The Dangers of Duty Sex [Q&A Discussion]

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Self-improvement, Education, Mental Health, Sexuality, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When sex feels like an obligation rather than a choice, it erodes intimacy, fosters resentment, and leaves partners feeling distant and disconnected. In this powerful Q&A discussion, Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife explores the complexities of "duty sex" including what drives it and the detrimental impact it has on relationships. She discusses the powerful meanings we attach to sex, and how these meanings can either undermine desire by creating a sense of obligation or foster connection through choice and mutual desire. She offers insight into how both higher and lower-desire partners can step away from patterns of pressure and compliance and cultivate a more fulfilling sexual relationship built on mutual desire, authentic connection, and a sense of being truly chosen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you accept duty sex, you're giving the message that you'll tolerate not being chosen,
0:06.8	that she'll take what's not being offered.
0:09.8	So you're participating in a kind of sexuality that's humiliating to both of you.
0:15.0	And it's a way of keeping the marriage from being intimate and choice-based.
0:29.2	Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer,
0:35.4	a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and more.
0:43.0	All featuring Dr. Finlayson Fife. We are going to talk about duty sex. So let me just start with a couple of questions and I'll just explain some of my
0:49.4	thinking around it and then I'd love to hear some of your follow-up questions or things that
0:53.6	you would like
0:54.8	clarification around. This person writes, what's the difference between duty sex and sex that
1:00.9	your spouse doesn't initially feel into but can get to a point of desire through conscious
1:07.0	action? Is the second one not inauthentic. This person goes on to say there have been
1:13.4	duty sex times in our marriage where we both are aware, especially afterwards, that my wife who has a
1:19.4	lower desire for sex than me was doing it for the wrong reasons. But then there are times when she
1:25.6	doesn't initially have the idea of sex on her mind or initially
1:28.7	is resistant, but can get to the point where she does want it.
1:33.3	I can't quite differentiate between the two of them, and so I'm not able to understand
1:37.9	what would be good and bad for our relationship to have sex if she, quote unquote,
1:41.6	doesn't want to.
1:43.0	Wouldn't it basically be any time I want to have sex and she doesn't?
1:46.9	So let me just give you some clarifying ideas first around these questions and then kind of how you can think about it.
1:54.2	So first of all, as I think some of you know, there's a distinction between desire and arousal.
	...

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