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“Forty Beads; The Simple, Sexy Secret for Transforming Your Marriage” is not what it sounds like.

Jill

Yes, the book Forty Beads; The Simple, Sexy Secret for Transforming Your Marriage does involve forty beads as a way to improve your sex life. However, none of them go into anyone’s orifices. Fooled me!

Carolyn Evans’ book Forty Beads; The Simple, Sexy Secret for Transforming Your Marriage proposes that married couples save (or merely improve) their relationships by using a token system. According to Evans’ method, the man is given 40 beads which he distributes, one bead at a time, to his wife. Each bead means he’s in the mood, and the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex. One couple interviewed on Today this morning actually said that they love the 40 beads game because, “It’s an easy way without having to communicate.” The process will improve couples’ lives because, as Evans naively points, out, “There’s nothing to fight about when everybody is happy with their sexual situation.”

Oh, man. I can’t wait to get married and just never talk to my husband. Communicating with beads is so much sexier.

Posted in Sex

127 thoughts on “Forty Beads; The Simple, Sexy Secret for Transforming Your Marriage” is not what it sounds like.

  1. I don’t know what I’m more pissed about, the fact that it basically makes the woman a prostitute and the man asking for sexual favors (because women never want sex, so the only problem is that men want it and women don’t), or the fact that it somehow is supposed to improve your marriage by getting you out of talking to each other. FFARGH!

  2. “Each bead means he’s in the mood, and the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex. ”

    Why do I feel like there is an unspoken and creepy “or else” at the end of that sentence?

    I can’t wait until they develop an iPad app for this! Maybe they’ll call it BedBeadz!

  3. Yup. I love being given a deadline for sex.

    “There’s nothing to fight about when everybody is happy with their sexual situation.”

    Wait, what? I saw nothing that indicated this would improve the woman’s sex life.

    “Each bead means he’s in the mood, and the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex. ” or a well-flung bead to the center of the forehead and an admonition to “Use your words, already!”

  4. unrelated, but for some reason my sign in information keeps changing back and forth between “Andie” and “andrea”.

  5. There is a lot that irks me about this. For starters, the heterosexism. Also, the perpetuation of the idea that women need to take artificial actions in order to “please” men sexually in order to “keep” them. But what makes me really angry is- doesn’t the woman get any beads? What about when *she* wants sex?

  6. Each bead means he’s in the mood, and the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex.

    Is it just me or does that sound like a demand on his part and an obligation on hers? NOT helping.

    Also, not impressed with the 24 hours bit (and not just because my timeframe for being back “into” some guy who’s just told me I owe him sex is a bit longer than 24 hours and more like “never”) . . . personally “in the mood” doesn’t stay around full-time for 24 hours but fluctuates pursuant to all sorts of things.

    If nonverbal communications of “in the mood” are more to a couple’s liking than talking about it, sure, go for it, creatively develop a system of nonverbal communication. But the whole “she has 24 hours to respond with sex” thing is creepy.

  7. That would annoy me beyond belief. Seriously… how about just saying “Hey, I would like to have sex… what about you?” or just starting with some affection and seeing if it gets returned or not. Seems much easier to me, but what do I know? I’ve only been married for ten years and never had to resort to beads to improve my sex life.

  8. “It’s an easy way without having to communicate.”

    Wow. I have never been so glad to not be married in my entire life.

  9. … and what happens when he’s out of beads? No more sex for the rest of the marriage? Does she give them all back once he’s out of beads? What’s the point of that? Why not just have one bead, or pass a single more interesting something back and forth, like a snowglobe from the largest truck stop in the world (sexxxyyyyy!)

    This is awful for the reasons other people have already pointed out, but it’s also completely ridiculous, illogical, and worthy of mockery. Hey, I know! They should write for Cosmo!

  10. Ha ha ha. It would be simpler and sexier if both parties did in fact shove them up their respective orifices.

  11. I swear one of these days I’m going to write a relationship book. Seems like you write anything at someone will publish it.

    My first tip: Invite sex don’t demand it.

  12. Gross and kind of stupid. For pretty much all reasons stated above. Like, maybe if you both start out with the same number of beads and ‘win’ by getting more, so you’re both trying to turn each other on a lot. But as described? Fuck, no.

  13. These beads sound ok, but once my boyfriend and I started using Morse Code to transmit messages to each other, we could never go back. It’s great because now we no longer have to be in the same room, like, ever.

  14. Heh, I do craftwork with beads and am thinking of all the snarky things I could fashion them into in response….

    Favourite idea so far: bead cannon. Fire them back, with force!

  15. Delilah:
    Ha ha ha. It would be simpler and sexier if both parties did in fact shove them up their respective orifices.

    Oh, rest assured, if he hands me a bead by way of wordlessly demanding sex within the next 24 hours, he’s getting it up an orifice.

  16. Because the eye wiggle and head nod to the bedroom isn’t good enough?

    Non verbal communication can be damn fun but having to within 24 hours… Yeah that’s going to get the ole heart a flutter.

    Add this to the ‘no way in hell is this coming into our home let alone our marriage’ pile.

  17. because women never want sex

    Apparently if you’re the woman and you want sex there are “nudge cards” that you drop on your husband’s dresser to say “Put a bead in my bead catcher.”

    (Yes, she calls it a “bead catcher.”)

  18. I’d be all like “Where are my motherfucking beads motherfucker!”

    Srsly.

    (This is why I’m never invited on the talk show circuit.)

  19. “There’s nothing to fight about when everybody is happy with their sexual situation.”

    You know, my husband and I have never fought about sex.

    Fought about whether he’s doing enough chores? Check. Fought about whether he is putting unreasonable burdens on me? Check. Fought about incredibly stupid shit like whether or not he gave me appropriate tech support while I was working on a project for our client, or whether it was a bad idea for me to be lying down on the couch at a friend’s house the whole time I was there because I felt sick, or if the offense of throwing food at someone is worse than the offense of mocking them for getting food on the floor after they had been arguing that it was your fault the food ended up on the floor because you gave them too large a piece to cut? Oh yes.

    But we’ve never fought about sex.

    So quite aside from the utter creepiness and stupidity of “men want sex, so they nonverbally demand sex by handing their wife a token, and she has to respond with sex within 24 hours, which is an insufficiently long period of time if she doesn’t want to because she’s sick, tired or too busy, and too long a period of time for the man to remain in the mood, and at no point does there appear to be a way for her to demand sex from him despite the fact that that would seem to be a much more likely candidate for nonverbal communication due to the fact that many women have been slut-shamed into being too embarrassed to actually ask for sex”… the central premise that people in marriages only ever fight about sex is just totally and completely bullshit.

