I’ve been thinking about sex a lot lately. It’s supposedly a natural act, and yet, we make such hash about it. By we, I mean we humans. We make it convoluted and complicated, sometimes sucking the joy right out of it. We’ve infused it with sanctimony and put ridiculous constraints on it. It’s a wonder we have sex at all.
I’ve been told I’m not womanly because I don’t think sex has to be coupled with love in order to be enjoyable. It’s a tired trope that men can have sex without feelings, but that a woman cannot. I once told a female friend of mine that I would look at people on the street and think about whether I would have sex with them or not. She was aghast and told me women didn’t do that. I looked at her as if she had grown another head. She was saying to my face that what I said I did, I didn’t actually do. Or else, she was telling me that I was not a woman. Later, in talking to another female friend, she said she did the same thing. I shouldn’t have needed the outside collaboration, but it was a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one. I feel like a freak much of the time, and I don’t need someone calling me a liar to my face.
I learned a long time ago that I think about sex differently than most women. I have a high libido, and I would love to have sex every day. I’ve been very upfront with potential partners about how much I love sex, and most men are intrigued and titillated—at first. But, then when they realize I actually mean what I said, they freak out. They get hung up on thinking that they can’t satisfy me, and nothing I could say would reassure them. Sometime in my thirties, I realized what produced this gap in expectation. Many of my male ex-partners have been with women who weren’t truthful about how much they liked sex. They made their partners feel like twice a week was a lot. So, when I said I wanted sex every day, they assumed I was exaggerating. Then, when I proved I was actually as horny I said I was, that threw my partners for a loop.
It’s frustrating as hell to not be taken seriously. I don’t know if my ex-partners were just too happy to get into my pants to pay attention to what I was saying or if they really thought I was exaggerating, but I learned pretty quick not to take a man at face value when he said he loved a woman with a high sex drive. I’ve only had one male partner who matched me in that department, sadly. Ironically, I’ve had no problems with my female partners, which is my anecdotal proof that women are just as into sex as men are, if not more.
I write two more thousand words because I have plenty to say on this subject. I wish I had known when I was in my early twenties that my high libido wasn’t a fluke or a flaw. I wasted too many years worrying about hurting my (male) partner’s ego in the sack, and I refuse to do it any longer. Any man who feels threatened by my ‘insatiable’ need for sex isn’t welcome in my bed. So far, Rembrandt has been willing and able every time I want to have sex, but we’ll see if that continues. In several of my past relationships, the sex had been plentiful and hot in the first few weeks before it fell off. It’s hard to tell with Rembrandt because we met under inauspicious circumstances. We met at First Ave, and then Julianna was murdered a few days later. I saw Rembrandt a few times after that, but then his eye was gouged out in an attack by my stalker. He spent most of his time the week after rehabbing, but he managed to squeeze me in a few times. We didn’t have sex that first week he was home from the hospital, but we did, carefully, the second. I still don’t know how often he’d prefer to have sex, but I’ve made it clear that I want it as often as possible.
I get several responses to my latest post. SassyBrunette writes, “I’m a woman in my late thirties, and I only date guys in their early twenties because they can get it up early and often. The one time I dated a guy my age, he was in bed by ten-thirty after watching the news, and he was satisfied to have sex three times a week. I dumped his ass after three months of that bullshit. Right now, my paramour is a twenty-year-old sophomore studying biology. MINE!” AloneButNotLonely says, “I’m a single woman in my late fifties. Back when I was a teenagers, girls were supposed to say no whenever they were pressed for sex. The trouble was, I never wanted to say no; I always wanted to say yes. Which I did more often than not. That got me in trouble with my parents who didn’t want a slut for a daughter. They sent me off to boarding school for the rest of high school. Girls only. There were teachers, though, and some of them were male—and willing to get it on with a randy teenage girl. Fast-forward thirty-plus years, and you’ll find me on my couch watching the NFL more often than not, alone. When I do have company, it’s only for a night—two at the most. I like my privacy and plenty of legroom.” JackinIt contributes, “I am a guy in my forties, and I’ve always had a hard time with the idea that men are supposed to want sex all the time. My last three girlfriends dumped me because I’d rather talk about Nietzsche and Flaubert than have sex any day of the week. One of them called me a faggot, saying I must be into men because I wouldn’t even look at her. Truth be told, she disgusted me with her voracious appetites for Iris Johansen books and reality TV shows. I’m better off when I’m alone.”