It's not love that keeps my marriage alive - it's SEX: The clergyman's wife who says desire has helped them through dark times

 

Annie Atkins says her celibate husband was the sexiest man she had ever met when they met, aged 20

• Annie Atkins says sex was the reason she married her husband Shaun
• Ms Atkins says her and clergyman husband seem to be in the minority 
• A survey has shown that 55 per cent of adults are happy with their sex lives

The other day, my husband Shaun and I went to a friend's drinks party. As the wine flowed, we got talking to a group of 50-something couples and the polite chatter turned to how we had all met our partners.

'And why did you marry each other?' we were asked in turn.

Spontaneously - and without conferring - Shaun and I both simultaneously said 'Sex,' and then laughed.

The couple who had asked us, both marriage counsellors, looked deeply shocked: 'We've never heard anyone say that before.'

Apparently, most couples say utterly drippy things such as: 'We wanted to support each other.'

Perhaps our reply was particularly shocking because Shaun is a clergyman. But the truth is that we vowed our lives to each other so we could make love to each other - for life.

While sex once seemed easy, it can tail off in later life thanks to the menopause, fears over our ageing bodies and the sad truth that familiarity can breed contempt

As this conversation, and a survey released last week by marriage counselling service Relate, showed, we seem to be in a minority.

" While sex once seemed easy, it can tail off in later life thanks to the menopause, fears over our ageing bodies and the sad truth that familiarity can breed contempt"

Relate's survey revealed that more than half the population has not had sex in the past four weeks, and 55 per cent of adults are unhappy with their sex life.

This is apparently because we're all so bombarded with messages about how sex 'ought to be' - in films, books such as Fifty Shades Of Grey, magazines and websites - that we're starting to avoid it altogether for fear of seeming less than perfect.

And this pressure can be especially prevalent for the over-50s. While sex once seemed easy, it can tail off in later life thanks to the menopause, fears over our ageing bodies and the sad truth that familiarity can breed contempt.

Well, lack of perfection has never bothered me - in fact, as we've got older, sex has become better and better.

The couple, who met at Oxford, married at 22, after Annie fell for Shaun's steely reserve and passion

People often say love inevitably changes from the heady, adrenaline-charged romance and lust of youth to something much more staid in middle age; that you can't stay 'in love' all your life. I passionately disagree.

Life-long love goes through different phases, but part of the endless fascination of it is that you never know where it might go next.

After all, what makes love-making within a marriage so endlessly interesting and fun is not endless variety, but the endless challenges in loving just one person.

The couple, who have five children, have been through hard times including Shaun's breakdown

People might be surprised to hear me - a regular on Radio 4's Thought For The Day and mother of five children - talk so openly about the crucial importance of love-making.

But it's the bond that has kept us together, the thread running through our shared lives, particularly when times have been difficult.

After being fortunate enough to find my perfect lover in my early 20s, I can't imagine ever wanting to be celibate.

Shaun and I met in our second year at Oxford University, both aged 20.

One morning a few months later, when we still barely knew each other, I took a break from an essay to visit him for coffee.

He utterly stunned me by telling me he was 'madly in love' with me.

That day I wrote to my parents: 'Just before lunchtime, I fell in love.'

Unlike Shaun - who, as a committed Christian, had kept himself scrupulously pure, not even kissing a girl - I'd had boyfriends through my teens, but had never wanted to have sex with any of them. With Shaun, I felt very differently. He woke something in me that I'd never felt before.

With his quiet, steely reserve and flashes of Irish poetry and passion, he was, quite simply, the sexiest man I'd ever met.

We wanted each other so much that he proposed to me later that year and we agreed to marry as soon as we reasonably could - straight after our Finals, aged 22.

Waiting for our wedding night to make love was far more difficult than getting a degree.

So, naturally, we told the shocked couple at the drinks party that we married for sex.

Ms Atkins was so attracted to Shaun she found the wait for their wedding night harder than getting her degree

Otherwise, why bother? Why not just be friends?

After all, it's sex that makes this relationship different from all others. However much we love our family and children and parents and friends, it is only the two of us who share that part of our lives together.

