Will and Rose met online 10 years ago. His screen name was professorparsley, and he looked the part — tall and thin, with glasses, features that Rose found attractive. On their first date, Rose learned that Will was a college student living with his mother, and his handle came from a nickname given to him by a child at an art camp where he worked. They laugh about it now, as they do with most things. Will thought Rose was exciting and direct. He grew up in suburban Ontario, and she was from Southern California, which was like another world to him. Right away, what they loved about each other were their differences.

威尔和罗丝是十年前在网上认识的。他的网名是“欧芹教授”，看上去很合适——又高又瘦，戴着眼镜，这些都很吸引罗丝。他们第一次约会时，罗丝得知威尔是一名大学生，和母亲住在一起，这个网名来自他工作的一个艺术营的孩子给他起的绰号。他们说起这件事就大笑，说起大多数事情也都是欢声笑语。威尔觉得罗斯既让人兴奋又为人直率。他在安大略省的郊区长大，而她来自南加州，对他来说，那就像是另一个世界。他们之间的不同很快就成了他们喜欢彼此的地方。

Rose was drawn to how stable Will seemed — so unlike the other men she had dated, who dreaded commitment. Their relationship survived multiple moves, about a year of long-distance dating and the challenges of finding time to be together while living with parents and roommates. Now, seven years into their marriage, they have their own place: a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, where Rose sees Pilates clients. Will is gone during the day, teaching, and at night they cuddle in bed and watch television. “It’s my favorite part of the day,” Rose says. (Rose and Will are middle names. All subjects asked to be referred to by their first names, middle names or a nickname, out of concerns for their privacy.)

罗丝喜欢威尔的稳重——和她约会过的其他男人不同，他们害怕承诺。他们的关系经受了许多考验，包括多次搬家，大约一年的异地恋，以及与父母和室友同住时如何找到时间在一起。现在，他们结婚七年了，在洛杉矶有了自己的房子：一套一居室的公寓，罗丝在那里接待自己的普拉提客户。威尔白天出去教书，晚上他们依偎在床上看电视。“这是我一天中最喜欢的时光，”罗丝说。（罗丝和威尔都是中间名。出于对隐私的考虑，所有受试者都要求用他们的名字、中间名或昵称来称呼他们。）

As much as Will grounds her, Rose feels that the familiar calm of their relationship also shuts her down sexually. They go months without sex, but they don’t lack intimacy. They have a policy of never refusing a hug, something they instituted to resolve the minor disagreements that inevitably crop up in any relationship. They have also talked candidly about how, for her, the safe predictability of their marriage — the quality she loves about their lives together — dulls her sex drive. She knows that can be confusing, even frustrating, for Will, but she doesn’t like the idea of forcing herself to have sex. Rose’s mother, now divorced, felt obligated to have sex with Rose’s father once a week. That’s not the kind of relationship Rose wants.

虽然威尔让她感觉踏实，但罗丝觉得他们习惯的平静关系也让她在性方面感到压抑。他们有时几个月没有性生活，但并不缺乏亲密感。他们有一个永远不拒绝拥抱的原则，这是他们为了解决任何关系中都不可避免会出现的小分歧而制定的。他们还坦率地谈到，对她来说，他们婚姻的安全可预测性——在共同生活中，这一点是她所喜欢的——抑制了她的性欲。她知道这会让威尔感到困惑，甚至沮丧，但她不想强迫自己做爱。罗丝的父母已经离婚，她的母亲曾经觉得觉得有义务每周和罗丝的父亲做爱一次，这不是罗丝想要的关系。

To get into a sexual mood, Rose relies on a set of rituals to help build anticipation — doing her hair and makeup, shaving her legs, having a glass of wine over dinner or, when their schedules allow, going on vacation to break out of their routines. Will doesn’t need to do anything to feel ready for sex, and Rose sees this as another way in which they’re different. Over the years, they have accepted that this is what their sex life looks like, and will look like, if they want to be together, which they do.