    The writer of this book is a woman? Oh, god, I feel sorry for her. I mean, I’m angry that she took the awfulness of her own sex life with her husband and generalized it to all women in a supposed self-help book, but I’m sorry for how bad her sex life must be if she thinks that women don’t want sex, men have the right to demand sex from their wives, and that all marital arguments must be about sex. I don’t know whether she’s an asexual (or low libido sexual) married to a sexual (or high libido sexual), or if her husband is terrible in bed, or if he’s just such an asshat that she never wants to have sex because of his massive sense of entitlement, but she really needs to straighten out her own life before she makes the argument that other women need to straighten out theirs with her dumbass game.

  20. “Each bead means he’s in the mood, and the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex. ”

    Why do I feel like there is an unspoken and creepy “or else” at the end of that sentence?

    **
    That was my thought exactly! Wow. Sex in marriage can be a chore, tedious, etc. (all the things people have written about before), and yet I’m not sure how a bead system would at all make things better. It seems a variation on that Venus/Mars author’s suggestion that either spouse light a candle if she/he is in the mood and when the candle is on, the other person knows it’s a “sex night.” Ugh. Ever heard the saying: “marriage kills your sex life. And the babies bury it”? Maybe the beads can save it!

  21. FashionablyEvil: Apparently if you’re the woman and you want sex there are “nudge cards” that you drop on your husband’s dresser to say “Put a bead in my bead catcher.”(Yes, she calls it a “bead catcher.”)

    Oh my god. So even in her nonverbal communication, women can only communicate “I would be open to you asking me for sex,” not “Gimme some lovin’.”

    No. I’m sorry. If you want to improve your marriage through nonverbal communications, and there’s any value to it whatsofuckingever, then the value would be in giving a *woman* a totally no-pressure way to ask her husband for sex that doesn’t involve having to use the word “sex” or look at his face if he’s going to say no, because *women* are the people who have been told that only dirty girls like it and have their sexual desires erased by our culture. And it would *still* have to be something that’s not presented as an entitlement, but a request — that giving him the token says “I’d really like some sex, please,” not “Fuck me or else”.

    I mean, I’d be okay with both sexes having a no-pressure way to communicate their desires, too, but it has to be really, really fucking clear that the communication is a *desire*, not a demand (fuck 24 hours, you don’t get to put a timeline on someone else’s desire for sex.) And if only one sex gets the beads, it should be the woman, because I’ve never heard of there being a general societal problem with men being too embarrassed to ask their wives for sex.

  22. I’m angry that she took the awfulness of her own sex life with her husband and generalized it to all women in a supposed self-help book

    Isn’t that how all self-help books get written?

  23. Yay. It’s sex-pop-psychology-consumerism.

    What is most frustrating is that probably a lot of people will buy this crap because, well, a lot of relationships go through some seriously slow times at some point or another and it isn’t always easy to work it out.

    But this really smells like another way of putting pressure on the woman to just fall into a submissive role. It is fluffy SM for the masses, and what I despise about that is that it continues that default sexual dynamic of man=power, woman=submission. bleh.

  24. Amz,

    Good point. By that logic, maybe we should write some counter-culture versions.

    “My lack of sluttiness depressed me.”
    (subtitle–how a year of living lustfully saved me therapy $$.)

  25. I’m trying to be generous. I guess I can see how this might be a fun game (“Hi honey, here’s a bead” *nudge-nudge, wink-wink*) but it’s played all wrong. Only the husband has beads? The wife isn’t allowed to initiate sex, she’s only allowed to ask her husband to initiate sex?

    Plus – okay, so he gives her a bead. She has 24 hours. What if, during that 24 hour time, by the time she says “I’m ready” he’s not in the mood anymore? Has no one thought of that? Or are we all just assuming that men want sex ALL THE TIME while women only want sex sometimes?

    There are better ways to do this. Like, instead of beads, you use personalized M&M’s with phrases like “It’s nekkid time” or “I can has sexorz?” Both parties get M&M’s, and whoever can get the most creative with the M&M’s during sex wins the game. The prize is a trophy.

  26. @Xeginy, that’s the thought I keep coming to. The Boy has very little sex drive these days (whereas mine is sky-high), and trying to arrange encounters pretty much involves waiting for the Perfect Sweaty Naked Storm. Even if he gave me a bead, it could be a matter of two hours of overtime or a trip to the gym that cuts that 24 hours off entirely. I have this image of me pinning him down in his chair and begging him for a bead.

    Although now that I think about it…

  27. Apparently I fail at seduction, because initiating sex at my house is like:

    “Hey, do you want to go do it?”
    “Sure.”

    Or:

    “Booty?”
    “Booty.”

    Maybe I’ll write a how-to book on sucking all the mystery and flirtation out of your sexual relationship.

  28. [A]nd what happens when he’s out of beads? No more sex for the rest of the marriage?

    That was the first thing I thought of, too! You bone forty times and that’s it!

  29. What happens if the beads really work for someone, though, and they start associating beads with sex?

    “Let’s go to this beading store!”

    “…uh, let’s not, actually. *cough*”

  30. Apparently I fail at seduction, because initiating sex at my house is like:

    “Hey, do you want to go do it?”
    “Sure.”

    Florence, that’s how it works at my house too 🙂
    —
    major questions about this system: is it like, 40 beads per month? per year? per marriage?

    also it sounds like this puts the weight of the actual initiation onto the wife – leaving the when/where/how up to her, which is great when those decisions go back and forth, but sucky when she’d always have to make those decisions.

    also… ok, there are so many things wrong with this idea that I’ll just stop before I blow a gasket and remind myself that I like being married and I like talking about (and having!) sex with my partner, so no beads need appear in my marriage.

  31. My improvement to the process would be to use gummi bears so you could position them to indicate just how you wanted that sweet-within-24-hours-lovin’ to go down.

  32. She has to respond with sex in twenty-four hours…or else WHAT? It sounds like there’s a pre-domestic-violence-laws type of punishment waiting in the wings. Not okay.

