Well I don't think its condescending to state norms(and there are always exceptions to norms).
Stating correct norms isn't condescending, but telling an entire group of people what they must think because you read it in a book, despite people telling you differently, yes, that's deeply condescending.
Absolutely sex is one of the main reasons, but not the only reason, that men marry. I would argue it is on a higher priority for men than it is for most women(not ALL).
Maybe it is for you, but I don't think it is for all, or even most men. When we got married, sex was at the bottom of reasons we got married, if anything but because we were having it already. The same held true for my first marriage... Getting married for sex wasn't on anybody's radar as a reason for why to get married. Considering over 95% of the population has had sex with their spouse before marriage, so there's no special gain in sex via marriage that doesn't exist before it.
I think this idea that men get married so that they can have sex either represents the 2.5% of the population that isn't having sex before marriage and are male, which doesn't make sex as a reason for marriage for most men to marry... Or it's outdated thinking born from a time where people didn't have sex before marriage. Considering premarital sex has been the social and cultural norm for over 100 years at this point, I tend to think it's the former.
yes we want more than sex, we want someone to share our life with, to have common goals with, but we want more than a companion and mother to our children, we want a lively, regular sexual relationship with someone who respects and tries to meet our sexual needs.
So it's like I said, what you're saying is that you can have everything in common in the world, but that's the bonus to the core want of sex. If you're with a woman who's sharing common life values with you, it doesn't matter if she's not putting out because "men" won't be happy. You are literally saying that the most important element is sex and that men are so simple and shallow that as long as they're getting that, the rest of the common beliefs, interests, and compatibilities are merely perks.
I say again, if a woman said that common beliefs, interests, and general compatibility and companionship is fine, but the point to marriage is financial security and husbands need to have money, you'd lose your mind... Despite the fact that you're saying the same thing with wives and sex.
This idea that sex is a pushing point to marriage for men is easily answered by the fact that most people have sex before marriage, so marrying to get something most people already have is inaccurate. The idea that men want sex and women don't ignores how the church also preaches about the rampant sexualization of women from puberty and on, and that women are more sexually forward (to the detriment of the sex) than they have been in decades past, making the "men want sex more than women" stance directly contradictory to another stance held by the church and acknowledged by society (sometimes positively or negatively).
If you were to say to me that a main reason men who don't have premarital sex get married is for sex, then yes, I'd probably agree with you. Somebody who makes sex, even the lack of it, so important to themselves will probably carry that importance to the marriage as well. I see those people as more apt to marry and list getting sex as a reason for marriage.
But for the other 95% of the people out there, who already have sex, who by getting married are effectively choosing to limit their sexual options, partners, and freedom? No, I don't see them listing sex as a top 5 reason behind getting married.
I have read many many relationship books over the years trying to understand my wife's nature and wants(first and second) and have been to marriage counselors who themselves have counseled hundreds of couples. The consensus opinion(majority) is that men typically place a much higher value on sex, they give and receive love through sex much more than a woman does.
So in an effort to understand your wife, you spoke to other people about what men want? Ignoring why you'd learn more about men to better understand a woman, why wouldn't you, if you wanted to learn about what your wife wanted, go ask your wife?
I would agree that it is possible to put too much emphasis on sex if you would agree that it is possible to put too little emphasis on sex. Anything can be overdone. I challenge you to show a quote where I said "sex is the most important part of marriage" - I never said that. Again another straw man you have built.
You have said, repeatedly, that sex is the primary purpose in marriage for men, you said in this post that a man can be happy without companionship, but not without sex. Again, this isn't a strawman, this is your stance reflected back to you and you realizing how silly it sounds.
I have continually said there is more to marriage than sex, but sex is a required component of marital love. Sex is to marriage what tires are to a car. Tires are not the totality of the car, but tires are required to make the car move. Marital love involves more than sex, but marital love without sex is not marital love - it might be some other kind of love, but its not marital love.
And just above, you were trying to get us to believe that you didn't say sex was the most important thing, but here, you're saying if there's no sex, you're not really enjoying marital love. When you say that people who're married but not having sex "might" be experiencing some kind of love, but it's not marital love, you're saying that sex is the be all and end all to a marriage for a man, that love is solely defined by sex. When you tie up love with sex and say one can't have marital love without the other, there's a biiiiig problem. And that's not the viewpoint that any man I've ever, EVER met has had about sex and marriage. Most men tend to think higher of their sex than that.
No man should ever be afraid of telling his wife that sex is a defining attribute of who he is as a man. He should never be ashamed to tell his wife that sex is the primary way he receives love from her(not the only way, but the primary way). In the same way that woman should never be afraid to tell her husband that emotional intimacy and sharing feelings between herself and her husband is a primary way she feels loved.
Yes, you should be terribly afraid if you're saying that sex is a defining attribute of your being as a man, and if you're telling your wife that it's the primary way you feel love, that's a big problem. Huge problem. It's saying your marriage is shallow, conditional. It means if there's a reason you're not having sex to the frequency that you decide you require, your risking your marital security and you're telling your wife you'll love her less or won't love her in a marital sense. There are a million legitimate reasons to not have sex and to say that not having sex risks your love, you're setting her and yourself and your marriage to fail.
Ignoring that "emotional intimacy and sharing feelings" is not how all women express their love and need it expressed to them, anytime that you tell somebody there's only one primary means that they have to feeling love for their spouse, it means they have more opportunity to fail than succeed in loving you. It means your love is highly conditional, weak, perhaps shallow and superficial, and it means you're in the marriage for a personal gain, not any sort of mutual benefit.
Sex is important to both my husband and I, but at the same time we have a thousand other ways to feel love. So when I go away for a week on a vacation he can't go on, when he goes away for a few weeks for work, it means when my Lyme is in full swing and I can't get out of bed, it means we all know we all still love each other. Some of our best, greatest, strongest expressions of love and bonding have come when we weren't together, but we were apart for a prolonged period of time.
So when you say there's only one primary way to show love, and it's something like sex? You might as well tell your partner that they serve for you the same purpose a prostitute serves... Total sexual availability, and if it's not there, you're not going to go to them anymore. You'll think less of them. You can't even say you're going to love them like you should love a spouse. Only that you "might" love them another way.
So no matter how you try to paint me into a corner, I do think there is more to marital love than sex, but I don't think there is marital love without sex(it may still be love, but not a marital love).
You say there's more to marital love than sex, but if you don't have sex you don't have marital love, and you probably don't have love at all. So you love your wife for sex, the rest is nice, but if you don't have the sex, you're not going to love her as a wife and probably not love her at all. That's what you're saying.
This mindset isn't a flaw with your wife's desire to have sex with you, the flaw is the over-importance being placed on sex, justified with a faulty "all men feel this way" which has since changed to "most men feel this way" to now "men feel like this."
The reason we would not get offended is because we are men so we understand exactly what he is saying. In the same way that very few women, if any in our church would get offended by someone saying a woman while she may also want sex, places a higher importance on romance and emotional intimacy than men typically do.
It's funny, because my husband's family is over for a visit and while the guys play games, I'm making some food for my blog and checking in on various forums. I read your post aloud and all of the men, Christian, church-going men, had a huge laugh over it. Not a single one of them could relate to the idea that sex is the main focus of the duty of a wife and that love hinges on sexual availability. My brother-in-law, who goes to church every week, said that it was churches teaching that this is 1950 where a woman's duty was to have kids and sex to keep her man is why he had to switch churches. His cousin said he hates it when he hears guys talk like that because it paints all men as sex-crazed maniacs who can't think or function beyond the idea that they need sex. His other cousin, who's wife is in Germany serving in the military, agreed that it was insulting.
And as a woman, your "women place higher emphasis on emotional intimacy and romance" I'd have to say that doesn't apply to me. I don't need or want to talk to my husband about my feelings, in fact, he says I rarely do and it makes it hard for him sometimes. I value companionship, communication, dependability, trust, support, and loyalty. I'm perfectly OK never emotionally vomiting on my husband and would trade that in for one of his texts that say "bringing Chinese home, you pick the movie" or the stupid texts we send that are like charades absolutely any day of the week. In fact, when I'm having a problem, I much prefer my husband say "you can go take a nap/go blog/spend some time on your own" as opposed to "let's talk about it."
Are all women like me? No, but there's a healthy number of women who's expression of intimacy isn't boiled down to a "love language," gender stereotype, or archetype that exists because of what's between her legs, not what's between her ears or in her chest.
I never said and neither did my Pastor say "All men need is a pretty face and sex". But I think what bothers you, is that we place such a high emphasis on it, rather than a total emphasis on it. Yes for most men, we place a high value on the physical.
Your saying that men are driven by sex and a pretty woman doesn't bother me at all, simply because I know it's largely not true. More importantly, it's not true for me and my marriage, so even it was true, the fact it isn't true in my dynamic is enough for me. Yes, I think that claim is obnoxious and an excuse to be demanding without compromise, I think it paints men as simpleminded and weak, which I don't understand why more men aren't bothered by that, but I'm not offended by it. The simple fact is I, like I think most women, if we were confronted by a guy with such an attitude would probably turn on our heels and walk in the other direction. There aren't a lot of people, men or women, who'd put up with a partner who defines love so narrowly and superficially. And a lot of Christian women can spot a guy for what they are when they're the type who exploits God and the Bible as a irrefutable reason to have copious amounts of sex without the irritation of being told no.
Do I think I was in the minority of men for wanting the physical attraction as well? Of course not. And no its not shallow, or petty - it how God created as us as men.
So yes men also need companionship and to be treated well, but men also typically place a great value on the sexual attitude of the woman and her "prettiness".
Actually, that is quite shallow and petty, but...
I would agree with you that there are shallow men out there that just marry women for their looks and what they might do in bed, nothing more - that is utterly shallow.
Which reaffirms my response above, and contradicts what you think is just "boys being boys."
But if a man says that in addition to a woman being a Godly Christian woman, and one who shares his beliefs about marriage and family, a honest woman of good character, that he is also looking for certain physical features and the right attitude toward sexuality and her appearance there is nothing shallow or wrong about that.
To say you want certain qualities in a spouse isn't shallow or wrong, to treat women like participants in a dog and pony show, where she's got to put out and look pretty and if she so happens to make a decent companion then you'll take her home, with the understanding that you can only experience marital love if she gives you sex to your desired frequency/needs, and if she doesn't, it's not marital love and though you "might" love her another way... Yes, that is shallow. And to say that God made you that way, it's not only not true, it's you using God as an excuse to act in what you know is an unGodly way while still self-serving your needs before all others.
You're not explaining what "men" want, or all men or most men, you're defining what you want and justifying your superficiality and laziness.