When Sex Becomes Obligation: Sexual Entitlement in Relationships | S3E13

Sexual entitlement isn’t “a relationship issue.” It’s a belief system. It’s the mindset that your body comes with the marriage, the title, the ring, the label, the contract, the “needs.” It’s the idea that your availability lives on standby, no matter how he treats you, no matter what your body feels, no matter what your nervous system is screaming.

This is a rare solo episode, but you’re not listening to me alone. I’m reading three anonymous stories from women who volunteered to share what’s happening inside coercive, entitled relationships, where “no” turns into punishment, pressure, guilt, and emotional warfare. Names and identifying details have been removed, and the audio will be edited for clarity.

This isn’t about different libidos. It’s not about two people feeling disconnected sometimes. It’s not “schedule it in” advice. This is about men who act like sex is owed, men who track it, count it, demand it, punish you for it, and then flip it on you when you don’t comply. It’s about how consent gets turned into a debate, how your character ends up on trial, and how women end up using their bodies to manage a man’s mood, not because they want to, but because they feel like they have to.

If you feel tense instead of turned on when he initiates, that makes sense. If you feel numb, braced, guilty, or like you’re calculating consequences in your head, that makes sense. If you’ve ever found yourself initiating just to avoid the coldness, the slamming, the rage, the sulking, the withdrawal, or the escalation, listen closely. That’s not intimacy. That’s survival.

And when he calls it “withholding,” “rejection,” “weaponizing sex,” or even “emotional abuse,” pay attention to what’s happening. A lot of abusive men use therapy language and “healthy relationship” talk to make you doubt your reality and to force a false equivalency, so you end up defending yourself instead of seeing the pattern.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:17
Music


00:00:08:19 - 00:00:17:14
Lisa Sonni


00:00:17:16 - 00:00:37:01
Lisa Sonni
There are a lot of guys that seem to think that sex is just part of the relationship, right? It's built in, it's automatic. It doesn't matter how they treat you, it's just meant for you to give it to them. Right? Sexual entitlement is literally the belief that your body is just included. It's part of some relationship contract, right?

00:00:37:03 - 00:01:00:10
Lisa Sonni
Your availability lives on standby. This doesn't matter if he's mean to you, rude to you, cruel. If you have a headache. If you're in the mood. None of this matters because he has needs. And if you're not meeting them, you're failing. This is a very difficult thing that a lot of women are facing. there's a mindset of these men that it is owed and that they're entitled to it.

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:29:02
Lisa Sonni
And it's really not that surprising to me. Now, obviously, I understand that sex is generally part of an agreement when you're in a relationship, generally speaking, but basic human decency and kindness are also part of that agreement. And I don't know when these two things broke apart. This really isn't about different libidos and different sex drives. And somebody feeling disappointed sometimes and a little bit of rejection or two people wanting different things.

00:01:29:02 - 00:01:53:15
Lisa Sonni
That's not what this is. This is a conversation about why a woman would not desire someone who is coercing her, and who is acting completely entitled. You have somebody that is angry or begging or yelling or tracking the frequency on a calendar, like a crazy person. This is about an abusive man truly just acting like it's guaranteed, like he just is owed this.

00:01:53:20 - 00:02:25:14
Lisa Sonni
So in today's episode of Real Talk with Lisa Sunny Relationships Uncensored, I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm actually reading three stories from survivors, three stories from women who are in relationships that are coercive. And this is a really interesting one, because these three women anonymously have agreed to share their stories. And I want you to listen and really see if you see yourself. Men in relationships like this, that You're going to hear them say things like, I deserve this or I'm owed this.

00:02:25:14 - 00:02:46:16
Lisa Sonni
You're my wife. You're my girlfriend. You know, this is part of relationships. This is part of marriage. But actually, that belief is so important. We can't just go past that. Listen to how a guy like this argues. Listen to how he handles the word no. And ultimately, let's take a step back here. What is driving this type of behavior is entitlement.

00:02:46:22 - 00:03:09:23
Lisa Sonni
There is a belief, right? This is not insecurity. This isn't his needs. This isn't, you know, confusion of how relationships work. Oh, I just thought we could have it every day or whatever the frequency that these guys really demand. This is crystal clear entitlement. And I'm telling you, when a man like this believes that he is owed something from you, he's going to collect.

00:03:10:04 - 00:03:34:07
Lisa Sonni
He's absolutely going to collect. This whole belief system is truly the biggest engine behind all abuse. Boys are often taught that their desire proves something about them. Their masculinity gets measured in their access to women. You see this constantly. You see this in Red pill podcasts in everywhere around us, in the patriarchy. Rejection is not something that a lot of men seem to be comfortable with,

00:03:34:11 - 00:03:53:18
Lisa Sonni
and in fact, even calling it rejection feels a little ridiculous, right? Because how is it rejection if you're not in the mood or you don't feel like it tonight, why does it need to be received as this rejection? Well, it threatens their identity. And that's really what escalates it, right? We need to actually be teaching boys and men how to handle

00:03:53:18 - 00:04:13:05
Lisa Sonni
no, it's really it shouldn't be that difficult to actually find it wild that it is. Right. Why does it need to be, you know, sexual frustration if somebody is not willing tonight it doesn't make any sense to me. Now, a lot of men grow up believing that they're owed sexual access, and they certainly feel, I don't know, like a man when they seem to get it right.

00:04:13:05 - 00:04:38:00
Lisa Sonni
Now, on the flip side, women are raised to avoid male disapproval, right? We don't want men to be rejected. We don't want them to be disappointed. God forbid we hurt a man's feelings, right? We we soften. We manage the mood. We use our bodies to manage the mood. And I think that's one of the worst things. Right? So when pressure shows up, women default to this sort of self-correction.

