Love, Sex And Romance: Conversations That Married Women Don't Have Among Themselves

Everyone wants intimacy in their lives. Some are able to say that out loud and seek what they want. Others just wait for their fate to take a turn for the better and find them what their heart desires. Then there is the third lot which just goes about their lives pretending that there is no such thing as desire. Who have a list of reasons at an arm's length always to convince themselves that they don't deserve sex or romance. A lot of married women fall in the third category, and the worst part is, they don't even discuss the absence of  a "spark" from their lives even among themselves. Do married women fear being judged by their peers, if they say it out loud that there is a dearth of sex and love in their lives? Or are they held back by guilt, stemming from the conditioning that tells girls in our society that sex is just for procreation?

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In 2015, Hindustan Times published findings of a survey titled Sexual Dissatisfaction - What It Means For Marriages In India, in which 72 percent of women participants admitted that they were dissatisfied with their sex lives. That is three in every four married women. And yet how many times do you walk into a room full of women where sex, desire and love are discussed in all honesty, and not scandalously? How many married women can boast of having friends with whom they can openly discuss unfulfilled sexual desires or absence of romance from their marriages?

It is amusing how despite being adults, with a partner and functional sex lives, we fail to get over our childhood conditioning that made sex a taboo word to be discussed openly. Sex, love and romance still remain forbidden, how then can a married woman justify the urge to get more pleasure out of her married life? How can she say it out loud that she is still clueless about her sexual needs, without the fear of being judged? How many women feel comfortable discussing the problems between the sheets with one another?

Guilt, embarrassment, fear and a sense that no one will understand you, or that you are the odd one out in your group, could be the reason why married women just pretend that everyone is blessed with perfectly healthy love lives and thus there is no need to talk about it. Another reason could be that due to the stigma associated with sex and sexuality, we feel uncomfortable to be at the receiving end of such a conversation, and naturally the one doing the talking can sense the discomfort.

Not talking about lack of sexual satisfaction or romance doesn't resolve the issue, it only leaves us feeling isolated and lonely. If only women manage to overcome the shame and hesitation that holds them back from having a heart to heart conversation about love and desire, they wouldn't be left feeling like failures for not having a "happily ever after".

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No person, irrespective of their gender, should hold have to hold back on asking for intimacy from their partner. There is nothing wrong or promiscuous about wanting your partner to love you, serenade you or tend to your sexual needs. What keeps married women from being assertive in their bedrooms is the mindset that women aren't entitled to ask for pleasure. Perhaps talking to other women can help them finally accept that having sexual desires is natural, even if you have been married for years or decades.

Image Credit: YouTube screenshot

The views expressed are the author's own.