Said one husband, quoted in "How Weight-Loss Drugs Can Upend a Marriage/Doctors warn about their physical side effects, but they can also have unexpected effects on intimacy" (NYT).
When I clicked to read this article, I assumed it was going to be about the loss of sexual desire as a side effect of the drug. I was surprised to see that it was about the loss of desire in the partner who was not the one taking the drug.
But wait, the drug-taking partner is part of the problem (which is that they haven't had sex since she started the drug). She's finding it "easier to say no" to what she doesn't want, but purports to "want to want to have sex."
If the drug removes the desire for food, why wouldn't it also affect that other physical desire? How closely related are these desires?
Couples spoke about losing a sense of themselves as “foodies” or “party people” or “sexy people” or “athletes” or “the people who eat waffles on weekends.” The most contented couples, who attested to the least domestic friction, seemed to cohabitate with a looseness around the silent expectations of coupledom. They didn’t hold up dinnertime as sacrosanct. They didn’t cling too tightly to preconceived ideas about frequency of sex. They could prepare a prized lasagna without feeling affronted that a formerly voracious partner only nibbles.
What does it mean, metaphorically, to say that you're "prepared a prized lasagna"? When do you ever "prepare a prized lasagna"?
And then there are those people who just become more attractive — conventionally attractive — and think or discover that they can do better than their current spouse: "A 29-year-old woman from the South described how losing almost 60 pounds has made her feel suddenly encumbered by her older husband.... "
Posts
40 comments:
I sense an engaging short story about the 29 year old. I will title it Unencumbered by Earl’s Crumbs
I'll have you know I have two (count 'em, TWO!) prized lasagnas in my freezer right now.
PRIZED!!11!!!!! *respect my ricotta*
Change is hard. Good luck to all involved, and I hope they find what they are looking for. Being human isn't as easy in real life as it seems in the scripted version we read.
Being very fat may or may not be "sexy" to some, but its unhealthy and everyone who loves someone that obese should be happy they've lost the weight.
How many women think that given she's now thin and more "sexy" she deserves better than her unattractive husband. I'd put that in the same class as men who think its ok for a man to "Move up" to a younger 2nd wife, when they become wealthy and successful.
He likes big butts and he cannot lie ...
Wait till they face the changes that accompany evolution. Will they accept or abort (e.g. divorce)?
That husband sounds like he's paraphrasing NOFX's "Hotdog in a Hallway", which is a song I figured I'd never have occasion to bring up on Althouse's blog.
When the old clunker you've been driving for many years no longer functions, how many people replace it with one of the same vintage. Maybe only guys with a large stash can affort a brand new one but just about everyone will opt for one with lower mileage.
I can't read it behind the paywall but was the husband fat, too?
Fat may be exciting, a queer kink, but it's unhealthy at any weight.
Usually women wait until after they have divorced their boring husbands to lose weight.
Look up what happens to women who do the carnivore diet. They not only get lean, they get so horny and orgasmic they damn near explode.
I wonder if he'd be complaining like this if she had cancer and lost a bunch of weight and didn't want to have sex as a result of chemo and other medical treatments. Or if she got lost in the woods on a hike and had to survive on berries and dandelion weeds until she was rescued after six months, skin 'n bones and totally traumatized, would he be bitching like this then?
"How closely related are these desires?"
The early monastics (who saw sin more like an illness than about guilt) viewed gluttony and lust as a couplet. They, like Evagrius of Pontus, listed 8 deadly sins, four couplets, of connected and influencing temptations that shared similar issues and thus responses. Like here in John Cassian's Conference 5.
As temptations of physical desire beyond need, they viewed the task of fasting as a key remedy. Some also noted that in the narrative of Jesus's temptation in Luke 4, Satan tempted him with the initial temptations, not all of them, because by resisting the initial form he didn't need to be tempted with the subsequent. He resisted gluttony so wasn't tempted with lust, since the battle and will are seen as much the same. Address one you're also fighting the other.
In the archive: https://archive.ph/9E9Bi
It always amazes me how little people value their relationships, and how quickly emotional commitments are discarded when one decides their marketability has improved.
He's finding out that she wasn't "big-boned" at all - just big. That said, I sympathize with him. Not every guy dreams of being with an Auschwitzian, runway model type bone bag.
