I Don't Have Sex with My Husband Every Night (and That's Okay)

Beau and I have been married a little over four months now. Yes, we are definitely still newlyweds, and since we saved coitus for marriage--and didn't live together until four weeks before our wedding--our marital bed is still very new and exciting for us. 

But even with the newness of it all, and no pregnancies messing with my hormones or babies zapping us of energy, we still don't have sex every single night. If I had to guess, I'd say we average 3-4 times a week. While Beau has a higher libido than I do, I initiate about 40% of the time, and I only turn him down if I'm sick, exhausted, or libido-less in the middle of my period. It's safe to say we're both pretty satisfied with our sex life.

That said, a blog post gone viral on the Huffington Post suggests our sex life is sub-par because we're not going at it every single night. And the writer does so by invoking some tired, sexist stereotypes. 

1. "Being a mother, one of the ultimate expressions of womanhood, can often leave a girl feeling stripped of her femininity." I'm 27, happily childless at the moment, and I'm very much a woman. Being a mother is NOT the ultimate expression of womanhood. Most people don't say that being a father is one of the ultimate expressions of manhood, so why do we still insist upon the opposite? Furthermore, even on days when I do feel less feminine than I'd like, sex with Beau doesn't suddenly make me "feel like a woman." Sex with my husband is a wonderful and intimate thing that's both carnal and emotional at the same time, but it doesn't really change how feminine I feel. Silly things make me feel feminine, like wearing pearls or putting on lip gloss or giggling with my girlfriends. I don't need to have sex with my husband every night to remember that I'm a woman.
2. "If you want your husband to act like a man, you need to treat him like a man... Women need any number of criteria met to feel loved. Men are far simpler. They need to be fed, they need to be appreciated, and they need to have sex. That is it. Really." Are you fucking kidding me? For all the whining and moaning that sexist men do about feminists, women like this are treating men like a step above cavemen. Personally, I feel incredibly loved when Beau cooks for me, like when he made us breakfast both Saturday AND Sunday this past weekend, and I hope he feels the same when I cook for him. But I'm not the only one who needs a little more than food, appreciation, and sex. We both need emotional support in our careers, we both need non-sexual physical affection, we both need time with our friends and families, we both need time separate from each other! Having sex with my husband every single night will not make him feel like more of a man. Treating him like a human being with complex emotions and needs, however, does help him feel like a man.
3. "You need to have a moment in each day that is just about the two of you." I agree with this sentiment. I love that Beau kisses me each morning before he leaves for work. I love IMing throughout the day about nothing and everything. I love watching Star Trek together. I love cuddling before bed. We have many moments that are just about the two of us--special moments don't have to be sex.
4. "Sex relieves stress." Uh, if you're in the mood to have sex, and thus properly aroused, sure, sex relieves stress. If you really don't feel like having sex, and thus can't relax your muscles enough to enjoy sex, it can be painful and the exact opposite of stress relief. While I certainly enjoy sex with Beau even if it's not a huge priority to me, sex is WAY better for me when I initiate or when we mutually initiate. If I'm really in the mood for sex, penetration can happen sooner, we can try multiple positions, I enjoy a longer duration of sex, and I'm basically guaranteed an awesome orgasm. I've never had sex when I really didn't want to, because my husband treats me like his beloved wife and not a blow-up sex toy, but I have had it when I was ambivalent about it. I still end up enjoying it, but it takes me a lot longer to be sufficiently aroused for penetration, and I'm sometimes too tired for more than two positions. I can't imagine how awful sex would be if I was really uninterested. 
5. "It is so much blasted fun... But tell a girl to have sex every night and she looks at you like you are crazy, An orgasm? Every night?" Again. Going back to #4. I don't have an orgasm every time I have sex. I don't know any woman who has an orgasm every single time she has sex, especially if she's having it when she really isn't in the mood.  

Tell me fellow married friends. Do you have sex with your spouse every single night? Or have you found a frequency that's a little less often, but more suitable to you two as a couple?