This is NOT okay!

Is your partner mean to you if you don't have sex with them? A woman recently reached out to me because her husband told her that he could not be nice to her unless she had sex with him. Now look, I'm a sex therapist. I believe that sex is so much more than just a physical act. It's one of the most powerful and meaningful ways that we create connection and intimacy. But telling your partner that they have to have sex with you in order for you to treat them with kindness and respect is completely, completely unacceptable. You do not have to earn being treated like a human being. Now here's what I hope is really going on here. Men receive a lot of crappy socialization telling them that they're not allowed to be emotional, they're not allowed to ask for emotional intimacy and closeness. So for a lot of men, sex feels like the only way they're allowed to seek closeness. I hope that what was really going on is that this husband was trying to explain to his partner, partner that this is the safest way for him to create that connection with her and that he just put his foot in his mouth trying to explain that to her. But if your partner straight up tells you that you have to have sex with them in order to get anything in your relationship, that is a huge red flag and should be a one way ticket straight to therapy.