为了进入愿意做爱的状态，罗丝依靠一系列的仪式来帮助建立期待——做头发和化妆，刮腿毛，晚餐时喝红酒，或者，当他们的日程允许时去度假，以便打破生活常规。威尔不需要为性做任何准备，罗丝认为这是他们之间的另一个不同之处。多年来，他们已经接受了这样的性生活方式，如果他们想在一起，他们性生活就是这样的，他们也的确想让关系继续。

During the pandemic, the couple went more than a year without having sex, but they savored their extra time together. Rose used to spend hours driving in traffic to different workout studios, coming home late, not seeing her husband much. Stuck at home, they took walks around their neighborhood. They talked constantly. They started taking online yoga classes together, a hobby that stuck. Will appreciates these smaller opportunities to connect. Rose thinks she’s not the nurturing type, but Will disagrees. “She’s not stingy in spirit or time,” he says.

疫情期间，这对夫妇有一年多没有性生活，但他们很享受有更多在一起的时间。罗丝过去常常花几个小时开车去不同的健身房，很晚才回家，很少见到丈夫。被困在家里的时候，他们在附近散步。不停地交谈。他们开始一起上在线瑜伽课，这个爱好一直延续了下来。威尔很欣赏这些小小的交流机会。罗丝认为她不是那种会照顾人的人，但威尔不这么认为。“她在精神上和时间上都不吝啬，”他说。

Sometimes they shower together and hold each other naked, without any expectation of sex. Though Will remains hopeful that these moments will lead to something else, he doesn’t push it.

有时他们一起洗澡，赤裸着抱在一起，但并不期待发生性关系。虽然威尔仍然希望这些时刻会有别的结果，但他并不强求。

Cultural attitudes about the role sex plays in a marriage have evolved significantly over time. Where once marital sex was primarily a means for bearing children, in recent decades, the conventional wisdom was that frequent sex was integral to a happy union. During the 1990s, a new wave of sex positivity coincided with the ascendancy of different forms of therapy, including couples counseling. Experts coached couples on how to strengthen their marriages, often relying on the belief that healthy relationships included consistent sex with partners. By the 2010s, appointment sex had become one popular method for maintaining intimacy and, somewhat implicitly, safeguarding against separation.

随着时间的推移，人们对性在婚姻中所扮演角色的文化态度发生了很大变化。过去，婚姻中的性行为主要是为了生儿育女，但近几十年来，常规观念认为，频繁的性行为是幸福婚姻不可或缺的一部分。在20世纪90年代，随着包括夫妻咨询在内的各种治疗方式的兴起，性积极也掀起了新的浪潮。专家们指导夫妻们如何巩固婚姻，他们通常认为，健康的婚姻关系包括与伴侣持续的性行为。到2010年代，预约式性爱已经成为一种保持亲密关系的流行方法，并在一定程度上暗含防止分手的意思。

In more recent years, however, both relationship experts and couples themselves have been gradually dismantling some of these commonly held views, working to destigmatize the unconventional approaches that some take to stay together. Online groups have sprung up for couples who challenge basic assumptions that spouses should share a bedroom or even a home. Sharon Hyman, who runs a Facebook group called Apartners for couples who have chosen to live separately, told me that many of the members in her community find their sex lives improve when they don’t spend every minute together. “My goal is to show that there are healthy options for relationships,” Hyman says. “No one size fits all.”

然而，近年来，夫妻关系专家和夫妻自己都在逐渐摒弃一些普遍持有的观点，努力为那些用于维持婚姻的非常规方法正名。一些夫妻挑战了夫妻应该共用卧室、甚至住在一个家里的基本假设，他们的网络小组大量涌现。沙伦·海曼在Facebook上管理了一个名为“Apartners”的小组，专门为选择分开居住的夫妇服务。她告诉我，她所在小组的许多成员发现，当他们不再时时刻刻在一起时，他们的性生活得到了改善。“我的目标是向人们展示，健康的关系有许多种，”海曼说。“没有一种方法适合所有人。”

One effect of the ever-changing sexual climate is that many couples today are simply less willing to tolerate what the psychotherapist Esther Perel calls “boredom” in the bedroom. Perel has made a career of articulating how domestic overexposure saps eroticism, which requires some intrigue, mystery and unfamiliarity. That’s not to suggest that long-term love and desire are impossible, but according to Perel, keeping sexual interest alive requires getting creative. In her podcast, “Where Should We Begin?” Perel helps couples explore and articulate their fantasies, honor each other as individuals and experiment with new approaches to fulfilling their desires together.

