Withholding sex entirely can be a mechanism of dominance and control by a more powerful partner

No-Comfort1229 · 2025-08-02T14:17:30+00:00

i agree. and elon musk is withholding his money from me, i feel so.. what were the words?.. oh yes, blackmailed, teased and bullied. why is he punishing me by withholding something i desire? its not fair to use this mechanism of domination and control against me!

Confident_Counter471 · 2025-08-02T14:35:01+00:00

Idk, if he makes me mad I’m not going to be horny. It’s not a really a reward for good behavior, but bad behavior definitely makes me dry up. Who wants to have sex when you’re angry. If I’m not feeling lovey dovey I don’t want sex period. And if there is tension between us I am not going to want it either…it’s not a conscious “I’m withholding sex until I get my way” it’s a being completely turned off if I don’t feel the love connection

Lemon_gecko · 2025-08-02T14:12:19+00:00

There is no such thing as withholding sex. Nobody owed sex.

lesliecarbone · 2025-08-02T14:42:37+00:00

Sex in a sense is a "service" from women to men.

Yikes on bikes!

Flightlessbirbz · 2025-08-02T14:23:08+00:00

it makes sense for the consent of the woman to in a sense to have more weight

Um no, the consent of both people is absolutely non-negotiable. You’re assuming here that men always want to have sex 100% of the time, which is just not true. Yes, due to typical sex drive differences, it’s more often the woman turning it down, but if you go to the dead bedrooms sub you’ll see this is far from always the case.

Men can not want sex for all sorts of reasons just like women can. Sometimes it is “withholding sex” as a form of manipulation, but I’d say far more often, something else is going on where one person simply does not want sex. This could be due to other relationship issues, or physical or mental health issues. And that isn’t “withholding” anything, as sex is something two people have to want, not something that’s owed.

Corbast7 · 2025-08-02T14:57:16+00:00

If someone is not horny / feeling enthusiastic for sex with you then that is not malicious and blackmailing you…Because sex, like any other time you share affection, should be enjoyable for both people. It’s not a “service” because nobody wants to feel like your maid.

Can you imagine the uproar from manosphere guys in this sub if a woman made a post saying “men who don’t pay every time I want something are maliciously withholding their money from me as blackmail 🥺”

applejackpatches · 2025-08-02T14:34:08+00:00

Withholding sex or any other kind of withholding (e.g. affection, communication, etc) is a form of abuse if the intention is to hurt, manipulate, or punish a partner. This is obviously different from genuinely not wanting to have sex due to low libido or feeling withdrawn after an argument. It's also not just something that can be used against "weak men." Anyone, man or woman, attractive or unattractive, can be a victim of withholding.

KayRay1994 · 2025-08-02T14:18:33+00:00

Tbh if my partner ever consciously ‘withholds sex’, we’re done.

I want to be clear on why - simply not wanting to have sex is fine, I wouldn’t want it to happen unless we were both horny and fully taken in the moment. Like you can simply just not be in the mood, and if that’s the case then entirely fine by me, if you’re not 100% then I’m not in too - but the minute you introduce a concept like ‘withholding’ it implies manipulation and mind games, and that’s something I didn’t think a relationship should have. Sex basically turns into a reward for good behaviour rather than bonding between people.

And for the record the same applies both ways, if I begin to ‘withhold’ sex, attention, affection, love, etc for some dumb power play then my partner absolutely should leave me cause this is a partnership, not some mind game for dominance or control

alwaysright0 · 2025-08-02T14:35:51+00:00

How sad you presume women don't actually want sex

nadirian · 2025-08-02T14:25:56+00:00

Sex in a sense is a "service" from women to men. But not exactly in terms of a transaction, but in terms of consent. Since women (on average) are much weaker than men physically, it makes sense for the consent of a woman in a sense to have more weight, because she is physically threatened more. And a normal man will also put the woman's consent and her comfort first, which gives women more power in this regard.

OK, so women practically can't withhold sex, they can only withhold consent.

If she withholds consent, the man can still physically threaten or overpower her to get sex, but "normal men" typically choose not to do this.

... but doesn't that mean the man has the greater power, since her power is conditional on him choosing to act "normal"?

rando_dud · 2025-08-02T14:46:36+00:00

If one of you is playing games like that, you aren't actually partners.. full stop.

Always have a viable path to be able to walk away.. life is too short to be mistreated.

gammaradiation · 2025-08-02T15:01:48+00:00

If you attack the foundations of a relationship, don't be supprised it crumbles and falls.

