“That sex was bogue,” I say to my partner.
We’re lying face-to-face, sprawled out after a particularly boring romp. He’s just come back from the bathroom, where he deposited his used condom in the trash and politely asked our dog not to eat it.
“I know!” he says with emphasis, and we laugh. “What the fuck?”
My partner and I usually have sex a couple of times a week. I’m the one with the higher sex drive, or maybe I’m the one with hangups who likes to beg for more sex, who knows. But over the last three days, we’ve somehow had sex four times. We were on a roll and it was amazing, until this time. This time was definitely overkill.
It’s quality over quantity, folks.
What made the sex bad? We were tired as fuck. We’d just come from a sexy event, Bedtime Confessions, where people share their sexual stories of healing, pain, shame, and eroticism. I think somewhere inside I felt we had to have celebratory sex, after hearing so many inspiring and gorgeous tales.
I had tears in my eyes from yawning when I pulled him onto me and began rubbing myself against him.
And then I said, in a voice that can only be described as elven child, “Penis. Vagina. Penis. Vagina.”
Why anyone has sex with me is beyond me.
He resisted, claiming he was tired (he probably could have just said, “god, you’re a creep,” but he’s nice).
I sighed, and he came back with, “Can we just have sex with no foreplay?”
“Of course, this whole night was foreplay!” I responded.
We disrobed separately and he stumbled over to the condoms. Lied down next to me, strapped one on, and rolled back toward me.
“Spoon or on top?” He asked.
“Um …” I yawned.
“I’ll just get on top,” he said, dragging himself into position.
And in he went. My body stiffened a bit at the immediate entry, but my mind was like, “Yay, four times in three days, we’re unstoppable!” (Yes, that's foreshadowing: letting the mind win, over the body, is never advisable.)
Ten minutes of sex ensued. I heard the standard noises coming from my mouth, but for the life of me, I could not find the spot. You know the one, the one where all thoughts exit and sensation takes over. All I could feel was non-latex condom, and usually, the condom is not an issue.
Much of time, my partner and I have such strong sexual energy that all I can feel is shivers and zaps and opening. My inner dialogue becomes something like, “let go, surrender, open, let go, omg, yes, yes, omg …” until there is no inner dialogue, just feeling and shuddering. We ride a warm energy spiral over and over, through my heart, into his, down through his cock, into my pussy, and back to my heart again.
But tonight, no dice. Tonight, random thoughts of to-do list items, the desire to get back into it, touching his balls to get him excited, trying to ride on his excitement, failing.
“Huh, I guess all that massage and coconut oil and connecting we normally do before sex is something I actually need,” I think. Which, of course, is how the feminine arousal trajectory works.
I give into the fact that my orgasm is a distant dream, and I do what I can to make his orgasm fantastic, knowing he would do the same for me. He comes, we part, he runs off into the bathroom.
He lies down, I laugh, and he asks, “What?”
“That sex was bogue,” I say.
He laughs. “I know! What the fuck? So boring.”
“So boring!” I agree. “Why didn’t I say something?”
“We should have said something. Next time,” he says.
“Next time. I love you. Ugh, now I’m all awake and can’t sleep. So bogue.”
“I love you.”
And we flit off to sleep.
***
The moral of this story: don't push your body. After all, your body is of the utmost importance during sex. Having sex just to have it, having sex to prove that you can, or even to appease a lover: the body knows it's not ready. It will not only resist pleasure in the moment; it can make sex in the future even more difficult. Slow down and wait until you really, really desire it. And even then, go slow.