不断变化的性观念造成的影响是，今天的许多夫妻根本不愿意忍受心理治疗师埃斯特·佩雷尔所称的卧室里的“无聊”。佩雷尔的职业生涯里一直在阐明夫妻之间的过度接触如何削弱了性欲，而性欲是需要一些好奇、神秘和陌生的。这并不是说长期的爱情和欲望是不可能的，但根据佩雷尔的说法，保持性兴趣需要创意。在她的播客“从何说起？”中，佩雷尔帮助夫妻探索和表达他们的幻想，尊重彼此的个性，并尝试新的方法，一起满足他们的欲望。

For Perel, as for many other relationship experts, that sometimes means re-examining investment in another foundational premise of marriage: monogamy. The advice columnist Dan Savage, too, has argued that monogamy isn’t entirely plausible, or pleasurable, for everyone, and is critical of Americans’ obsession with moralizing infidelity. He encourages married people to be honest with each other about how hard it is to carry the responsibility of fulfilling their partner’s sexual and emotional needs for decades on end.

对佩雷尔和许多其他关系专家来说，这有时意味着重新审视对婚姻另一个基本前提的投入：单配制。咨询专栏作家丹·萨维奇也认为，单配制并非对所有人来说都完全合理或令人愉快，他对美国人痴迷于将不忠变为道德问题持批评态度。他鼓励已婚人士坦诚地告诉对方，几十年来一直承担满足伴侣在性和情感方面需求的责任是多么困难。

While some are questioning the standard of monogamous sex in marriage by exploring polyamorous and open relationships, others are pushing back against the pressure to have sex at all. In fact, Americans on the whole are having less sex than they used to — across race, gender, region, educational level and work status. One study found that American adults born in the 1990s are having less sex than older generations; they are in fewer steady partnerships, and those who are partnered are also having less sex. The 2021 General Social Survey found that about 50 percent of all adults polled had sex once a month or less, with half of those people reporting they hadn’t had sex for a year. Researchers have speculated about the reasons for this 30-year sexual low, from isolation caused by technology to cultural conversations about consent.

有些人通过探索多角恋和开放关系来质疑婚姻中的单配制标准，还有一些人则在抵制发生性行为的压力。事实上，从整体上看，美国人的性生活比以前少了——不分种族、性别、地区、教育水平和就业情况。一项研究发现，20世纪90年代出生的美国成年人的性生活少于老一辈；他们的稳定伴侣更少，在有伴侣时的性生活也更少。2021年的综合社会调查发现，接受调查的所有成年人中，约有50%的人每月性生活一次或更少，其中一半的人报告说他们一年没有性生活。研究人员推测了这30年来性低潮的原因，包括从科技导致的孤立到关于性同意的文化对话。

Many younger women, for instance, shaped in part by the #MeToo movement, are engaging in intentional abstinence. There are trends on TikTok about going “boysober,” a word coined by the comedian Hope Woodard, who says that taking a break from sex can be empowering for women who previously altered their desires to accommodate men. The digital feminist 4B movement, which originated in South Korea but has spread globally through social media, advocates a rejection of childbearing, as well as heterosexual dating, marriage and sex. “Platonic life partners,” meanwhile — friends who commit to owning a home and even raising children together — insist that sex and romance are not necessary to lifelong unions.

