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You are here: Home / Archives for psychology

Why Kink and Spicy Sex Still isn’t Accepted

November 6, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

Kink and spicy sex isn’t mainstream because people pass value judgments on how you live your life.

In the past, there was a culture to uphold. Right or wrong, in Western culture heterosexual monogamy became the standard, and people quoted scripture to support that.

It became the standard because it worked. It codified expectations. Other cultures and traditions have had other ways. But with this sexually repressed system, Western culture did become ascendant.

But Western culture also gave the world the Enlightenment with a belief in rationality and equal rights, and we find ourselves in the culmination of this chain of events. And there have been culture wars for decades between the more liberal and conservative elements of society. It’s divided along red and blue political systems, but even beyond that.

Additionally, there is an increasing body of scientific evidence about how the brain has evolved and works that suggests that there are biological reasons for our cultural norms.

For example, there is evidence that if women are going to cheat, they tend to do it when they are most fertile and their estrogen is highest. If successful in doing so secretly, there is a chance that spouses could wind up raising children that aren’t their own, which is biologically counter-productive.

Additionally, women were traditionally dependent upon their heterosexual partner to provide for them while they raise their children, so keeping marriages intact and not having sex until married was important lest the woman not be able to raise her children, with cost to her family and society.

Yet, at the same time, men desire to spread their seed widely and often, seeking multiple partners. So among a male-dominated society, boys-will-be-boys attitudes proliferate.

We continue to experience vestiges of these social structures even today, particularly in conservative communities where people were raised with values and morals that supported this system.

But things are changing, with marriage no longer being required to allow women to support their children, or to remain in abusive or unfulfilling relationships.

Polygamorous marriages and non-marriages are becoming more common. And as men and women become more equal, new power structures are being explored. Which you, reading this, are doing yourself.

Cultural changes = relationship stress

But not everything is great. When there are no rules, or old rules are swept away, we all experience stress while we figure out new equilibriums.

A husband who discusses every decision with his wife as an equal, and even usually defers to her desires can find himself in a situation where she doesn’t respect him and his masculinity. While she wants to be an equal, deep down inside there’s a primitive urge for a strong man who exhibits his caveman-like behaviors.

It gets a bit pop-science-y, but women definitely express preferences for hyper-masculine when they are most fertile: alpha male jerks who exhibit dominant behaviors… and these are the men with whom they have one-night stands. Esther Perel put it best: “What we protest against during the day is what we desire during the night.”

It puts nice guys –men who are trying to live up to the expectations of gender equality– in a tough situation.

But for those who can swing it, some roleplay and spicy sex in the bedroom satisfies appetites that aren’t getting filled otherwise.

When women demand PC partners… then get bored

My dad left when I was five. Plenty of blame to go around, but the net result was that it left me to tag along with my mom as she immersed herself fully in the early-70’s Equal Rights movement. I was raised a feminist, and I have no regrets about that.

But, it took me a fairly long time to get into the mind of being able to dominate my wife in the bedroom. I raised to defer to women, to seek equality in all things, to not treat women like objects or a naughty girl that needed to be punished.

My wife would publicly deny she wants me to treat her like that in the bedroom, out of propriety and her reputation. But the fact is… she does. But only occasionally, and only in the bedroom. Oh, okay, or in a hotel room. 🙂

I wrote in another post how I finally got more comfortable with things, and my “Aha!” moment. And things have been great since then. Spicy sex has made our marriage and relationship stronger and better.

But the issue goes both ways. If you are a woman whose partner wants you to submit to him in the bedroom, you might slam into your own feminist beliefs. You might not have any submissive desires, or you might not feel able to admit them to yourself given how hard women have worked to get where they are today, and how they still have far to go both in Western society and globally.

Or, you might as a woman find yourself in a situation where you have a strong man who you fantasize about dominating… or who wishes to be dominated. That can be a particularly tricky one to figure out, especially for if your male partner is vanilla, not interested in kink, and either committed to or insecure about his masculinity. Being submissive in any capacity, spicy sex or not, could be psychologically difficult to accept.

 

But again, think of the stereotype of who sees dominatrixes: powerful, professional men who have the desire and means to give up power for a short time. If you want to try this, or if your man wants to try this kind of spicy sex, you should.  See how you both like it, and remember how it’s only temporary and a game played in the bedroom.

And if you do try being dominant during some spicy sex in the bedroom, the same tip as always applies: start slow. And approach it the right way:  I doubt there’s any guy who wouldn’t be willing to let you try out the furry handcuffs while you gave him a blowjob. See how that goes, and take it from there.

