It’s time for another edition of SE(N)O, an essay series on A+ for personal stories we wish we could tell on the accessible-to-our-employers-and-everyone-we’ve-ever-known mainsite, but can’t for personal and professional reasons.
Oh hi there. You are here to read this piece, which is super special and really personal, which’s why I’m writing this super-long run-on sentence because although this entire essay is available to A+ members, the first paragraph of this essay is visible to everybody including search engines and employers and family members and this is just way too personal for that, so if you can only see this part you should really consider becoming an A+ member because then you will be contributing to our Survival Fund and you will be able to look beyond this paragraph and get the real story I’d really like to share with you because I love you and you are really smart and your hair looks great today and I feel like you and I could have something special, like this post, which I am making extra secret by writing all of this text, because I’m about to get really real and maybe there is some strong language in there and some stuff that I can only share with you, if you are an A+ member and desire to know the intimate details of my sex life with my long-term partner and how we survived lesbian bed death, so get in here.
We fuck. Everywhere. On everything. No surface, no one’s personal space is safe. We are in lust and we don’t care if you care. The sex is dirty, rough. Skirt hiked up fist deep face smashed up against the Pine-sol’d walls of a public restroom sex. Door unlocked fast fast hurry up waiting to get caught legs spread on the office desk sex. Drunken grasping gasping fearless live sex show on the patio of a drag bar concrete scraping knees sex. Words spoken shrieking neighbors stomping on the ceiling spanking subbing cunt red red red stop don’t stop safe word sex.
We collect pleasure, measured in multiple orgasms. You buy me a sterling silver Ring of O and a black hood. I pet your thigh as we shop for deviant accoutrements on JT’s Stockroom. I feel uninhibited, bare, with you, and something else is surfacing, too.
At a rally with a new queer activist friend a few years older than me, the topic of sex comes up. We are standing outside the police department building, holding signs on our lunch break. “Oh,” he says, sarcastically. “I wouldn’t know. We haven’t had sex in months.”
I don’t know how to react. “Really?” I ask, hoping the twinge of judgement I am feeling is not coloring the tenor of my voice, “Is that… OK… with you?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says nonchalantly. “Please. We’re practically married, for gods sake. It isn’t that important.”
When I go home, I share this gossip with you. “I kind of feel bad for them,” I say. “Do you think they’re really happy?”
When we aren’t fighting, we’re fucking. You go to counseling. I get my own place, but I never sleep there. Makeup sex is the best and worst kind of sex. Breakup sex is even better and worse. We know because we are in an endless loop of sex and crying and screaming and kissing and trauma and forgetting.
One night, I pack all my things in my car and immediately get pulled over for speeding. I buy spite cigarettes, which you find me smoking alone on the steps of my apartment that I never sleep in, puffing bursts of ghost-flavored resentment in your face as you apologize. I let you inside. We sleep in my bed for the first time. I am coming and crying. I bring my things back to your place. We don’t sleep at my place again.
We move to a new city. You are unemployed and rooted to the couch and deeply, deeply depressed. We have our worst breakup, the one where we both thought it was over for good. It’s not.
When you finally get a job — two jobs, in fact — we are working opposite shifts. This becomes our new normal. Leaving notes and text messages for each other: “Can you pick up __ on your way home?” “Did you feed the cat?” We sometimes go days without speaking to each other in person. You come home after I’m in bed and get up for your second job before I am awake. I have to examine the trajectory of the blankets on your side of the bed to discover whether you were even there. We are invisible lovers, imaginary friends, leaving traces of our existence in empty bowls in the sink, opened mail, and empty toilet paper rolls.
After three years, the sex tapers off. A gradual fade, but still a surprise, like when you spend the day inside and suddenly realize you missed the sun and everything is dark.
There are quizzes: “Do you have a healthy sex life?” “Are you sexually satisfied?” “Should you stay together?”
There are articles: “10 Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life.” “Is your sex life normal?”
There are strategies: schedule sex in advance, do it in the morning, do it even if you don’t want to.
There are long talks, tears, the constant fear that we are failing each other.
I am crying into my pillow and I don’t want you to know. If you hear me crying, you will know I am sad. If you hear me crying, you will know I am sad because we don’t fuck anymore. Because I said I was okay, but I’m really not okay. Because I don’t know what this means. Because I’m scared of what it might mean. Please don’t wake up. Please pretend you are not awake.