00:04:38:00 - 00:04:56:08
Lisa Sonni
And what can I do or what did I do? There's a lot of internalization of self-blame where men are immediately looking to like, who was supposed to give me something and they didn't, and that's their fault. There's something wrong with my wife, my girlfriend. There's something wrong with my partner because she doesn't always want to have sex with me.

00:04:56:08 - 00:05:22:01
Lisa Sonni
I always want to have sex with her. Why doesn't she feel the same? But we're talking today about men who are coercive. And the truth is, nothing absolutely destroys desire in a woman faster than coercion, faster than entitlement. Now, the truth is, a lot of men will say, right, I have needs or men have needs. And the truth is the fact that men view sex as a need is wild because it's in fact not a need.

00:05:22:06 - 00:05:51:02
Lisa Sonni
That's not even something that is really debatable. I know that a lot of men do try to debate that and quote all these ridiculous things, but the absolute fact is that it is not a need, meaning you do not need someone else's body. Everyone is able to go take care of themselves. If you feel like it's an absolute need for you, it is not a need to enter someone else's body. But where you really see this hierarchy show up in these relationships, right when he needs something that's important and he deserves it,

00:05:51:07 - 00:06:09:19
Lisa Sonni
this is the language that they use. I deserve it, I'm owed it. It's part of marriage. It's your duty. This is an obligation, you know, and they actually, in fact, often compare it to chores. But what you see is that he's at the top. Your needs don't matter. If you need emotional safety, you're being dramatic. If you need to be in the mood, that's ridiculous.

00:06:10:00 - 00:06:31:05
Lisa Sonni
This is a very clear cut. He is entitled because he sees himself as superior to you. Now abusive ness runs on hierarchy, right? it's always on this idea that one person's needs sit higher than the other person's need. That's absolutely a perfect opportunity for men to coerce their wives when they feel that way, because to them, it's not coercion.

00:06:31:07 - 00:06:54:18
Lisa Sonni
They're just convincing you. They're just persuading you. They're just reminding you of what your duty is in the relationship. But the truth is, we act like, you know, most men aren't doing this. I would argue that's absolutely not true. The amount of women that report that this is happening to them, it's unbelievable. And in fact, I often see men in comment sections on videos that I make about this topic.

00:06:54:23 - 00:07:14:12
Lisa Sonni
They'll say things like, my wife never says no, you know, she knows better. Meanwhile, I have clients who tell me they never say no because they feel like they can't sew. Men wear this. My wife never says no is a badge of honor. But what's actually happening is they're actually announcing to the world that she doesn't feel safe to say no.

00:07:14:13 - 00:07:38:03
Lisa Sonni
Any woman, any man, any person should be able to say no. Here's some things we honestly can't just move past, okay? 1 in 3 women globally report physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Most of it happens inside relationships. And I think that's important. This is not happening on the street. This isn't a few bad apples. This is happening from partners, from husbands, from boyfriends.

00:07:38:04 - 00:08:00:19
Lisa Sonni
This is not strangers. Do you hear me? In the U.S., about 1 in 5 women report rape or attempted rape. That's an incredible number. A huge percentage of that is from someone that they were with. Again, in relationships. These are men that women know. Marital rape was legal in parts of the United States until 1993. Do you hear that?

00:08:00:19 - 00:08:22:08
Lisa Sonni
1993? That is not ancient history. That is relatively recent. And that means that there were entire generations of men raised in a system where access to their wife's body was assumed, but was built into the law. So we can't just move past that and pretend that that was so long ago, that it's not still showing up in attitudes.

00:08:22:10 - 00:08:47:02
Lisa Sonni
We have so much research that shows that so many women consent to sex that they don't even want in order to not face anger and withdrawal and stonewalling, rage, escalation eye rolls, demands all of these things, right. This is sexual compliance. This has a name, it's common, and it's well-studied. It is a well-studied topic. There are actual physiological scales that measure sexual entitlement beliefs.

00:08:47:04 - 00:09:19:16
Lisa Sonni
Men on average score way higher on endorsement of statements like sex is expected in a committed relationship. This is an attitude that is documented from men. That is the belief structure that I'm talking about. And that's so important now. Entitlement is truly one of the strongest predictors of abusive behavior, right? It's not stress. We're not talking about confusion or a bad day or trauma or addiction or all these things that we sort of assign instead of just calling it what it is, which is entitlement.

00:09:19:19 - 00:09:41:15
Lisa Sonni
So when you hear these stories from these three women, don't just change them into, you know, oh, well, maybe he now listen to these women really hear it. This is a huge pattern. All right. So let's get into the first story. Dear Lisa, I've been following you for a long time and I don't comment much, but when you talk about sexual coercion, it really hits me in the heart.

00:09:41:16 - 00:10:00:20
Lisa Sonni
I've been married for 16 years, and I didn't even have a word for what was happening until I found your page. My husband wants sex every single day. If it's not every day, there's a problem. Honestly, we probably have sex 4 to 5 times a week, sometimes more. But if there's too long of a gap, even just a couple of days, he starts acting mean.

00:10:01:01 - 00:10:21:13
Lisa Sonni
He's quiet and irritated. He'll say things like, “What's going on with you?” rudely, or “Normal couples don't live like roommates,” or “We're having sex later,” as a statement. The part that makes me feel crazy is that he can scream at me in the morning, wake me up in the middle of the night when he split and say the most cruel things that anyone has ever said to me.

