青海省门源监狱:性交往中那些你以为自己很了解，其实却一无所知的事情

作者：Sarah Ditum，Guardian.co.uk，2011年7月12日，星期二

If there's one thing we absolutely, definitely know about sex, it's that men desperately want penetration and women need more hugs to be happy. Except that, actually, maybe that isn't true at all, because an international survey of couples for the Kinsey Institute suggests that it's men who thrive on non-sexual physical intimacy, while women are remarkably unfussed about being cuddled. All this time we've been enjoining the boys to try a little tenderness, and it turns out that it might be girls who tend to be stingy with their embraces.

如果说在性方面有一件事是我们明确知道的，那就是男性极其渴求插入，而女性需要更多的拥抱来感受幸福。然而实际上，这也许并不完全正确，因为金赛学会的一项有关性伴侣的国际性调查显示，男性乐于享受非性行为的肢体接触，而女性对于被拥抱的反应，出人意料的表现出无所谓的态度。

The Kinsey survey is only a start to understanding how couples feel about sex and intimacy in long-term relationships, but it's fascinating because – despite the fact that we seem to live in oversexed times, when we can all enjoy Rihanna whooping up her love for whips and chains, get the ins and outs of footballers' lives on tabloid front pages and even be seduced into buying cat food with weirdly eroticised adverts – we don't actually know very much about how much sex matters in ongoing partnerships.

金赛的这项调查，对于理解伴侣在长期恋爱关系中如何感受性与亲密接触来说，虽然只是一个开端，但却很吸引人。这是因为，尽管我们似乎生活在一个性欲过剩的时代——我们欣赏着歌手Rihanna在SM主题的MV中兴奋的演绎着她对鞭子和铁链的迷恋；我们通过画报头版刊登的详细报道来意淫球员的生活，甚至连猫粮广告都会迎合这种趋势而制作得带有古怪的情色风格，而我们的确也会受到诱惑而去购买那些产品——但除此以外，实际上我们对伴侣之间在性方面存在有多少问题并不太了解。

We certainly don't seem to be very good at valuing sex as a part of relationships. Over the weekend, I was surprised to read a moving confession from a man describing himself as "the rejected husband", who describes the misery and rejection of being in a relationship where sex has died. "I ache for you," he writes. "Not for sex, but for sex with you."

我们绝对不像看上去那样，善于从恋爱关系的一个组成部分的角度来评价性。在这个周末，我非常吃惊的读到了一份感人的自白。一个男人把自己描述为“被拒绝的丈夫”，他在自白中描述了自己在一段完全没有性的恋爱关系中所遭到的拒绝和承受的痛苦。“我渴望着你，”他写道，“不是因为性，而是因为我想跟你一起做爱。”

It shouldn't be shocking to hear that sex is important, and those who are forced to live within the restricted means of a beloved partner's limited libido are often very unhappy; but it is, because the voice of honest, faithful frustration so rarely gets a platform. And when people like the rejected husband do get an answer on problem pages, it's rarely a sympathetic one.

我们本来不应该惊讶于这些事情。某个人本身很需要性，但却由于爱人的性欲非常有限，而使自己的欲望无处排解，因此感到非常痛苦。但听到这些事，又确实让人惊讶，因为这些诚实的、真诚的呼声，几乎没有能够发表出来的平台。而且，当那些有着与这个被拒绝的丈夫一样遭遇的人，到媒体的问答栏寻求帮助时，几乎很难得到同情和理解的回应。

Instead, they're often told that they're the one doing it wrong. Give your partner a break from housework and offer her a massage, suggests Dear Deidre. Talk to your wife about sex, says Luisa Dillner, to a man whose question explicitly states that his wife refuses to talk about her lack of desire for sex. Have you considered, asks Mariella Frostrup of a man whose wife has refused to have sex at all for two-year stretches, that you might actually be a bastard?

