You Do Not "Owe" Your Husband Sex

And other things I shouldn’t have to say

Hi. I’m starting to worry about all of us and the really obvious things that people need to hear in certain parts of the internet and the manosphere and the world. 

I’d like to write about sunflowers because they can grow over six feet tall - and when they are mature, their heads face east in the morning and follow the sun across the sky. Then at night they turn to the east again, like they don’t want to miss the sunrise - like they know it’s coming. If I were a flower, I’d like to be a sunflower, besotted and devoted and always remembering where I’m rooted and why.

I took this pic. I don’t need credit, just didn’t want you to think I stole it.

I’d like to write about the space/time continuum because I like the idea that space and time are unbroken and four dimensional, and if we just learned to get quiet we’d feel that and know it the way we do when a scent on the breeze takes us to a place or a person or a moment from some other part of the timeline, and suddenly it’s like we’re hurtling there, pulled by nothing more than the gravity of longing. 

Or Leaf Sheep - I’d love to write about them because they make me laugh. How are they even real? How can we exist on a planet with leaf sheep and be so fucking violent when the obvious thing is to be delighted and amazed and grateful? Look at them:

(c) Shinto K Anto – some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

I’d love to tell you about the way I counted my babies’ little fingers and toes when they were born, and couldn’t believe how tiny their fingernails were. I’d even like to write about the way I went to see my son and his dad play some music together the other night, and how I was sitting there in the dark, next to my daughter, thinking about the first time I saw my ex husband play music over twenty years ago. 

I feel like three lifetimes have happened since then, and maybe they have. I’m not that innocent romantic with my heart on my sleeve and my eyes full of hope today, that’s for sure. I think of the girl I was then, and my heart breaks a little. I don’t think about it often, but I had one of those time travel moments where you contemplate the way life has unfolded, versus the way you maybe thought it would twenty years ago - and as I sat there in the dark I thought the best two human beings came out of it. Whatever else happened, they happened, and they still have all their fingers and toes, and the best hearts and minds. They really do.

They deserve a normal world with normal people making normal decisions about normal things, just like your kids do, and everyone’s kids do - and if you don’t have kids, just like you do, and I do, and any sane person does. 

There are all kinds of things I’d rather be writing about. I really want to tell you that leaf sheep are a kind of sea slug and even though they’re animals, they perform photosynthesis by way of kleptoplasty. Kleptoplasty is a process in a symbiotic relationship (one where both parties benefit in case it’s been a minute) where chloroplasts from algae are sequestered by the host. Basically the host eats the algae, leaving the plastid intact, and for a little while photosynthesis continues. It’s cool is the thing, and these slugs are amazing, and they do look like sheep. 

But instead of writing about any of the above, I feel like I have to write about human slugs like Mike Knowles who think women owe their husbands sex, and he’s the simpering pale mollusk to make sure they know it.

https://www.mediamatters.org/michael-knowles/daily-wires-michael-knowles-ladies-you-owe-your-husband-sex-you-owe-it-him-its-0

I don’t want to have to tell any woman that she doesn’t owe her husband sex, because I would hope she’d know that - but just in case anyone needs to hear it - you are never obligated to have sex with anyone. I am sorry to say most women I know have had sex at least once to: keep the peace, because they felt guilty, because it was easier than saying no, because it was the only way to keep themselves safe. 

I would hope any man would understand he isn’t entitled to have sex with his wife just because they’re married. What self-respecting man wants to have sex with a woman who’s doing it because she thinks she has to - but doesn’t want to? 

Imagine this: a female podcaster waving her finger and telling men, Hey, fellas, now listen - you have to submit to your wives. If she wants sex and you’re exhausted, too bad, figure it out. You can have a night off once in a while, but she needs sex, that’s part of the deal. If she’s been thoughtless, hurtful, wrapped up in her own shit, leaving you to do 90% of the emotional and mental labor - you still have to please her if that’s what she wants - and throw in a load of laundry on your way to the bedroom. Also, make sure the fridge is full of the stuff she likes and the kids are asleep and their permission slips are signed and in their backpacks. By the way, she’ll be doing the voting for the household, and deciding what rights you get to have because God said so. 

