Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I must say. At first I thought there could be no better work on the subject than The Sex-Starved Wife: What to Do When He's Lost Desire. This book is much more comprehensive, thorough and gender balanced in examining the reasons why male partners either decrease or cease their sexual activity with their significant others. Perhaps this is so because the book is written by a married couple who wanted to be fair to both genders involved. Like THE SEX STARVED WIFE the book wrote that HSDD (hypoactive sexual desire disorder)can be used as a catchall term for little or no sex as a result of many factors both psychological and physiological in origin. So often the medical community has a tendency to assume that the sole reason for this has to do with low testosterone count. In Chapter Eleven "Maybe He's Gay? Asexual?" Berkowitz and Yager-Berkowitz clearly state "if a man's sex drive is low, it may not be due to low testosterone...there are multiple physiological and psychological reasons for a man not wanting to have partnered sex." Significantly, one reason may be "simply the way an individual functions, just as one man may have an unusually high sex drive, another may have one unusually low. And sometimes a man with a weak level of desire marries a female with a libido that falls into a range that is average or above, a situation perhaps masked in the early days of courtship when his passion was able to soar to a temporary high before it peaked and declined back to what was 'normal' for him". This is something THE SEX STARVED WIFE neglected to mention. I have read some reviewers that sounded furious that the author of THE SEX STARVED WIFE seemed to blame the woman exclusively for the problem.In their concluding chapter Berkowitz and Yager-Berkowitz DO admit that "sexless marriage is rarely the result of only one partner's behavior, even it if looks that way on the surface." I DO agree with that statement but I DON'T agree with what they allege in Chapter One "Why Men Stop Having Sex." I do not agree that WOMEN shift responsibility for the lack of sex away from themselves. On the contrary, I think women have a tendency to BLAME THEMSELVES for their husband's lack of desire and oftentimes excessively and unjustly so. Both partners in the relationship have to take responsibility for their actions. Far too often there is a hidden power struggle existing in the relationship. It IS pointed out that "the absence of sexual desire is most often related to expressed or unexpressed anger...living with critical and controlling women who were ready to fly off the handle..." but also that "We don't believe anger is one-sided...They are taking no responsibility for, or are oblvious to, their own part in the story." The authors rightfully state "A conflict-free relationship is impossible. However, when conflict becomes either a cause or an excuse for witholding sex, it is not handled properly." Additionally "Not getting or sustaining an erection can also be a way of passively showing contempt. Withholding sex becomes a punishment; he is refusing to give her something she wants, perhaps one of the few things he perceives as still being within his control." This creates a vicious circle when "The 'noncritical' or 'nonangry' partner responds by witholding touch, warmth and sex, which gives the 'angry' spouse more reason to stay that way." At any rate I would strongly recommend this book especially for any woman struggling in a relationship where sexual intimacy has been rendered extinct.