The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (18 page)

Suggested Web Links

IRC HELP

www.irchelp.org

LESBIANS CLICK

Directory of links to online lesbian communities
www.lesbiansclick.com/Online_Communities/index.html

CLASSIC DYKES

www.classicdykes.com

LESBOTRONIC

www.lesbotronic.com

STRAP-ON.ORG

www.strap-on.org

SOURCE OF QUOTE

“Signs of Healthy Boundaries” reprinted from a flyer by Co-Dependents Anonymous.

chapter eight

Sex and Partnership

We’ve been together for 27 years and still very much enjoy an active sex life. We have a fun game of keeping track of how many different places we can have sex. We have made love in 40 states and 11 countries
.

LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND QUEER WOMEN have all kinds of sexual partnerships. We have lovers, play partners, longtime sweethearts, regular fuck buddies, domestic partners, Daddies, bois, girls, Mistresses, Masters, slaves, Tops, bottoms, and in some locales, legally recognized wedded spouses.

We have sex with women and men, partners who identify as transgendered, traditionally gendered, and ambiguously gendered—and partners who reject the notion of gender altogether.

We may dream of committed life partners, two dogs and a cat, the house with the garden (and maybe a child or two), and we may attempt this with a number of partners over the course of a lifetime. We enjoy longtime friendships with occasional forays into erotic play and decades-long monogamous relationships.

We live in committed polyamorous relationships, where our network of lovers—and their lovers, ex-lovers, best friends, and roommates—become our extended family. We have sex with exes and exes of exes.

In our S/M play, we may negotiate for hours with a new partner with whom we expect to share a one-time scene. Or we may engage in ongoing negotiations with a regular partner with the intention of building toward a 24/7 relationship. We may negotiate a contract with a slave or Master that spells out in numbered articles and paragraphs the duties and privileges of each of our roles.

Erotic Intimacy

Clearly, sex in the context of a relationship is something many of us value highly—and while our definition of the word
relationship
varies as widely as our sexual interests, we have in common the desire for ongoing, intimate sexual connection. It’s the interplay of two (or more) people bringing their whole selves to sex that compels many of us. You can, of course, enjoy that erotic exchange with a brand-new lover or someone with whom you intend to share one night of sex—and one night only. But it is the element of
time
that creates those possibilities many of us are drawn to explore.

You can expand and deepen your erotic life with the encouragement of a supportive partner. Cheering on your partner’s erotic discoveries may give you permission to further your own sexual explorations. She may bring to the relationship sexual experience and interests that will enrich your sex life. You may discover gratification in teaching your partner a thing or two—many of us take delight in showing a partner new sources of pleasure.

We have questions about our sexualities and gender that cannot be answered in a weekend, and ongoing themes that evolve over years of exploration. Our partners are more than steadfast support or critical witnesses. Our partners hold a long view of us. With years behind and years ahead, they can help us keep our sexualities in perspective. They have watched the changes in our sexual practices, desires, and bodies. They can help us remember our stated wishes and help us keep the momentum of our sex lives rolling.

My partner likes my body. She knows I am not happy with being in too feminine a body and accepts my masculinity. I had fears of telling her about this until a year ago, as my ex always told me I was too masculine. She gets upset, though, that I don’t like my breasts being touched but has come to understand why. She is the first one to accept me as I am.

Building on shared experience, sex can become more intimate—and more intuitive, playful, and vital—and can bring into being a more deeply intimate relationship.

I didn’t realize just how much love can affect fucking, but it really does make a difference.

I think great sex is very contextual. What I enjoy depends on the person I am with, and the relationship I have with them. I guess my ideal would be to be with someone I love completely, and be intimate with them, sexual with them, regularly—as an expression of our love for one another.

This deepening of erotic intimacy is something that many people long for. They may be disappointed to discover that love and commitment don’t guarantee a satisfying sexual connection—or sustain sexual interest over the long haul. (Faced with that disappointment, they may conclude their partner is not “the one” and move on.)

Thankfully, the qualities that make for thriving sexual relationships are ones you can cultivate, both in yourself and in your relationship.

What Kind of Sex Life Do You Want, Anyway?

Before you can say what kind of relationship you want, it helps to think about what kind of sex life you envision for yourself. You may have completed a Yes/ No/Maybe exercise—either as a way of discovering your desires (see chapter 2, Desire and Fantasy) or in negotiating with a partner (see chapter 7, Communication, and chapter 15, Play Nice!…). You probably already know which of the activities in the “Erotic Play” list in chapter 2 you’d like to try. Now take it a step further.

Sure, you know you’d like to receive cunnilingus from your partner for hours, nonstop, if it were possible. Or that your best orgasms occur when you’ve got a chrome dildo in your butt and your partner squeezes your nipples as you hold a vibrator to your clit.

But what kind of erotic
life
would you like?

Your sexual concerns may be so wrapped up in the needs of a particular relationship or partner that you haven’t taken the opportunity to simply imagine what you want for yourself. Period. No one else’s expectations. No one else’s baggage.

Begin with your imagination. Don’t worry if your flights of fancy are just that—let your fantasies loose and worry about plausibility later:

The sex life of my dreams would allow me to have sex with who I want, when I want, whether I was in a relationship or not. I’d probably have one steady partner, with the understanding that we are free to have sexual experiences with other people. I’d engage in activities with men and women, but mostly women. I would feel free and uninhibited. I would be pleased with myself.

While at first glance this may look like an unrealistic ideal (the kind that can have you wallowing in dissatisfaction), this is actually a quite attainable goal. OK, within reasonable limitations. Why
shouldn’t
you have sex with whomever you want when you want? Why
not
have as your goal feeling free and uninhibited and being pleased with yourself?

No STDs. No pregnancy. Cum tastes like grape soda (both male and female). