I don't want to derail someone else's thread in the family forum, so I'm posting the question here. A male poster mentioned something a lot of women wonder about. We have our hypothesis, but I'd like to hear it straight. Maybe it's not even true, who knows...
Why is it that romance to a lot of guys means sex? What is romance to guys exactly?
This comes down to the basic differences between the genders, which is magnified by our culture in some ways reducing sex to nothing more than physical gratification. Women are more emotional creatures that desire to be emotionally fulfilled to engage sexually, whereas men are more physical creatures that desire to be sexually fulfilled to engage emotionally. Unfortunately for many men, romance has been reduced to the selfish fulfillment of their desire for sex without the first concern for their wife's desire for emotional engagement.
In my opinion, romance in a healthy relationship should involve the man taking the lead in emotionally engaging his wife to the best of his ability (this entails knowing what makes her feel loved and doing it) and not expecting that she reciprocate sexually on demand.
Sex should be the ultimate expression of a couple's love for each other not the fulfilling of our basest animalistic desires.