But if partner struggling with this, give them time to absorb and process after each experience.

Reconciling feminism with submissive fantasies

There is a controversial topic in feminist blogs about a common female fantasy of being overpowered during sex. It causes a lot of anguish, for obvious reasons. But studies show that four out of ten women have these fantasies… regularly. Why? There are theories. You can read a great high-level article from Psychology Today here for an overview. And the comments are even better.

But, if you are a woman struggling with the contradiction of submissive fantasies with your desire to maintain the hard-won advances that women have made in the past century, you aren’t alone. And some men are also sensitive to this.

My opinion –which some won’t agree with, including some feminist bloggers– is that fantasy is fantasy, and what excites you in the bedroom is your business. If you want your partner to roleplay your fantasies, and he’s willing, there is no stigma with that.

But I will also say that it took me some time to get my own mind to where I could be the person to make our roleplay sessions what my wife really wanted. And for me, it took me understanding how much my wife got off on it, how much she wanted me to get off on it, and then the secret sauce that this was acting for both of us (or perhaps a bit more). Our allowing ourselves to fulfill our own and each others’ desires was incredibly fulfilling and sexy.


Read the next post in the Spicing Things Up Series:  Just in the Bedroom

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The Spicy Internet: The Good, the Bad, the Great, and the Awful…

November 5, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

The Internet is filled with Spicy Internet sites.  Some folks even say it’s why the Internet exists!

I enjoy participating a social media site called FetLife. It bills itself as the BDSM and fetish community for kinksters by kinksters. And I think it does a pretty good job at that and it’s probably at the center of the spicy internet. Besides creating a profile for yourself, you can find and join groups of people who share your interests, and pitch right in on conversations and topics.

You won’t be surprised to find out I created and host a group there called, “Just in the Bedroom.” If you visit the site, drop by the group and say, “hi!”

But frankly, FetLife scares the hell out of the vanillas. (Vanillas being those who are new to spicy sex.)

When you first log in, after you create a stub profile, you are likely to see graphic and even extreme pictures from the first moment, mostly from advertiser banner ads along the right-side of the page, but also from the “Kinky and Popular” tab of the site. One ad that sticks in my mind is for an adult movie site, kink.com, that has a woman tied spread eagle to some sort of device, while a sex device plunges in and out of her. This is not 101-level stuff, and for someone whose speed is romance novels, well, it’s too much. People run the other direction.

Then, if you do stick around and join a group that sounds interesting, it is an unfortunate fact that some “lifestylers” enjoy shocking and scaring off the newbies. That the person had the courage to join at all was a big step and should be admired; instead, some folks can be be mean and insulting to people for asking basic questions. It’s a bit disappointing.

But, plenty of hardy souls do make it through, find interesting groups, and get immersed in the value of the site, from pictures and videos, discussion groups, and even find get-togethers and more in their local area. And that’s great.

Fetlife Envy

But some of us are not able or willing to play publicly. We aren’t going to go to a public dungeon and let it all hang out, for various reasons. And we maybe aren’t going to try some of the things we see other people blissfully trying and posting pics of online. Or maybe we want to, but our spouse isn’t willing.

And then comes the FetLife Envy.

FetLife Envy is when you want something you can’t have. And your primal sexual cave-man or -woman is crying out in frustration that you can’t have it.

I hit this myself when I started reading a series of post –that I found credible– by a guy who posted sort of a part-instructional, part-biographical series of writings on how he finds strong, mature female submissives, and trains them to become his sex slaves, to the point that he can make them orgasm with his voice alone. And he posts pictures, too. And I know enough to know that some people really do reach those kind of levels of… whatever you call it.

For my wife and me, our sex life has been slow for a long time given our other responsibilities and priorities, and time for spicy sex has been scarce. But to read about what he does and how he does it, and the levels of fulfillment and sexual satisfaction that he and his (many!) partners get is… frustrating.

I laugh while I say it, but things like this can cause issues, when the immature part of your brain starts screaming, “I want it! I want it!” And the answer is you can’t have it.

Another online friend of mine gets frustrated when she sees things others of her friends from the site are doing, and her husband can’t do to her… or, more the case, not as often or as much as she likes. She knows she gets more than most… but still wants more. Ah, the perils of the Spicy Internet…

So, just be aware of it, and keep a throttle on it. The Internet is good… and bad… and good… and bad.

Try to focus on the good, and be realistic.

