Sex Talk: Could it be that you are boring?

“I believe that women’s monthly need for drama in intimate settings means that when men do not provide it in positive forms, heterosexual women tend to become provocative and bitchy so they will get the stimulation they crave from men, even if it arrives in a negative form such as an argument.”

Read that twice, if you must, but I pray you understand it. I picked it from researcher Naomi Wolf’s book, Vagina: A New Biography, in which she tries to put into perspective this notion by some men and women that a violence-free marriage is a loveless one – omusajja bw’atakukuba aba takwagala.

Because a woman’s sex life is very much dictated by her monthly menstrual cycle – which men remain clueless about – there is a peak time of her sensuality and sexuality, also called ovulation, when nature dictates she procreates and when her body needs no cajoling and bargaining before she agrees to or initiates sex.

In fact, if there ever was a perfect time for your wife to initiate the lovemaking, it is at that time of the cycle. Now, trouble comes when she is ready for you, but you are sticking to a timetable, are not in the mood, or being your usual boring self unless the timing suits you.

I keep writing about the wife who told me she once tried initiating sex and her husband harshly rebuked her for ‘being promiscuous’, and so, she took her love to town. You, sir, are creating that quarrelsome dynamite in your home. And that dynamite is also capable of exploding outside your home.

A lot has been said about Fred Ssebatta’s song, Dole w’Omwana; that it is the perfect depiction of this feminine sexual frustration, where a wife feeling high-and-dry, tries to pick a fight over nothing.

“By becoming so changeless, so predictable, many husbands lock themselves into the staid, less sexy, provider role in women’s psyches, and they abandon the provocateur role,” Wolf writes.

She adds that there is “nothing to fire the imagination or the SNS (sympathetic nervous system) during the times of the month when a woman craves adventure, the ‘dance’ and excitement”.

So, she picks a fight. She becomes provocative in a way that will draw attention to her. She will go into that mode of “okay, beat me!” – as she shoves your chest – or picks the weirdest and most trivial things to totally lose it over.

A Kampala comedian recently said on Twitter, in one of social media jinxes of TMI (too much information), that he abhors violence so much that even when his wife occasionally asks him to spank her during sex, he declines. Hmmm… sir…! But anyway, for context, that is most likely when it is that time of the month for her.

Some wives manage to cause the mother of all fights just for the resultant make-up sex. And because this sex happens to come at the right time of the month to satisfy a crazy craving, it can also be her best of the month.

Then, poor husband will come a week later seeking for a repeat, missing the memo which said that that hormonal ship already sailed! We are back to ‘not in the mood’, ‘let us cuddle and talk first’, ‘I have a headache’…

The husband will then go to his boys and huff: “What do women want!?”

It is almost funny, but this is a serious topic. Your wife adores your dependable, safe, Mr Nice and Predictable self, but not 24/7.

Once in a while she wishes you would step out of the comfort zone and indulge her ‘crazies’ – take her on vacation and have sex there. Take her dancing, or even accompany her to a wedding… Wolf writes that she interviewed several adulterous wives and was shocked when many of them said they cheated not because their husbands were treating them shabbily, but because they were bored.

Pay attention, mister; that is all that women want. For you to recognize when her sensuality and needs are heightened, and respond accordingly, and not only when your own sexual needs arise.

For some women, these days in a cycle are more intense than for others; just don’t be too self-consumed; otherwise, you are the one creating ‘a nagging wife’.

carol@observer.ug