例如，许多年轻女性在一定程度上受到#MeToo（我也是）运动的影响，进行了有意识的节欲。TikTok上出现了关于“戒掉男孩”(boysober)的趋势，这个词是喜剧演员霍普·伍达德创造的，她说，对于那些以前为了适应男性而改变自己欲望的女性来说，暂停性生活可以赋予她们力量。数字女权主义4B运动起源于韩国，但已通过社交媒体传播到全球。该运动倡导拒绝生育，以及拒绝异性恋约会、婚姻和性行为。与此同时，“柏拉图式的生活伴侣”——承诺共同拥有一个家，甚至共同抚养孩子的朋友——坚持认为性和浪漫不是终身结合的必要条件。

The sex educator and researcher Emily Nagoski is resistant to the idea that frequent sex should be a chief component of every committed relationship. Nagoski — who has been open about her own hiatus from marital sex — doesn’t endorse obligatory sex, nor does she encourage aiming for any sexual base line in terms of regularity or behavior. Drawing on the work of the Canadian sexologist Peggy Kleinplatz, Nagoski believes that low desire can sometimes be evidence of good judgment. “It’s not dysfunctional not to want sex you don’t like,” Nagoski says.

性教育者和研究者艾米丽·纳格斯基不认为频繁的性行为应该是每一段深度投入的关系的主要组成部分。纳格斯基对自己暂停婚姻性生活的事并不讳言，她不赞同履行义务的性爱，也不赞成对性生活的规律性或行为设定任何底线。纳格斯基借鉴了加拿大性学家佩吉·克莱因普拉茨的研究成果，认为性欲低有时可能是判断力良好的证据。纳格斯基说：“不想要你不喜欢的性并不是功能障碍。”

In her new book, “Come Together,” Nagoski urges couples who want to explore their sexualities and deepen their sexual bond to begin by figuring out what each person wants when they want sex. For many, sex represents freedom from the ordinary, but what it takes to get there will look different for every couple and is likely to change over time. After all, desires don’t always align, or they evolve in unexpected ways.

在她的新书《一起来》(Come Together)中，纳格斯基敦促那些想探索自己性取向并加深性联系的夫妇首先弄清楚每个人想要性爱的时候，想要的是什么。对许多人来说，性代表着从平凡中解脱出来的自由，但实现这一目标所需的条件对每对夫妇来说都是不同的，而且可能会随着时间而改变。毕竟，欲望并不总是一致的，或者它们会以意想不到的方式演变。

Michelle and John met in 2005 at a party, and in the early years of their relationship, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Four years ago, however, after experiencing what she calls a “traumatic” childbirth, Michelle began to worry that intercourse would cause her pain.

米歇尔和约翰在2005年的一次聚会上相识，在交往的最初几年，他们充满激情。然而，四年前，在经历了她所谓的“创伤性”分娩后，米歇尔开始担心性交会引起疼痛。

She and John did not have sex for a year after they became parents. Now they can go months without it. Friends of theirs, too, seem to be experiencing new chapters in their own sex lives and opening up their marriages, which has sparked conversations between Michelle and John about the possibilities for reinvigorating their sex life. But they don’t always agree on what they want, or what they’re comfortable with.

她和约翰在为人父母后一年没有过性生活。现在他们可以一连几个月不做爱。他们的朋友们似乎也在经历性生活的新篇章，并且尝试开放婚姻，这让米歇尔和约翰开始讨论，该怎样给他们之间的性生活注入新的活力。但他们并不总是能就想要什么或者能接受什么达成一致。

John knows, however, that having sex outside the marriage is a red line for Michelle. She witnessed infidelity tear apart her parents’ relationship. “I think there’s a big fear about ‘I have an urge that may be resolved in a minute or two,’ but the sense of what could be broken is not worth the risk,” John says.

