To answer your main question……usually it’s because except for sex women sometimes feel powerless.

Actually, I don’t withhold sex from my husband and I have twice now refused to do his laundry until his attitude changed! So, maybe "always" should be "usually" and "never" should be "seldom".

Couldn’t tell you. But this shows me that people care more about their own personal wants then the relationship itself and they think that their spouse is a child considering some people take away things or bribe their child to get them to do what they want. Your spouse isn’t a child, people!

would you want to have sex with someone who was treating you poorly? I doubt it.

Withholding sex as a form of behavior modification is a punishment. Really it is. You’re punishing someone by withholding physical love.

But I do agree with what you said here:

"Thanks to religion, mass media, family and friends, most of us have a warped and contradictory view of sex to begin with. Do people not realize that this type of "punishment" isn’t healthy for a relationship? …. And doesn’t that punish both partners? And erode trust and intimacy?"

Yes it does erode both trust and intimacy. Here’s why:

Religion: Yes many religions either dictate frequency or the kind of sex that’s allowed, and how its allowed and when its allowed. Foolish because as human beings we can have sex whenever we want to and pretty much however we want to.

However some religions try to control our minds and put our intellect and libidos in check and into a neat boundary marked box.

So yeah, getting the cold heave-ho for religious beliefs — sucks.

Mass Media: Uses sex to sell all sorts of stuff. They use it to sell products to adults, teenagers and tweens. Basically sex is the vehicle to get your attention and make you believe you want something.

You know — just like religion. Except instead of trying to get your soul, they want your money.

Family & Friends: Yep. The guilt and shame game. Family and friends will pressure you as to who to have sex with, why or more specifically why you shouldn’t have sex or only have it with certain people or at certain times or in a certain way. Its called peer pressure. The more peers pressuring you the more likely you get conformity.

So withholding sex because it looks bad to your peers (family and friends) seems easy. You’re selling your partner out for primitive filial support.

Works the same was as religion except instead they want to control you through peer pressure.

Punishing Both Partners: Certainly does. Think about this, if you could have a loving, close, emotional and explosively sexual relationship with a man/woman that you really love, wouldn’t that enhance the marital or partnership bond? Wouldn’t that make the relationship more joyful and rewarding? You can be platonic on several levels and supportive, make sacrifices for each other, but if you don’t satisfy that itch, why be in a relationship like that? You could just be best friends and date other people.

So I think it punishes both partners. The one withholding sex is losing respect and attention of the punished spouse or partner, and if its done often enough the punished person will want to go find someone who will reward him or her. Usually through divorce, separation, breakup or affairs.

What’s better? Healthy sex life to be sure.

And sex relieves a lot of stress if both partners take the time to get some joy out of life.

I completely agree that withholding sex serves only to undermine the whole relationship. It’s completely unhealthy behavior.

The whole mentality of "withholding" and "punishing" stems largely from inability to deal with problems constructively. Some people have good communication skills and others don’t, for many reasons. Babies can’t talk, so they communicate by crying. Some adults simply never acquire the ability to talk things over and resolve issues in a rational manner, and they fall back on the equivalent of a child’s tantrum.