The bone is for the dog. The meat is for the man.
You know what they say about vegan gals--they don't eat meat but they sure love the bone.
"I can't read it behind the paywall but was the husband fat, too?"
Yes, but he considered himself strong and he seems devoted to exercise. He was a football player in high school. I think I can picture the type.
Right, so she hadn’t wanted to have sex for five years before she started losing weight. Whatever was up with that, that seems like the real problem here, and the reporter failed to give that enough attention because of wanting the story to be about the impact of weight loss. Apparently, weirdly, though, in the mere anticipation of losing weight, once she decided to do so, she also decided to clue her husband in on the fact that she wasn’t interested in sex and as people these days say “hold her boundaries”.
But what did she say?
"You don't need a wife! You need a pillow!"
The only one I know personally who has successfully lost a lot of weight with Oz, I think, looks like she has successfully gained a lot of years. If that is typical, and I believe it is, then that could explain a lot.
A recapitulation of the historical progression of popularity of the male affectations of earrings, ponytails and briar armband tattoos and the resulting aphorism, "When everyone is hip, what is hip?" But now, with masses of Ozempicized women striving for and attaining skinniness - the prime and requisite criterion for "hotness": When every woman is "hot," what is "hot."
Althouse said...
If the drug removes the desire for food, why wouldn't it also affect that other physical desire? How closely related are these desires?
"Oh no, I'll tell you what you did Caligula. You've combined food and sex in to one disgusting uncontrollable urge."
The guy grilling burgers in a beer commercial, right?
Back when I worked in front of a computer workstation, I did Weight Watchers, which was very informative. One point that they made was that weight loss in one person in a group kind of upsets the unspoken pecking order in a group. Sometimes the thin people kind of like that their friends are fat, and therefore lower in status than they are. I think I see this in some of the comments about the government subsidizing Ozempic. "What right to they have to be thin!"
But this lady is just experiencing what most people experience when they become more attractive. People, not just "women."
How sad. The Culture of Anorexia strikes again. We weren't all meant to be the same size and we don't all desire the same size.
I wonder if this woman, when she was large, saw herself as undesirable. Certainly the media teaches that. Meanwhile, her husband found her voluptuous and sexy.
The ritual slaughter of the prized lasagna is referenced in numerous Old Testament stories, but it appears that the practice was mysteriously abandoned around 2000 BC. The modern lasagna, which weighs only a few pounds and bears little resemblance to the ancient beast, stands as a mere totem.
Dat'd be da butt, Bob.
What evidence is there of a culture of anorexia when three quarters of the people in this country are overweight and half the people are obese?
Virtue signaling knows no bounds. He will get a lot of attaboys from the "right" people.
When I was on Ozempic (for blood sugar control), I noticed the appetite dampening in the first 2 months. My appetite, particularly at the evening meal, was easily satiated, after a few bites. Unfortunately, my wife and daughter mostly enjoy cooking nice dinners and are used to the evening meal being a social and dining occasion. Now that I'm off it, we enjoy dinners again as a family. I more quickly feel full at every meal (I assume because the stomach shrunk) but good food is part of our life again. (Of course, the weight loss in the legs has given them an old guy look, i.e., saggy skin)
If the drug removes the desire for food, why wouldn't it also affect that other physical desire? How closely related are these desires?
Lusty dining (Scene from "Tom Jones")
But seriously, at least some of the drugs reduce appetite by slowing the digestive process, so you feel fuller. If they also reduce sexual desire it would likely be some not directly related mechanism. Drugs men take for enlarged prostates can have this effect, but that's because the drugs affect part of the anatomy involved with sex.
The only one I know personally who has successfully lost a lot of weight with Oz, I think, looks like she has successfully gained a lot of years. If that is typical, and I believe it is, then that could explain a lot."
'Ozempic Face' is a well known side effect, the rapid loss of fat around the face leading to sagging and wrinkles. Skin firms up after a while. The same thing can happen with any rapid weight loss.
Lazarus said...
“He likes big butts and he cannot lie ...”
The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin’
(That's what I said)
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
(Or so I have read)
It's the NYT. Never happened.
The NYT does another deep dive into the neuroses of others, another in the never ending campaign to normalize the abnormal.
Less weight makes it easier to monkeybranch.
Post a Comment