Some recommended sites

There are a vast number of adult websites out there on the spicy internet.  But here are a few ones I recommend that can help you build intimacy with your partner.  These sites can also help you connect with other people like you as well as educate and entertain.

  • Literotica – Free, user-submitted Erotica. Quality is all over the place, but ratings help you find the better stories, and you can search by topic.,
  • Fetlife – This free site combines a social media site with endless user-created groups for discussion of any topic, from “Novices and Newbies” to… extreme things. Some of this is way beyond the spicy internet… but everyone can find a place there.
  • Voyeurweb / Redclouds – Amateur-submitted photos and videos.  Voyeurweb is free but has more tame pictures.  Redclouds is $24/year, but both the explicit pictures and my favorite forum discussion board on the Internet.
  • Psychology Today – Easily the most readable, interesting and enjoyable site that covers kink topics on the Internet. And no one even thinks it’s part of the spicy internet… but it definitely is. Check out topics under “Sex.”  Free!

Bad people, and why you need to be careful

While this blog is written mainly for people in their middle years in long-term relationships, I still feel the need to say something to people who are single and looking for a partner about the BDSM community and potential partners out there:

You need to be very careful.

There are bad people out there. When you are dealing with fantasy stuff like bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism, you are dealing with somewhat extreme things. And there are people for whom this stuff isn’t extreme: it’s what they want and desire all the time.

I offer no apologies to the fetish community. It’s a fact, and one of the things that makes me uncomfortable about some of what I see is that there are clearly sociopathic, abusive and dangerous people out there. The community does talk, and munches (non-sexual happy hours, usually) do give people the chance to meet, and talk, and check up on each other. But there is still danger out there.

Also, there is rampant and reactive misogyny out there. Misogyny is hatred of women. As women exert more power in the workforce, the legal system and society, some men feel threatened. And they are looking to exploit women and don’t really care about others, just their own sexual satisfaction. Some of these guys are known as players, and there’s a whole subculture of guys out there who look to exploit women sexually, without looking for healthy relationships. Some of these guys would say they are just beating women at their own game, but I find the trend concerning. I guess it’s a natural reaction, but women need to educate themselves and be careful.

And what if you’re a woman in a long-term relationship and your significant other exhibits misogynistic behaviors? Well, you’re probably already having marriage issues beyond not feeling close, and looking at spicing up your sex life is not likely to help. Although it occurs to me that such women may not be dissatisfied with their relationships if they crave to be submissive. Of course, they probably aren’t reading this post anyway. So we’ll move along now.


Read the next post in the Spicing Things Up Series: Why Kink and Spicy Sex Still isn’t Accepted

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No Spicy Dice: My Partner is Not Interested in Kinky Sex

November 5, 2014 by Edward Ryan 1 Comment

What do you do if your partner just is not interested in kinky sex?

You probably got married before you really got interested in the steamy stuff. For most young couples, frequent sex is good enough. But over time, things cooled.

Maybe not just the intensity, but the frequency of the sex. Or maybe you just never had much of a sex life to begin with.

You started wanting to spice things up. And maybe you introduced the idea to your partner.

And each time, your partner wasn’t interested. The reasons could be anything… some of which were discussed in the previous post.

But in this post, let’s say that your partner just is not interested in kinky sex, and it’s been settled.

It’s a tough situation. What do you do?

First: are you still having sex at all?

If not, then you have bigger issues. If you’ve tried to talk to your spouse about it, and they won’t, then you really need to consider marriage counseling… because things often don’t just get better on their own. And a healthy marriage absolutely needs a healthy sex life as part of it. If you don’t have that, then one or both partners will be getting frustrated, resentful and angry, and may go looking for sex somewhere else.

Or possibly, the partner that doesn’t want sex may be getting it somewhere else. Possibly even with a member of the same sex.

Whatever the case, these issues need to be surfaced, and worked out. Relationships can’t survive dishonesty and lack of no connection. Or perhaps they can, but I personally don’t wish that kind of relationship on anyone.

Assuming you’ve worked things through and understand that your partner just doesn’t want kinky sex, but loves you and wants to continue having sex with you, what other options do you have?

There are some, such as Pamela Madsen, who feels okay going outside her marriage. That’s not for me, or us, and I find some of her rationalizations for her actions a… great stretch. But she kept her marriage with her husband even while taking on a dominant lover who fills her need for raunchy D/s sex, and her marriage to her husband seems strong.

But personally, I don’t think most of our marriages can survive spitting our attentions and affections beyond our spouse or partner, especially sexually. Others disagree. But in this blog, we’re looking at strengthening monogamous marriage.

