If your husband is pressuring you to have more sex, it may be that what he really wants is to feel desired by you. He may simply be feeling rejected and hurt, although he may not say so. Or he may just be sexually frustrated or stressed-out. High T people often use sex to relieve stress. Low T people almost never do.

Dear Betsy,

What is sexual abuse in marriage? I'm asking because I often feel like my husband is making me do things I've already told him make me feel uncomfortable. He thinks that since we're married, I owe him certain things like sex, and in particular, more sex than I'm interested in having. Am I wrong for feeling bad about this? I'm starting to feel bad about myself...and him. Can you help?

Signed,

Disgusted and Confused.

______________________________________________________

Dear Disgusted & Confused,

It's interesting that your question wasn't simply, "What is sexual abuse?," but rather: "What is sexual abuse in marriage?" Sexual abuse is any abuse of power that results in a person feeling degraded, controlled, or pressured into performing any sexual act without their consent. And whether this occurs inside or outside of marriage is relevant only in that it's more damaging within a marriage, because your partner is the one person in the world you most need to be able to trust with your heart and with your body. It's never all right for anyone to ever force or shame you into performing any sexual act with them or for them. Period. End of story.

That's not to say that a spouse with a higher sex drive shouldn't be able express his wants, needs, and desires, without feeling ashamed for having them. Nor should a spouse with a low sex drive be made to feel like there's something wrong with her. It's the shaming, pressuring, and even forcing that constitutes sexual abuse in any relationship. (And just for the record, it's not only women who have low testosterone. Low T is also common in men, especially as they age.)

Since your question wasn't very specific, let me talk for a minute about differences in desire, which is one of the most common problems in committed relationships, and often presents itself in questions like yours about the definition of sexual abuse.

As it turns out, we now know that our sex drive or libido is genetically determined by how much testosterone each of us produces. This means that desire is physiological, rather than psychological, as we used to believe. Simply put this means that a high testosterone man or woman will naturally a high sex drive, while a low testosterone man or woman will naturally have a low sex drive. If you happen to be a low testosterone person, there's nothing wrong with you, anymore than there's something wrong if you're a high testosterone person.

What is wrong is that when a high testosterone person marries a low testosterone person, they often end up hurting each other because the high T person keeps feeling frustrated, rejected, unattractive, and uncared for, while the low T person ends up feeling badgered, groped, pressured, and sometimes even abused by their high T partner. In this case, what both partners want is to feel wanted, cared about, respected, and connected. And they can, but not without getting their higher brain functions into the act.

To have a good sexual relationship--which, by the way, is very important to the health of any longterm committed relationship--high T (testosterone) and low T partners need to understand each other, not make each other wrong for being programmed differently.

For example, most low T partners like sex a lot--once they get going. But because they have low sex drive they don't get the urge that often. And if they've got a partner who gets angry at them for every time they say no, guess what happens to low desire? Over time, Not tonight turns into Never again.

There are two ways to eliminate this painful game of cat and mouse. Since a low T person needs more time, direct stimulation, romance, or conversation to get in the mood, her higer T partner can choose to give them to her. And since the high T doesn't need any of these to feel turned on, but he does need to feel desired by his partner, his low T partner can simply choose to be sexual because it's good for the relationship. Neither person does any of these things out of pity, or because they're being pressured, manipulated, or abused. They choose to do them because they want to please each other and they understand that if they are successful in meeting each other's needs, they both win.

If your husband is pressuring you to have more sex, it may be that what he really wants is to feel desired by you. He may simply be feeling rejected and hurt, although he may not say so. Or he may just be sexually frustrated or stressed-out. High T people often use sex to relieve stress. Low T people almost never do.

The bottom line is this: All of us have the right to be treated with respect by our partners, which includes having our sexual boundaries respected. If your husband is not honoring your sexual boundaries, then you have the right to say no. If he is simply requesting that you try things you may not want to do, this isn't sexual abuse. It's sexual preference, or a difference in your levels of desire. If, however, he is forcing you to do them that's a different story. This is an abuse of power.

Betsy