MarioWilson122 · 2025-08-02T15:48:08+00:00

Cant stay with someone that isnt willing to gladly give that up it shouldnt even be an argument unless the man is quite weak. So thats why you have to get rid of them quickly instead of allowing them to have any control with that throughout the relationship or marriage.

Morgoth_Worshipper · 2025-08-02T22:11:01+00:00

Men are not entitled to sex.

ThatBitchA · 2025-08-02T17:23:51+00:00

Sex isn't a "service" from women to men. Yikes. What a silly belief of sex.

Withholding sex isn't a thing. If someone isn't interested in having sex, they aren't withholding anything. They just aren't in the mood.

Aimeereddit123 · 2025-08-02T14:17:24+00:00

It can be dominance, sure. It can be immature emotional blackmail. It can be a lot of things. It’s also that a lot of women just don’t really get much out of partnered sex, so it’s very easy for them to say ‘nope’ over the slightest inconvenience. However, as a woman that LOVES sex, when I pull away, it’s only because I have been treated so poorly or haphazardly during the day hours, that my physical body recoils at night. You say we are weaker, and that is true. That means we rarely lash outward, our insides just pull away. It’s all we’ve got. We can only control our own selves and bodies.

Avast_Lion · 2025-08-02T17:33:06+00:00

"The decisive and final word of consent is for the woman" no it absolutely is not. Sex is an activity that requires consent equally from both parties. If the woman wants to have sex with her male partner, but he doesn't want to have sex, they can't have sex. If a man wants to have sex with his female partner, but she doesn't want to have sex, they can't have sex. They both have the same complete veto power. Otherwise, it's rape. Just because it is much easier for a man to rape a woman than vice versa doesn't mean her consent has "more weight."

"Sex is in a sense a 'service' from women to men" do you mean that men can't have sex with women without their consent? Because, again, the same is equally true of women.

I completely agree that it is not healthy or morally acceptable for people in a relationship to devise 'punishments' for each other. But men and women are equally capable of doing that, and they both do it in equal measure. They also just...get mad at each other, which makes them less horny and inclined to give each other special expressions of devotion.

Now, a thought experiment: if your wife bakes you muffins every morning, and you don't do anything like that for her, does that mean she has more "power" over you, because she is able to stop baking muffins? If your wife has sex with you "as a favor" when you want it (which I don't think is healthy to begin with), and you don't do the same for her, does that mean she is the more powerful partner? Of course not. In an equal relationship, both partners do each other an equal amount of extra unnecessary favors and expressions of love, and both have equal "power" to withhold those things as "punishment." In a healthy relationship, neither of them does.

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grillopie · 2025-08-02T14:33:03+00:00

it might make sense to withhold baking brownies. it wouldnt make sense to withhold cooking food, cleaning, buying toilet paper. that would be crazy. withholding sex is closer to the crazy end than brownies.

people can be crazy, but it seems more out of bounds than not baking a pie until they get what they want.

Quantum_Supremacist · 2025-08-02T22:39:02+00:00

You can definitely piss off a woman by withholding sex.

It seems a bit different for women in that men have sex withheld and they don't like being denied the act itself more so than having their sense of desirability damaged. Women have sex withheld and the damage to their sense of their own desirability pisses them off more than the lost opportunity for the act itself.

Chronic sexual rejection of a woman by a lover for various reasons including domination and control definitely happens.

"Sex is about power" - Oscar Wilde

Power struggles are a two-way street

IridikronsNo1Fan · 2025-08-02T14:10:46+00:00

The real power play is making someone do chorecraft 24/7. Fellas, be careful. If you don't stand your ground, she will have you running chores all weekend long.

balhaegu · 2025-08-02T15:10:43+00:00

"No more dick" power move by a man is also possible

Bosnianarchist · 2025-08-03T00:33:28+00:00

Outside_Memory5703 · 2025-08-03T08:32:50+00:00

And how do you decide when it is happening?

SexCrispies · 2025-08-06T13:06:23+00:00

I do not think anyone disputes that the reason for withholding sex is dominance/control/manipulation. The sexes of the people involved do not matter. It goes man->woman, woman->man, man->man, woman->woman.

Title	Withholding sex entirely can be a mechanism of dominance and control by a more powerful partner
Author	Cultural-Ad-8486
Upvotes	0
Comments	114
Date	August 2, 2025 2:07 PM UTC (11 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1mfrevu/withholding_sex_entirely_can_be_a_mechanism_of/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/withholding-sex-entirely-can-be-a-mechanism-of.1558721 https://theredarchive.com/post/1558721

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