然而，约翰知道，对米歇尔来说，婚外性行为是一条红线。她目睹了不忠行为破坏她父母的关系。约翰说：“我觉得有一种担心，‘我有一种可以在一两分钟内解决的冲动’，但考虑到可能产生的破坏，冒这个险去解决它是不值得的 。”

Love, for both, is about much more than fulfilling those momentary desires. After almost two decades together, they consider themselves best friends and “soul mates.” When they first began dating, Michelle was reeling from the loss of her brother, who died in a car accident. She talked with John about the experience on an early date, and they were inseparable after that. John thought she was beautiful and wanted to spend as much time with her as he could. Michelle thought he was a welcome distraction, someone who could lift her out of her grief. They went to concerts. He made her mixtapes. But there were also times when she broke down crying, and he was there for her.

对两人来说，爱情的意义远不止满足一时的欲望。在一起近二十年后，他们认为自己是最好的朋友和“灵魂伴侣”。他们刚开始约会的时候，米歇尔正沉浸在哥哥车祸丧生的悲痛中。她很早就和约翰谈起了这次经历，从那以后他们就形影不离了。约翰觉得她很美，想尽量和她呆在一起。米歇尔则乐于通过他来转移注意力，这是一个能把她从悲伤中拉出来的人。他们去听音乐会。他给她做了混音带。但也有几次，当她崩溃哭泣时，他会陪在她身边。

John used to try to comfort Michelle by saying he understood how she felt, but when he lost his own brother in 2012, he realized how wrong he had been. As he mourned, Michelle “just knew what to do in the unspoken moments — whether it was knowing when to give me space, or knowing when I needed a hug, or I just needed her to be next to me,” John says. Today, Michelle remains the “central piece” of his happiness.

约翰曾经试图安慰米歇尔，说他理解她的感受，但当他在2012年失去自己的兄弟时，他意识到自己错了。约翰说，在他哀悼的时候，米歇尔“知道在那些无法言说的时刻该怎么做——知道什么时候该给我空间，或者知道什么时候我需要一个拥抱，或者什么时候我需要她在身边”。今天，米歇尔仍然是他的幸福的“核心部分”。

Michelle and John share a one-bedroom with their daughter, and while they get some privacy during the day, they’re busy working from home. Now, most days, Michelle masturbates in the morning, while John takes their daughter to preschool. He masturbates at night in the bathroom, while watching porn on his phone. For John, it’s merely a physical release, but for Michelle, pleasuring herself serves a different purpose: She is trying to figure out what makes her feel good. Exploring her changed body alone eliminates the guilt she has when she can’t climax with her husband. She doesn’t want him to think it has anything to do with him. “I want to get there, but it’s not getting there,” she says.

两人和他们的女儿住一套一居室，虽然白天有一些私人空间，但他们都忙着在家工作。现在，大多数时候，米歇尔在早上自慰，而约翰送女儿去幼儿园。他晚上用手机看着色情片在浴室里自慰。对约翰来说，这只是一种身体上的释放，但对米歇尔来说，取悦自己有不同的目的：她想找到什么能让她感觉良好。独自探索她变化了的身体可以消除她不能和丈夫高潮时的内疚。她不想让他觉得这和他有什么关系。她说：“我想达到高潮，但却无法达到。”

Of the more than 30 married people I interviewed, many, like Michelle, told me that becoming parents irrevocably changed their sex lives. Camille, who lives in California, felt her marriage was the most solid and caring relationship she had ever experienced, but becoming a mother distanced her from her desire. “It feels like something I can’t quite touch, like in another room, or another part of me that I don’t know how to access,” she says.

在我采访的30多位已婚人士中，许多人都跟米歇尔一样告诉我，成为父母不可挽回地改变了他们的性生活。卡米尔住在加州，她觉得婚姻是她经历过的最稳固、最贴心的关系，但成为母亲让她远离了自己的欲望。“感觉就像我不能触摸的东西，就像在另一个房间里，或者是我不知道该如何进入的另一个自己的部分，”她说。

Other mothers started to see sex as one more chore, another line item on their list of responsibilities. Keti, a mother of a neurodivergent child who craved being held, found that sex with her husband had become “robotic” as she began to see it as “one more demand.” Her husband was doing everything he could to support her, but she felt an obligation to get back to their old sex life, even though she wanted “desperately to go into a forest and just lie down and not hear anyone or anything.”

