"Get out" is probably the best advice in this thread.

It's probably not as simple as being only about the dichotomy of the virgin/whore.

Factoring into the equation are small things; the lustful participation in sexuality that is enjoyed early in a relationship usually becomes a one-way street, later.

The vagina-as-currency tends to dull the gloss of sexual desire.

Feigned interest and dutiful submission don't help, either.

Being desired isn't a one-gender need; men need to be desired, too.

Hoping for sexual attention and remaining stoic in its absence probably won't get the job done, either.

Doesn't the issue, at least in part, degenerate into our assigned gender roles?  The male is ordained to be the aggressor and the female the object of his (our) desire.  We follow the script during courtship but (some of us, at least) run out of steam when the prize is won.  It's not about conquest, it's about something a little more primal: planting our seed.

Without question, I suffer from the complex (oh yeah, the women in my life have suffered it, as well).  Is it possible, however, that each of us is trying to use logic and reason to explain a phenomenon that defies logic and reason?  Are we more primal than we're willing to admit?  Are we attempting to take our primal nature and make it fit into societal institutions?  Maybe we've taken a psychological label and have mistakenly applied it to an organic condition.

Remember those birds that mate for life?  What they DIDN'T tell you is that they only remain TOGETHER for life; they still screw around.

I had been advised to research this topic as a possible answer to his weirdness in this area. The idea that there must be a reason for sex if huge with him-like to have kids. After we had kids he went for about ten or more years mostly celebate and since I was and always have bee faithful, guess who else was celebate. Rather than admit he is abnormal or has a problem, he says I don't want to have sex or blames anything and everything for this 31 year problem. He did have issues with his very strong mom growing up altho they are a loving family and really always have been.

I have tried everything I know to do. I am NOT Cold. I love married sex and Have told his so repeatedly. and been forthright in asking, do not make him innitiate all the time (or we would have had sex about 5 times in 31 years), I have maintained a decent weight , wear pretty clothes day and night...all things that he never pays attention to...the sister who said that the relationship will degenerate to roommates and lower is so right. That hapened years ago although not entirely. I feel cheated and used at the same time. He can perform so that is not the problem. I definately have no problems in that area as far as desire for him. It is just like the other women have answered. What a relief to know what is wrong. and at the same time scary and sad. I don't know what to do. He is in counselling now, alone.He has many other issues that he blames on me and I guess it help to know that there are other women out there who deal with men like this. I am sure has never done anything but blame me or lie. He would rather crawl under a rock that have this word come out about him . he is in a clergy position. Gad!

My sympathy to you, I have only been going thru it for 12 yrs...and the worst part..im a counsellor..or at least was until I allowed him to screw with my head!

When I met my husband I was confident with a great body image, self esteem and well adjusted. 12 yrs later, I am being treated for depression along with a list of other ailments..along with a sexually transmitted one...thanks to him!

Last week was the final straw and I said get it treated or get out!

Wives...it is NOT our fault...it is HIS. YES you are attractive, YES you are beautiful, YES you are sexually desirable and a turn on...just NOT to him.

There is also an element of pure EVIL in this disorder, as the disgusting lengths of deception, sneakiness and corruption, lies, lies and more lies....still is a choice they are making. Choosing their own desires and lusts over the emotional well being of their loved ones. AND if they have daughters...they will almost certainly attract a mate with the same disorder as Dad..just to try to understand the pain and hurt that sits in their sub-conscious.

Dont make the mistake of thinking it will go away...IT WON'T!!! They must have therapy......Psychotherapy and NLP will work the best. If they won't...LEAVE! or your heart will be shattered into a thousand pieces just as mine and my daughters has.

May God protect you thru this.

