered sex. I do it to please myself, reward myself, or relax. Masturbation gives me a form of sexual satisfaction that partnered sex doesn't provide. For me, masturbation is a fully valid form of sexual expression in itself that does not compete with partnered sex: it completes it.

Similarly, there's also a lot of confusion and misunderstanding around using toys to masturbate. Fleshlights and similar toys are not in competition with a partner. They don't provide any psychological connection. They provide optimized physical stimulation. A good toy is designed to arouse me like nothing else can. Just like vibrators do for women, but adapted to my needs as a male. Yet, just like vibrators won't replace a male partner for a woman, a Fleshlight won't replace my husband. There's no competition. Each exists for a different need.

Of course, I fully realize that the initial question was intended more like "Could we be happy in a relationship with no partnered sex at all?" And to this question, I would answer, "No: I would not be happy if the absence of sex was a rejection." In my case, I know that my partner desires and loves me. He just doesn't need sex as much as I do. His low sex drive is not a rejection. Forcing him to have sex as much as I need would be disrespectful.

@Funky007 You know, I really appreciate the way you've talked about this, particularly how comfortable you seem to be with your own sexuality and how thoughtful you are about your partner's needs. That's genuinely refreshing.

What really stayed with me was your distinction between having less sex than you'd like and feeling rejected. I think that's an important distinction, and probably not always easy to make when you're the one who wants more intimacy. It's one thing to understand that your partner's desire isn't the same as yours. It's another to feel secure enough in the relationship that you don't take that difference personally.

I also like that you haven't made either person's needs the problem. You want what you want, he wants what he wants, and neither of you has to be wrong. After 16 years together, I imagine you've learned quite a bit about navigating that.

And you've made me rethink my original question again, which is exactly what I hoped these conversations would do. Maybe what matters most isn't how often two people have sex, but whether they can still feel wanted, loved, and comfortable being themselves when their needs aren't quite the same.

Ironically, mismatched sex drives in a long term relationship can be more illuminating. Deeper intimacy reveals itself more readily when unencumbered by constant partnered sex. In other words, a robust sex life may truly be wonderful, but it can also prove difficult to recognize what, if anything, exists beyond all that passion.

I don’t wish mismatched sex drives on any couple. It’s hard for the individual with the greater libido looking for more of that type of intimacy. However, if the relationship endures, you know that some other form of intimacy is holding it together. There is no mystery there.