You can read

How many wives read 50 Shades and suddenly found themselves desiring a more spicy relationship? Many, that’s how many. Much of our sex lives are in our brains. You can continue to read, and try to introduce small items into your vanilla lovemaking. “Hold my wrists.” “Tell me ‘I’m yours to do with as you please.'” “Let’s try this position.” Small things that your partner shouldn’t object to. Then, be diligent about verbally and physically expressing your pleasure and appreciation. Build that positive feedback loop. It pays off.

But he / she just can’t…

I had a lot of trouble getting over treating my wife like anything other than a lady and an equal in the bedroom.

In my case, it was that I was programmed as a child with a very feminist worldview. I don’t regret it… but it did impact our roleplay, and deep down, my wife hungered being taken and roughly used by a dominant man overcome by her sexuality and focused on nothing but satisfying his own urges.

It took me a long time, but finally I figured out the flip-side of the old trope, “submission gives her permission to be a dirty girl.” In my case, her acquiescence and desire for my dominance gave me permission to treat her like a dirty girl. That was huge, and the Rosetta stone for me. Because, frankly, I did want to. I wanted to see to my own needs and desires. But it had been drilled into me that you treat women as equals and not objects at all times.

But, one of the crazy revelations about BDSM –and why it’s getting so popular– is that deep down, at a primal level, we still have urges to treat each other in ways that aren’t politically correct. To quote the Eurthymics “Some of them want to use you / Some of them want to get used by you / Some of them want to abuse you / Some of them want to be abused.”

Some of us crave to dominate, some of us crave to submit… and sometimes, we even want the opposite when we’re with someone else.

There are theories that these are primal things wired into our brains, and while most of us are in the middle and generally just get along, some folks are more dominant and hunger to compete, win, and be in control, while others hunger to submit and serve.

There’s an interesting yin-and-yang. I have read that the person most interested in BDSM in the scene is almost always the powerful alpha male who craves submission, usually to a powerful woman. He seeks relief from his position of authority. And I think the same thing holds true for the many successful, strong women nowadays, who are always “on,” and seek an occasional respite from their heavy mantle of responsibilities by submitting in the bedroom.

Do you need it?

And if you’ve tried everything to get your spouse interested, and they just aren’t, you need to ask yourself if this is a need, or a want, and if you can satisfy your needs for connection, intimacy and sexual satisfaction in other ways. If you can’t, then there may be some hard conversations in your future.


Read the next post in the Spicing Things Up Series:  The Spicy Internet: The Good, the Bad, the Great, and the Awful…

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When They Won’t Have Sex, Part 1: The No Sex Marriage

November 4, 2014 by Edward Ryan Leave a Comment

When you got married, or when you started your relationship, you probably didn’t talk much about how much sex to have. You were probably too busy having sex, and just made the assumption that things would be fine.

But then, years passed. In our case, about fifteen. We had kids. We got hit with aging parents who needed our attention. And then all the crap involved in raising kids really took off with sports and extracurricular activities.

Plus, we’re in our forties now, not our twenties.

Our sex life fell off.

It fell off gradually, but measurably, with each kid, and with each life event. Until it got to the point where we were sometimes going a month or more without having sex.

Once a month may seem better than nothing, but as I looked into it online, I found we fit the definition of a no sex marriage, or sexless marriage.

Talking with other people online, this is pretty common. And understandable. But it sucks for lots of reasons.

Complicating Issues: Health

We also had another issue that we really needed to solve before anything else: her increasing health issues. These issues caused her to be constantly exhausted, unable to lose weight pounds no matter how carefully she ate and exercised, unable to sleep, constipated and irritable and in a bad mental frame of mind most of the time. She really was a trooper and did her best, but by the time we got alone time at night or on the weekends, she was just too wiped for much. And, to add insult to injury, her condition also took out her libido.

It really, really sucked.

It wasn’t her fault, and I kept that in mind. But it finally got to the point where it was impacting our marriage such that I had to get involved since her doctors weren’t able to help her. With research, I found there were alternative treatments to which the medical establishment was hostile… and which had a long track record of success, and didn’t require expensive pharmaceutical drugs. I took the time to really research and learn everything I could, then approached my wife and our PCP with the facts and evidence, and she agreed to try the new treatment plan, thankfully. In less than a month, I had my old wife back.

So, the moral of that sub-story is to take things into your own hands if you need to. And before you can solve any other issues, you have to solve any underlying health issues first.