I believe I too was a victim of this complex.  I was a very confident young woman, who had no thoughts about body image when I met my ex husband.  He appeared to be in love with me.  He was very eager to get married.  I was in love with him as well but knew something to be wrong in the sexually intimate arena.  I had been in 2 long term relationships when I met him.  I didn't understand why he didn't want to be with me.  He seemingly adored and cherished me.  However, he was much more interested in porno than touching me from day one.  I prayed to God and thought that once we were engaged that abstaining would help us get back on the right track.  I was wrong.  It became worse as years passed by and eventually he left me after 7 years of marriage.  It has been many years since our divorce; but the pain it brought me still haunts my memories and body image today.

What do you do if you have no money, family, got in a serious car accident and have no place to go?  The government won't even help.

I am so sad.  I pray that God takes me soon.  I pray that his will for me is not for me to die in the street.  I cry all thew time and wish I made better choices and never modern danced, took belly dance lessons, turning into DVD's on the movie "Dirty Dancing" and it only geets worse from there.  I try to commit suicide all the time. My "finace " always calls 911 evenm when I tell him not to then he kicks me out.

Why we stay? What made You stay for 42 years?  My husband is so concerned about this label being true of him that if i say, " why do you never want to be intimate?", he will later on make a feeble attempt but only so that I can no longer say he never asks.

If I tell him I wish he would notice my attempts and follow thru, he will on rare occasions but only so that I can not say he Never has sex with me...do you get my drift? Most of those comments, he has no intention of acting on--just wants to get the brownie points for saying so. He could perform but only is justified in his mind when there is a reason--like to have children, or if there is a doctor's orders related to prostate problems and Doc says having more physical relations will help your condition. 

He used to do a lot of talking about wanting me to look nice and comment once in a while about some outfit I wore around the house but would say," you don't need to wear that outside!" (Hot day--shirt unbuttoned a little to be cooler while preparing dinner in a warm kitchen!)

I would not, anyway, dress in any way that would encourage other men to have unfaithful thoughts toward their spouses but he just feels the need to say that like he was instructing his budding young daughter. We have been married for decades, for goodness sake!

He's in counselling and he is improving in some other aspects of his behavior but as your post suggests, you have a decades old challenge also and I wonder, why did you stay and how is your self esteem as a woman? Who builds you up as a husband should?

So did he go back to her? does he still love you?

I am the whore too I think, at least he tells me now he has this complex which makes a lot of sense to me now looking back. He also tells me he would be able to have hot sex with me and watch me with guys etc like your guy did to you. He tells me he still has feelings for me. but yet he cant have sex with the woman he is with, so now i wonder, did he never love me seems we did have sex? or is it more about that they cant have sex once your in a committed relationship which we werent.

Yes he's still back with her. Little to no sex, because he continues to hold back from intimate connections with her. (And also they haven't lived together for the past 3.5 years and still only catch up for dinner once or twice a week!) I continued to see him for a while just for sex to help in his transition and to gain more insight into the situation. His wife has both my mobile numbers and never called to ask me if I'd seen him like she has at other times so I figured I wasn't doing any harm. I've stopped seeing him now as I am falling in love with someone else (Someone normal who can accept women for who they are and me for all my dualality)

I believe he loved and still loves me very much. But there's no way he could sustain a committed ongoing, live in relationship with me, whilst still having the amazing sex that glued our relationship together.

I believe he trully loves his wife and used to have amazing sex with her before they married.. If they stay together their love will continue to lack intimate passion and who knows how she'll handle that again (Last time she had an affair)

It's a difficult situation and one I'm glad to see the back of.

For anyone weighing up the pros and cons of staying with these mixed up men can I just say this- My happiness is beyond words being loved by a man who can accept me as both his precious, cherished good little girl and his dirty, wild slutty whore. I am both. And now there is no more pretending.

Katie

Dear Katie,

I hope you are out of this relationship!  You deserve so much better dear.  You deserved to be cherished and adored.  For the future, please REFUSE to do anything that you are not interested in doing.  Don't let a man use you girl; it will only make you feel bad about yourself.  YOU DESERVE MUCH MUCH BETTER.  We all deserve to be in loving relationships, not ones of deceit, abuse and neglect.

