Tea With Tina: The Joys of Sex

I’m no sex therapist and this is not what you think. I saw the headline screaming: ‘Malaysia urges elderly couples to recall the joys of sex’. Just happens that sex is one of my pet subjects so I thought I’d share something with you, my readers.

The Terengganu state government is holding weekend seminars for elderly people ‘to show long-married couples how to get their partner’s libido going again’ so they’d sleep in the same bed instead of in separate rooms. It is assumed that lack of sex is the cause of the rising divorce rate. The government is trying to curb this because today three out of ten marriages in the state end in divorce.

I’m not sure if many women share my opinion but I honestly feel that the ‘joys of sex’ is never the glue that holds a marriage together. To assume that good sexual relations will keep divorce at bay, to me, is ignoring relationship problems and giving sex way too much importance. After all, how many people have cited ‘lack of sex’ as a reason for wanting to end their marriages?

I’m also wondering if the state leaders think that a husband and his wife will hold on to their marriage if they enjoy good sex despite huge marital problems in other areas. I don’t know about you but I don’t think taking care of the sex part is going to save a doomed marriage. Women avoid sex for various reasons. Maybe men, too? Just because the partner smells nice or washes regularly are not enough reasons for sex, folks!

Like it or not, foreplay doesn’t begin five minutes before the act but maybe hours or even days before! When the husband helps his wife with the breakfast, with the kids and other chores commonly considered women’s job (even if the wife works outside the home) he is acknowledging her as an equal and not an underling. She feels appreciated and valued. She feels loved when he does little things for her. Sex is just one of the avenues through which she expresses her love toward the husband.

Now consider this. You are married to this man—you found out too late—who never lifts a finger in the house except to press the TV remote or shake it in your face. The house you’ve turned into a home is his castle and during the day you are maid, mother, nanny, driver, nurse, etc. It is a good day when he drives you to the market without complaining. On a bad day he tells you the dinner you’ve prepared is fit only for the dog.

And at night he expects you to be a vamp. And feels rejected if you complained of fatigue.

Consider the following, too. Exact words from people I used to know.

I knew this man who said to his wife: You don’t know what’s the name of this fish? You better go hang yourself.

A friend thought she’d look prettier if she used some lip colour but all the comment she got from her husband was: You look like a dog.

Incidentally, that was the very first time I learnt that dogs, too, wore lipstick.

Another friend restyled her hair but on reaching home, had to return to the salon immediately. The husband said: You look like a hooker.

My point is, if you had husbands like these would you even want to be in the same room with them. Sex? Think again, brother!

Maybe someone should study the statistics and gather more info to find out the 'hidden' causes of divorce among elderly couples. Could it be that the marriage has broken down years before but divorce had been postponed because of the children? Could it be one spouse had been at the receiving end of some obnoxious habits and finally called it a day. (In some countries snoring could be a reason for divorce, you know.)

I’ll just list some common causes for divorce in Malaysia:

Unrealistic expectations

For example, the man may want the wife to ‘mother’ him and expects her to do things exactly like Mommy had done. The wife, on the other hand, may expect him to be able to use the washing machine as well as flush the toilet when he’s done. She is, after all, a wife and not a maid! (Same applies to the wife who may have thought she married a superman who’d wait on her.)

Lack of communication

The spouses don’t talk but each expects the other to be a mind-reader. Or when they do talk, people can hear them all the way in Pulau Gaya across the South China Sea and they live on the mainland.

Lack of commitment to the ‘partnership’

Some people want to have their cake and eat it as well. They’re married but the marriage is not as important as other things in their lives. They continue to act as though they were still single—nights out with their friends and maybe even with MBA written on their foreheads: Married But Available.

Infidelity

Now how many times have we heard about this one? So-and-so went out with you-know-who and now both are getting what they deserved… a divorce from their respective spouses. These days one needn’t even go out to be guilty of infidelity. One could do it over the internet!

Physical abuse

You must be insane to want to live with a spouse who treats you like you’re his punching bag.

Sexual abuse

There must be something terribly wrong with a person who’d continue to live with someone who is a sexual pervert.

There you are. Lack of sex—or humdrum sex—doesn’t seem to enter the picture. So going back to our original discussion, I believe when one addresses the thorny issues in the marriage, when there’s mutual respect between man and wife, the likelihood of elderly couples divorcing would decrease.