  33. Before I even knew what asexuality was, I knew the common idea of marriage as a husband basically buying lifetime rights to a woman’s vagina *horrified* me. When I hear about stuff like this it makes me so glad that I’ve figured myself out well enough that I won’t end up in a bead situation. Ugh.

    Reluctant or coerced consent is not consent. Period. I hate that people assume that it is, particularly after you say “I do.”

  35. LMFAO@ the deadline

    are everyone’s deadlines the same? Like if it’s a 24 hr limit for how long you can be horny one day–is that true for everyday?

  36. What’s up with beads as the medium for getting sexual favors from women? First “show us your tits” floats at Mardi Gras and now this. is it a post-Catholic rosary kink? I mean, there are other tokens. Maybe I should ask the bf if he’d put out for a tarot card, wrapped chocolate, earthworm, plastic army man, shank button….

  37. According to the very first comment on Jezebel, she came up with the idea of “forty beads” on the eve of her husband’s 40th birthday, and…. they both found the “bead game” worked for them.

    Which explains why forty. That’s how many times she planned to have sex with him after the big 4-0. Then she was going to get a toyboy.

    (As others have said, it’s not the game itself that bugs me so much as the extension of it as a life plan for all other mixed sexs couples. I mean, if it worked for them, it worked for them, who can argue with what turns you on?)

  38. Oh, I’m not above flashing my tits for beads. I’m a magpie that way.

    But a single bead? I’d be tempted to shove it up my nose and say, “COME AND GET IT IF YOU WANT IT, MOTHERFUCKER.”

  39. So… he has tokens, which he exchanges for sex with his wife… if she has an orgasm, does she give him a string of paper tickets that can be redeemed for prizes?

  40. This reads to me like ”Clan of the Cave Bear”. Men make the sign – or give the bead – and the woman has to present herself for intercourse. Gross! What if, in 24 hours, you still don’t feel like having sex? Do you just give the bead back? That’s some fuckery.

  42. “the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex” whenever he’s in the mood

    No she fucking doesn’t. Everyone has the right to say no, assholes.

    “that Venus/Mars author’s suggestion that either spouse light a candle if she/he is in the mood and when the candle is on, the other person knows it’s a sex night.”

    What if the other person doesn’t want a sex night that night?

    It seems like cutting off verbal communication is just a way of cutting off a woman’s right to say no. (Since sex is usually defined by patriarchal people as requiring an erect penis, the man can always say “Sorry darling, too tired.” But the woman can be shamed and bullied into keeping her promise and following the self-help book/game/whatever.)

  43. I actually don’t think this is a terrible idea, if a couple is having a problem with sex that conforms to these specifications:

    -Sex, in spite of being something that both parties want (or at least are okay with), has become a low priority, and is not happening often enough for one or both partners because they’re just not getting around to it.
    -One partner initiates (or attempts to initiate) sex significantly more often than the other.
    -The non-initiating partner enjoys sex (or at least is okay with it) when it happens, but has to set deadlines for themselves in order to make sure they actually do it.

    Now, if sex isn’t happening because one partner is an asshole, no amount of beads can ever solve that. Unless maybe you buy a ton and smother the asshole with them.

  44. So, I hate to actually know anything about this, but sometimes I read shitty women’s magazines because I don’t have enough to be mad about, and they love this thing.

    According to them, when the husband has cashed in all his beads, the wife can either give him all the beads back and start over, or the wife can put beads in his bead catcher for a change. Of course, I’m sure she won’t ever put any beads out, cause ladies hate sexin’, amirite?

    Anyway, I’m glad these people are happy with their relationship, but it’s an unfortunate statement/fact that this is so they don’t have to communicate (although, putting the bead out there is sort of communicating, and don’t they have to eventually say something in the 24 hours, like “Okay, let’s do it now” or “Hey that beads been out for like 23 hours, and I have to get up early, so…”).

  45. Well generally speaking the female sex drive is lower than a male’s but of course there are exceptions. Unfortunately, most of the men I know wouldn’t wait a full 24 hours from the time they they started to be in the mood. No that’s way too long. It’s either let’s go right now or watch him pout and try to make you feel guilty for not being sexually in sync.

  46. Funny, my husband and I have this same system, except with martinis! The only problem is that, by the time he’s on his fourth martini, he’s in no shape to do a thing but snore.
    Of course, this is great for me, since everyone knows wives never want sex once they got that rock on their finger. Amirite, married ladies?
    /snark

  48. Ismone:
    Ashley,

    Wrong.Thanks for playing, though.

    What is it that I am wrong about? If you could enlighten me, and also check your attitude, that would be great. Thank ya.

  49. Ashley:
    Well generally speaking the female sex drive is lower than a male’s but of course there are exceptions. Unfortunately, most of the men I know wouldn’t wait a full 24 hours from the time they they started to be in the mood. No that’s way too long. It’s either let’s go right now or watch him pout and try to make you feel guilty for not being sexually in sync.

    Um, no.

  51. Ashley–the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”. Unless you’ve gone out and polled a significant number of women about how much/often they want sex, or men about how long their desire to have sex lasts for and how they respond if it’s not reciprocated, you can’t make generalizations. You get to either speak for yourself and the people you know, realizing that you may be unlike everyone else, or you get to turn out a reputable survey, study, or experiment backing up your claims.

  53. Lis:
    Ashley–the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.Unless you’ve gone out and polled a significant number of women about how much/often they want sex, or men about how long their desire to have sex lasts for and how they respond if it’s not reciprocated, you can’t make generalizations.You get to either speak for yourself and the people you know, realizing that you may be unlike everyone else, or you get to turn out a reputable survey, study, or experiment backing up your claims.

    Thank you for actually respectfully pointing this out instead of just pointlessly posting to call me wrong! and then leaving. I stand corrected. I should clarify that I made that claim from having read studies and articles on the differences between the male/female sex drive. Many of them suggest that on average men tend to generally think about and want sex more than women, and from my 10 years of personal dating experience, that without a doubt hold true, but I understand that it may not be that way for everyone.

  54. The bead thing seems dopey and weird. I don’t get why anyone would choose it over – talking – unless they were the type to play games. Even then …

  55. You couldn’t persuade me to accept this book as a gift, much less buy it, but I found the preview at Amazon.com. Direct quote:

    “The Forty Beads Method is definitely for you if your husband walks around with one eyebrow at an angle and forms a full-on ‘V’ when he looks at you, but you can’t figure out why he’s so pissed since there’s really no time for sex — what with doing laundry, taking care of the kids, and making dinner. Here’s a hint, ladies: The house can be a total wreck and the baby shirtless in a sagging wet diaper, but if he’s getting laid regularly he’s cool with it. All of it. Because there’s one thing that’s more important to your husband than everything else combined, multiplied by ten and raised to the fourth power: SEX.”