One of the great fallacies of married life is that during the downs, love-making must decline. In my experience, that's when sexual intimacy, even if not sex itself, is more crucial than ever.

NO AGE LIMIT

Nearly a third of women and over half of men over 70 are still sexually active

Throughout our many years together, Shaun and I have encountered tough times as well as good.

After our first child was born, I went off sex for several weeks. At the time I felt guilty - I believed I was letting Shaun down and I honestly didn't know whether I would ever be interested in making love again.

I explained and apologised. He told me not to be so silly and just held me each night in a friendly hug, which probably restored me far faster than anything else could have done.

Annie admits she understand how older couples can become shy about making love... +8 View gallery

But claims that making love to her husband is the closest form of togetherness they have +8 View gallery

A passionate sex life has kept the couple strong though difficult times, boosting their self-esteem

I've never felt that way since - not even after the births of the next four - but it communicated to me very memorably that sometimes the most loving way to make love is to give an undemanding cuddle.

Some years ago, Shaun had got into a rut in his parish and he retreated into himself. He barely spoke for several weeks, let alone touched me.

I was so wretched and lonely I wanted to die, and for that brief time I could understand what drives women to take lovers.

What makes love-making within a marriage so endlessly interesting and fun is not endless variety, but the endless challenges in loving just one person

Happily I didn't, and when we eventually were together again, we were as close as ever.

 
"What makes love-making within a marriage so endlessly interesting and fun is not endless variety, but the endless challenges in loving just one person"

But our troubles were not yet over. Several years ago, Shaun suffered a devastating, work-induced breakdown. When our wonderful and sympathetic GP suggested helping him through the first few weeks with an anti-depressant, my heart sank.

The whole family was going through terrible trauma as a result of it all. It's honestly true that making love was the only activity for some time that had put a spontaneous smile on my face.

I dreaded the drug and its side effects. Would Shaun lose all desire for me? Was I not even to have that pleasure any more?

Happily, that didn't happen, but in a bid to boost his self-esteem, I felt the least I could do was to take the initiative frequently in the bedroom.

I remember reading a magazine article not long afterwards about a couple who vowed to make love to each other every day for a year and thinking: ‘Only once a day?’

As I write, I am going through a fragile phase. Our daughter has been struggling with a long-term illness and I’ve been missing my dear late mother every day.

Even through her husband's breakdown and her mother's death, Annie says sex gives the couple intimacy +8 View gallery

Even through her husband's breakdown and her mother's death, Annie says sex gives the couple intimacy

So I don’t feel particularly sexy, but nonetheless I value sex more than ever.

When Shaun makes love to me, I feel whole again. By night, it gives me a far deeper sleep; in the morning, more energy for the day. It’s the closest form of togetherness we have.

There are many ways to make love. A flower, a passionate text, a passing kiss — each can be thrilling and memorable.

And if people are genuinely so intimidated by the ubiquity of apparently perfect sex and cowed into celibacy as a result, I feel sorry and sad.

After all, if we were perfect lovers there would be nothing more to learn, and perhaps there really would then be no reason to continue.

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The hard reality of marriage

Understanding the attraction between men and women

Dr Goh Pei Hwa  from Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Science

HOW many times have we all, at some point in our lives, misinterpreted signs?


Movies like He’s Just Not That into You, which is based on Greg Behrendt’s and Liz Tuccillo’s 2004 self-help book of the same name, tells people that if a man in whom you are interested in is not making an effort to pursue you, he is “just not that into you.”

Research has long indicated that it is mostly men, who tend to misperceive friendliness as sexual interest. They overestimate the sexual interest of potential mates. Even when two people have clearly defined their relationship as platonic, more often, it is the men, who are attracted to their opposite-sex friends.

According to Dr Goh Pei Hwa from the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, this is not always the case.

While the majority of existing findings show the abovementioned pattern of men overperceiving sexual interest, relationship researchers have demonstrated that among heterosexual couples in committed relationships, men were more likely to underperceive sexual interest from their partners.

Men from certain cultures were also less likely to overperceive sexual interest than others.

In other words, the “male over perception bias” appears to be less universal than previously assumed.