I put on a lace thong and corset, black fishnet thigh highs. I slip into a garter belt and snap the garters into place. I change the sheets and smooth the comforter. I tuck my hair behind my ear. I slip my heels off and sit on the bed. I wait. When you come home, you flop onto the couch. You look at me for a second, linger, say nothing. You talk about work, your shitty night. You get up and poke around aimlessly in the fridge. My face must show my disappointment, because you say, “What?” I say that you didn’t even notice me. You say that you did notice.
“Oh,” I say.
“What do you want me to say?” you ask.
“I don’t know,” I say and I close the bedroom door while I change into an old t-shirt.
I ask you if maybe you are asexual. You are not and you are annoyed by the question. What do I really mean? you ask. I say it’s OK if you are, but we should talk about it. You say that you are not. I say I’m just asking. You glare at me and then look away. This is the end of this discussion.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
“I don’t know. Um, putting on music…?”
“What for?”
“To make it less… awkward.”
“OK.”
“OK.”
“Did you brush your teeth?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, I did, too.
Scheduling sex is the absolute worst.
Understanding sexual communication and living it are not the same thing. I stand on stages and teach others about consent, about sexual communication, about hearing “yes” and “no,” about asking for what you want, about respecting what your partner wants. But I don’t know how to talk to you in our own bed. I don’t want you to associate sex with anxiety, desire with fear. I want you to know I love you, no matter what. You are crying anyway. I feel rejected anyway. You’re apologizing. Please, don’t apologize. We go to bed holding hands.
We have survived more than I ever could have fathomed at 22. When we met, we were flagrantly mismatched. We still are. I never could imagine myself settling down with one person, with a person like you. 10 years was a lifetime away. 10 years has been a lifetime. A lifetime is what I have with you.
You are the best and worst person I know. You smile with your ears. You adopt my weird idioms without crediting me. You make fun of my idioms. You are anal retentive about how to fold a t-shirt. You have places where trauma will probably never leave your body. You are imperfectly whole or close enough. No one has hurt me the way you have. No one has loved me the way you have. I like the way you smell like rising bread, sour and warm and familiar.
Saturday night, we check the DVR for shows we might have missed. Our shows. The ones we only watch with each other. I was out of town earlier in the week and I know you waited for me because of course you did. We sit in separate chairs: you on the couch with the cat, me in a corner chair with my laptop set up on a TV tray. I am drinking weak coffee. You are scrolling through Facebook on your iPad. There is nothing new on the DVR. We turn on Saturday Night Live, except it doesn’t start for another 30 minutes, so we leave it on the evening news.
I decide that I don’t want to schedule sex anymore. It is not worth the triggering, the crying, the awkward attempts at making what is horribly embarrassing feel sexy. I don’t care what anyone says about sex and healthy relationships. The times when our relationship was the most unhealthy were the times we were having sex the most. We are healthier than we’ve ever been. We are more in love than we ever have been. I love you more every single goddamn day. I look at your face and I think, “Damn. That’s a really good face.” I like your face.
I am very good at handling my own orgasms, when I need to. I don’t need this lukewarm sex, this take-your-vitamins fucking, fumbling and faking and unable to come because all I can think about is whether you are into it and I can tell you’re not. Sex shouldn’t feel rudimentary, like practicing the piano or filing your nails or leveling a shelf. I want to feel hot when we fuck. I want to know that you want me, that you want to taste me and fill me and be inside me. I want you to feel sexy, too, to feel comfortable in your skin, in your body. I would rather have hot-as-fuck sex once a year than awkward sex once a week.
Except for our sex life, our relationship is very healthy. No, our relationship is healthy, period. Who says that everyone has to have sex all the time? Who decides that you can’t have intimacy and love without sex? I decide that I am no longer worried about it. As soon as I stop worrying about it, it stops bothering me.
When we talk about sex now, we talk casually. “Do you want to maybe have sex this weekend? If you’re up for it?” We hope our timing matches up. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we end up falling asleep on the couch or getting sucked into a Netflix marathon. This is OK. When you are not in the mood for sex, but in the mood to play a little, you sometimes assist me with masturbation. “Boob-touching,” we very not-sexily call it. Sometimes you also whisper dirty secrets or breathe hot right behind my ear while I’m getting off. Sometimes you get turned on, too, and we end up having sex after all. Once, on our anniversary, you gifted me a new Feeldoe and a sex playlist. On the rare occasion that you press me up against the kitchen counter or bend me over the bed, it is a happy surprise. We are satisfied. It is enough.
I run into my intern at a local bar. Shortly after and maybe too-many-drinks-in, we are talking about our sex lives (because that’s an appropriate thing to talk to your intern about). I tell her that we only have sex every few months or so, sometimes less. I tell her it’s been almost a year since we’ve had sex. I tell her I’m okay with this, because I am. I am so okay with it. I am surprised, sometimes, how okay with it I am.
