Latest / Masculine Containment / 60 - Why “Forced Celibacy” Is the Wrong Answer to a Sexless Marriage

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60 - Why “Forced Celibacy” Is the Wrong Answer to a Sexless Marriage · Masculine Containment

0:00
I recently watched an Instagram video, a reel, that has been driving me crazy.
0:05
It drove me crazy.
0:06
I did some expression on it.
0:07
I put out some content on it.
0:09
And I want to record a podcast about it because I think it's really important.
0:13
Because this video feels like validation.
0:17
But it is so perpetuating the problem that it is trying to solve.
0:22
The reel is titled, Wives Starve Their Husbands.
0:25
And the opening line is, when your wife withholds sex from you and expects you to just be okay with it, and then the guy keeps expressing.
0:34
And...
0:35
Right away, when I heard the video, my body got uncomfortable because notice the language.
0:40
When your wife is withholding, you're just supposed to be okay with it.
0:45
He's making men feel like something's being done to them.
0:48
Then he goes on to compare sex to food and says something like, if your wife was hungry, no one would tell her she simply has to starve because nobody feels like cooking.
0:58
And he goes on to say, you know, we all do things we don't want to do, and so your wife should have sex with you regardless.
1:05
And it got even worse.
1:07
He describes sexual starvation that makes you feel small and unworthy and less of a man and taken advantage of.
1:14
And, like, those things can be true, but then he says something that...
1:20
that really made me challenged.
1:21
She says, you get up and go to work every day and do your part, so essentially she should do her part too.
1:27
So sex is a transaction.
1:28
You work, she has sex with you.
1:31
And if she doesn't, she's not being a committed partner.
1:35
And he gives it this label of forced celibacy.
1:38
And then he describes monogamy as basically being, I'm only, and he uses a slang word for having sex that's kind of vulgar, but he says, I'm only having sex with you.
1:48
You're only having sex with me.
1:50
And so his point is, I agree not to have sex anywhere else.
1:53
So you're my only sexual partner.
1:55
So if you stop wanting sex, you're now forcing me into celibacy.
1:59
And I didn't sign up for this.
2:01
And the argument becomes, if I don't want to destroy my family, and if I want my sexual needs met, what should I expect to do differently?
2:09
And then, he goes on to say that you should just be able to go get it somewhere else.
2:17
Man, this is so challenging.
2:20
This messaging is so challenging.
2:22
This validation, what feels like validation for men, but really isn't validation.
2:27
What it really is is exacerbating the problem and digging into the problem.
2:30
And this video got a ton of attention.
2:33
And hundreds of men commented on it.
2:34
So this is a real issue.
2:36
There's a real issue with...
2:39
relationships where there is less sex than a man wants and there's a real issue with relationships where intimacy goes away and there's a legitimate reason there's a legitimate question underneath all of this you know the reality is a man probably didn't agree to a sexless marriage and sex can be incredibly important to us and I don't think that the answer is the opposite of this it's not shut up stop caring about sex accept decades without intimacy pretend everything is fine the
3:09
What I do disagree with is the contention that a woman should just transact sex or should be there for you sexually even when she doesn't want to be.
3:20
And really, the contention is sex is an obligation.
3:23
And I think as men, we have to understand that.
3:26
That if we get into this space of sex as an obligation, it challenges our relationship at a foundational level.
3:33
And it's going to challenge how you live with your partner and how you express with your partner and how you connect with your partner.
3:39
Because videos like this feel validating, but validation is not the same thing as a solution.
3:44
And here's why I think so many men who are sexually frustrated want to believe videos like this.
3:50
Before I challenge the conclusion anymore, I want to validate that sexual rejection is so difficult.
3:57
Like, let's get real.
3:59
It's hard for us as men.
4:02
I know that.
4:03
I mean, I've been there.
4:03
I've been in a place where I didn't want to initiate because I was afraid of the answer, and I've been in a place where I didn't understand what was going on, and I didn't understand the challenges I had caused in my relationship, or the challenges that were present that were pushing intimacy away, or making intimacy more difficult.
4:19
I remember months ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine.
4:23
And he was telling me about how his relationship felt like it was kind of degrading and not getting better and kind of falling apart.