In her recent work, Dr Goh revisited the question of gender differences in sexual perception accuracy using a face-to-face, laboratory-based interaction paradigm on a sample of university students in Malaysia.

Participants consisted of 62 previously unacquainted heterosexual dyads aged 20 years on average. Each participant was randomly paired with another participant of the other sex, and each dyad engaged in a semi-structured conversation task for five minutes.

After the interaction task, participants completed measures capturing their degree of sexual interest in their interaction partner and an estimation of their partner’s sexual interest in them.

Results revealed that people’s perception of their partner’s sexual interest did not match their partner’s actual sexual interest. This indicates that people generally lacked accuracy in their perception of sexual interest.

In fact, people’s perception of sexual interest was highly in line with their own sexual interest in their interaction partner.

More importantly, no gender differences were found. This means that both men and women were equally inaccurate and equally likely to project their own sexual interest onto their estimations of their partner’s sexual interest.

“In essence, people are bad at interpreting sexual interest from strangers. Based on the research, Malaysian men do not overperceive sexual interest as past studies have suggested. Women, on the other hand, tend to underperceive sexual interest, supporting past studies,” says Goh.

The current study advances our understanding that people are generally underperceiving sexual interest in initial interactions, regardless of gender.

That is, people are either not communicating their sexual interest effectively or missing all the sexual interest cues being expressed by someone else.

Here, it translates into a lot of potentially missed opportunities. This is highly applicable to first meetings between potential partners, which begs the question: does technology further impede our ability to gauge the sexual interest of others accurately?

With dating apps, we typically already know that we are chatting with someone who finds us attractive or appealing to a certain extent.

Thus, there is no need to try to decipher whether or not someone is into us based on the interaction.

Goh concludes: “If you like someone or have some interest in a person, express it more overtly. This will invite the other person to respond according to his or her own interest in you.

“Let the other person decide if he or she is interested, not you and your potentially (or most likely) wrong perceptions”.

■ For more details, look out for the advertisement in this StarSpecial.

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Liberating Malay mind: Shed ‘excess baggage’ of privileges !

 Malays must shed ‘excess baggage’ of privileges, says Rafidah 

SHAH ALAM: The Malays should drop the “excess baggage” hobbling them, such as the thinking that they are “special” and deserving of certain privileges, says Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.

Instead, she said they should move forward by nurturing themselves with a recalibrated mindset.

Speaking at the launch of a book titled Liberating The Malay Mind by author Dr M. Bakri Musa, Rafidah said that the excess baggage of the Malays included the obsession that the community was special and more privileged than the others, in an ideal that was bolstered since the formation of the New Economic Policy (NEP).

“We (Malays) have been taught that we are special and privileged. But, we must know that the NEP was introduced because we were so far behind in knowledge and economy, and we needed assistance.

“It was not because we deserved it, nor was it that we must have it because the Malays were special,” she said in her speech.

Rafidah said it was a shame that after all these years, the Malays were still imprisoned by the thinking that they were special and deserving of certain privileges.

“It is shameful that we still want the “crutches” although our legs are fine, or still want to depend on the special status when we are able. It is our mindset that is stopping us from moving forward.”

Rafidah called on the Malays to face the future by eradicating the narrow thinking as well as their over admiration on foreign culture.

“All Malays are Muslims in Malay­sia. So, be a Malaysian Muslim. We are not Arabian, we are Malaysian first.

“We must realise that we are an integral component in Malaysia.

“It is necessary for us to nurture the younger generation with good universal values, such as integrity, trustworthiness, responsibility, accountability, discipline and respect for others.

Otherwise, we will be stuck in a time warp and end up going nowhere, she added.

Sources: The Star/Asia News Network

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Liberating Malay mind, unnecessary hoo-ha and nonsense!

Liberating the Malay mind

Open-minded people are usually more tolerant, and when you are tolerant you are also moderate in your actions and behaviour.

Open-mindedness started to disappear from the scene when we began to have indoctrination in our schools and universities. In other words, when politics and religion got into the class rooms and lecture halls.