也有的母亲开始把性爱看作例行公事，是责任清单上的一项。凯特的孩子是一个渴望被拥抱的神经发育异常儿童，她发现自己同丈夫的性行为变得“像机器人一样”，因为她开始把它视为“又一项要求”。丈夫尽其所能支持她，但她觉得有义务回到他们以前的性生活中，尽管她“非常渴望走进一片森林，躺下来，什么人什么事都不要听”。

Lilien, who has two kids, says becoming a mother was a turning point for her. She had to leave her previous career and didn’t know who she was or what she wanted. “My identity was totally eviscerated,” she says. “I was really confused about what my worth was.” Her history of sexual assault also resurfaced in profound ways. She thought she needed to be “permeable” to nurture her children. She didn’t have the capacity to extend that physical openness to her husband. She couldn’t stand soft caresses from him, which felt like the tickling of her child’s hands.

莉莉安有两个孩子，她说成为母亲对她来说是一个转折点。她不得不离开以前的工作，不知道自己是谁，也不知道自己想要什么。“我的自我认同完全被掏空了，”她说。“我真的不知道自己的价值在哪里。”遭受性侵的往事也以深刻的方式重新浮出水面。为了养育孩子，她认为她需要做到“毫无保留”。她没有能力将身体上的开放性延伸到丈夫身上。她无法忍受他温柔的爱抚，那感觉就像孩子的手在挠她的痒痒。

Lilien’s husband, Philip, never pressured her to be intimate, for which she is grateful. “The most important thing for me was to maintain a place where the sex you have is very positive, very consensual, very understood and mutually enjoyed,” he says. Five years later, Philip knows she is still coming to terms with everything motherhood has brought into her life. Recently they started having more sex, about once every other month. Lilien loves her husband’s firm back rubs, which he’s happy to give.

莉莉安的丈夫菲利普从未强迫她与自己亲密接触，她对此很感激。他说：“对我来说，最重要的是保持一种方式，拥有非常积极的、非常自愿的、非常理解的、相互享受的性行为。”五年后，菲利普知道她仍然在适应成为母亲给她的生活带来的一切。最近他们开始有了更多的性生活，大约每隔一个月一次。莉莉恩很喜欢丈夫给她按摩后背，他也很乐意给她按摩。

Other couples, much like Rose and Will, confessed to feeling sexually misaligned with their partners as their desires shifted in different directions. Jean, a 38-year-old mother living in Virginia, told me that her husband’s interest in sex has dropped off gradually over the course of their 13-year marriage. She, on the other hand, experienced what she called “a secondary puberty” as her kids grew older and became less dependent on her. She felt “so sexually charged” that she visited her gynecologist to confirm she wasn’t having a hormonal issue. She’s now trying to figure out how to navigate her husband’s low desire. “I feel like I’m living in the upside-down a lot of the time,” she says. “My friends complain about their husbands grabbing their butt while they wash dishes, and I think, Wow, I would love to feel wanted like that.”

其他夫妇，就像罗丝和威尔一样，坦言由于欲望朝着不同的方向转移，他们感到与伴侣的性生活不协调。珍是弗吉尼亚的一位38岁的母亲，她告诉我，在13年的婚姻生活中，她丈夫对性的兴趣逐渐下降。另一方面，她经历了她所谓的“二次青春期”，因为她的孩子长大了，对她的依赖减少了。她觉得自己“性欲旺盛”，于是去看了妇科医生，确认自己不是荷尔蒙出了问题。她现在正试图弄清楚如何应对丈夫的低性欲。“我觉得自己很多时候都生活在颠倒的世界里，”她说。“朋友们抱怨说，丈夫在她们洗碗的时候抓她们的屁股，我想，哇，我也喜欢那种被需要的感觉。”

Another mother, Emily, says that sex gradually became less important over the course of her 34-year marriage. When her kids were little, intimacy with her husband stalled briefly, but as their children grew older, they had a “revival of a good sex life,” Emily says. Now she is 59 and has had several operations resulting from a battle with cancer, including a hysterectomy and mastectomy. As a result, her desire lessened, and sex began to feel like “vacuuming the house” — something she did to make her husband happy. And he noticed. “If you are used to somebody responding to you in a certain way, you can tell when they are acting,” she says. “I wasn’t the same person.”