4:32
And he was saying, you know, his wife wasn't as playful as she used to be.
4:35
She wasn't as connected as she used to be.
4:37
You know, he said, you know, sometimes I initiate and most of the time I'm rejected.
4:41
And he's like, so I don't even initiate anymore.
4:42
And I paused him and I said, like, hey, what does that feel like?
4:47
And he said, it's hard.
4:49
And I said, what does it really feel like?
4:53
Alex, it's like the hardest thing I'm dealing with right now in my life.
4:56
You know?
5:00
When I make posts about this, there's a lot of women that come into the comments and say, like, sex isn't a need.
5:06
But in a monogamous relationship, for a man where we're not having sex, where we feel rejected, the reality is, like, maybe it's not a I'm going to live and die need, but man, it sure feels like a need.
5:18
Let's be real.
5:20
I know for me it feels like a need.
5:22
And my friend shared with me, he said, every time I get rejected, and the reason I'm not even initiating anymore is because it affects my confidence in the world.
5:31
He's like, it's affecting my ability to run my business.
5:34
It's affecting how attractive I feel, how much of a man I feel like, how I see myself, how I experience my relationship.
5:40
I feel like I'm failing all the time.
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I feel like I'm doing something wrong at the foundational level of my life.
5:47
And, you know, this continual rejection, when we don't understand it, when we don't know what's going on, can feel like she doesn't want me.
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I'm not attractive anymore.
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Something's wrong with me.
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Maybe I'm not enough.
5:57
You know, why am I staying in this relationship where I'm not wanted?
6:01
That can be brutal.
6:03
So brutal.
6:04
I want to acknowledge this.
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This is why hundreds and hundreds of men are in the comments of videos like this, of reels like this.
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And when a man feels rejected over and over again, being told that his pain is real can feel like oxygen.
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It feels like, oh, finally somebody gets me.
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So somebody comes along and says, hey, you're not imagining this.
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You are.
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You are being starved.
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And this is wrong.
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She is forcing you into celibacy.
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And she's doing this to you.
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This is you versus her.
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And she has an obligation to fix it.
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So many men
6:35
are like, man, finally validation and an explanation.
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And somebody else is talking about this besides me just feeling and thinking about it.
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And now I have somebody to blame.
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Like it's my wife's fault.
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She's not meeting her obligation.
6:49
And it appears like a solution.
6:52
But here's the issue.
6:54
The fact that an explanation validates our pain as men does not mean it's going to solve the problem.
7:01
Because what this whole video was about is that your wife should be leaning into obligatory sex.
7:07
Like there's no other way to frame it.
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That's really what it was about.
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It wasn't about like connecting with her.
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It wasn't about creating intimacy.
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It wasn't about any of those things.
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In fact, ugh.
7:16
so vulgar that I have a hard time sharing it.
7:19
But I looked at some of the comments and one man said, my wife's been sick for years or what if your wife is sick like mine or something like that?
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And you know, she's ill and she can't have sex.
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And he said she can back that ass up even if she's not feeling well.
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And God, it like gave me pain in the pit of my stomach.
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not just because it's such a vulgar and objectively terrible thing to say, but here's a guy saying, hey, my wife's sick, and it's affecting intimacy, and he's telling them, like, doesn't matter.
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Don't even think about your wife.
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Don't even think about her illness.
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Don't think about what's going on for her.
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She can give it to you anyway.
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And it really, I'm laughing out of discomfort, not because it's funny, because obligatory sex is,
8:08
not a solution.
8:09
It absolutely is not a solution.
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It might be a short-term solution so that you have sex and you like go through the act, but it is not a solution.
8:19
This is something that I think as humans, we understood a long time ago.
8:24
In tantric and body-based traditions, they had an explanation for this.
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The concept is described as armoring.
8:32
In modern medicine, it's like bracing or contracting.
8:36
I think the term used to be called vaginismus, and now there's a new explanation for it.
8:41
It's like penetration disorder or something like that.
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But
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Here's what happens or can happen in obligatory sex.
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Here's what can happen in sex where there's no intimacy.
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Here's what can happen in sex where a woman doesn't want it, is that her body learns to brace.
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It learns to contract.