 

LIBERATING the Malay Mind is the title of the book by Dr M. Bakri Musa, a Malay doctor who practises medicine and lives in California. Written in English and Malay, the book was published by ZI Publications.

The second edition will be launched on Jan 30 by another famous and successful Malay, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz. As a Malay, I am proud to be associated with these two Malays whom I consider to be “open-minded”.

Open-mindedness is essential if we want to be a moderate and tolerant society.

Moderation is only possible if people understand the issues and are willing to talk about them openly. They can only understand difficult issues if they are willing to think rationally.

Being open-minded means that even if you think you are right, you know that you could be wrong, and you must therefore always be willing to consider other arguments and ideas.

Open-minded people are usually more tolerant, and when you are tolerant you are also moderate in your actions and behaviour.

An open-minded person is willing to engage in discussions and is generally flexible in his or her approach to things. Many leaders like the late Nelson Mandela, artists, writers and scientists attribute their success to their open-mindedness.

In Malaysia, Malays of my generation and those who are older are generally more open-minded than the present crop. This is partly because our educational approach was more focused on building skills such as reading, writing and thinking.

Science and the arts were subjects that had no socio-political dimension. They were studied purely to understand the physical world, culture and human nature.

Interpersonal relations were measured according to how we dealt with others as human beings, rather than which race we belonged to.

Success was measured by the level of skills we attained after years of schooling, and by the job skills we required to feed our families upon graduation. Back then nothing more than a bit of fun here and there got into our bloodstream.

Open-mindedness started to disappear from the scene when we began to have indoctrination in our schools and universities. In other words, when politics and religion got into the classrooms and lecture halls.

Education now includes courses on political awareness, and a heavy dose of religious instructions. If teachers and educationists do not exhibit some form of conforming identity or partisanship to “political and religious needs”, then they might not go far in their respective fields.

A new sense of historical perspective is also considered necessary. The biggest stumbling block to open-mindedness is, of course, education. Both secular and religious education in this country are not like those in the Islamic world of the 8th century.

Baghdad then was the centre of learning, and had the biggest public library in the world. Jews, Christians and Greek scholars of all faiths and creeds gathered to pursue knowledge without restrictions. It was never vacuous, mediocre and rigid, both in content and methodology, like what we have here today.

The culture of having an intellectual and pluralistic approach to understanding the world, including religious tenets, has not taken root.

In fact, such an approach is frowned upon and considered blasphemous. The state’s monopoly and control of religion is absolute.

The outcome is therefore predictable. Younger Malays are an angrier lot; they are less tolerant and moderate than older Malays. Just read their Facebook accounts and social media comments on any subject that is faintly controversial and you will appreciate what I mean.

They hurl abuse and make personal comments that have nothing to do with the subject matter in question. Extremism in their thinking is clearly visible.

They always see problems as if Islam and the Malays are under constant attack.

My concern in all of this is that the attributes these Malays/Muslims are exhibiting, besides being dangerous to the country’s peace and stability, are actually detrimental to their own well-being.

Their “enemies” – such as Chinese, Jews and the West in general – will continue with their ways and not be bothered with the tantrums thrown by these Malays.

They will continue with their educational and economic dominance. They will continue to make inroads in science and technology. They will continue to produce Nobel Prize winners.

What will become of these Malays? They will continue to be fascinated with ideas of violence and destruction, like the Islamic State teachings.

They will continue to adopt a rigid mindset which will make living in a multicultural 21st century setting more difficult. They can continue to listen to preachers and motivational speakers about how to defend their rights; but they will continue to be irrelevant because they will not be successful or dominant over things that matter.

They will not be able to truly develop the country and exploit its resources because they will lack the necessary know-how.

I am concerned that their frustrations over their own irrelevance will push them closer to those militants who blow themselves up. After all, suicide bombers are usually driven by their sense of helplessness, despair and alienation.

That’s why I hope more young Malays will read Dr Bakri’s book and attend the forum “Merdekakan Minda Melayu”, which will be held after the book launch.

I hope they will listen to what Rafidah has to say to find out what can make them more resourceful, and hopefully, successful.

One thing for sure though: they can only do that if they are prepared to liberate their minds from the toxic influences of the present.