相反，他们常常被告知错误在他们自己。例如，太阳报个人问题专栏Dear Deidre的建议是：你的伴侣家务负担太重了，应该让她休息一下，给她做做按摩；而卫报的Luisa Dillner，尽管一位男性明确说过他的妻子拒绝讨论她自己缺乏性欲的问题，但仍然回答这个人说：你应该跟你妻子谈一谈性的问题；甚至，你想得到吗，电视主持人Mariella Frostrup竟会问一个男人，也许他是个混蛋？只是因为这个男人说他的妻子拒绝做爱长达两年时间。

Sharing out the burdens of domesticity, communicating and reflecting on your own behaviour are all important things, obviously; but the underlying message here is that if you've tried those things and you're still not satisfied, then you'll simply have to live with sexual starvation, or leave. That doesn't seem very fair.

当然，诚如这些专家所说，分担家务事，双方的沟通，反思自己的行为，这些都是很重要的事情。但问题是，他们的回答中有个显而易见的潜台词：如果你已经尽力做了这些事，但仍然没有得到理想的结果，那么对不起，没有别的办法，你只能生活在性饥渴中，或者结束这段关系。这看上去可并不怎么公平。

It's actually pretty reasonable to expect sex to be a continuous part of a relationship; the partner who's being unreasonable is the one who's decided on their own that physical intimacy is over – not because of health problems, other relationships issues or an immediate obstacle such as just having had children, but purely because he or she doesn't fancy bunking up any more.

要求性生活长期存在于恋爱关系中，是合情合理的期望。相反，自行决定终止肉体亲热的那一方，是不讲道理的——这不是指那些缘于健康问题，或者双方关系中的其他问题，或者某些突发障碍（比如刚刚生过孩子）等等而终止的性生活——而是指单纯的因为他或她不再对做爱有兴趣了。

In that situation, the partner who's been shunted off to the edge of the mattress should be able to say that this is a problem without feeling guilty or ashamed. And the one doing the shunting should be encouraged to concede that, actually, expecting someone who wants sex to go without it permanently is asking them to go way beyond any reasonable definition of fidelity.

在这种情况下，那个被伴侣踢下床的人应该没有负罪感的，不感到羞愧的直接说出来，“这是个问题。”而把对方踢下床的那一方，也应该鼓起勇气承认这一点，实际上，期待一个想要性的人，与自己维持完全没有性的恋爱关系，等于要求他们允诺没有任何道理的忠诚。

One other, encouraging way that the Kinsey report went against expectations was by showing that women became more sexually satisfied as they got older (the researchers guessed that this might be a result of children growing up relieving stress on mothers, while reduced anxiety about fertility made sex more enjoyable for women). And the really heartening finding was that, when relationships lasted, they seemed to get better with time.

另外一点，金赛的报告显示出与通常的认知所不同的是，随着女性年龄曾大，她们更容易获得性满足（研究人员猜测，这是由于随着孩子的成长，母亲身上的压力也随之减轻，生育的焦虑逐渐消除，使女性更容易轻松的享受性爱，并易于从中获取快感）。同时，更让人感到振奋的发现是，如果恋爱关系能维持下去，假以时日，性生活会逐渐变得更好。

Things do seem different for men and women, but, if the Kinsey research is accurate, not in exactly the ways we expected. Agony aunts, maybe it's time to stop suggesting that rejected husband makes do with giving his wife a neck rub and insist that she gives him one instead. It'll make him happier, even if it doesn't lead to sex; and for her, it's an investment towards a contented middle age where the sex begins to get really good.

假如金赛的研究结果是准确的，哪怕并不完全符合我们的期望，对男男女女来说，事情也看上去完全不同了。报纸上的“知心阿姨”是时候停止要求那些被拒绝的丈夫勉强着按摩他妻子的脖子，之后再坚持妻子必须给予同样的回报了。直面这一问题，要比勉强应付更好。这会使他更快乐，哪怕并不能恢复性生活；而对她来说，在承认问题出在自身的前提下，维持双方良好的恋爱关系，可以视作一项对未来满意的中年生活的投资，因为那时候，性生活会变得非常美好。