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It learns to protect itself around experiences it anticipates as something that it doesn't want and pressured and uncomfortable and obligatory.
9:07
And it becomes something she's enduring rather than enjoying, and when that happens,
9:12
This is really important for us to understand as men, that if a woman repeatedly has sex and she's in the internal state of, I have to do this, he's going to be upset if I don't, he'll withdraw, he'll be disappointed, he'll get angry, I'm failing as a wife, I'm not doing the right thing, this is my obligation, I just need to get through this, all of those things, she may technically be saying yes, but a woman can say yes while her body's still bracing.
9:39
And instead of her body learning sex equals pleasure or play or openness or excitement or connection or relaxation or surrender or love, it starts experiencing sex equals pressure and expectation and obligation, embracing and sometimes pain and sometimes disassociation and sometimes something I have to prepare myself to tolerate.
10:06
Some of the most challenging messages I get are from women who say things like, I used to love having sex with my husband, and then there's disconnection in our relationship, and I kept having sex, and now I just don't want to.
10:18
My body braces when I get near him.
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I don't feel good.
10:21
I don't feel right.
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In modern medicine, they actually have figured this out.
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Tantra had this figured out ages ago.
10:28
Now, in modern medicine, they're recognizing patterns of involuntary pelvic floor guarding and pain around penetration.
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It's psychosomatic.
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It's like, I don't want to be doing this, and the body tightens.
10:41
And I'm certainly not saying that obligatory sex explains every pelvic pain out there or every case of what has historically been called vaginismus.
10:51
But there's reasons these conditions occur.
10:54
And I believe, me personally, that when you're having obligatory sex, you are objectifying the person you're having sex with because that's not connection.
11:03
Obligation is not connection.
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It's the opposite.
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Obligation is like doing it because you have to, not because you want to.
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And when you are objectifying that person, it moves more and more in the place of lack of connection.
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The body remembers obligation and objectification in a totally different way than it remembers desire.
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And when a woman's body repeatedly prepares to endure sex...
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What happens is sex is going to be less and less available for like erotic openness and real connection and real intimacy.
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And I think that is the direction that so many men are moving.
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And it's so challenging because it starts with my wife doesn't want sex.
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So create a stronger obligation to have sex.
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It's like these are juxtaposed.
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They pull apart at the middle.
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You can't create openness by teaching the body that sex is something it has to get through or endure.
12:00
And this reminds me of another conversation that I had a few months ago with a friend of mine.
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And I've shared this on the podcast before, so I'll summarize it, but he reached out to me in a text that felt kind of desperate.
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He was like, hey man, I really need to talk.
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I saw one of your posts and I need to connect with you.
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And so I got on a call with him and he reached out and he comes from a pretty dogmatic religious background.
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And he was telling me about how
12:28
he feels like his wife is less connected, and less playful, and not having fun anymore, and it's not like they're joking around anymore, and there's no intimacy, but they have sex two or three times a week.
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And so he thought he was doing the right things because they were having sex, but when he read my post about obligatory sex and obligation,
12:50
He said, I think that's what's going on.
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She's doing it because she believes she has to do it, but I can feel her slipping away.
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And she doesn't look at me like she used to.
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And I don't feel wanted or desired or chosen or reached for or like we're playing together or connected together.
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Instead, he was getting sex, but he felt sexually alone.
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And that didn't solve anything.
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That didn't make him feel better.
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That didn't make him feel like he was loved and cared for and connected.
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That didn't increase his confidence.
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It actually was interesting because he was having sex and when he realized what was going on, it actually radically decreased his confidence.
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So this whole argument around obligation sex or obligatory sex is gonna backfire on the majority of men.
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It's gonna, and when I say majority, like I don't know of a case where it's not gonna backfire, eventually.
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And so the question is, like, what do you really want?
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Do you want, like, intercourse, access, a quota, a wife who agrees to sex because she believes she owes it to you?
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Like, really feel into your body.
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Get still with yourself for a minute.
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Is that what you're looking for?
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Or do you want her reaching for you?
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Her inviting, initiating, her turned on by you, teasing you, opening to you, wanting more, genuinely desiring you?
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I know what I want, and it's the latter.
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I don't want anything.