By Zaid Ibrahim
all kinds of everything
Former de facto Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim (carbofree@gmail.com) is now a legal consultant. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

Unnecessary hoo-ha and nonsense

Common sense has slowly been taking a back seat over the last few years, as people get hysterical over the most ridiculous things.

I don't understand why we are not ashamed to admit our faith is weak, and that we should constantly protect it. Others people don't seem to have ths same problems.

FOR a country that loves having laws to govern everyone’s beha­viour, we are very peculiar about ensuring that people follow them.

For some people, we bring the full force of the law to not only pu­nish them but to also set as an “example” to others.

For others, we sometimes wilfully ignore the law and let them do what they want.

Then there are the people who ignore court orders because they say it conflicts with some other law. Why they don’t get charged with contempt of court, I don’t know, but I don’t have to be a lawyer to think this is weird.

Then there are people who stretch laws to mean and do other things.

Like assuming that fathers are the only parents of a child and therefore what they say goes. (To the students to whom I was explaining what gender discrimination means today, there’s your example.)

Additionally there are people who make things up because it’s a law that only exists in their head.

A Muslim parent whose child goes to a Chinese school talked about how it was not enough for the religious studies teacher that there is halal food available in the canteen, but that the Muslim kids had to sit apart from their non-Muslim friends as well.

Does she think that non-halal food can be breathed in?

Some people will undoubtedly say that children have a habit of sharing food and utensils so some may inadvertently eat some non-halal food.

But of course sharing even all-halal food isn’t very hygienic either and is something parents should teach their children not to do.

Thinking about this story, I rea­lise how common sense has slowly been taking a back seat over the last few years.

Some people can really get hysterical over the most ridiculous things.

The unnecessary hoo-ha over the eventually false story of pig DNA in chocolate comes to mind.

Then of course there is the obsession with the cross appearing everywhere.

Apparently if you live in a house where there is something that looks like a crucifix on the roof, you will change your faith as easily as you change your underwear.

It never ceases to amuse me how, while Muslims find it so difficult to convert anyone else, all it takes to convert a Muslim to some other religion is the sight of a crucifix, a statue, hearing a song, drinking some water and even, as I was once privileged to be told, looking into the eyes of the Pope.

Our faith is a delicate thing, which we hang on to by the thinnest wisp of a thread, vulnerable to whatever “infidel” breeze might blow our way.

As it happens, I spent 12 years in a Convent school where there were crucifixes everywhere inclu­ding a giant one on the roof of the school.

Not a single one of the Muslim girls who studied there has left the faith. But maybe our generation are stronger than the people today.

I don’t understand why we are not ashamed to admit our faith is weak, and that we should constantly protect it.

Other people don’t seem to have the same problem.

I talk to young foreigners about the practice of Islam in Malaysia very often and, as far as I know, none have converted yet.

I may have dispelled some stereotypes about Muslims however, particularly the one about us having no sense of humour.

Logic is not our strong point either.

I saw a video where a uniformed man was briefing some academics on how to spot terrorists.

He talked about their distorted beliefs about religion and their lite­ral reading of the Quran.

I thought he was doing a fair job until he decided to give some examples of people to be wary of.

All of a sudden, he cited some of the most progressive people in the country as those most dangerous.

The sheer illogicality was breathtaking. I think even the terrorists would be puzzled, because the very people he mentioned in the same breath as terrorist ideology are not exactly popular with the angry, head-chopping, bearded crowd either.

The people wreaking havoc in Syria these days don’t believe much in women’s rights, for example.

So does it make sense to label women’s rights advocates as terrorists?

But maybe the illogicality and nonsense are deliberate. Our people tend to look up to those in authority so perhaps when they say that black is now actually white, and good is now bad, we will simply believe it.

That approach assumes that our people are all mildly intelligent, of course, and have shaky values to begin with. But it seems to work.

Maybe ultimately that’s the only thing about how we are governed that makes sense.


By Marina Mahathir musings

Marina Mahathir is a human rights activist who works on women, children and HIV/AIDS issues. The views expressed here are entirely her own.


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