00:10:21:15 - 00:10:43:00
Lisa Sonni
Call me selfish, say I have an attitude. And then like nothing happened, start initiating sex. If I pull away, he says, “I deserve intimacy from my wife.” He uses that word deserve. Sometimes I'll do other things, like oral, even if I'm not in the mood for more, and it's still not enough. I only do it because he says I have to take care of him.

00:10:43:01 - 00:11:00:15
Lisa Sonni
If it doesn't end in actual sex, he'll say that I'm teasing him or withholding and tell me straight up that it's not enough. He genuinely does not connect how he treats me during the day with whether I want him or not. At night, it's like those two things are completely separate categories in his head. I just don't work like that.

00:11:00:16 - 00:11:18:22
Lisa Sonni
I actually wish I did. He said he would be nicer to me if he wasn't sexually frustrated. The weird thing is, even when we do have sex seven days a week, he's still mean to me. When he's angry, he says we're not having enough sex and that's the problem. When he's calm, he says sex is how he feels close and that I should want that too.

00:11:18:22 - 00:11:40:17
Lisa Sonni
But I don't feel close. After being yelled at and called names and told that I'm not enough, he regularly threatens to cheat on me and leave me all the time. I feel tense, I feel small, and then worse, I feel guilty for not wanting him. I don't even know what's normal anymore. I just know that I feel like my body is something he expects access to, no matter what kind of day that I've had with him,

00:11:40:18 - 00:12:01:19
Lisa Sonni
I don't know what to do. Now, what he's really saying here is actually extremely important, right? I want sex, and that matters so much more than how you feel. In fact, your feelings are a burden. They're totally inconvenient, right? He's telling you that the way that he acts has no bearing on what he's owed. So his behavior is irrelevant.

00:12:02:00 - 00:12:21:07
Lisa Sonni
This is such clear entitlement. It's not even funny, right? This is right there. Like, what I did earlier shouldn't affect that. Okay, so I yelled at you. Who cares? It's absolutely a ridiculous thought. Because the truth is, if you were to flip the genders and there's a woman screaming at her husband treating him horribly, why would he want intimacy?

00:12:21:10 - 00:12:45:07
Lisa Sonni
It's not different at all when you flip it. Nobody should be treating someone badly and then just expecting access to their body, right? He really believes that his anger has nothing to do with her desire. It's crazy. Your body can't just cooperate when you're actually experiencing hurt, when your nervous system is totally out of whack. If you're living in a fight or flight response,

00:12:45:10 - 00:13:09:04
Lisa Sonni
how do you even access desire? If you listen to sex therapists talk about this? And I've had several on my show, doctor Kate Ballard, I've had Doctor Danielle Kramer, we've had these conversations. This is absolutely not a normal expectation. This is a coercive, entitled expectation. He really thinks that he should be able to yell at you during the day and then be getting sex from you at night,

00:13:09:10 - 00:13:30:03
Lisa Sonni
and that's actually an interesting thing that I even said, they're right. Getting sex from you. That's exactly what it is. He is. You have something and he wants to get it from you. This isn't something that he's participating in with you. He's getting something from you. He's using your body for his own pleasure more often than not, your pleasure is not part of this.

00:13:30:07 - 00:13:48:03
Lisa Sonni
Guy like this can vent. He can explode. He can say what he says. He feels better after he unleashes this wrath on you. Right? But then he's done. He's over that mood, and now he wants sex. And he can actually not bring that feeling into the bedroom. He doesn't want you to bring it either. He can separate those two things.

00:13:48:05 - 00:14:05:06
Lisa Sonni
It's kind of interesting how men can do that. How can they can kind of compartmentalize this. But he assumes that you should also not bring it in. Meanwhile, he wasn't actually the one impacted. He was not the one who was on the receiving end of it. He delivered it so he can get over it because he wasn't hurt by it.

00:14:05:09 - 00:14:24:02
Lisa Sonni
You were hurt by it. But then he'd have to see you as a person, right? He'd actually have to care about your feelings to be impacted by it. A normal person would feel terrible that they treated their partner so badly they wouldn't even attempt to have sex. But a man like this will because he doesn't care about you.

00:14:24:02 - 00:14:49:19
Lisa Sonni
And he's entitled, right? He thinks that sex is going to fix it. And in fact, a lot of these men use sex in lieu of an apology, if you understand. Right. We had sex. So obviously what I said or did wasn't that bad. She's over it now. Meanwhile, he coerced it from you, and then he uses that to give himself a pat on the back and say that he's not a bad guy, and he's going to tell you things like sex brings closeness. You know, just want to feel close to you.

00:14:49:22 - 00:15:08:11
Lisa Sonni
He just want to feel close to you. Abusive men are not interested in feeling close to you, and a coercive man is an abusive man. There's not a difference. When you pull away, he's going to call it rejection. If you hesitate, he's going to call it a problem, There's always going to be some battle, You say no, God forbid, if

00:15:08:14 - 00:15:25:17
Lisa Sonni
even if it's you have a headache, but also if you say you were mean to me earlier, he's going to tell you that you were withholding. And one of the worst parts is he can flip that on you. But we'll get more into that a little bit later. That feeling of him touching you, you know, and I hear women say that you just like your whole body just freezes.

00:15:25:17 - 00:15:48:05
Lisa Sonni
You don't even want his hands on you so often you kind of disassociate, right? You go somewhere else in your head just to kind of get through it. Because he heard no. And he's angry and it's an inconvenience. It's frustrating. Right? You're not thinking about connection in that moment. You're thinking about how this feels to you, how horrible this feels, how it feels like a violation.

00:15:48:06 - 00:16:06:01
Lisa Sonni
And trust me, so many people are going to say, well, if you feel like this, you should leave. As if abusive men just let you leave. Not to mention the fact that most women who are experiencing this don't recognize this as abuse, because men have convinced us, the patriarchy has convinced us that this is something that is owed.