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I don't want Katie to ever feel like she's obligated to have sex with me.
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I don't ever want her to feel like she's checking a box.
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That's just uncomfortable.
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It makes my whole body uncomfortable.
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I mean, after I understood these concepts and what was going on, it's like, man, I don't ever want that to be happening.
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If she's not in the mood and doesn't feel like it, and sometimes...
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you know, she might not start out aroused and in the mood, but she's willing to play and she's willing to connect.
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And maybe it leads that way.
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But if there's a time where she's saying no, like I want her to be able to say her no, because I don't want us moving our intimacy in the wrong direction.
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The problem is most sexually frustrated men start assigning importance to the act of sex, but what they actually want is to feel wanted, to feel desired, to feel connected.
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See, obligation may get you access to her body.
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Just saying that makes me uncomfortable.
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But it can't give you the experience of being desired.
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And it can't give you the experience of being wanted.
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And the more obligation is there, the less you're going to feel those things.
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The less you're going to feel wanted.
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The less you're going to feel connected.
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The less you're going to feel that playful energy with your wife.
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And so here's what you can actually do instead of imposing obligations on your wife.
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Instead of threatening her that if she doesn't have sex with you, you're going to go get it somewhere else.
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Which was like literally the solution that was made in one of the comments.
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And actually part of the video as well.
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The answer is not say nothing.
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The answer is not suppress your needs.
15:45
The answer is not just accept a sexless marriage.
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Like if these are things that are challenging for you, then you need to tell the truth.
15:52
The answer is actually communication and containment and curiosity and connection with your wife.
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Like tell her, I miss you.
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I miss us sexually.
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Sex and intimacy matter deeply to me.
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I don't want this part of our relationship to disappear.
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I want to understand what's changed.
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And then comes the hardest part.
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Ask her what's going on.
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and then be capable of hearing the answer.
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Without exploding, without imploding, without defending, without collapsing, without trying to explain it away, without getting angry, without withdrawing, without immediately trying to change her answer, ask her what's going on and let her tell you and stay.
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Breathe.
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Lead with curiosity.
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Contain yourself.
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That doesn't mean suppress your emotions.
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It means feel what's coming up for you.
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Understand if you're triggered.
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But understand that what's coming up for you and a trigger isn't something you have to immediately react to.
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You can breathe.
16:51
You can slow things down.
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You can hear your partner.
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Maybe she says, sex doesn't feel good.
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I feel pressured.
16:58
I'm exhausted.
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I'm angry.
16:59
There's unresolved resentment.
17:01
My body feels different.
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Something hurts.
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I don't feel connected to you.
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I don't feel like there's intimacy with you.
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Listen, here's the interesting thing.
17:12
If you ask her what's going on around intimacy and then you hold yourself in place while she expresses what is going on and you listen, not suppress, you listen, not repress, you feel your feelings, you let her share with you, you hear her until she expresses what she needs to express, you're going to be able to express yourself.
17:33
something interesting happens.
17:34
You actually create intimacy, not sex.
17:36
Like intimacy is a precursor to sex.
17:39
Intimacy is present if you're having desirable sex, if you're having sex where the two of you are connected.
17:45
But by listening to her explain what's going on in intimacy, you're creating intimacy.
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See, you have to listen and hear her and lean in and understand what's going on for her.
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You can't answer why desire has disappeared in your relationship if she has to protect you from her answer.
18:05
And this is where understanding masculine containment and understanding leading with curiosity and staying present is incredibly important.
18:13
It changes everything.
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Because if you can have this conversation from a place of regulation, not exploding, not imploding, like staying there with her, breathing, listening to her.
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A place of presence, like actually being there with her.
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Curiosity, asking her questions and understanding.
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Not to defend, not to explain.
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Just let her share her truth and lead with genuine interest.
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And it's not curiosity as a tool to get sex later.
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No, it's a curiosity to understand what's actually happening in your relationship.
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Because...
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If you genuinely express, genuinely express curiosity and say, I actually want to understand what's going on for you, it's going to change things in your relationship.
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If you can do this, it creates enough safety for truth to finally enter the room.
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And truth is intimacy.
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Reality is intimacy.
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Her truth is intimacy.
