I am really sorry that you are going through a rough time. My partner (male) was sexually abused as a child as well, and I’ve known a few people with PTSD. In Amanda’s defense, I don’t think an aversion to sex based on trauma is the same as simple loss of interest. But I am sorry this was triggering for you. My thoughts are with you!

–Posting anonymously for my partner’s sake

I was thinking a couple that works 50-80 hours/week, each, is going to be too tired for lust. I read it as the more passion you pour into your high-powered job, the less there is for your partner.

That comment was made about Elliot Spitzer, who wasn’t “too tired for lust” - he was making special overnight trips to have sex with prostitutes. I am genuinely baffled how you reached the conclusion you did. The quote was clearly taking a dig at women who don’t drop everything in their lives, including their jobs, to make sure their husband has sex whenever and however the mood strikes him, lest they be trapped in “sexless” marriages. (The writer doesn’t seem to give two shits about whether the women feel similarly trapped.)

I think another factor (certainly everybody around me said it, maybe jokingly and maybe not) was the perception that Sarkozy was using his personal life kind of like Bush uses the terror alerts : to distract from the issues.

“Both men and women can and do suffer from a spouse who loses all interest in sex, a problem that I think compounds itself over time…”

So now I’m a “problem” and something that my partner “suffers from”. You know what? Fuck you. I’m sorry that I’m still working through my PTSD from the longterm sexual abuse that I suffered as a teen, and that at this stage my interest in sex has dwindled to nonexistent thanks to said PTSD. Jesus fucking Christ, I feel enough pressure and guilt from the rest of the goddamn world, who seem to think that anyone who doesn’t want to have sex is just an aberration and don’t give a shit about all the pain that can so often lie behind it, without reading this shit on a fucking FEMINIST BLOG. Fuck you, and fuck anyone who has more sympathy for the “suffering” of my partner, who OMG hasn’t gotten any in a few months!, than for me, whose PTSD MAKES HER WANT TO FUCKING KILL HERSELF EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN DAY. I guess I should have thought of that before I got myself raped over a period of a year, huh? Maybe I should just laugh off the deep-seated despair, the self-loathing, the nightmares, the hallucinations, the engulfing panic that I feel when my partner touches me, so that I’m not such a “problem” to him anymore? …Yeah, fuck you. I did not need to come to a goddamn feminist blog to make myself cry as hard as this.

“Both men and women can and do suffer from a spouse who loses all interest in sex, a problem that I think compounds itself over time…”

So now I’m a “problem” and something that my partner “suffers from”. You know what? Fuck you. I’m sorry that I’m still working through my PTSD from the longterm sexual abuse that I suffered as a teen, and that at this stage my interest in sex has dwindled to nonexistent thanks to said PTSD. Jesus fucking Christ, I feel enough pressure and guilt from the rest of the goddamn world, who seem to think that anyone who doesn’t want to have sex is just an aberration and don’t give a shit about all the pain that can so often lie behind it, without reading this shit on a fucking FEMINIST BLOG. Fuck you, and fuck anyone who has more sympathy for the “suffering” of my partner, who OMG hasn’t gotten any in a few months!, than for me, whose PTSD MAKES HER WANT TO FUCKING KILL HERSELF EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN DAY. I guess I should have thought of that before I got myself raped over a period of a year, huh? Maybe I should just laugh off the deep-seated despair, the self-loathing, the nightmares, the hallucinations, the engulfing panic that I feel when my partner touches me, so that I’m not such a “problem” to him anymore? …Yeah, fuck you. I did not need to come to a goddamn feminist blog to make myself cry as hard as this.

But he’s not talking about couples who are too tired for lust–he’s talking about couples where the guy is still just raring to go, to the point of wanting to bang a whole lot of women who aren’t his wife. The sexlessness isn’t a simple condition resulting from the lifestyle, it’s something with which the husband is burdened and could be free of if only he could be free of his wife, or at least her pesky requirement that he remain faithful to her.

I mean, if neither one of you has the energy or time for romance/sex at the moment, neither of you is exactly trapped by anything but the job. Your non-existent needs on that front aren’t being denied by the married state. People only talk about folks being trapped in sexless marriages when one or both partners want sex that they’re not getting and have come to something of an impasse on the subject.