Her eyes open wide in surprise. She is not masking her reaction well. She is the age we were when we were fucking every day, more than once a day. She is in a relationship that is fresh and palpably hot. She can’t imagine 10 years of monogamy, much less going without sex for a whole year. I assure her I’m very satisfied with our relationship. These are not conversations you should have with your intern. I regret this conversation and these drinks. I can feel the pity in her offer to buy the next round. You were smart to stop drinking.
What intimacy looks like in a so-called sexless marriage:
- Talking to each other about our day and really listening;
- Sexual or romantic touch that is not meant to initiate sex;
- Being present together, putting down the phones and the devices once in a while;
- Treating each other with kindness;
- Respecting each other’s boundaries and desires;
- Calling each other to squee over funny things the cat does;
- Making space for each other as individual sexual people;
- Supporting each other in pursuing hobbies and passions apart from each other;
- Pursuing hobbies and passions together;
- Scratching each other’s backs (literally), which can be orgasmic all by itself, IMHO.
When you reach around my waist like that, I know what is coming. We fuck. Sometimes. When we feel like it. Mostly in our bed because we are too old for carpet burned knees and navigating couch cushions. We want comfort. We don’t need validation. We are sexual people with or without each other. Our sex is satisfying, fun. Fingers pressing exact knowing just where there there there don’t stop lip biting low growling coming embracing sex. Hair pulling face down say my name fun quick you know how I like it yelling dirty rough playful sex. Darling moaning slow on top fingers hair stroking sweet body rolling whispering whispering “I love you, I love you, I love you.” I love you.
This was a breathtaking, heart-warming read the likes of which I have scarcely seen on the wide internet. Thank you, Kaelyn.
These are high marks, Heather, because I know how much time you spend on the wide internet. Thank you!
I’m glad that all my coworkers are mysteriously gone so I could cry openly at this.
Thank you, KaeLyn.
I also cried at work today, but not about my sex life. Hooray for crying at work! So profesh! Don’t hold me to your patriarchal standards of office conduct. I’ll have emotions at my desk if I want to!
I’m not at work. I am crying. This is…better than the words I’m fumbling with. This is so, so, so moving, and so wonderful. Thank you KaeLyn.
This was beautiful and honest and raw. Amazing. Thank you for writing, KaeLyn.
Wow, wow, wow, this was amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. It was beautiful.
i’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, kaelyn. thank you so much for letting us into this part of your life. this is really beautiful&powerful.
well this is just so good
It fascinates me how different this experience can be for different couples.
I’ve had satisfying experiences with scheduling sex. It seems to take the pressure off. For me, I’m not worrying about when the next sexy times will happen. For my partner, she has time to prepare herself mentally, which means she is much more present.
Which isn’t to say you’re doing it wrong, of course! But it is interesting.
I totally agree, Dina. Making relationships work long-term often mean figuring our how to match libidos when your libidos are not perfectly in sync (so for most couples, really). I think scheduling sex, trying new things, etc, are all helpful for many couples.
You aren’t doing it wrong, either! :)
Yay! We’re all doing what we need to so we have healthy and enjoyable relationships! :D
Exactly!
Text to my spouse: “Oh, I should probably tell you our sex life is on the interwebs now.”
(FYI: Had permission to write this, full consent, it was not a surprise…though my partner chose not to read it in advance.)
Oh gosh I hope your spouse loves it.
I cried twice today at my desk. Once because I watched Diana Guerrero’s interview talking about her parents’ deportation. The second time because I read this very raw, intimate personal essay. This is something I didn’t know I wanted from the internet. It shook me up but was also very comforting. I’m glad you shared this with us, KaeLyn <3
this is SO GREAT!!!!!!! and so needed!!!!! thoughts I’ve been having for a long time, but haven’t been articulate enough to put into words, and haven’t found anywhere else. Thank you.
^^ “this is something I didn’t know I wanted from the internet.”
Yes, yes yes. Let me sob over here at how this essay shook me. Thank you for writing and for showing us poetry and illustrating a lifetime with another person in the most honest manner.
So much yes! I loved this and am personally comforted by it :) thank you
This was amazing. And it feels like something that came into my life at just the right time. So thank you for writing it and thank you for sharing it.
KaeLyn this is so beautiful.
I feel like this essay is going to be one of those ones I repeatedly go back to and think about.
Thanks so much for this beautiful essay. I actually caved and got A+ because I really wanted to read it, no lie.