    Naah, no stereotyping there.

  56. but you can’t figure out why he’s so pissed since there’s really no time for sex — what with doing laundry, taking care of the kids, and making dinner. Here’s a hint, ladies:The house can be a total wreck and the baby shirtless in a sagging wet diaper, but if he’s getting laid regularly he’s cool with it.

    Oh, silly me! Here I thought married women did housework because, I don’t know, a dirty kitchen can be a biohazard and we ought not let children spend lots of time soaking in their own feces, and getting men to pick up their end of the job is often hard? No, apparently women wouldn’t give a crap if they weren’t worrying about men disaproving of them!

    Toss the beads out, O poor undersexed menz, and pick up a dishtowel. It works better than some cheap gimmick.

    (There are a ton more reasons why members of a relationship would be dissatisfied with the amount of sex they’re having–but when this book highlights women’s huge load of housework as a major one, it’s really missing the mark in its proposed solution.)

  57. Marriage and children didn’t kill my sex life. Male sexual entitlement almost did. The least sexy thing in the world is feeling like you owe someone sex in the next 24 hours. After 24 hours, what happens? she gives the bead back? He serves papers? After 40 beads, she never has to have sex with him ever again? What makes him think she has to have sex with him in the first place? Sex isn’t a chore.

    I have an idea, go see a therapist and work on communication, listening to what your spouse wants, and learning to ask for what you want without brow beating her when she doesn’t “put out”. She probably won’t even need to be present for the first year or 2. Learn to recognize affection and accept non sexual comfort. Learn to feel loved even when she’s not interested in having sex with you. Learn to please her, instead of whining “please”. Douche bag intellectual.

  58. Sounds like a domination and submission game for vanillas who don’t know they’re playing.

  59. Ashley, I don’t see how you would prove the average woman wants sex less than the average man; surveys are skewed by “he’s a stud she’s a slut attitudes.” Anyway, men shouldn’t do their fair share of housework and childcare in the hopes she’ll up the sex once she has more time and energy, though that could happen, but just because its the right thing to do. Might I also point out that quite a few women still rarely or never have orgasms during sex, and if we stopped defining sex as starting when he sticks it in and ending when he has his precious never optional orgasm, women would desire it more.

  60. This whole “bead game” idea sounds rooted in the worst of 1950s gender stereotypes and treating grown-ass adults like kids who cannot form complete sentence yet. Yick. The fact that this sort of thing sells is very sad…imagine how much cash is generated by keeping the genders in a constant state of adversarial wrangling instead of post-orgasm coma.

    I am one of those women with a very high sex drive…I FINALLY figured out in my adulthood that mismatched sex drives can be and often is a relationship killer, *especially* if it is the woman who wants it more often, because the cultural scripts just don’t acknowledge that. Oddly enough, many of my female friends have shared the same experience, so that is evidence that “self-selected data” is skewed by our own inclusion in it.

    Thankfully, I found a wonderful partner who runs at my speed and has lots of other desirable qualities that stoke the fire. And we have about 64,000 ways to suggest some happy naked time…and almost all of them are completely silly, dorky, lighthearted, and FUN. It’s supposed to be FUN, people!

    (And I am also reassured to read here that I was not the only one who thought the bead game might be about a different kind of bead :P)

  61. As a man I think this is a potentially excellent system, although it requires some refining. The first problem is that some men have greater requirements for sex, that must be met, than others. Some might need 40 beads, others 400. So the beads themselves need to be transferable between men. Beads could be exchanged for goods, for example. A man might perform some kind of service or labour for another, and in return receive beads. Another problem is that beads are quite delicate. A man might work many hours for a bead only to have shatter on the ground, robbing him of his deserved sex. Metal beads would solve this problem. Gold beads would be imperishable, though of course, any man in possession of a great deal of gold could manufacture many beads, violating the right of other men to a fair and equitable method of sexual distribution. The beads could pressed in a die that would leave a standard imprint produced by the government, and such violations strictly punished. Over time, more and more beads could be produced, in proportion to the growth in the productivity of men labouring, and eventually a state of almost perfect sexual satiation could be achieved.

  62. Thank you for actually respectfully pointing this out instead of just pointlessly posting to call me wrong! and then leaving.

    Ashley, you are not going to be able to cope with the internet for very long if you expect cookies and gentle criticism in response to saying ridiculous/unsupported/flat out wrong things.

    Protip: making essentialist remarks about “men” and “women” on a feminist blog will never go as intended (or even in a good direction at all). Lo and behold, this is in fact one of the criticisms of the ridiculous bead game.

  64. Cactus Wren:
    You couldn’t persuade me to accept this book as a gift, much less buy it, but I found the preview at Amazon.com.Direct quote:

    “The Forty Beads Method is definitely for you if your husband walks around with one eyebrow at an angle and forms a full-on ‘V’ when he looks at you, but you can’t figure out why he’s so pissed since there’s really no time for sex — what with doing laundry, taking care of the kids, and making dinner.Here’s a hint, ladies:The house can be a total wreck and the baby shirtless in a sagging wet diaper, but if he’s getting laid regularly he’s cool with it.All of it.Because there’s one thing that’s more important to your husband than everything else combined, multiplied by ten and raised to the fourth power:SEX.”

    Naah, no stereotyping there.

    Well, I think we’ve found the woman who finds pictures of folded laundry pornographic. Because if this is her marriage, um, yeah.

  65. k: Why not just have one bead, or pass a single more interesting something back and forth, like a snowglobe from the largest truck stop in the world

    Hey! Don’t make fun! 😉 Just kidding…it’s from the 2nd largest truck stop…

  66. Protip: making essentialist remarks about “men” and “women” on a feminist blog will never go as intended (or even in a good direction at all).

    Repeated for emphasis.

    That said, now I kind of feel I should go looking for some of the literature on sexual desire and see if there is anything that remotely looks like it holds up under serious analysis of its methods.

  67. Florence: Apparently I fail at seduction, because initiating sex at my house is like:

    “Hey, do you want to go do it?”
    “Sure.”