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Explaining it away, yelling, withdrawing, running away, telling her she's wrong, being logical with her.
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All of those things do not allow her to express her truth.
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Do not allow her to feel intimate with you.
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And once there's truth in the room, you can actually understand what's going on.
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And now you have something real to work with.
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The goal is not to convince her to have sex, to convince her to want sex, to convince her to desire you.
19:36
Convincing those things doesn't really work.
19:39
The goal is to become capable of having the conversation where both of you finally understand what is going on for the two of you with sex and intimacy.
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And I have so many examples of men who have gone from what today we call a dead bedroom, having sex like maybe once a month or less, to having regular intimacy again and having connection with their partners and playfulness and her reaching for them and connecting with them.
20:06
So many.
20:07
If you scroll back on this podcast and you find the one that I did with Mac McKay, his story was really intense.
20:14
He shared that he came into our brotherhood and learned masculine containment after decades of marriage.
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He and his wife had literally become roommates.
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There had been years and years and years of disconnection.
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They were only having sex a few times a year, and they tried therapy and books and relationship advice and different communication strategies.
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He's actually a martial artist, so high level of discipline, high level of training, high level of physical safety.
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But what he never understood was creating emotional safety and real connection with his wife.
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And you can hear this in his words, not just mine, if you go listen to his episode.
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And he began treating being there for his wife and training the trigger around what was going on for him and training his anger as a martial art, like he had trained his whole life.
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He's a lifelong martial artist.
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And he started actually regulating himself.
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And staying present and not defending, not fixing, not explaining, not withdrawing.
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He actually became genuinely curious, not just pretending to be curious, not just asking questions because there's a script for it, but actually really understanding his wife.
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And he allowed his wife to actually express what was happening for her.
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And he shared it was hard.
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Like really hard.
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I know this personally.
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Beginning in 2023, on December 26, I've sat down with Katie every single day for what we call our daily ceremony.
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And in the early days, I let her express to me what was going on in our relationship for her and what was it like for her.
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And she shared things that were extraordinarily difficult.
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But instead of exploding or imploding, I stayed.
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I breathed.
21:54
I listened to her.
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I let her fully express her truth.
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I let her get it out in the open.
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I wanted to understand.
22:00
I wanted to see what was really going on for her.
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And that let intimacy come back in the room.
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See, in those exchanges, for me, for Mac, for so many men that I've worked with, as a man, when we are in the room and we're present, that is the highest expression of masculinity.
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not violence, not obligation, not putting your wife in her place.
22:23
I laugh because it's uncomfortable, not because it's funny.
22:25
I want to make that clear.
22:27
But presence, being there, regulating yourself, not withdrawing, that is the highest expression of masculinity.
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And when you are in that place of listening to your wife, of...
22:41
understanding what's going on for her, of not defending, of allowing her to express, you are in a place of presence.
22:47
You are in a place of self-dominion.
22:49
You're actually a place of self-domination.
22:51
You are holding yourself in that energetic and creating a masculine energetic, creating a masculine presence.
22:59
And when she's allowed to share her truth, when she's allowed to share what's going on for her, when she's allowed to express openly and freely without fear of withdrawal or anger or correction or explanation or any of the other things that make her feel unheard, you actually create this masculine energetic that she can if she chooses to.
23:19
surrender into and express and open and be heard and seen.
23:27
And that is what creates intimacy.
23:30
Certainly not obligation.
23:32
And I'm not saying that if you hold containment, your wife's going to give you sex.
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Like that's not really why you should.
23:38
I'm saying you should hold containment
23:41
Because as a man, when you're able to stay in uncomfortable situations, when you're able to hear someone else's truth without correcting it, when you're able to show yourself that her emotions are safe, when you're able to show yourself you're safe, you will become a completely and totally different man.
23:56
I've worked with hundreds of men and I've seen this over and over again now.
24:00
And
24:02
Masculine containment is not another manipulation strategy where, hey, I do this thing and transactionally I get sex.
24:07
No, it's a way of being.
24:09
Mac didn't demand that his wife give him a better sex life.
24:13
He changed the relationship in which sex wasn't happening and then it started happening.
24:19
And sex wasn't the first thing he changed.
