Ethics

Prager: Just Lay There and Take It

By Ed Brayton

Just when you thought Dennis Prager couldn't get any more ridiculous, he writes this column saying that married women should always have sex even if they're not in the mood to do so.

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

First, women need to recognize how a man understands a wife's refusal to have sex with him: A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny). This is, therefore, usually a revelation to a woman. Many women think men's natures are similar to theirs, and this is so different from a woman's nature, that few women know this about men unless told about it.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on December 30, 2008 (boomark / email).