But that's not traditional gender roles. Traditional roles would say "don't EVER have sex with a woman you aren't married to."

Without getting into too many details about private things, after a woman gives birth to a child she's typically not in an intimate mood for a long time (much longer than when she's medically cleared). So I've never counted consecutive rejections, but obviously there are going to be dry spells. In this case, a majority of it will be the woman not being in the mood. These things happen.

Of course, a marriage is different. The conversations never happen in the terms you mention. And it's not just one person's needs or another you need to think of, it's the strength of the relationship itself. A strong romantic relationship fuels a strong sexual relationship and a strong sexual relationship fuels a strong romantic relationship in a virtuous cycle. Of course, the opposite is also true. A degraded romantic relationship leads to sexlessness and sexlessness degrades a romantic relationship. You can have a thriving romantic relationship without sex in the beginning because ALL OF THE FEELINGS are activated. But as a relationship matures a healthy sex life becomes a core component of commitment and intimacy. I just don't even recognize the transactional language you're using in the context of sex. It kind of sounds like prostitution