另一位母亲艾米丽说，在她34年的婚姻生活中，性逐渐变得不那么重要了。当孩子们还小的时候，她和丈夫的亲密关系一度停滞，但随着孩子长大，他们“恢复了良好的性生活”，艾米丽说。现在她59岁了，在与癌症的斗争中经历了几次手术，包括子宫切除术和乳房切除术。结果，她的性欲减弱了，性爱变得像是“用吸尘器打扫房子”——她做这些是为了让丈夫开心。他看出来了。“如果你习惯了别人以某种特定的方式回应你，那么当他们在假装时，你就能看出来，”她说。“我已经变了个人。”

One night in bed, about 10 years after she went on a hormone treatment for her cancer that put her into early menopause, they had a frank conversation about their sex life. “We discussed my lack of desire, and he said that if I’m not turned on, then he’s not either,” Emily says. He admitted that his sex drive had dipped, too. So they decided not to force it. She feels there’s some cultural pressure for older people to keep up their sex lives into their 80s. She’s read, with skepticism, articles claiming that maintaining sex later in life is healthy. “Is it?” she said. “I don’t know.”

在她因癌症而接受激素治疗并提前进入更年期大约10年后，一天晚上，他们在床上坦率地谈论了他们的性生活。艾米丽说：“我们讨论了我缺乏性欲的问题，他说如果我不兴奋，那他也不会兴奋。”他承认自己的性欲也下降了。所以他们决定不再勉强。她觉得有些文化压力迫使老年人在80多岁时还保持性生活。她读过一些文章，说在晚年保持性生活有益健康，但她对此持怀疑态度。“是吗？”她说。“我不知道。”

Emily feels their marriage has progressed naturally: They experienced decades of passion, and while they remain affectionate outside of the bedroom, their relationship now transcends sex in many ways. It’s about the life they’ve built together. “We’ve been in a sexless relationship for years now,” Emily says. “We get along great, but we’re more like best buds than lovers.”

艾米丽觉得他们的婚姻发展得很自然：他们经历了几十年的激情，虽然他们在卧室外仍然充满深情，但如今他们的关系在很多方面都超越了性，是关于他们共同创造的生活。“我们没有性生活已经有好几年了，”艾米丽说。“我们相处得很好，但我们更像是最好的朋友而不是恋人。”

Despite their insistence that sex isn’t essential in their marriages, most of the couples I spoke with still keep track of how often they have sex. They also appear haunted by how far they deviate from perceived norms. John, for instance, hopes he and his wife can work back up to having sex two or three times a week, but admits he has no idea where that figure came from.

尽管他们都坚持认为性在自己的婚姻中不是必不可少的，但我采访过的大多数夫妇仍然记录性生活的频率。他们似乎也对自己偏离公认标准的程度耿耿于怀。例如，约翰希望他和他的妻子能恢复到每周做爱两到三次，但他承认自己不知道这个数字是从哪里来的。

Numbers, Nagoski believes, can be a counterproductive metric. It’s impossible to hear such statistics and not judge one’s relationship against them. Numbers also don’t account for whether participants are enjoying the sex they are having. “You’re comparing yourself — you’re judging yourself as OK or inadequate — compared to a whole bunch of people you’re not having sex with, who are not having sex with you,” Nagoski says.

纳格斯基认为，用数字作为衡量标准可能适得其反。听到这样的统计数据，我们不可能不拿这些数据来判断自己的亲密关系。数据不能说明参与者是否享受自己的性生活。纳格斯基说：“你是在拿自己和一群没有和你发生性关系的人对比——拿他们来判断自己到底是不错还是不行。”

For couples measuring themselves against what Nagoski calls the “fictions” of sex, or for those worried that their relationship is on the line whenever they enter the bedroom or don’t meet some monthly number, there may be too much pressure for sex to be enjoyable. It’s more important that couples establish what kind of sex is worth having.