You can’t imagine it because it wouldn’t happen because it’s insane. It’s insane in reverse, see how that works?

But before you say I shouldn’t “platform” men like this, allow me to assure you they are already platformed. They are in the highest offices of our government. What I am doing is flagging them. Pointing at them. Trying to get you to understand.

There are so many things I wish were obvious. I’d hope men everywhere would know they can’t assault girls just because they want to - that it isn’t okay, and a girl’s life is worth just as much as a boy’s. Girls have inner lives and fears, insecurities and dreams - and a decent man doesn't crush those or manipulate them or feed off them like a parasite.

I’d hope men would not hurt little boys, that they’d remember what it is to be a little boy, and find the strength to walk away and get some help. Children deserve to be safe. How can we not agree on this one, basic thing? People who want to deny children free lunch at school? Why? Please, it costs pennies in the scheme of things - tell me why? If we’ve created a society where people can barely afford to keep a roof over their heads (and we have, and it’s about to get a lot worse thanks to that Big Ugly Bill), then the least we should do is make sure the kids are not hungry, my god. We’ve lost it. 

Children cannot protect themselves - a healthy society protects its most vulnerable, and doesn’t need to be told. Medicaid would never be gutted. Social Security would never be referred to as an “entitlement program” when people pay into it their entire working lives. It’s not a handout. The thought that the money wouldn’t be there when a person needed it - after their contribution ensured it was there for the generations who came before them? That’s a travesty that would not happen in a healthy society. 

But you know what? Even if there’s no Social Security for me when the time comes (likely), I don’t regret that some of the money I’ve earned since I started working at 14 has been withheld, and that someone else had a retirement with less stress. Or was able to retire at all. Jesus. 

People are not property and no one owes you their body or their free labor, either. It doesn’t matter what gender they are, what color they are, what age they are, who they love, how they identify, or what pronouns they use - those are unalienable truths and if you violate them, you have violated the thing that makes you a decent person. Which means you are not a decent person. 

The party that accuses the educational system of indoctrinating children with “woke ideology” (oh no! Teaching kids to be open-minded and tolerant and cognizant that there are people in the world who may think differently than they do?? We can’t have that!) is now indoctrinating children with animated videos of Christopher Columbus saying that slavery has to be considered in context, that it’s as “old as time, and better than getting killed, no?” Rape is as old as time, too. This is a very strange “bar” to introduce to school-age children. 

They’re getting rid of PBS and replacing it with this horrific crap created by Prager U, which is not a university, it’s a business. The business they’re in is conservative content creation - little videos they pretend are “educational” but are nothing more than propaganda. Because we can’t have poor little white kids feeling bad about slavery. Are you serious? 

I grew up learning about slavery (even though I also grew up hearing Christopher Columbus was a great guy, and boy was I shocked when I found out that wasn’t true and he was a raping, plundering, abusive a-hole of the highest order) and it made me feel a hundred different terrible ways, and they were all good for me, a white little kid. You want to know why? 

Because then I sought out writers like James Baldwin and Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston and Bell Hooks and Audre Lorde and Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright and Lorraine Hansberry and W.E.B. Du Bois and Octavia Butler and Alice Walker and Ralph Ellison. And reading their work made me a better person, without question. 

I understood things I would never have understood otherwise, and that taught me empathy. It taught me to think about how things are for other people, which - let me tell you in case you don’t know - is a really good quality to cultivate when you are part of a society. Which you are.

Then I dug deeper and tried to understand the history of the country where I was born, because you can love your country and still realize horrific things are forever entwined with its creation, with its growth, and with its expansion. Just like you can love a person even if they’re flawed, and then try to help them get better and be better. Also, as one tiny part of a much larger whole, you can try in every way possible to be better yourself. 