    Apparently, we’re failing, too…

    Oh, wait…no. I’m pregnant with our second and still have more sex than most people I know (AND husband is out of town 4-5 days a week). I think we’re the ones doing it right!

  68. I really like that this post now comes up on google first, ahead even of Amazon. Tehee.

  70. FashionablyEvil: Apparently if you’re the woman and you want sex there are “nudge cards” that you drop on your husband’s dresser to say “Put a bead in my bead catcher.”

    Worst euphemism ever.

    He can “ask” her for sex, but all she can do is ask him to “ask” her? Why don’t they go full Gorean and be done with it?

    Alara Rogers:
    I don’t know whether she’s an asexual (or low libido sexual) married to a sexual (or high libido sexual), or if her husband is terrible in bed, or if he’s just such an asshat that she never wants to have sex because of his massive sense of entitlement, but she really needs to straighten out her own life before she makes the argument that other women need to straighten out theirs with her dumbass game.

    I think if you’re married to an asshat, you’ll know it more often than not; you’re not going to generalize and assume every husband is an asshat.* It’s more likely that she thinks her libido is a lot closer to the median than it actually is, encouraged in this belief by the cultural narrative.

    *That said, being in more than one relationship has helped me tease out — although not perfectly or completely — which problems in the first are simply endemic to realtionships and which were things specifically wrong with my ex-girlfriend. So it’s possible for someone inexperienced to have trouble distinguishing person-specific asshattery from the asshattery you have to resign yourself to if you intend to ever leave the house, where other people insist on wanting things that are orthogonal or even opposite to what you want.

    Alara Rogers: And if only one sex gets the beads, it should be the woman, because I’ve never heard of there being a general societal problem with men being too embarrassed to ask their wives for sex.

    If you’re steeped in the idea that only men want sex while women are willing at best, and you’re sincerely trying to be sensitive and respectful, it can be difficult. Um, I’ve heard.

  71. Ashley: I should clarify that I made that claim from having read studies and articles on the differences between the male/female sex drive. Many of them suggest that on average men tend to generally think about and want sex more than women, and from my 10 years of personal dating experience, that without a doubt hold true, but I understand that it may not be that way for everyone.

    That’s the problem with statistics–there’s some saying somewhere about a farmer not caring about 40 inches average rainfall when he’s in the middle of a drought. Hey, speaking of droughts: He’s 44, I’m 30; I’m humping doorknobs, he’s uninterested. Even though we’re both arguably average for our age groups, it’s the other variables that are causing problems.

  72. Amber:
    So… he has tokens, which he exchanges for sex with his wife… if she has an orgasm, does she give him a string of paper tickets that can be redeemed for prizes?

    (Trying this again. Can my previous comment be removed?)

    YOU WIN THE INTERNET.

  73. Putting aside all that is wrong with the idea, since that has been adequately done already, there is one major component missing here (and I must confess I refused to read the article since the proposition is so fucking ridiculous): how does the man “earn” the beads? Perhaps we can take a lesson from the system we use with my 5 year old daughter. She must complete all of her chores to earn a marble. Occasionally she gets a freebie, like when she spontaneously does something that isn’t on her chore list. The marble goes into a jar and when she’s filled the jar to a pre-specified line she can get the treat that was discussed when the jar was empty. Then we start again.

    Men, after all, are just big kids. Amirite??! VOMIT!!

  74. I was in a very long relationship with a guy who was lest interested in sex than I was. (It may have seemed longer, because I wasn’t getting any.) I tried such non-verbal communication techniques as walking around buck naked. It still didn’t work.

    Point being, if you’re desires are out of sync, a stupid bead isn’t going to solve jack shit.

    But of course, women are just the gatekeepers to the sex. And chicks just love saying ‘No.’ Yea. Totally.

  75. Ashley, it’s no big deal. You just “miswrote.” Then you asked for polite commentary. Asking for polite commentary is not against the Lawz of the Internetz. I myself am quite heated sometimes, and I know how it can sound. Internet “banter” is often spring-loaded in the “CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT THAT ASSHOLE JUST SAID?” position instead of the “Hmm, think I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt” position. I am SO guilty of the former. Reading your requests gave me pause. Do I HAVE to sound like such an asshole all the time? No, I do not.

    So forget all the “YOU HAVE TO GET A THICK SKIN TO COMMENT AROUND HERE, YOU IGNORANT ESSENTIALIST JERK WHO MADE A MISTAKE!” It’s not you, it’s the internet.

  76. Ashley,

    Yes, if you stereotype women, I am going to snap at you.

    It is really offensive to stereotype women as having a lower sex drive. and the so-called research that suggests it is so highly flawed. We have very strong norms against women having sexual desire, expressing it, acting on it. As other posters have mentioned, a large number of women are pre-orgasmic for some or all of their sexual lives. Sexual abuse of women is rampant, both in childhood and adulthood.

    If you start reading those studies, you will see that the questions aren’t neutral. That the sorts of sexual behavior that characterize arousal in men are stereotyped as being ones indicative of sex drive. Which is completely circular. That the social inequalities which plague gender relations and make it difficult for women to get the sex that is pleasurable for them are not mentioned at all.

    And then, if a woman suspects that she does have a higher sex drive, she is erased by people like you who say that men have higher sex drives.

    If you compare sex drive, sexual activity, and happiness based on education and equality, patterns start emerging.

    -Heterosexual women want more sex when their male partners help more around the house
    http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/04/does-a-clean-kitchen-lead-to-more-sex-the-art-of-chore-play/
    -Feminists have more satisfying sex lives
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1980.tb00719.x/abstract
    -Sexual pleasure changes over time based on the permissiveness of the culture and age of onset of sexual activity
    http://www.springerlink.com/content/n9108610532v5880/

  77. How long do the supply of 40 beads last? The entire span of the marriage or like a month or a year?

    Why do I imagine the beads to be sticky?

  78. Because sex without communication is AWESOME!

    I don’t know about you guys, but sex at my house is basically just an extended conversation. I really feel sorry for these poor folks. Healthy sex: you’re doing it so, so wrong.

  79. I didn’t intend to stereotype women by saying that they have lower sex drives. I have always been sincerely under the impression that this was biologically a true and proven statement and I thought that it was common knowledge that most people knew as true as well. Well I now realize that these studies that I have read and heard about that suggests that could be inaccurate. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.