00:16:06:05 - 00:16:27:10
Lisa Sonni
So it makes sense to give it, but it really doesn't. We need to see this differently. And this is why I talk about this. I actually, for those that know me, I hate talking about this topic. I really do because it brings the worst of the worst men to my comment sections, the most entitled men. But I make this content for women so that women can feel seen, heard, and understood.

00:16:27:14 - 00:16:49:22
Lisa Sonni
Now, what he's actually doing here is kind of interesting, right? He acts like his access doesn't depend on how he behaves, and that really allows him to not really ever take accountability. One of the most kind of prevalent beliefs here is that what he did shouldn't actually cost him anything that really speaks to the superiority and back to the hierarchy that I was talking about.

00:16:50:00 - 00:17:10:14
Lisa Sonni
This is entitlement. I'm going to say that word a million times. I want people to truly see this as so related and caused by men's entitlement. It is a huge problem. This really tells you where the center of gravity is for a guy like this. How does someone scream at you and then just want sex later? There's several reasons for this okay.

00:17:10:14 - 00:17:28:00
Lisa Sonni
Compartmentalization is kind of an interesting one. Like he puts the fight in a box and then he puts sex in another box, and those two boxes have nothing to do with each other. They're just unrelated. Right. So when he's done being angry, he can close that box and then he can open the sex box, and that's there. And again, not related at all.

00:17:28:00 - 00:17:48:14
Lisa Sonni
Right. It's like clean slate. He demands a clean slate. He's entitled to a clean slate because now he wants something and he shouldn't have to do anything to get it, because he already did. He married you. He already did. He's in a relationship with you. And that's all he has to do is just physically be present. How he treats you has no bearing on this.

00:17:48:16 - 00:18:04:22
Lisa Sonni
The next reason is he can just shut his empathy off if he even had it to begin with. Right. How you feel. Push that right aside. Irrelevant. Because it slows him down your feelings and having to deal with your feelings that would actually stop him from getting what he wants. So he just says he didn't do anything wrong.

00:18:04:23 - 00:18:22:23
Lisa Sonni
He says, you're being ridiculous. He says you owe it to him because he doesn't want to sit in what he did. He doesn't want to sit in what he said. He doesn't want to have to face it. So he tells himself, and he probably tells you that you're overreacting, dramatic, ridiculous, emotional, withholding, unfair, abusive, whatever he says to you, right?

00:18:22:23 - 00:18:42:13
Lisa Sonni
Because his need is the only thing that matters. So he's not really going to look at what he's done to you. He also has this ability to really objectify you, right? He doesn't actually have to have you fully present, fully there. He's not concerned if you are emotionally present in this because your body is present and you are a vessel.

00:18:42:15 - 00:19:03:05
Lisa Sonni
Going back to what I said, he is doing this to you. He is not sharing this with you. And when you really look at it like that, it's actually really disgusting because access was his goal. So he gets that. So the only thing that matters is your physical availability, not your feelings. That doesn't matter at all. Now there's also ego, which I think is really fascinating.

00:19:03:09 - 00:19:22:02
Lisa Sonni
He can use sex to prove that he still has you. That's all that it takes, right? I'm not rejected because she's having sex with me. Sex comes him down, but he doesn't actually have to do anything, so he might feel dysregulated. And then he uses your body to regulate. But he hasn't actually repaired anything, He didn't lose any power.

00:19:22:02 - 00:19:40:07
Lisa Sonni
He didn't give anything up. So he's back to normal after sex and you're not. In fact, your worse because now not only were you coerced and pressured, you had non-consensual sex. And the truth is, there's a four letter word for that. There's a four letter word for non-consensual sex. And I'm sorry to tell you guys, but it's not love.

00:19:40:09 - 00:20:03:06
Lisa Sonni
The next piece is his beliefs, right? He believes that being your husband means he gets access. He's your boyfriend. He's your husband. He's your partner. He's on it. That's it. Period. Anger shouldn't cancel his right to have your body. Closeness is available when he wants it and how he wants it. And closeness is sex. Because women often want closeness,

00:20:03:07 - 00:20:23:23
Lisa Sonni
they want to feel close and they need emotional safety to do that. But I can tell you, any man listening to this that's abusive would roll his eyes instantly at the idea of emotional safety. And there's a part here that's kind of something that we can't really skip over. And I know not all men watch [...] but there is a [...] layer here that kind of has to be talked about, right?

00:20:24:02 - 00:20:44:04
Lisa Sonni
If most of your arousal in your lifetime has happened in situations where the other person's feelings just don't even factor in, then it's really easy to separate sex from empathy, So if you've been watching a lot of that, you don't see the other person as a whole person that's present. You see them as a vessel, [...] is really a man doing it to a woman.

00:20:44:05 - 00:21:03:15
Lisa Sonni
that's the premise of so many of these. So it makes sense that men still view sex that way even in relationships. So especially if you look at something like aggression and sex have been paired in all of these videos that he watches, then how are those two things separate? Right. They don't feel incompatible to him. It feels normal.

00:21:03:15 - 00:21:21:11
Lisa Sonni
It feels logical, even. And he'll expect you to reset because he reset. He expects your body to respond because he wants it. It's like, why are you in the mood? What's wrong with you? You yelled at me. You're mean to me. You're cruel. Listen to what that woman was describing. Just straight up cruelty. Why would she want to sleep with him?

