A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from someone who’d read my BDSM pages on my Web site. He said he’d been married for twenty years, had always wanted to explore and experiment with BDSM, but had never shared this with his wife or told her about any of his fantasies.
Now, I get a lot of emails like that, and my response is always the same: “Tell her! You can’t expect to get what you want if you never ask for what you want.”
About three days later, I got another email from the same person, who said “I told my wife I wanted to explore BDSM, and she said that she had always wanted to do the same thing, but never told me. In fact, before we met, she was active in the BDSM community.”
Now, I get that response rather often, too–you’d be amazed how many people, after finally working up the courage o share their deep dark secret (whatever it may be) with their partners, hear “Oh, yeah? I’ve always wanted the same thing!”
But still. Twenty years. Twenty years these people were married, and they never told the other person about their fantasies and interests. Twenty years. Twenty… YEARS.
Jesus Christ. Twenty years???!! What the hell have these two been talking about for the last two decades? The weather? The TV show “Friends?” How do you spend two decades in an intimate relationship with someone, and never once talk about what you want your sexual life to look like?
I believe it.
I believe it.
Yup, I encounter similar stories all the time. It’s sad.. really sad.
It took my parents about 25-30 years before they really got their sex life in line. And we’re not even talking about exploring any major kinks.
Yup, I encounter similar stories all the time. It’s sad.. really sad.
It took my parents about 25-30 years before they really got their sex life in line. And we’re not even talking about exploring any major kinks.
Well, you know how engrossing “Friends” is, and there’s always the laundry to discuss…
Well, you know how engrossing “Friends” is, and there’s always the laundry to discuss…
We realized that those people in long-term relationships around us, for the most part, didn’t really *know* each other. They knew only the veneer that they each showed the outside world, but never worked on building a relationship with the person inside! “No wonder the divorce rate is so high!” we told ourselves. “Let’s never make that mistake!”
I still see it, and it amazes me. I wonder how often it’s that, as people change, they worry that their partners won’t like the “new” stuff, so they suppress it. Sure, I know that they also can hide a life-long dream from their SO, which is even more perplexing, and even less understandable.
It seems to me that, for at least the first few years, intimate relationships are pretty much *all about* compatibility testing. What are these people thinking?!
We realized that those people in long-term relationships around us, for the most part, didn’t really *know* each other. They knew only the veneer that they each showed the outside world, but never worked on building a relationship with the person inside! “No wonder the divorce rate is so high!” we told ourselves. “Let’s never make that mistake!”
I still see it, and it amazes me. I wonder how often it’s that, as people change, they worry that their partners won’t like the “new” stuff, so they suppress it. Sure, I know that they also can hide a life-long dream from their SO, which is even more perplexing, and even less understandable.
It seems to me that, for at least the first few years, intimate relationships are pretty much *all about* compatibility testing. What are these people thinking?!
You know how you were writing before about how you experience most unresolved situations in life as problems to be solved (if possible)? Lots of people don’t apply that kind of pragmatic, clear-headed thinking to their sex lives. They don’t discuss sex. They don’t think analytically about it. They sure as hell won’t cop to *planning* it. I’ll guess that many otherwise sensible folk don’t have any idea that they even *could* shape their sex life with another person. Or more than one person! It’s all somehow supposed to “happen”, with no thought of how one communicates with another. This is how we get “happily” married people suddenly having secret affairs after 20 years, and when caught or when conscience forces a confession, the one who, gasp, surprise, acted on desires that he or she had been repressing for ages, gets to offer the lame excuse for an explanation, “It just Happened.” No admission of planning (and daydreaming is a stage of planning), even to themselves. Mainstream Americans (and for the most part, I am one still, but recovering) compartmentalize their sexuality like crazy. It doesn’t occur to many of us that we can go into our relationships and conduct them with our eyes open, instead of discovering everything by accident or expecting our partners somehow to take us off the hook by magically intuiting what we want. That way we don’t have to admit anything, we don’t have to take (intelligent) risks or live out loud, we don’t have to take responsibility for our own pleasure and our own behavior in pursuit of that pleasure. Why tell your partner, “I like my toes licked” if it’s so much more “romantic” to lie in suspense thinking –maybe!– tonight she’ll do it spontaneously without being asked, and I will know she can read my mind, and we are each other’s Density! No messy desires, no long talks, just awkward silences that might be rewarded by a lucky guess… oh! And there’s your favorite word, “lucky”, again.
All right, I’m ranting and getting silly. I think I’ll go back to work and ponder later what I’m trying to say.
You know how you were writing before about how you experience most unresolved situations in life as problems to be solved (if possible)? Lots of people don’t apply that kind of pragmatic, clear-headed thinking to their sex lives. They don’t discuss sex. They don’t think analytically about it. They sure as hell won’t cop to *planning* it. I’ll guess that many otherwise sensible folk don’t have any idea that they even *could* shape their sex life with another person. Or more than one person! It’s all somehow supposed to “happen”, with no thought of how one communicates with another. This is how we get “happily” married people suddenly having secret affairs after 20 years, and when caught or when conscience forces a confession, the one who, gasp, surprise, acted on desires that he or she had been repressing for ages, gets to offer the lame excuse for an explanation, “It just Happened.” No admission of planning (and daydreaming is a stage of planning), even to themselves. Mainstream Americans (and for the most part, I am one still, but recovering) compartmentalize their sexuality like crazy. It doesn’t occur to many of us that we can go into our relationships and conduct them with our eyes open, instead of discovering everything by accident or expecting our partners somehow to take us off the hook by magically intuiting what we want. That way we don’t have to admit anything, we don’t have to take (intelligent) risks or live out loud, we don’t have to take responsibility for our own pleasure and our own behavior in pursuit of that pleasure. Why tell your partner, “I like my toes licked” if it’s so much more “romantic” to lie in suspense thinking –maybe!– tonight she’ll do it spontaneously without being asked, and I will know she can read my mind, and we are each other’s Density! No messy desires, no long talks, just awkward silences that might be rewarded by a lucky guess… oh! And there’s your favorite word, “lucky”, again.
All right, I’m ranting and getting silly. I think I’ll go back to work and ponder later what I’m trying to say.
Been there, done that. Not gonna do it again. Can’t say, “Oh, I don’t see HOW people can just not talk to each other!” because I did that myself with someone I cared out.
But now that I’ve learned how to bring up scary things with a partner, it’s not so scary. In fact, it’s downright mandatory. And can have wonderful results.
Been there, done that. Not gonna do it again. Can’t say, “Oh, I don’t see HOW people can just not talk to each other!” because I did that myself with someone I cared out.
But now that I’ve learned how to bring up scary things with a partner, it’s not so scary. In fact, it’s downright mandatory. And can have wonderful results.