"How Often Should The Responsive Desire Partner Initiate?"

Mr. Ryan says, for both of us, how often should responsive desire partners be expected to initiate?

You mean women, because that's the responsive desire partner, but continue.

Or is a responsive partner initiating like asking for a square circle? So in other words, he's asking something that—

I know this guy. He asked me the same question. Is that, um, what's up? I know him. Responsive desire partner just means woman within monogamy. After a certain age, especially women, unless they're ovulating or the week leading up, are not going to sit around feeling horny. They have to start being touched and they have to start the interaction before they are going to experience arousal. They're not just going around aroused while they are like doing the dishes, you know. So the responsive desire partner is the woman. Yes, women do initiate. Avoidant women don't initiate, but securely attached women and definitely preoccupied attachment women initiate. And so if you're looking for initiation and you've like, and she's never somebody who's done that. So women are not stupid. They understand, especially if you've been bludgeoning them to death with the information, that you wish that they would initiate. So it's like your kid saying, I wish that you would play Monopoly with me. So you're gonna play Monopoly even if you don't want to play Monopoly sometimes. You're not always going to play Monopoly. So she knows that you want her to initiate, so you have to think why she's not. A few things: she's either avoidant, she's really sex negative, slash race, religious, trauma, sexual abuse history, whatever. Um, or she not like happy. So she doesn't know why she would go outside her comfort zone to do stuff if you're not doing stuff outside your comfort zone that she's asking for, such as planning dates or reading a parenting book or being nicer to the kids or whatever the case may be. So those are the options, you know, and it's usually one of those options.

And this is a, uh, it's— Ryan's question is framed in a very typical man way. It always tickles me when I hear men try to quantify everything and measure everything. So he literally says, how often should they be expected to initiate? A lot of men, they want to hear, it's good if she initiates 2.3 times per month on average, then you're in a good relationship. Oh, shoot. Okay, good. You know, there's no— everybody's different, dude. You know, it's some people are, hallelujah, my wife initiated You know, once a quarter or once a year. I remember, you know, on our anniversary, she tackled me and it was the best thing ever. It's all over the place. So this is a very, like I say, a very man thing, almost a very spectrum-y thing to want to quantify and measure everything. But that's what I hear quite often from men in my space is they want hard and fast numbers and rules so they can measure and see, is this good or not good? And they don't like to be told, I don't know, dude, it's all over the place.

Well, I was gonna say, if the woman is more sex positive and she's more into the marriage, then she's gonna try to initiate more because, I mean, it's easier honestly if you're a woman and you know when you're gonna be more responsive. You know where you are, like, in your head. You know if it's going to be a good encounter or not. So many women just initiate because it's honestly better than waiting for him to initiate because you're in control of it. You know, and so you know when it's going to happen and how it's going to happen. So that is when people work with, like, you know, like Heather— you interviewed Heather, my sexologist— or like, you know, sex coaches, or me, or anybody. Like, sometimes women don't realize it would be better to initiate. Like, they just think, like, why would I initiate? It would be disingenuous because I'm not feeling aroused at that moment. But then we could be like, but you get to shower, you get to know when the kids are down or not. You get to do it the night before, you don't have to get up early for work, you would be in charge of the whole thing, and then he'd be off your case. And they're like, oh, you know, like they don't even realize because both men and women are under this stupid assumption that you're supposed to— like, it's supposed to be like a romance novel or something, like, oh my God, I see him, he's so hot, and that's when I should initiate. He's your husband, he's so hot, it has nothing to do with anything. I just had a podcast that was like, whether or not you're attractive does not matter. You know, in this sense. And it meant the sense that you're in the 90% of situations that I see where the woman finds the man attractive. So he's attractive. So that's— and so then her sex drive has zero to do with that.

And as a follow-up to that, Mr. James's question, he says, I was thinking the other day that dead bedrooms are like Pet Sematary. It's dead, you go on a journey, it comes back, but it's not the same. It's not dead, but it still ain't good. So in other words, James, you're of the impression that once it's dead, it's dead, and if you revitalize it, it's just kind of a quasi-alive, and it's just, it's never quite the same. I, for some, I can absolutely think so. I can see some poor woman going to a therapist and with her head in her hands and just like, I guess I gotta initiate. Come on, husband, let's get this over with. And the husband's like, yay, great, that's That's what I always wanted. And to him, he's like, well, did you have sex last week? Yeah, twice. It was amazing. She laid there like a dead fish and just said, are you done yet? Technically, we— that's the extreme example. But, you know, we've had some guys, every situation is different. I've mentioned that there's a small minority of people that the man's like, I lost 70 pounds and I finally started taking care of myself. And the wife's like, oh, thank God, I got my husband back. And then he's like, we went from once a quarter to one, you know, 3 times a month. And I'm tickled pink. This is, this is amazing. Great. But there are some that are like, there's so many factors here at play. It's not necessarily fair to try to, to try to categorize all these formerly dead bedrooms as always kind of damaged and yuck. Not necessarily. There have been couples, believe it or not, James, there are couples that were formerly dead bedroom that are now kinky as can be. Like, holy crap, something clicked with both of them and they rediscovered a sexuality within themselves. And it's like a sexual adventure for them. Everybody wants to know what's their secret. Everybody's a little different. Maybe the wife was always kind of, she had a little kinky side to her that she was too closeted, or if you will, and shamed to bring out. And something convinced her that it's okay to bring that side of me out and yahoo, away they go. Who knows? Some people do take it to the far extreme and they're like, we opened up the marriage and that really did it for us. We did the whole swinging thing and holy crap, that did it for us. Don't necessarily condone. That's— you're opening yourself up to a lot of drama potentially there. But for some, that's the key. You got to find your own key there.

Yeah, dead bedrooms. There's all sorts of dead bedrooms, you know. I mean, there's a dead bedroom because the woman was co-sleeping with kids for 4 years. And then they go into their bed, bed, you know, their own rooms, and she's still 38 years old, and then the sex comes back. Or there's a dead bedroom where people basically didn't even have sex starting ever, on their honeymoon even. They were— the woman was raised super religious, she got molested when she was young, and they haven't had sex in 20 years. Are they coming back from that? No, they're not. They could save their time and money because they're not coming back from that. They can try to understand each other better and love each other But is she gonna turn into a sexual? I, I would never have seen that, you know. So, um, there's, there's so many different things with dead bedrooms, you know. They're just— they're not one animal. They're all different.