OzzyMag

Do Men Need Sex? Pursuing Our Sexual Destiny “You guys don’t need sex—you’re not gonna starve without it!” This take from women online always sparks a firestorm from frustrated men. We feel gaslit about real problems. We feel shamed for having a healthy libido. Many double down, “We absolutely need it!” Don’t take the bait—It’s a trap. It’s an understandable trap, because sexual longing is excruciating. Growing up, I didn’t want to die before having sex. When I had all of that drive and desire torturing me, the thought of never getting fulfillment felt like Hell. Fast forward fifteen years, after quitting porn as a married man, I was forced to feel the pain of my lackluster bedroom. I felt rage and resentment towards my frigid wife: “so much pleasure could be ours, and what—she isn’t in the ‘mood’?” Sure we had sex occasionally, but it wasn’t the heart-pumping ecstasy I wanted. The marriage I longed for depended on this: why couldn’t she just fulfill my needs? One day while I was venting about all this, my coach @MarkQueppet said the words that baptized me into manhood: “The world owes you nothing.” I was furious. I didn’t buy the idea that we don’t owe each other things in marriage. There was this thing I wanted more than anything in the world, where this was the only morally acceptable outlet, without which life feels almost unbearable, and the only thing standing between me and fulfillment was her. I must have married the wrong woman—now I was trapped in this prison of a life. I couldn’t see it at the time, but my sexual posture guaranteed failure. I saw getting the kind of sex I wanted as a need for me to be OK. Since I couldn’t get this need met elsewhere, that meant it was her duty to meet it. That framing put the ball in her court. She held all the cards. I saw myself as a victim and all I could do was sulk. It’s hard to imagine a posture less sexy to a woman. Female sexuality is designed to respond to generous male confidence and power. A man of abundance, keyed in to his adventure, inviting her to join him—that’s the frame a woman’s libido finds difficult to resist. His strength makes her feel strong, strong enough to receive all his passion (quite literally filling her.) But my needy posture reversed masculine/feminine polarity. I was leaning on her, craving fulfillment from her like an infant hungry for the breast. She might even pity me, but maternal feelings don’t lead to great sex. She wasn’t intentionally withholding what I wanted—God himself had designed her sexuality to be repulsed by the man I was presenting to her. I resisted. Sacrificing my sense of “need” felt like giving up the possibility of my desires’ fulfillment. To the truism, “If you don’t need it, you're more likely to get it,” my passionate soul screamed, “But getting it, if it doesn't mean anything to me, isn't getting it!” I couldn’t imagine letting go without betraying the deepest parts of myself. Then came the revelation. In a moment dangerously close to relapse, I watched an old sex scene—covering everything explicit and focusing only on the faces. The man was calm, confident, and almost playful. The woman surrendered freely. And it struck me: if he had radiated the “I need this to be OK” energy I carried, like a creepy Gollum obsessed with his “Precious,” she would’ve recoiled. The sexual paradise I thought would fix me was an illusion—an idol. Those in true ecstasy have already brought their own fullness with them; those who chase ecstasy AS fulfillment are forever grasping at a phantom. “The world owes you nothing, but you can pursue your desires with all your heart.” My whole posture towards sexuality changed and I became a new man. I sacrificed my sexual need, and received sexual power in its place. Without the existential dread of missing out, without desperately trying to fill a gap in myself and in my marriage, I could simply go for what I wanted without fear. And it worked! Initially she was cautious, uncertain if I was for real, but today she relaxes into me, body and soul. This didn’t happen all at once, and I still slip into the old mindset where I crave sexual comfort. But I see it as the trap that it is—a satanic lie that will deprive me of both the fulfillment I want and the sex I want by conflating the two. So if I’m feeling mopey and my wife offers sex, I say, “I’ll be with you in a moment, sweetheart” and first get my heart right before God. Not least because the lackluster sex that “needy me” engages in is a mockery of the sexual destiny that our marriage deserves. That’s the problem with seeing any of the great joys of life as “needs.” You put the cart before the horse. You get possessive (feeling like you have to get the thing to be OK) rather than expressive (bringing the thing to fulfillment from the power at work within you). I don’t see the feeling of having great sex as my ultimate longing; rather, I want to enjoy being the man who is likely to make great sex. That puts the initiative back in my hands. “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” A sexless marriage is a sacrilege. You are right to long for better and work for better with every fiber of your being. You’re right to want her buy-in and support. And of course a great sex life has benefits on all fronts and strengthens a marriage. So I understand the pushback when women say “you don’t need sex.” It sounds like they are making excuses for a low-sex marriage and trivializing your longing. But “need” is too brittle of a category for the male sex drive (plus, its female-coded pop psychology lingo—a bunch of dudes talking about their “needs not being met” is cringe.) The guys at SpaceX don’t talk about meeting their “going to Mars needs.” Rather, they have a burning desire for the adventure of taking humanity to Mars and they pursue it with all their power. They don’t mope about how life is empty because they aren’t on Mars; they glory in every win and learn from every setback—all the while making themselves more and more likely to fulfill that destiny. And even if they fail, what a ride! Sexual abundance isn’t your “need”—it’s your destiny.