This story strikes a cord with me because I recently realized I was putting way too much significance on sex as a symbol for the wellbeing of the entire relationship. I mean yeah, sex can be important, but you don’t need to be having constant+amazing sex to be a cool person or to be in real love. (And sex is way better when you’ve let go of the toxic sex=validation thing anyway.)
I used to subscribe to the idea that if you weren’t having regular sex, there was something wrong with your relationship. That can still be true, in some cases. Or it can not be true at all, you know? Better questions than are you getting any are: “Do you feel loved? Does your partner make you feel sexy and desirable? Are you attracted to each other? Are you happy?”
Welcome to A+. We’re glad to have you here! I hope this is what you were looking for. :)
Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to join A+ for a while. This just pushed me over the edge. :)
yep definitely cool person worries!
“And sex is way better when you’ve let go of the toxic sex=validation thing anyway.”
This. I definetly also shared the worrying, and still sometimes do. But when I don’t – things are great. It’s odd, is it not?
This was really comforting.
Thank you so much. I needed exactly this right now.
Beautiful. Thank you for your honesty.
What can I say that hasn’t been said? I opted for an A+ account just to read it because I needed this so much. So honest and real. Thank you.
Welcome to the A+ side of things. I hope you found what you were hoping to find over here and that you’ll stay a while!
Kisses to you!
absolutely stunning and so real. thank you, KaeLyn.
A+ A+ material, woah.
I think reading this changed me a little.
Thank you so much for sharing! My sex life is so on/off – there are periods of crazy fucking and then droughts where I wonder why I don’t feel like it, then there are middle periods with ‘average amounts’ (??) of sex! It’s hard sometimes not to worry that you’re not having enough or that your relationship is irreperably broken or or or… you know, all the things.
Writing like this is reassuring, and generous, and important. I’m so glad you shared it KaeLyn.
Yeah, all the things. Thanks society. It took a while for me to realize that my sexuality and sexual worth are not reliant on my partner’s desire for sex. I can still be sexual, as can they, without keeping a tally of how often we are “doing it.” Don’t get me wrong. I think not having sex can mean that something isn’t working in a relationship. And I feel like my partner finds me sexy. It would be different, perhaps, if I thought they were no longer attracted to me. But sometimes, esp in long term relationships, your libidos are just off. For us it’s that we work opposite shifts and we’re both exhausted at the end of the day. That has nothing to do with with The Relationship, you know?
For me, this sucker cuts both ways. I have found myself feeling like I want *too much* sex. Like there’s some ideal number of times to have or want sex and if you’re above that or below that, you fail at sex life. Wtf?
A lot of the anxiety in our sex life was around that. We’re trying to let go of that universal ideal and figure out what the ideal is for US. And thank goodness for that!
I find this framework really helpful (even if the author is a bit heterocentric).
Super intersting, @dina! I like the different libido types laid out in the article. I don’t know how scientific this is…lol…but it gets to the heart of the matter. Sex means different things to different people in the context of a relationship (or in general). Finding what works for you and your love is what matters and it may not match up to the societal expectations for how much sex you “should” be having. Thanks for sharing this resource!
I think everything wonderful has already been said. I’m so glad I read this essay. Thanks
So.great.
Awesome, just…awesome. There’s not enough writing about the realities of sex in a long-term loving relationship, queer, straight whatevs. Thank you for sharing, so honestly and so well.
Not much of a commenter, but wow I loved this, and wow did I need to read it right now in my life. Thanks!
Thank you for this. I loved it. I am also in a 10+ year relationship and our sex life is different year to year. And thank you for the reminder that what works for one person and one couple will vary, of course, and we shouldn’t judge ourselves against others. You do you.
Yup. It can be different for every long-term relationship, that’s for sure! Sounds like you have a great relationship!
I have been reading autostraddle on the regular for several years. Finally signed up for a+ to read this article in particular. I am totally struggling with my fiancee’s essentially absent sex drive. It creates a push-pull between us that tears me apart. This was beautiful. I want to feel this way so badly, but I feel more like all the things Riese explains in “You need help: So your girlfriend never ever ever wants to have sex”. But it was so nice this week to read both and not feel so alone.
Thank you for sharing your experience and for joining A+!
I also apprecaited the You Need Help piece that Riese responded to this past week and I agree wholeheartedly with her advice. There is no one right answer to any of this. For anyone where one person’s libido is significantly higher or lower than their partner’s, it is a challenge. As an individual, you deserve to be happy, as does your partner. That may mean you find other people. Or that you find a way to make it work. Either way, you are definitely, definitely not alone.