If all the parts of the whole are trying to evolve, then the whole is getting better. But if you start to tell all the little parts they’re perfect and nothing bad has happened and it’s all about survival of the fittest - and so what if it isn’t a level playing field - then you get Jeffrey Bezos. Instead of a better whole, you get a bunch of (ass) holes, and here we are.

Also, no one’s pronouns can hurt you, and if you’re worried about your daughters on sports teams and in public restrooms, may I please draw your attention to heterosexual men. Not all of them ffs, but a heck of a lot of coaches and evangelical pastors and teachers and men she might meet in passing on a public bus or on the street or in a stairwell. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

It isn’t new that women and children and every marginalized group in this country - every group that doesn’t belong to the group known as straight, white men with means - are not safe. It’s just more true now than it has been in quite a while, and rights we thought we could count on are absolutely in play. Like the right to vote if you’re a woman. Which is crazy, isn’t it?? Like, we definitely thought we had that one in the bag! 

God knows our grandmothers fought hard to make sure we wouldn’t have to fight for it, but shitheels like Pete Hegseth don’t respect women, including his grandma, mine, yours, his mother, and/or his three wives and/or all the women he slept with while he was married to them - along with the ones who accused him of assault. I believe them 100% and if you believe him and not them, you’re part of the problem. His own mother said he was a menace until his dad told her to sit down, take it back, and shut up. 

He has seven children by three different women, all of whom he has cheated on, but tell me again how he supports the church with the pastor who thinks women shouldn’t have the vote. I feel very sorry for his daughters, I know exactly what it’s like to be the daughter of a man who doesn’t respect women. They have a long road ahead. This man is a Christian with family values? Give me a fucking break.

Men like him don’t want women in combat. They don’t want queer people serving this country or transgender people, either. Let’s be honest, friends, men like Pete Hegseth don’t want LGBTQ people, period. They don’t want women to have options, see. It’s alpha men or bust. Pick a husband, or have one picked for you, those are your choices. Conversion therapy will be back in no time. 

Leaf Sheep are hermaphroditic by the way - meaning they’re both male and female. If God created everything, what happened there? Did your man in the sky with his ledger make a mistake? Hey, I have a question for Kim Davis, maybe someone can get this to her - do you know how many animals pair up with the same sex given the opportunity? Grab your pearls, sweetcheeks, it’s a lot! 

The whole “sin against nature” argument doesn’t seem to hold water with: mallard ducks, black swans, blue dolphins, domesticated sheep, ibises, albatrosses, African golden wolves, flamingoes, penguins, pigeons, dolphins, bison, bats, elephants, giraffes, humpback whales, marmots, lions, polecats, bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, monkeys, hyenas, lizards…I could keep going, do you need me to go on?

Obergefell was supposed to be the end of this fear and loathing of same sex sex and same sex love and loving both sexes and not worrying about who people love because it has absolutely fuckall to do with you, but there are awful little people like Kim Davis in this world who must feel so unloved at their core, they just can’t handle the idea that anyone else might experience joy. 

Nope, love goes against her religion, and she just could not bring herself to sign those marriage certificates, because to her, love is only love if it’s between a woman and a man. Poor fucking Kim. Got thrown in jail for six days, and decided to take her case to the Supreme Court. People keep saying the Supreme Court won’t overturn Obergefell, just like they said the Supreme Court wouldn’t overturn Roe. People say a lot of things. 

Why do two women or two men loving each other bother you Kim Davis? What does that have to do with you? Why is it your job to prevent people from being happily married? It goes against your religion to sign those certificates? Seriously? Then you’re in the wrong job, honey. Get another job if you can’t do the one you were hired to do. You can’t participate in society if marriage equality exists? 

Then maybe you should stay home, because you seem to be okay existing in a world where the president doesn’t release the Epstein files. You seem to be okay existing in a world where the president puts Ghislaine Maxwell in an open-air prison camp where she gets to do barre classes with Real Housewives. I think you can handle two women going down on each other, I really do. At least they’re consenting adults and they’re having fun, see the difference? 