  80. “he’s so pissed since there’s really no time for sex — what with doing laundry, taking care of the kids, and making dinner. ”

    If she’s doing laundry, taking care of the kids, and making dinner while he sits on his ass and leers, the problem is that he’s a lazy selfish asshole, not that she refuses to drop everything and screw him.

    I’m sincerely glad to hear you acknowledge you might be wrong, Ashley. I so rarely see that on the Internet. It may interest you to know that the stereotype that women hate sex and just do it to keep their husbands/boyfriends has not always been a common belief. Back in ancient times, particularly ancient Greece, it was “common knowledge” that women were too sex-crazed to say no to sex, while men were supposed to be the virtuous ones, and being too sexual with women was an insult to a man’s virility. This is why Lysistrata (a play where women give up sex to persuade the men to end the war) was considered such a hilarious comedy.

  81. Cactus Wren:
    You couldn’t persuade me to accept this book as a gift, much less buy it, but I found the preview at Amazon.com. Direct quote:

    “The Forty Beads Method is definitely for you if your husband walks around with one eyebrow at an angle and forms a full-on ‘V’ when he looks at you, but you can’t figure out why he’s so pissed since there’s really no time for sex — what with doing laundry, taking care of the kids, and making dinner. Here’s a hint, ladies: The house can be a total wreck and the baby shirtless in a sagging wet diaper, but if he’s getting laid regularly he’s cool with it. All of it. Because there’s one thing that’s more important to your husband than everything else combined, multiplied by ten and raised to the fourth power: SEX.”

    Naah, no stereotyping there.

    There are no words for how revolting that quote is. Like, none. I want to email this woman and just tell her to run the fuck away, as far and fast as she can, if this is a serious description of her marriage.

    ‘Cuz a guy who’s just sitting there getting more and more pissed off that you’re not on his dick enough while watching you do all the fucking housework and child-care and god knows what else? Is a terrible fucking husband. And a guy who’s fine with a neglected child so long as his dick is getting sucked? Is a terrible fucking human being. Full-stop. The answer to that sort of bullshit is not to suck his dick more. The answer is to get him out of you and your children’s lives to the fullest extent possible.

  82. I’m trying to figure out how this “forty beads game” could be in anyway “fun” and am coming up with blanks. Maybe if they were actually marbles and the husband and wife competed for them by playing forty silly kissing games?

  84. Ashley – I’m glad to help. You eemed like you weren’t here to kick up a fuss, but I thought, “That sounds like someone who’s new around here.” Not everyone starts out on the same level here, after all.
    The reaction to your statement was so vehement partly because the “common knowledge” that men have much higher sex drives hurts women who are in relationships with men who don’t want sex as often. After all, if a woman dresses sexily and says “Honey, come to bed,” and her partner says “No, I’d rather see the end of this game,” it can cause all kinds of extra hurt–is she not sexy enough? Has she failed as a woman? Is he having an affair? Is she just some kind of sex-crazy nympho?–when the answer is that he just doesn’t want sex as often.

    I think another thing to consider is, how are we defining “sex drive”? A lot of women don’t get huge amounts of pleasure from penetrative sex, which is “regular” sex, so they seem less eager for it than their male partners are, which can look like a low sex drive; but if what’s being offered is oral or manual sex, or using sex toys, the gap evens out a bit.

  85. Lis:
    Ashley – I’m glad to help.You eemed like you weren’t here to kick up a fuss, but I thought, “That sounds like someone who’s new around here.”Not everyone starts out on the same level here, after all.
    The reaction to your statement was so vehement partly because the “common knowledge” that men have much higher sex drives hurts women who are in relationships with men who don’t want sex as often.After all, if a woman dresses sexily and says “Honey, come to bed,” and her partner says “No, I’d rather see the end of this game,” it can cause all kinds of extra hurt–is she not sexy enough?Has she failed as a woman?Is he having an affair?Is she just some kind of sex-crazy nympho?–when the answer is that he just doesn’t want sex as often.

    I think another thing to consider is, how are we defining “sex drive”?A lot of women don’t get huge amounts of pleasure from penetrative sex, which is “regular” sex, so they seem less eager for it than their male partners are, which can look like a low sex drive; but if what’s being offered is oral or manual sex, or using sex toys, the gap evens out a bit.

    That makes sense. I never thought about it that way. Thanks for offering that perspective.

  87. Hell, I’d save up the beads and create the most amazing dildo you’ve ever experienced, video using it and send it to the author to show her what real couples do with beads!

  88. I think that the reason that this idea sits so poorly with all of us is that it was a game invented by ONE couple that worked well with THEIR particular situation and communication difficulties and should have NEVER EVER been printed as an instruction for everyone.

    Like, seriously.

    I mean, the list of “things that are wrong with this” is astonishing. (I was going to type out my own list, but then I looked through the comments here and realized I hadn’t even noticed 15 other things that make this the worst sex/marriage advice ever.)

  91. Lis:

    I think another thing to consider is, how are we defining “sex drive”?A lot of women don’t get huge amounts of pleasure from penetrative sex, which is “regular” sex, so they seem less eager for it than their male partners are, which can look like a low sex drive; but if what’s being offered is oral or manual sex, or using sex toys, the gap evens out a bit.

    Can we also question this assumption? I’m sure there are also “a lot” of women who agree with Miss Annabelle. “I myself never much cared for Colonel Angus! He rubs me the wrong way. I’m not sure why.. can’t put my finger on it.. “

  93. You are thinking a little too hard about this.
    If you are having real problems certainly see a therapist. Always communicate. The beads are not supposed to be taking the place of communicating. Some couples get so distanced and it is difficult to talk about a lack of sex. Therefore the beads can get things started to open the door hopefully for better communication. I think the beads are intended to be a way to make some time for sex. We all (most of us) lead busy lives therefore it it hard to find good quality time with your partner. Beads are intended to be be fun and keep sex in the relationship. The beads are supposed to be used when needed and yes the man is not the only one giving the beads.

  94. Lis:
    PeggyLuWho: What are we questioning, and why?I don’t get your reference.

    This assumption – “A lot of women don’t get huge amounts of pleasure from penetrative sex…but if what’s being offered is oral or manual sex, or using sex toys, the gap evens out a bit.”

    I just don’t see how that assumption is any better than any other assumption. It’s like replacing one stereotype with another.

