”Intimacy every day is trying. It requires stamina, patience, personal grooming and a work ethic I didn’t know I possessed.” - Charla Muller -
I’ve seen this woman make the rounds on various talk-shows and I’ve read several interviews (here at the Guardian), and I’m very much put off by her notion of intimacy. Maybe I’m off a bit, but shouldn’t sex/intimacy be something you enjoy and are passionate about, not a chore that you “force” yourself to get through.
Her husband I believe demonstrates one of the problems of making intimacy a “deal”:
It wasn’t always that good. For instance, in her book Muller recalls the moment Brad said to his wife during what she calls, significantly, “the final stretch”, “Could you stop grimacing? Could you at least pretend you’re enjoying it?” And she replied, “How about you close your eyes?” He sighed (the brute!) and did just that. - Guardian
How about instead of turning your lagging sex life into a bet and subsequent publishing deal, you work on your communication. I believe that is what this “deal” ended up focusing on anyways. I would assume that because of this “deal” to have sex every day, she ended up spending more time with her partner and communicating her needs (physical & emotional) and he also did the same.
Why make this completely about sex, if the two of them had been more open about their relationship, they would probably have sex more often to begin with, and this also ceases to be a “chore” and something that the partners are both into.
I’m also not sure if I’m good with airing the personals of the bed out in public in such a way. A bit crass. Sure, we all crack the occasional joke at another couple’s expense, but to write a whole book, a bit weird.
How would you feel if your partner came to you for your birthday and said: “This year, for your birthday I’ve decided that I’m going to have sex wtih you every day and then write about it and tell everyone about the intimate details of our bedroom life, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR!”
Oh and the best part of this article, enjoy:
This is hardly the first time that a woman (and it usually is a woman) has devised a project to revivify a long-term couple’s sex life, and then written a book about it. The delightfully surnamed Esther Perel wrote a book called Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic; the less delightfully surnamed David Schnarch wrote Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships. In The Surrendered Wife, Laura Doyle argued that women should stop telling men what to do and how to do it. “When I surrendered control, something magical happened,” wrote Doyle. “The union I had always dreamed of appeared. The man who had wooed me was back. The underlying principle is simple: the control women wield at work and with children must be left at the front door of any marriage to revitalise intimacy.”
People just need to communicate more, be open and honest about how they feel, and that also includes the risk of sometimes hurting another person’s feelings. These types of books seem so stupid to me. Ah well, if you write it, they will read.
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