I hope you are all still reading these posts.  I am a Madonna who just found out that her husband has been unfaithful for 10+ years, which to my knowledge started when our first adopted child was about 6 months old.  He has been involved in a 3.5 year "love affair" full of hot sex that I found out about 6 months ago (which is also when i found out about the other physical and emotional affairs).  He begged for another chance saying that he doesn't know why he seeks extramarital affairs.  We also started our relationship able to have sex and then the physical intimacy waned upon engagement (after 3 years of dating), marriage and then we have had sex maybe 5 times since children (oldest is now 12).   Over the years I have become very bitter and resentful over our lack of intimacy and connection-therefore the best friends/friendship is barely hanging on.  In addition to other women, he calms his anxieties by overspending (he makes VERY GOOD money but we have no savings, no college funds for our kids and he has run up excessive debt on credit cards) and being a workaholic.  I have basically been a single mom to our two daughters!  Nothing I do is good enough or perfect enough for him.  He can travel out of town on business for two weeks (btw-not really he had a double life with his "whore" I just believed it was all business) but come home and verbally or nonverbally (withholding conversation and quality time) criticize me if the laundry isn't done and I don't have the house tidy.  In the same weekend that I found out about his double life (the other woman had an engagement ring and they had been living together for 5 months 15 minutes from my house while i thought he was swamped with an international assignment overseas), he was asked to leave a partnership for padding business expenses (he charged way too many of their fun trips to London, Paris, Vegas, Mexico and keeping up with their long distance relationship as business expenses)..... and I still can't leave him and neither can the other woman!  I really want my kids to have their father present in their lifes but I want him to be a healthy role model and for our relationship to be functional not dysfunctional.  He is in individual counseling and we are in couples counseling but he has not been honest about his continued relationship with the other women with any of us and we have not specifically addressed the madonna/whore complex.  IS THERE ANY REASON TO STAY IN THE MARRIAGE AND HOPE HE CAN BE HEALED???!!!!

I need some help with this issue. I am in a relationship with a man I believe has this complex. When we first started dating the sex was great, he couldn't get enough. As soon as we moved in together, something happened to our sex life. He no longer seemed interested in having sex, his libido had dropped drastically. Then I found out that he was watching porn, sometimes even when I was asleep in the other room. It hurt me so bad to know that he couldn't just wake me up and have sex with me. A year later, the same issue continues. We have sex sometimes, a couple of times a month. But most of the time he loses his erection midway through, leaving me feel ugly, unsatisfying. He always tells me how beautiful I am and how sexy he thinks I am, but it seems like the only way he can get off is by those women in the pornos. When I confronted him he said he worshiped me, that I am the best woman he has ever known, that I'm an angel. Does that mean he only sees me as this? That he doesn't really want to do those things with me because I am so perfect in his eyes? I don't want to have one label, I want to be his angel and his sex kitten but it seems like he can't combine the two. What should I do? I am too young to give up my sex life even if I do love him.

I understand what you are saying, I feel the same way.  Can you talk to him about this complex?  Would he be willing to read about it to see if he thinks it fits?  My husband has told me he wants me to be both so I think it can be possible.  I'm working on feeling sexy after all these years of truly thinking it was me and hoping that will help.  I still hold out hope for counseling, so far it has helped. We are able to talk about sex without him changing the subject which has never happened in our relationship.  I hope you find something that works, I have to have faith that there is something that will work.

Dear babygirl and to all of the other women married to men with this disorder, you are beautiful, you are sexy, you are what we want and desire and love, you are our everything.  You're the women we love and want to spend our eternities with.  We want to have children with you, grandchildren, and look into each other's wrinkly old eyes.  And when we do, we want to whisper in your ears how much we adore you and how very sorry we are for everything.