    The reference was to an SNL skit. http://www.hulu.com/watch/4109/saturday-night-live-colonel-angus-comes-home
    http://www.villines.com/Internet/colangus.htm

  95. In the spirit of my advice to Ashley, I think the most concise background to my claims is Correlates of increased
    sexual satisfaction     by E. Haavio-Mannila and O. Kontula in Archives of Sexual Behavior, volume 26, 1997. By interviewing thousands of women they found that sexual satisfaction correlated with increased use of “versatile” sex techniques (oral, manual, other) and frequency of orgasm, while lack of those things correlated with reduced sexual satisfaction.

    I am not saying all women hate cock! I’m not saying there aren’t a big chunk of women who really enjoy straight-up PIV intercourse. But I am saying, if that’s the only thing on the plate, there are also going to be a lot of women having lackluster experiences, especially compared to men.

  96. Also, Hulu is only available to people within the USA so I can’t view the video, but I get the point.

  97. 24 hours is a broad range of times… I think you could have some fun trying to pick the worst possible time.
    “Thanks for the bead… Hey, Honey, what time is that big sales meeting tomorrow? 2 pm? Great. Sex at 2:05.”

    There’s also sex right after a really big meal, sex while having gastric distress, sex at four in the morning…

  98. gretel:
    “Each bead means he’s in the mood, and the wife has 24 hours to respond with sex. ”

    Why do I feel like there is an unspoken and creepy “or else” at the end of that sentence?

    I can’t wait until they develop an iPad app for this! Maybe they’ll call it BedBeadz!

    Exactly. That’s what I kept wondering. And if she doesn’t give it up in 24 hours?

    Feh. The whole thing is ridiculous. Whatever happened to just making a pass at your SO? I’m pretty sure a bead would so not get me in the mood. Unless it were THAT kind of bead.

  99. Really? I just… what’s wrong with good old ‘faffle?’ (Fancy A Fuck Love?)

    I just described 40 Beads to my partner. She said “I’ve got a better way for men and women like these to improve their marriages. The woman gives the man a stone. It means ‘do the ironing or the dishes within 24 hours and I might consider shagging you'”

  100. The woman gives the man a stone. It means ‘do the ironing or the dishes within 24 hours and I might consider shagging you’”

    So women are prostitutes who get paid in housework? Housework isn’t something both people are expected to do, it’s something the man should be rewarded with sex for stooping to? Sex is just something she does for his pleasure, a chore for her after hubby does his chores? I think not.

    Try to think of sex as something both people enjoy together when they both want to, not something she gives him.

  101. Florence:
    Apparently I fail at seduction, because initiating sex at my house is like:

    “Hey, do you want to go do it?”
    “Sure.”

    Or:

    “Booty?”
    “Booty.”

    Maybe I’ll write a how-to book on sucking all the mystery and flirtation out of your sexual relationship.

    This is what sex is like at my house too. It is nice that it sometimes come with a compliment:

    “You’re hot. Wanna fuck?”
    “Yes PLEASE.”

  102. anna,

    I suspect Paraxeni’s partner was referencing the fact that many wives report lower sex drives in part because housework *isn’t* generally considered something that both partners should do. And such wives are, in fact, often just damn tired and/or not really wanting to spend any kind of time with the partners that aren’t pitching in enough. Especially when said husbands then turn around and whine that the wife in question never wants to have any fun.

    I don’t really think it was meant to be taken as a literal suggestion, but rather sarcasm directed at the idea that the problem is always difference in base sex drives. As opposed to couples not spending time discussing other problems that may be contributing to the imbalance – including but not limited to the wife being more overworked.

  104. Amber, although that was a really great comment, I mean, how many fucking beads do I need for that candy necklace?, you are missing the point: That Would Never Happen.

  105. My beloved and I have been facing a sexual mismatch. Mainly due to the fact that I am 5 months pregnant, and while I would like to pounce on him a minimum of 5 or 6 times a day, he is uncomfortable with the whole thing.

    We came up with a radical solution to the whole thing…We talk about it. I know, it sounds…weird…but it works. Once we had a big sit-down talk about how nothing we do is going to hurt the baby, and what it is that makes him nervous. Sometimes I snuggle up next to him, kiss on him a little, we have some fun, and I ask if he wants to do more. Once I even cornered him and told him that I really needed some lovin, and if he wasn’t interested I needed him to vacate the premises while to took care of things myself.

    So far, communication seems to be working. The best part? We use the same sort of conversations for everything from chores and bill paying to disciplining the kids. It’s kind of amazing, really.

  106. Jess: So far, communication seems to be working. The best part? We use the same sort of conversations for everything from chores and bill paying to disciplining the kids. It’s kind of amazing, really.

    You should write a self-help book 😉

  107. I don’t want to touch this system with a 10 foot pole. BUT. If I were to make improvements to it, the beads would be suggestions, they would go both ways, and they’d work for more than just sex. Keeping a limited number in rotation might help partners to understand how much they give vs. how much they get, as far as favors go.

    Still want nothing to do with anything like this in my relationship, though.

  108. Wow, really a lot of unnecessarily angry comments that boil down to “this system wouldn’t work for me [because I would be offended/I already have a great sex life/etc].” To answer all the “what if I don’t feel like it” types — if you’re not willing to commit to trying this (ONCE) and going through with it, this method is not for you. But it might be for people who aren’t like you — people who need more than “let’s fuck” but are turned off by or have a guilt complex about hearing “I would like to have more sex than we are having,” even if they agree. Maybe people decades deep in marriage to whom sex is hard to schedule even though they want it. Beads both directions? Sure, why not. Anyway, it’s an opt-in phenomenon that (and again, I can’t emphasize this enough) women have to sign up for themselves first because they think it’s a good idea that might work for them, and as such poses no obligative threat or notion of ownership or entitlement, and moreover requires the communication you mock them for lacking to begin doing it in the first place. What am I missing here that makes this despicable and worthy of my scorn?

  109. (HTML fixed.) Wow, really a lot of unnecessarily angry comments that boil down to “this system wouldn’t work for me [because I would be offended/I already have a great sex life/etc].” To answer all the “what if I don’t feel like it” types — if you’re not willing to commit to trying this (ONCE) and going through with it, this method is not for you. But it might be for people who aren’t like you — people who need more than “let’s fuck” but are turned off by or have a guilt complex about hearing “I would like to have more sex than we are having,” even if they agree. Maybe people decades deep in marriage to whom sex is hard to schedule even though they want it. Beads both directions? Sure, why not. Anyway, it’s an opt-in phenomenon that (and again, I can’t emphasize this enough) women have to sign up for themselves first because they think it’s a good idea that might work for them, and as such poses no obligative threat or notion of ownership or entitlement, and moreover requires the communication you mock them for lacking to begin doing it in the first place. What am I missing here that makes this despicable and worthy of my scorn?