00:21:21:15 - 00:21:40:02
Lisa Sonni
But that's what he thinks. She should sleep with me. What's wrong with her? That she doesn't want to sleep with me? So then you feel guilty for having really normal reactions? If your body is shutting down and you are literally just disgusted with this person touching you, that makes sense. And again, it's not just we'll just leave him.

00:21:40:08 - 00:22:01:00
Lisa Sonni
Abusive men do not let their wives leave very easily. They gaslight you and they convince you that you're the problem. And when you look at the society and the belief systems of women that this is owed to men, it's easy to say leave. And it's very difficult to actually do not to mention it involves like blowing up your whole life half the time to actually exit a relationship like this.

00:22:01:01 - 00:22:23:07
Lisa Sonni
They don't just let you leave. I actually would push that question back at abusive men. If you don't feel that you're getting your needs met, why not leave your wife? If you want a woman who you can scream at, be mean to, and sleep with, please go find that woman. I'm not quite sure who she is, but I certainly think you should go look for that instead of saying the victim should leave the abuser knowing how hard that is,

00:22:23:09 - 00:22:43:06
Lisa Sonni
why shouldn't the abuser leave the victim? That makes way more sense to me. Now this is really where sex stops being connection and starts being compliance and this matters. But let's go into the second story. Lisa, I don't even know if this counts as coercion or if I'm just in a miserable marriage, but I've been watching your videos and something clicked.

00:22:43:06 - 00:23:03:11
Lisa Sonni
When you talk about men who keep sexual score, my husband tracks how often we have sex. Not in a joking way. Literally. He'll say it's been eight days or we only did it twice this month. He brings up exact numbers, like he's reading off of a report, and I found out that he literally uses his calendar to track when we do it.

00:23:03:17 - 00:23:21:07
Lisa Sonni
And when I don't say yes if I'm tired or not in the mood, he'll roll over and sigh dramatically or he'll say, so I guess we're back to this again. And the next day he's cold and short with me. He'll slam cabinets, acting like I've personally wronged him. What makes it worse is he doesn't factor in anything else.

00:23:21:12 - 00:23:43:12
Lisa Sonni
If we argued that week, doesn't matter if he snapped at me in front of friends. Doesn't matter if I've had a stressful few days. Doesn't matter. It's—just it's been 11 days. Like that number alone proves that I'm a bad wife. He's even said to me, I have needs this is part of marriage. Like there's a contract I signed that says my body operates on his schedule.

00:23:43:15 - 00:24:02:18
Lisa Sonni
He told me that I did sign a contract. It's our marriage contract. He said he would never reject me. Meanwhile, he rejects me emotionally all the time. I feel so anxious when I realize that it's been a few days, because I know the countdown is happening in his head. I start calculating it before he does. I'll think, okay, it's been six days.

00:24:02:22 - 00:24:21:18
Lisa Sonni
He's going to bring it up. And then he does. Sometimes I initiate because I'm scared. If I let it go on too long, he'll be even meaner than usual. And honestly, the counting is what kills any desire I might have had. There is nothing attractive about being treated like this. I don't feel wanted. Am I crazy and a man like this? Right.

00:24:21:19 - 00:24:39:23
Lisa Sonni
He's telling you that there's a minimum that he expects. He has a number in his head, which in this case sounds like seven days a week. And when she fails to meet that number, she's a bad wife. So no matter what's happening, he expects consistent sex. Once again, it doesn't matter how he treats her. Like, look at the pattern, right?

00:24:40:01 - 00:24:59:23
Lisa Sonni
His needs are what set the rhythm of everything. Frequency is something that he uses to prove that he's cared for. Right? Look, my wife and I have sex every day, and he wears that like a badge of honor. He feels it says something about him, which, again, is not about the relationship. It's not about her. It's not about mutual satisfaction.

00:25:00:00 - 00:25:18:16
Lisa Sonni
It is so specifically about him. He's counting days. And it's funny because you hear about this in, like, jokes on Instagram Reels and TikToks where you see men doing this. This is a guy who's doing this in real life. It's insane that he's holding a number in his in his head. He's counting it and he uses it is proof.

00:25:18:16 - 00:25:49:12
Lisa Sonni
It's absolutely gross, right? He doesn't ask you, how was your week or how you feel or care how he treats you or if you feel close, he just cares that he gets it. So she feels this invisible clock ticking, you know? And it's interesting, one of the things that she really pointed out that I think a lot of women will relate to, I know I can relate in my previous relationship, this idea that you need to perform sex with him so that he's not mean to you, so you're using it to manage his mood, but you're doing that for your own safety.

00:25:49:13 - 00:26:07:19
Lisa Sonni
It's a survival thing, which you'd only be doing if you felt the need to survive in a relationship like this, if it was actually something that where you were able to say no and you were able to actually participate in this, you wouldn't be feeling this way, right? If you felt safe. This isn't what safety would feel like.

00:26:07:21 - 00:26:30:11
Lisa Sonni
This is absolutely abuse. Period. Full stop. This is abuse. And I think a lot of women can even relate to feeling this in their body. You know, you're braced, you're waiting. You're looking at your own calendar being like, oh my God, it's been five days. Something bad's going to happen. So I need to and you initiate to avoid it because, you know, a lot of men would even say like, you know, you never initiate and

00:26:30:11 - 00:26:49:12
Lisa Sonni
they get mad at their wives for not initiating. Meanwhile, they're not initiating because they don't feel it. But let's not breeze right past the women who are in fact initiating. And men are using that to be like, see, she wants me know she's protecting herself, she's protecting herself. And men would be, well, good men would be horrified to hear this, right?

00:26:49:12 - 00:27:05:02
Lisa Sonni
But abusive men are like, whatever, just do it, you hear the way some of these men even back. Right? Like it only takes five minutes. What's the problem? You know, like you have time for the dishes. You don't have time for this, I do. I mowed the lawn today. I did stuff for you. What the hell? And they want it from you.