Instead of focusing on the frequency of sex as you look for answers, maybe consider the questions like this: Are you happy? Is your partner happy? Do you feel desired and sexy as a person? Do you feel loved and appreciated? Do you still have romantic/sexual feelings for each other? How important is sex to both of you? Can you imagine living a life together without sex and being happy together? What are your sexual needs, if you are 100% honest with yourself?
Good luck finding the answers that work for you. Whatever you are feeling, there is nothing wrong with you or with your feelings. :) Wishing you happiness in love and life!
Thank you so much for these words. I spent a lot of time reflecting on these questions as well as my actions. Today has been a hard day so I’m revisiting this. But overall, tensions have eased a lot and I’ve been in better spirits despite no change in frequency. I’ve realized I’ve been focusing so much on my frustration with her missing sex drive that I haven’t been taking care of our whole relationship- making sure she feels appreciated, doing the little things etc. I don’t know what set me back today but I got stuck in sexually frustrated and grumpy land. When it comes down to it, my issue is about desire. I want her to want me. I can meet my own needs for orgasm, but I miss the times when she was just needing to have me in her arms and bed right that second. I want to be sexually desired. Even when we do have sex, she does it because I want it and while that is good and loving it just isn’t the same. Hopefully writing it out tonight helps me move on because dwelling on the frustrating parts only makes it worse. Thanks again for this post and thoughful reply. :)
I feel you so hard, Chris! I also miss the urgency of desire we used to have, that frenetic need to fuck like you are ripping out of your skin. I know some people work hard to recreate that magic and for some people, there may be things that work. I don’t know. For me, a big part was getting over the guilt that I had, that I was putting on myself, that I desire sex. There is nothing wrong with me because I want to fuck. Nor is there anything wrong with my boo because they don’t want to as much.
The question is how to navigate this in a long term relationship. For me, the intimacy and sexual touching we still have is enough. Even if it doesn’t always lead to sex, my partner can still grab me in such a way that turns me on and lets me know they are still passionate about me. It is enough intimacy for me. But it may not be enough for someone else. And that is 100% valid. Everyone deserves a relationship that fulfills them and makes them happy. :)
There were too many parts that seemed to have come from my own soul and I needed to take a minute to remind myself that it’s okay, that you’re right – we’re happy, and infrequent hot-as-fuck sex will always always be better than frequent bad sex.
I know I’m late to read and reply to this – but this article has made me so emotional. I can feel this article in my gut. I can’t figure out if this article makes me feel better or worse after reading it, but the fact that it’s making me feel as much as I am is amazing in and of itself. Great writing and great work. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for the kind comment! Just go with the feelings, you know? I don’t offer our experience as advice or a cautionary tale or anything…just as what it is…whatever that is… I’m glad you got something from it.
This is succcch a precious, empowering, vulnerable share. Don’t have words. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It will help me find my way.
<3.
I remember this from the staff-reading at A-Camp and just want to smoosh my face into this post with love.
This part, especially, hit me right in the feelings because it’s So Real To Me Right Now:
I stand on stages and teach others about consent, about sexual communication, about hearing “yes” and “no,” about asking for what you want, about respecting what your partner wants. But I don’t know how to talk to you in our own bed. I don’t want you to associate sex with anxiety, desire with fear. I want you to know I love you, no matter what. You are crying anyway. I feel rejected anyway. You’re apologizing. Please, don’t apologize.
<3
Aww, thanks, Aida! That means so much!
Even for us sex educators, actual sex and sexual communication can be so complicated.
Sending you <3
This was lovely and personal and thank you. I have a lot of feelings now that I don’t know what to do with or what they ever are exactly but I’ll figure it out.
<3
This was awesome when you read it at A-Camp this year – I just wanted to reiterate that because its still just as awesome reading it now.
Thanks so much! I read a slightly shortened version at A-Camp, so I’m glad you got to read it, too!
Definitely relate to this and the fluctuations and questions during a relationship that lasts our a decade. Thanks for writing this.
Doing a deep dive of the Autostraddle archives now that I’m an A+ member and found this gorgeous piece of writing. Came for the sex advice, ended up weeping. Thank you for sharing this incredible intimacy with us, KaeLyn.
Thank you so much for writing this KaeLyn. Not only did you make me feel less alone in everything you wrote, you writing this created a safe space for others to chime in and that is so huge. Thank you from the bottom of this Dallas lesbian’s heart <3
Reading this made me feel like my whole body exhaled and muscles in my face that I didn’t even know were tense relaxed. Thank you – I needed this and am grateful.