24:22
It was one of the things that changed with the shift in the relationship, with the connection, with the intimacy that was created by him actually listening to his wife.
24:34
This will actually shift your relationship in a totally different direction.
24:38
Now, there's also been men who've been in the brotherhood who have contained and been in that place and decided that the relationship wasn't for them.
24:47
But they're the minority.
24:49
Most of the men I've talked to have entered into this place of understanding themselves better and holding themselves and showing themselves that emotions are safe.
24:58
And their relationship dramatically, radically improves.
25:02
Not just sexually, but connection and playfulness and caring for each other and supporting each other and being there for each other.
25:09
When all of that is there.
25:12
And as a man, you know you can hold containment and lead any conflict in your relationship to a positive resolution.
25:18
Everything in your relationship will change.
25:21
And I know this might sound like an exaggeration, but take it from someone who's done this personally and watched, like I said, so many men do the same thing.
25:28
Not just everything in your relationship will change, everything in your life will change.
25:34
And so I want you to know, if you're living through this,
25:39
repeated sexual rejection.
25:40
I know it hurts.
25:42
I know it crushes your confidence.
25:44
I know it makes you question yourself.
25:45
I know it makes you kind of question who you are.
25:48
And I know it can be one of the most, if not the most painful thing happening in your life.
25:52
I know.
25:54
And I'm not telling you your needs don't matter and you should accept it forever or shut up and suffer.
25:59
I know that there's like a lot of videos out there that that's what people say.
26:03
Here's what I know.
26:05
Your sex life matters.
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Intimacy in your relationship really does matter.
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Talk about it.
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Listen to her.
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Understand what's going on for her.
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See what the real issues are.
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Create intimacy and communication.
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And you might just create intimacy in your life.
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And if you are a man who is...
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on this path and you're having challenges and you're frustrated and you feel like there's no answers out there, you don't have to do this work alone.
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If this is the first of my podcasts you're listening to, back up to the beginning and listen to a few of the first ones so you can understand the concept of masculine containment.
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And if this sounds like a solution you need in your life,
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Don't want to be dramatic, but if this sounds like a solution you desperately need in your life, because I know how many men out there are desperate.
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I could see it in the comments of this guy's video.
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Go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com and sign up for our wait list or jump into one of our initiation interviews.
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And you'll hear a different way to look at this and a different path that you can get on.
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Not a path that's going to get you short-term obligation sex, but instead a path that's going to create intimacy and connection and understanding of yourself first.
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Let me make that clear.
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Intimacy with yourself, connection with yourself, understanding yourself.
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That is most important first.
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And when you do that, and then you can see and hold and hear your partner, you create intimacy with her.
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And it could just change your relationship permanently.
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And it may change your life and put it in a radically new trajectory that's better than you ever thought possible.
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I often joke with people that I have with Katie now, the relationship of my dreams, and then I immediately say, you know, that's not fair because I didn't ever dream it could be this good.
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But once I understood containment and once I really held that for her and created intimacy with her...
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Everything in our relationship changed, but just as importantly, everything in my life changed.
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The confidence that I walk around with today is completely different than it's ever been in my life.
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When I interview men for the brotherhood, one of the things that I share is, you know, there's this concept of F you money.
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Like you have so much money that you don't have to have an obligation to anybody.
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In all candor, I've had that for a long time.
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Katie and I have been really successful and I don't really have to work anymore.
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So having F you money is amazing.
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But I have an FU relationship.
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I know that in my relationship, if there's a challenge or an issue or a conflict, I can lead it to a successful resolution 100% of the time.
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I can stay curious.
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I can stay present.
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I can stay in the chair.
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I can stay aware.
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And having an FU relationship is so much more important to me than having FU money.
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Here's why.
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If all my money disappeared tomorrow, I have the confidence and the foundation and the motivation and the momentum to go out and make it again.
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And I know I could because having a relationship where there's containment present and you understand yourself and you have intimacy with yourself and you're creating it with your partner and you can lead any conflict to a successful resolution changes who you are in the world.
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and changes how you walk around in the world.
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Again, you can go to thebrotherhoodsociety.com, sign up, I'd love to meet you in person, and I look forward to hearing from you.