00:27:05:02 - 00:27:32:16
Lisa Sonni
It's such a transaction. It's absolutely gross. But here you are, counting days, you know, using math to figure out your sex life. It's crazy. And he doesn't even have to yell because the mood. Let's talk about the mood that she was describing. Right. He's slamming cabinets. So he's maybe not always yelling at her, but that coldness that cruelty, the withdrawing, the stonewalling, the slamming things, the huffing, the eye rolls, all of that that matters so much.

00:27:32:20 - 00:27:51:06
Lisa Sonni
He's teaching you that if there are too many days that go between, that there's a debt to be paid. You pay it with your body, and if you don't, you're being punished by his mood and his behavior, it really hurts. It's brutal. Right? So he'll say, I have needs, which again, sex is not a need from a biological and medical standpoint.

00:27:51:06 - 00:28:14:03
Lisa Sonni
Let's just drill this home. You know, a need is something that is actually required for survival. Oxygen. That's a need, right? Water, food. Make sense? Sleep. Those are needs. Now. Libido exists, but it's not in need. Sexual desire exists. Sexual frustration exists. We're not going to pretend those things are real. They're real and they can be uncomfortable. They can be intense.

00:28:14:06 - 00:28:43:10
Lisa Sonni
And I get that. It can impact a man's mood. But women are entitled to desire and a mean man is unattractive. It's just that simple. Men need to realize that if your wife is rejecting you, what's wrong with her is that she has a terrible husband. That's her problem. You're the problem. It's absolutely you. And the denial of that only continues this bad marriage that you're essentially forcing your wife or relationship you with your girlfriend to be in.

00:28:43:11 - 00:29:04:01
Lisa Sonni
It's brutal. I can't fathom a world where these men don't see that they're the problem unless they're absolutely narcissistic. But I guess I just walked face first into the point, didn't I? When he says something like it's part of relationships, it's part of marriage. Like, like it's a contract. It's a policy. It's a rule that's gross. There's nothing sexy about that, right?

00:29:04:01 - 00:29:29:04
Lisa Sonni
You're turning intimacy into like, a performance metric. It's nasty. This is not an obligation. It absolutely isn't. For people that say it's an obligation. Because that is so common for men. It is an obligation. It's a duty. It's expected value is all I can say to that. That is the most unattractive thing I've ever heard. Like, you really are so braindead that you think that a woman would feel desire to know that it's her obligation.

00:29:29:04 - 00:29:45:07
Lisa Sonni
Really? Like, are you seeing the level that you're putting that on? Even when men compare it to chores, it's wild to me. So it's a chore. So you're admitting that women don't want to do this with you, that they're not enjoying themselves, and you're going to go ahead and do it anyway, even though you know that she's not a willing participant.

00:29:45:12 - 00:30:02:18
Lisa Sonni
Do you know what that makes you? There's a word for that, right? But they don't want to see themselves that way. And if men agree with me, then they have to see that they've probably done this, and then they have to see themselves in the mirror. Men hate the mirror that me and women like me are holding up.

00:30:02:21 - 00:30:25:09
Lisa Sonni
It makes them so completely angry. So they track frequency and that's what drives them, right? The number. That's what matters. That's what in the pattern has to stay I need it, it has to happen. Right. It's sex is something that he has to have to stay consistent or for you to keep him regulated. Right. But nobody can actually consent in an environment like this.

00:30:25:14 - 00:30:47:14
Lisa Sonni
if you are not free to say no, then consent is really never going to truly be on the table because you're afraid of a punishment. You know that something bad is going to happen and that is awful. That is absolutely terrible, right? The countdown is in your mind. And you know, the days if you're tracking the schedule and he's tracking the schedule, even if he's not, if you're tracking the schedule, to me that's the biggest problem.

00:30:47:14 - 00:31:07:16
Lisa Sonni
It starts to feel really scheduled. Then. And you even hear couples therapist sometimes be like, schedule it in. You're not addressing the problems. That's not what a couples therapist should say. And I'm quite certain that a healthy sex therapist would never give that terrible advice. So you start to feel like you're being assessed and you're being monitored and you owe it.

00:31:07:16 - 00:31:24:08
Lisa Sonni
And just, you know, this is when women just like, oh, fine, I'll just do it. Because what else choice do you have? Right. You feel like you need to you're trying to survive in your own relationship. And I know that, these two stories sound different, but you see the common thread, right? These men are running the exact same play.

00:31:24:12 - 00:31:50:23
Lisa Sonni
Both of these abusive types assume that sex is just there. It's available. It's the baseline. You know, no matter what happened, they center their needs. They center having access to your body. Different personalities, different men, same entitlement that matters so much now let's shift into the third story. Hey, Lisa, I almost didn't send this because part of me honestly thinks that maybe he's right and I'm the problem.

00:31:51:02 - 00:32:12:02
Lisa Sonni
I hope you can help me. I've been watching your videos about sexual entitlement and it's so uncomfortable because I see us in it. But he says that I'm twisting things now when I don't want to have sex. He doesn't just get upset, he tells me that I'm rejecting him. He says that I'm withholding intimacy on purpose. He's used the words emotionally abusive.

00:32:12:06 - 00:32:30:20
Lisa Sonni
He told me that I'm controlling the relationship by deciding when we're intimate. He says, if you loved me, you would want me. And if I tried to explain that I don't feel connected. After we argue, he says that I'm weaponizing sex to punish him. He said that no man would stay in a marriage like this, and I'm lucky he stays with me.