No sex when there aren’t health issues

In other posts I’ve said what I truly believe: a healthy sex life is absolutely critical for a healthy relationship.

Sex is the most intimate thing that two people can do together. You open yourself up, trust the other person, and please the other person. If all goes well, you both can admit the things you like and do them for each other, without judgment, because it makes the other person happy.

Guys need sex

Yes, women need sex, too. And some guys don’t need sex. But most of us do, and we feel the lack more than women seem to when we don’t get it.

Bus I have also noticed something else that I don’t think women often don’t understand.

Beyond the fact that guys want and need sex to feel loved, there is also a rush of endorphins or other brain chemicals from the limbic system when certain thresholds are crossed. It may be equivalent to the rush women feel when a man says, “I love you” or opens up his soul.

For me, I have felt rushes of overwhelming love for my wife the first time we have tried new sexual things, or when she admitted she wanted to try some forbidden sexual thing, or would be willing to do some other sexual thing with me.

It is a material demonstration of her love for me and trust for me. Those are pinnacle moments of my life that I’ll always remember, when I feel completely loved and fulfilled. And it doesn’t just need to be some new act of sexual adventure; it can be something that we’ve done before, that she asks me for, but clearly wants.

I think there’s something deep and primal in our souls that hungers this moment, where there is no doubt that we as men are wanted, desired, and trusted with the secrets of our woman’s soul, proof that our women want to have sex with us in a primal way, all walls down.

And the bath of brain chemicals that surges through my body is amazing in those moments, and washes away all previous cares and previous frictions. It energizes and fulfills me deeply. I’m connected. Actualized. Fulfilled. And I never feel closer to my woman than in those moments.

I don’t need that kind of sex all the time. Maybe not even often. But I need it. And when I don’t ever get that kind of sex, it’s an issue.

And the same thing is true for women.

And if you’re in a no sex marriage, you’re not getting it.

When the frequency and quality of the sex decreases, that’s another issue.

I don’t want sex every day. Given our current crazy schedules, I don’t even want it every other day. But twice a week would be good. I’ll settle for once a week.

When it gets less than once a week… it’s an issue. Maybe it’s not my wife’s fault, but I’m not getting satisfaction.

Then, if the quality of what sex we do have drops to the bare minimum… the issue goes from big to huge. No one enjoys having sex with someone who doesn’t want to be there.

When sex stops… marriages end. Whether it’s the male or female partner who doesn’t want to have sex, the other partner feels rejected and lost. And their needs are unfulfilled. Maybe some folks hang in there, for various reasons. But it’s no longer a marriage if there’s no sex.


Read the next post in the Keeping the Spark Alive Series:  When They Won’t Have Sex, Part 2: Health and Hormone Issues

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‘Keeping the Spark Alive’ Series

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Marriage, Part 2: What is a Happy Marriage?

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Marriage, Part 4: Fix Relationship Anger with Communication and Compromise

Marriage, Part 5: I’m Just Not Feeling the Spark Anymore. I’m feeling Unfulfilled.

Marriage, Part 6: Reconnecting Sexually in a Marriage of Equals

Reignite the Spark in your Marriage with New Bedroom Adventures

Discussing Your Sexual Desires with your Partner, Part 1

Discussing Your Sexual Desires with your Partner, Part 2: The Spicy Sex Checklist

Discussing your Sexual Desires with your Partner, Part 3: Other Ideas for Discussing the Sensitive Sex Topic of Spicy Sex

When They Won’t Have Sex, Part 1: The No Sex Marriage

When They Won’t Have Sex, Part 2: Health and Hormone Issues

Fallen out of Love

‘SPICING THINGS UP’ SERIES

Why Do People Like the Spicy Sex Stuff?

Becoming a Kinky Couple Reignites Your Relationship and is a Blast!

How Normal People Are Getting into Kink: More Stories

Is Bondage Wrong? Not if Wives Want a Strong Man in Bed and an Equal Partner the Rest of the Time.

Your Crazy Sexual Desires Don’t Make Sense. Enjoy ’em Anyway!

Explore Kink: Ten Spicy Sex Life Improvers for Couples!

Interest your Partner in the Exhilaration of Spicy Sex and Kink

No Spicy Dice: My Partner is Not Interested in Kinky Sex

The Spicy Internet: The Good, the Bad, the Great, and the Awful…

Why Kink and Spicy Sex Still isn’t Accepted

Just in the Bedroom

How Normal Couples Get into Kink: Our Story

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