I sit here sobbing as I read your stories because I'm going through the exact same situation except that I'm the husband who cannot make love to his beautiful wife.  I don't know what's wrong with me and I'm tired of the damage I'm causing my marriage, damage that may end up tearing us apart.  I've gone through therapy but am tired of going and not seeing any improvements.  I wish there was some freaking pill I could take to make me better.  How did I end up this way?  I don't know.  My childhood wasn't exactly perfect but who's is.  My father died when I was three and my mother remarried a couple of years later.  My step-father was an alcoholic who would come home drunk on the weekends and argue with my mother making her cry.  One time he even hit her.  Did this mess me up?  I'm sure it didn't help but could this make me not want to make love to my wife?  I do like women and very much so that I know I'm not a homosexual.  Like the other guys with this disorder, sex with all the other women was a blast and they were just our "whores".  The sluttier a woman was the more I was into her.  I never loved them though, NEVER could I love such a woman!  I may have told them I did, but that was just so that I could keep getting what I was getting.  Is that right of me?  Absolutely not!!!  I feel horrible and ashamed for having treated those women that way.  As for my wife, she is the most precious jewel in the world to me.  I love my wife, I adore my wife!!!!!  Now why in the freaking world can I not make love to her??????  I don't know and haven't figured it out yet.  As I write this, it's eight more days till 2010 and what I do know is that I don't want to live this life anymore.  I don't want to keep hurting my wife the way I have.  I keep praying that the Lord will fix me because He's the only one who can fix broken individuals such as myself.

Dear babygirl, your husband does love you and he loves you very much.

I'm dealing with this too, and I just don't understand-- how can it be that these guys "love and adore us" so very very much, but just aren't sexually attracted to us??? Isn't that just platonic love then? My boyfriend says no, but I don't understand how I'm supposed to think of myself as his "girlfriend" much less someone he's in love with when I'm the only woman on the PLANET who is completely unable to ever attract him sexually or turn him on!!! Why can't he just say, yeah, we should just be friends.... because we already are?!?!?!? I don't understand where this "I love you so much, we're not just friends" thing comes from when I'm obviously NOT attractive to him at ALL. What do you mean you "want and desire" us if you don't even like to kiss us, see us naked, etc.??? How is that "wanting and desiring"? Is it like you "want and desire" to hang out with your friend, or own a puppy?? It doesn't feel like "love, wanting, and desire" from this end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Dancer,

I suggest pre-marriage counseling.  He may truly be a man willing to walk as God intended.

We are doing pre-marriage counseling. As far as I can tell he truly wants to walk as God intended (I love how you phrased that). However, since I have been married to a man who exhibited the MWC symtoms (and it was so painful as a wife), I am fearful and have a hard time differeniating from fearful/overly cautious side and my real intuition. Tough one. Just trying to trust God for guidance. I would appreciate prayers for guidance. Thank you.

I feel for you and the girl he started dating after you! I am glad to hear you left. I hope she didn't get sucked into a relationship with him. 

Dear "it is just sad",

I don't know much about the psychology of the female as it relates to sexually intimancy issues.  But I speak of lots and lots of experience here.  PLEASE PLEASE get out while you can.  This is not to say that your situation is like ours.  But whatever the underlying etiology, this type of relationship is damaging to your soul.  I was with my now ex-husband for 9 years.  He pursued me and wanted so badly to marry me.  I put him off until I graduated college because it was too soon (6 months into the relationship) to be speaking of marriage to me and more importantly because he didn't like sleeping with me.  He seemed to love and adore me.  I talked myself into it by the time I graduated and he asked me to marry him graduation night.  I spent 9 years with this man trying to be loving, supportive and understanding, only to frequently find hidden porno on (tapes, magazines before the time of the internet).  I would be so furious that he wouldn't touch me; but viewed some rather wierd stuff that I didn't understand (most people including men wouldn't).  Anyway, I was committed thinking that I would want the same commitment if it was me with the issue.  I got burnt.  I came home one night after 7 years of marriage to a Dear John letter and my marriage was over.  He walked out.  My gut told me when I first started dating him that something wasn't right and I spent months stuffing it down to say Yes to a man who was incapable of true intimacy.  I have suffered immensely from this and it has now been 14 or 15 years ago.  I wish I could go back and do it all over again.  If you truly love her and must marry her, PLEASE PLEASE GET HER INTO COUNSELING AND RESOLVE THIS (if this resolution is possible) BEFORE YOU MARRY HER.  Let your gutt be your guide.