00:32:30:23 - 00:32:48:07
Lisa Sonni
That most wives don't act like this. One time he told me that I was the reason that he feels unwanted in his own home, that I make him feel like a creep for wanting his own wife. After that, I felt so guilty that I just gave in because I don't want to be the reason that he felt that way.

00:32:48:09 - 00:33:10:17
Lisa Sonni
And I'm noticing that I do that all the time. The worst part is I've started questioning myself. Am I cold? Am I abusive? Am I broken? Am I actually manipulating him without realizing it? He always talks about healthy relationships and meeting each other's needs like I'm failing his standard. I don't feel empowered when I say no. I'm always defending my character.

00:33:10:22 - 00:33:30:09
Lisa Sonni
I don't even know what my own desire feels like anymore. I just know that every time I try to protect my boundaries, it turns into a conversation about what's wrong with me. That's really brutal. You know? Honestly, saying no creates this really interesting problem for her women who are in relationships with abusive men. If you say no, that's a problem already.

00:33:30:14 - 00:33:51:10
Lisa Sonni
But this guy's doing something kind of even more dangerous than the first two, right? He's actually flipping this on her. I find it really disgusting the way that he's flipped this into making her the abuser. She is abusing him by not giving her body. It's baffling to me that a man could see it this way, but I see this every day.

00:33:51:10 - 00:34:20:08
Lisa Sonni
This exactly stems from sexual entitlement, right? She's she's questioning herself and her know creates a problem for him. And in order to justify it, he has to flip it. She's controlling the relationship, listen to the language. She gets to decide when they have sex, therefore she's controlling. If one person of any gender does not want to participate, you don't compromise by having sex because one person is not a willing participant.

00:34:20:11 - 00:34:37:17
Lisa Sonni
And if one person doesn't consent, there's a four letter word for that. We can't move past that, guys. There's already a name. There's no such thing as non-consensual sex. That's not. That's not what this is. She doesn't want to do it, and she's doing it for survival. She does not want to participate. And a guy like this is like, I don't care.

00:34:37:22 - 00:34:56:19
Lisa Sonni
I don't really care that you don't want to. That's not what matters. What matters is that I want it. So if you don't want it, you need to justify that to me. You need to explain it to me. Right? This is evidence against you. Every time you say no, you're harming me. You're abusive, you're the problem. And so many women internalize something like this and they feel like they are, in fact, the problem.

00:34:56:21 - 00:35:18:20
Lisa Sonni
And it makes sense because men often think abusive. Men often think that this is a woman's responsibility to regulate them. So they genuinely do think that you're failing them by not doing your job. So he drags into the conversation things like what healthy people do or like Tom's wife does it. Tom's wife is is interested in sleeping with with him.

00:35:18:20 - 00:35:40:09
Lisa Sonni
What's wrong with you? and they use these these big words like emotionally withholding and abusive and you're controlling. You're weaponizing sex. You're rejecting me. But all of this, it's meant to destabilize you, and it works, right? But that's what it's meant to do. That's exactly the point. You're here trying to prove that you're not cruel, that you're not withholding.

00:35:40:09 - 00:35:57:05
Lisa Sonni
So you have sex with them. It's a little reverse psychology, right? If I tell you that you're harming me and I act all hurt and I play the victim, then you're going to want to not be that. You don't want to be seen as a controlling person or a bad wife, or abusive. You feel like you're being abused.

00:35:57:05 - 00:36:18:04
Lisa Sonni
Meanwhile, he's accusing you and it almost sounds logical when they do it, when you're being gaslit and you're losing your sense of reality, and someone that you love or have loved is telling you that you're hurting them. Of course, you're going to try to reflect and listen and hear them out. You know? He starts to feel rejected and you're like, I don't want my partner to feel that way, and I don't want them to feel like I'm rejecting them.

00:36:18:04 - 00:36:40:13
Lisa Sonni
I want them to feel wanted. Because you want to feel wanted. You want reciprocity. They want sex. That's what he wants. That's what this about. And you start to wonder if you're broken, right? And then we turn consent into a debate. Why? How? And then you have to justify the reasons that you don't want it. And the crazy part is, is you're mean to me or you coerce me or you seem entitled.

00:36:40:13 - 00:37:00:10
Lisa Sonni
That's not enough. This is about proving your loyalty to him, and you have to use your body to do it. It's crazy. He feels insecure, perhaps. Right? Like sex is the thing that makes him feel loved and secure. Dude, you need therapy. Therapy will help you with that. You don't need someone else's body to not feel rejected. And if that's true, right?

00:37:00:10 - 00:37:17:08
Lisa Sonni
And a lot of men are like, no, but it is, I do. You need therapy. You need to go talk to somebody about this. This is a problem that you're having and you're using someone else's body. You're an abuser. That's gross. If you accused your spouse of abusing you for, quote, withholding. Withholding shouldn't even be part of this.

00:37:17:08 - 00:37:39:00
Lisa Sonni
We don't use the word withholding for sex. Now, someone can manipulate with sex, but there's still not withholding sex. Sex isn’t owed, therefore it cannot be withheld. He is entitled to your body. Therefore you don't get to say no like you get that right? No is not an option. So over time you're going to start to hesitate. Before you say no, you're really going to think about it, right?

00:37:39:00 - 00:37:54:01
Lisa Sonni
You're sort of calculating what happens if I say no? How long has it been? Can I say no? It's only been two days. I can say no tonight, but tomorrow that's going to be a problem, right? So you start to weigh the outcomes. That's a huge problem. That's something that we all need to really just sit with and face.