  110. Sounds like a lot of y’all need to just get laid and calm the hell down. Maybe you could try the forty beads thing 🙂
    I find it terribly rude to give poor Ashley the ole “plural of anecdote…” BS when you guys are pulling the same crap (if not worse). You are criticizing a book that you know absolutely nothing about. And yes, Carolyn Evans does specifically state that she is inclusive toward same-sex couples. Your self-righteousness makes me want to vomit.
    Love, Kay

  111. [hateful ignorant comment] SMILEY FACE! [More stupid comments]
    Hugs & Kisses!
    -groggette

    Now you totally can’t call me out because look at how nice and jokey I was!!!

  112. Kay, maybe you should spend time getting laid instead of freaking out over people on the internent who don’t agree with a dumbass self-help book.

    SMOOCHES!!!!11!!

    Love,

    Sheelzebub

  113. Oh, and Keith, when someone publishes a book, it will be criticized because not everyone will like it or agree with it. It is not hateful to have skepticism about something, or to find retrograde sex roles (and the reluctance to actually communicate) distasteful. Please learn what actual hate is before you go throwing that word around.

  114. “And yes, Carolyn Evans does specifically state that she is inclusive toward same-sex couples.”

    Someone please tell me this doesn’t involve the couples picking one partner to play the man and get all the beads and one to play the woman and get a couple nudge cards.

    Visualize world peace,
    preying mantis

  116. What am I missing here that makes this despicable and worthy of my scorn?

    Gosh, not hate. Despicable. Lord.

  117. Keith,

    You really don’t see the problem with one person demanding sex within a 24-hour-period? Really? You don’t understand how sex is supposed to be something that both partners want? If so, well, best of luck to you.

    Kay,

    Had you said anything substantive, I would have something to say to you in return. But what you wrote really doesn’t qualify as an argument.

  118. It’s not “one person demanding sex”. It’s akin to giving your SO an IOU like “This coupon good for 1 foot massage”. Do you do this because you hate giving foot massages and only this coupon can force you to do it? No–you do it because it’s fun for both people but might not happen automatically. Win-win gift. Sheelzebub, if something is “despicable” it is something you despise… that doesn’t seem off-base, having read every comment on this page. And I get your point about retrograde sex roles, which are distasteful when forced, but those roles actually do fit some people, and presumably that is a necessary but not sufficient quality for this book to work for you. That’s kind of my point — a ton of people saying “this wouldn’t work for me and my SO” would make more sense to me than an implication that the book represents “I can’t wait to get married and never talk to my husband.”

  119. 24 hours is a broad range of times… I think you could have some fun trying to pick the worst possible time.

    That was my first thought, too! Clearly I would make a terrible wife. You could show up all sexy and ready to go: “alright honey! Remember that bead you gave me almost a day ago? Well it’s time; get ready for the ride of your life!” …30 seconds later, a beeper goes off… “-ooh, and it’s been exactly 24 hours. Too bad you didn’t finish. Have fun with those blue balls while I take a looong shower.”

  120. Keith-
    I love what you wrote. Sadly, I think it’s a waste of time to use any sort of rational thought on this site.
    xoxo
    Kay

  122. I read an interview with the author where she said that, “Men are always afraid that they won’t get enough sex.” This gave me an insight into my boyfriend’s perspective because he wants it at least three times a week and I could go a week or two without, no problem. This bead system would actually work for me because then my boyfriend wouldn’t have to remind me, which I think embarrasses him, he wouldn’t end up suffering in silence and I wouldn’t have to remember to say, “How’s your p#n!$ Dear? May I help you?” When two partners have varying libidos, some middle ground must be established and inevitably sex will become somewhat chorish for one guy while the other guy will become a little frustrated. So the beads represent a compromise which to me is preferable to breaking up with a great partner in hopes of someday finding one that only needs to hump once a week.

    1. This bead system would actually work for me because then my boyfriend wouldn’t have to remind me

      But uh, the bead IS him reminding you. Why is it so much easier for him to hand you a bead than it is for him to express that he wants to have sex?

  123. “But uh, the bead IS him reminding you. Why is it so much easier for him to hand you a bead than it is for him to express that he wants to have sex?”

    He’s never been the type to come out and say what he wants. He’ll ask gently probing questions until the person (me, his mom, friends, customers) basically does what he wants them to do voluntarily. It really used to annoy me because beating around the bush it’s inefficient. Just say what you want right?

    But when I finally realized how effective he was with other people and how positively he is regarded I came to respect the communication style that works for him.

    I’ve tried to help him understand that he can be more direct with me and he is WAY better than when I first knew him. He’s just very modest. We’ve reached a nice equilibrium though and I imagine he would appreciate the bead approach as a subtle alternative to a verbal request.

  124. Hil: He’s never been the type to come out and say what he wants. He’ll ask gently probing questions until the person (me, his mom, friends, customers) basically does what he wants them to do voluntarily.

    That’s not modest, that’s manipulative.

  125. “He’ll ask gently probing questions until the person (me, his mom, friends, customers) basically does what he wants them to do voluntarily.”

    That’s not modest, that’s manipulative.

    Yeah. A man like that wouldn’t hand me beads, he’d forceably exhale them at me after some quick Heimlich maneuvers from his more bullshit-tolerant buddies.

    If “modest” means passive-aggressive, I’ll pass. Now, if you said your husband would wordlessly modestly suggest sex by …I dunno … doing some sort of blushing shy striptease that would be a whooole different story! 😀

  126. One thing that comes up in these sorts of conversations is the ‘need’ thing. I’m not sure that I really buy the ‘need for sex’ idea in its’ entirety, especially the way it can sometimes be presented.

    I mean, let me be clear. Sex is %@#ing great. The more you’re getting of it, and the more you’re enjoying it, the better. And I think it is definitely everyone’s right to find a partner who sexually satisfies them, if that’s what they want. But the idea of someone who ‘needs sex X many times a week’? I just don’t think I buy it. If I really feel like booty and my husband doesn’t it might make me sad in the pants for a while but I can guarantee within half and hour I’ll have gotten over it.

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