IT IS JUST SAD,

Let me say one other thing.  (obviously I still have lots of issues about being the recipient of this behavior if I am still reading on this 14 years later). 

But my ex filed divorce papers in the mail a week after he left without so much as one word that divorce was his intent in leaving.  He called me the next day to see if I found "something" in the mail and told me that he dreaded every vacation we ever went on including our honeymoon.  This melted a cold spot in my heart for which I don't think I will ever recover.  The last time I ever spoke to him he was crying and said that he didn't know why he left me and didn't recall making that statement.  "I am sorry, he said, I was angry".  At what I do not know because while I had my faults, I was a very committed and loving wife.  I should have known that life would not be good with him, when his mother showed up to our wedding with a black dress, a black hat and a black veil.  :(

Dear ItJustSad,

Perhaps your wife has a medical condition, which is usually the case with women with low libidos.

Dear Dancer,

I just reread your post.  My fiance said that same honor God thing as an excuse to not have sex with me.  But it turned out he was watching porn, reading porn, chatting and meeting women for sex.  It was just and excuse to keep me, his Madonna "pure". 

Trust your intuition.  It wont fail you.

Wow, that's gut wrenching. Did ou end up marrying your MWC finace? How did you find out he was involved in all the sex outside of you? 

Thanks again for your wisdom on the topic AND your prayers. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk here. 

Do you think you will find a man who is willing to be sexual prior to marriage this next go around? You sound like you have a religious backgroupd. Has your stance on sex before or not before marriage changed in the face of this recent relationship?

I struggled with deciding if I'd give up my own morals and find a man who would have sex with me before we got married to make sure he wasn't another MWC guy. Eventually, my upbringing got the best of me and I too desire to wait for marriage, but a large, scared part of me wonders if that is the safest thing to do. I argue that I should trust God. Trust my gut. But, having been so hurt from my previous relationship/marriage to a man with MWC, I find it extremely difficult to differenciate between my intuition and my fears. I usually have great intuition, but not on this topic, my emotions get all muddled b/t my own morality/feelings of guilt re sex before marriage, desire to be with a Christian man who is willing to wait AND the MEGA fear that if I marry a man who cannot have sex with me prior to marriage why would he want to have sex with me after marriage (unlikely to happen again, but having been through it once before, my fear is so real the idea that it could happen again is a intuition numbing).

Hi Dancer,

When my ex-husband and I first had sex, he was very aggressive, after only the 2nd date we had sex.  I should have known at that time, that something was wrong because he quickly lost interest, and I thought at the time that he didn't like me and was not interested in me anymore, but he wanted to continue to date me and always commented on how pretty and sexy I was and we waiting about 2 weeks before I had to initiate sex with him.  After that it was always me initiating any kind of sex with him, which 95% of the time he refused me and I continued to find porno stashed in his closet.  We had 1 child together and the sex life only consisted about 6 times a year, mostly from me initiating and getting angry at him, then he would give in. 

As for you man waiting to get married before having sex, my sister married a man that was that way, but he was very religious and felt that would be wrong, but they got married and everything is fine with them.  Is your man religious?  I can certainly understand your concern with this, as I don't think I could go through another relationship like that.  What kind of relationship does your man have with his mother?  You may have to do a little detective work and ask him lots of questions...like did he have girlfriends in the past that he had sex with?  Or is he still a virgin? 

I wish you the best of luck!

Having been married to a man who exhibited this same lack of sexual interest in me, and also becoming super insecure and hurt about how I wasn't "sexy" enough to get his interest. I'd say since you are not married -- LEAVE the relationship. I hope you see the MAJOR red flag waving here. Be strong and don't cave on your 3 month boundary. There are so many other fish in the sea. You deserve to be desired by the man in your life. Period.