对于那些用纳格斯基所说的性“虚构”来衡量自己的夫妇，或者对于那些担心每月性生活没有达到某个数字，婚姻关系就会受到威胁的夫妻来说，可能有太大的压力要让性生活变得愉快。更重要的是，夫妻要确定什么样的性才是值得拥有的。

Rose admits to feeling the weight of societal expectations. Recently she decided that since she and Will were rarely having sex, she would have her birth-control implant removed from her arm. During the procedure, the nurse intimated there was something wrong with Rose’s marriage. Rose felt shamed and angry. The idea that she should be living in a constant state of arousal with her husband after a decade together is, to her, ridiculous, but also part of a facade she thinks many married couples maintain.

罗丝承认自己感受到了社会期望的压力。最近，她决定，既然她和威尔很少做爱，她可以把手臂上的节育植入物取出来。在手术过程中，护士暗示罗丝的婚姻出了问题。罗丝感到羞愧和愤怒。在她看来，要求她和丈夫在一起十年后依然应该生活在一种持续的性兴奋状态中是荒谬的，但她认为这也是许多已婚夫妇维持的表面现象的一部分。

“There are people who tell you all the sex they’re having,” she says. “I feel like it’s a lot more common that a lot of people are not.” With the help of her therapist, Rose is exploring whether her A.D.H.D. may play a role in her need to seek new stimuli — not because she sees it as a problem but because she is interested in understanding her desire more fully. “Apparently the partner fatigue I experience is not so uncommon because our ‘special’ brains are always seeking out what’s new,” she says.

“有些人会告诉你他们的性生活如何丰富，”她说。“我觉得更常见的情况应该是没有性生活。”在治疗师的帮助下，罗丝正在探索她寻求新刺激的需求，是否跟她的注意力缺陷多动障碍有关——不是因为她认为这是一个问题，而是因为她有兴趣更全面地了解自己的欲望。“显然，我所经历的伴侣疲劳并不罕见，因为我们‘特殊’的大脑总是在寻找新的东西，”她说。

Will sometimes turns to Buddhist writings on restraint to explore his sexuality. He jokes there may be some confirmation bias at work, but he thinks his wife’s self-awareness — and her unwillingness to force herself into sex that she doesn’t want to have — has matured him. For Will, intimacy is less about completion and more about connection. “I’ve learned, even just about the act of sex itself, the ending is not always the best part,” Will says. “There’s pleasure throughout the spectrum.”

威尔有时会求助于有关克制的佛教著作来探索自己的性欲。他开玩笑说，这其中可能有一些确认偏差，但他认为妻子的自我意识——以及她不愿意强迫自己发生她不想发生的性行为——让他变得成熟了。对威尔来说，亲密关系与其说是一种完成，不如说是一种联系。“我明白了，即使只是关于性行为本身，结果并不总是最好的部分，”威尔说。“快乐贯穿于整个过程。”

In March, for Rose’s 40th birthday, they took a trip to Hawaii. She switched off her phone for hours as they sprawled out by the ocean. Will remembers turning toward his wife and staring at her, watching her relaxing, her body loose. In that moment, he wasn’t thinking about sex or how beautiful Rose looked under the sun. He was thinking about how similar they actually are. More than anything, they want to enjoy themselves in their own way, to savor the small moments when they can let the rest of the world fade away.

为了庆祝罗丝40岁生日，他们3月去了夏威夷。当他们躺在海边时，她把手机关了好几个小时。威尔记得，自己转身看着妻子，看着她放松下来，身体松弛。在那一刻，他没有想到性，也不是她在阳光下有多么美丽。他在想他们俩到底有多相似。最重要的是，他们想以自己的方式享受生活，享受那些可以忘却身外之物的微小时刻。