Things that I find concerning: That some lists of abusive behaviors include “withholding sex”.
What happened to “you can refuse sex for whatever reason, even no reason”?
What happened to “no one is entitled to demand sex from you”?
I mean, look at this:

Being “asexual” is listed, along with being insulting and demeaning (as if it was equivalent to those things), as an abusive behavior that should be a reason for societal outcry.
Other sites say that “withholding sex” is fine when it is due to a medical condition. However, the person not providing sex is then expected to get their condition treated as soon as possible so they are capable of providing sex again:

So, not getting your sex-preventing medical condition treated is abuse, and not “refusing to offer alternate means of pleasure”, whatever that means, is also considered abuse.
And what I get from this is that if you’re in a relationship, you are outright expected to provide sex unless you have a medical exemption.
It’s not like this kind of expectation fuels marital rape and relationship violence or anything.
Yet another site adds to this, noting that mental illness is not a valid excuse unless you try to fix it so that you can provide sex “normally”.

At worst, withholding can manifest itself in ways that may be a red flag for general controlling or manipulative behavior, or it can be done in ways that could be mean or abusive for other reasons (such as if it’s done insultingly).
However, the action itself is not wrong and no one is owed sex even when the person refusing to have it is trying to control others through that. They still have a right to refuse any sex they don’t want and to set whatever standards they wish before they have sex.
But I may be kind of biased here. After all, I have pretty ridiculous standards these days despite being a professional sex toy.
It’s too dangerous to allow being in a relationship to be a default “yes, you gotta have sex or you’re evil.”
On the other hand, it isn’t fair to sexual people to demand that they be in sexless relationships.
The middle ground, I think, is that anyone can refuse sex, and anyone can refuse to stay in the relationship, and “we have too little/too much sex” is considered a valid, non-abusive grounds to leave the relationship.