00:37:54:01 - 00:38:16:00
Lisa Sonni
If this is sounding like you, if you're seeing yourself in these women's stories, this is abuse, right? Wifely duty gets preached. It gets preached constantly. You know, entire generations of women were being told to be a good wife. Be a good wife, right? Keep your husband satisfied. Older generations of women said it, but they said it because they know what bad things happen when you don't.

00:38:16:03 - 00:38:45:02
Lisa Sonni
So they're attempting to keep us safe. Or women now are like, I don't need to do that. I refuse right? Hello. Women are choosing to be single. Hello male loneliness epidemic. That's why this is happening, because men are not catching up to what's actually happening relationally. Marital rape was legal into the 90s, right? That belief did not just go away overnight in a lot of churches, sex is still to this day framed as an obligation inside marriage, right?

00:38:45:03 - 00:39:09:00
Lisa Sonni
Do not deprive one another. That verse gets quoted a lot, a lot, but rarely actually unpacked purity culture even. It trains women to guard sex before marriage and then flip a switch and just provide it on command after. Right? Any time he wants it, be pure and then give it up any old time. So you go from your body is sacred to your body is owed in one ceremony.

00:39:09:03 - 00:39:33:11
Lisa Sonni
It is a wild concept. Girls are taught that men struggle with lust. I was taught that men want this from you. Men will say anything. Men are going to tell you that their D is going to fall off, or that they're, you know what's are going to turn blue, right? And then women become the gatekeepers of sex. But then that puts us in this role of becoming regulators of male temptation and frankly, their friggin entitlement.

00:39:33:13 - 00:39:50:02
Lisa Sonni
So if he's cheating on her, why did he cheat? What did she do or what didn't she do? It's her fault that he cheated. But what's crazy is that there are women who say, like, I was having sex with him 5 or 6 times a week and he's still cheated. And it's like, hello? That's the point. Because it doesn't matter.

00:39:50:04 - 00:40:09:21
Lisa Sonni
Cheaters don't cheat because of lack of frequency. It's not a woman's fault or it's man's fault. If he gets cheated on. It is not the person who's been cheated on his fault for being cheated on. It is always the cheaters fault. But you don't see that narrative as often when it's a woman being cheated on. It always flips to what happened and what did she do or not do right?

00:40:09:21 - 00:40:26:21
Lisa Sonni
This message of like, keep him happy. Men have needs. That's just how men are. And you hear these jokes, right? Like wives with headaches. Oh, here she goes again with a headache to get out of it. So you all agree that you don't take no for an answer, and that women have no choice but to come up with excuses?

00:40:27:00 - 00:40:50:11
Lisa Sonni
You say that out loud and you think it's funny. It's crazy. How can you think that's funny? You're admitting to non-consensual sex. You're admitting that she can't say no, but you just don't say, okay, cool. No, no for tonight. We'll try again tomorrow. No big deal. Do you even see, like, sitcom dads begging for sex? And then the laugh track gets played over it.

00:40:50:16 - 00:41:18:07
Lisa Sonni
It's absolutely gross. Religious counseling prioritizes marital unity over the autonomy of the woman in the relationship. When abusive this happens. It's always like, but are you doing what you're supposed to be doing, right? So desire gets framed as something that women. Oh, and it's specifically to maintain this sort of harmony in a marriage. Right? I've even I have so many clients who've told me that their grandmothers were like, you know, sometimes you just do it.

00:41:18:09 - 00:41:38:10
Lisa Sonni
And women now, thankfully, are like, no, thanks, but we never used to call it coercion, and we never really traced it to entitlement. It was just kind of how things are. And I'm really happy that this is changing. Right. If your mother endured it and called it normal, fine. But you're not doing that right. If your pastor calls it duty, okay, cool.

00:41:38:10 - 00:41:57:10
Lisa Sonni
He can go ahead and do that. But that's not what it actually is. That's framing. And you need to see who are these people that are saying this to you and really look at if you want people like this in your life, you know, meet his needs so he doesn't stray. That's what's going on here. What you see in these three stories is really interesting.

00:41:57:10 - 00:42:17:04
Lisa Sonni
I hope that you see yourself in these stories and sort of wake up and start to see what's happening on his end, start looking at how he feels in order to behave this way, or rather, how he doesn't feel about you in order to behave this way, because a man that loves you would never behave this way. Entitlement isn't always a really loud thing, right?

00:42:17:07 - 00:42:35:05
Lisa Sonni
I think that we see it as stomping around and like yelling, I deserve this in all areas. They're pretty loud when it comes to this particular topic, but they do say these things out loud. Pay attention to the words right, I deserve this. I'm owed this. If your body is shutting down, it makes sense. It really does.

00:42:35:05 - 00:43:01:09
Lisa Sonni
Your body is recognizing exactly what it needs to. It's shutting down. It's responding the way that it is meant to respond when pressure is present, when there is no safety, right? When access is assumed. That's a natural response. It absolutely is. Your nervous system is genuinely protecting you, and that matters. So if you feel tense instead of turned on when he initiate sex, that makes sense.

00:43:01:09 - 00:43:24:18
Lisa Sonni
If you feel numb, that makes sense. If you feel resentful or confused or guilty or detached or disgusted, that makes sense. When you are in a relationship where sexual entitlement and sexual coercion is present, that's not a character flaw and you're not failing. Thanks for listening to this episode of Real Talk with Lisa Sonni Relationships Uncensored, and I'll catch you in the next one.

00:43:24:20 - 00:43:34:06
Lisa Sonni
If this episode gave you clarity. Share it with someone who needs it. Thanks for being here and for being honest with yourself. And remember, you're stronger than before.

00:43:34:08 - 00:43:38:11
Music
Stronger than before.