Or they love each other in that way that people do sometimes, where you can be in a room full of people, and you make eye contact and it’s fucking everything. It’s everything, Kim, because this person is seeing you, and you are seeing them, and for one second there isn’t anything else and there doesn’t need to be, because you have someone. You have someone and they have you and it’s enough in this world if you’re lucky enough to find it and smart enough to not let go when you do. 

But you don’t know about that, do you? Grown women having a genuine relationship, or grown men. Two people loving each other so much they want to take vows in front of their family and friends, and it could not matter less what gender they are. Why do you care? Why do you care about that, but not about important things you should care about? Consenting adults loving each other is beautiful. Children being raped is horrific and devastating. See how that’s different and how one thing should be totally okay with you and the other should make you sick to your stomach - and how you have them backwards? GLAD I COULD HELP.

Mike Knowles telling women they owe their husbands sex? He’s using this fun double-speak evangelical preachers use when they think they’re talking to people who aren’t very bright. They use false equivalencies and give fake choices. For example, Slimy Mike says you’re either going to fight feminism - which tells women they don’t owe their husbands sex, OR, you’re going to fight the sexual revolution, which tells us we can’t help but have tons of wild sex all the time because we’re animals and we can’t say no, ever. 

Hahahahaha, you fucking idiot. We are not that dumb. That is not what the sexual revolution was about, my god. But see, he thinks the people listening have never cracked a history book, and don’t know, and maybe he’s right. That’s the part that’s scary, and that’s why history matters! Because even if numbnuts don’t crack the books, lots of other people do.

The sexual revolution said sex was not a thing to be ashamed of. It did not have to be tied to religion and procreation, you could have sex because it was enjoyable (which people were already doing, wut wut!). But the sexual revolution also said women could have sex before they got married and that did not make them sluts or whores, it made them full-bodied human beings who were allowed to explore, and figure out what they liked and didn’t like and what they needed to enjoy themselves, and what felt good, and what turned them on and what turned them off, and who. 

Because we now had a thing called the Pill, which they are also trying to get rid of, just wait. We had the Pill, so women could have recreational, full-bodied sex without worrying about getting pregnant - a thing men have been able to do since the beginning of time! Today, we have the Pill, IUDs, condoms, all kinds of choices, but you might wanna stock up! Imagine spending $167,000 of U.S. taxpayer dollars to burn $9.7 million in contraceptives meant for women overseas. This stuff is already in the warehouse in Belgium. It would be cheaper to distribute it, and also a lot more sane and compassionate. But that’s not who these guys are.

For men like Pete Hegseth and JD Vance and the pastor and the man above and any man who is an insecure, weak, sniveling, shitweasel who is also probably definitely extremely selfish in bed, all of that is threatening af. Because then the little wifey might know that her husband leaning back and closing his eyes like he’s God’s gift to all women while she does all the work after doing all the work around the house all day - actually kind of sucks and isn’t satisfying or fun. So, yeah.

Side note - isn’t it funny how the people who assign themselves the role of saving other people’s souls usually have more than enough work to do managing the stuff that always ends up being hidden in their closets? 

Removing options and power and rights is the play. If you aren’t getting it yet I don’t know what to tell you. You will get it eventually, but by then it will be too late. There are parasites in the government and they’re sucking the light out of everything. If you’re cheering for that, you’re cheering for your own destruction, you just aren’t seeing it. You’re cheering for billionaires which is weird af because they don’t care about you. They’re happy not to have to bother with you, but they don’t care about you. 

Meanwhile, the Leaf Sheep will continue their symbiotic algae-loving photosynthesis below sea-level, the sunflowers will watch the sun make its way across the sky high above us, and some of us will continue to fight with everything we’ve got to hold onto the light and take care of each other right here. To find that set of eyes across the room. Because we already know the only thing that matters. It’s obvious if you’re paying attention. Love is the entire point. I cannot imagine missing it.

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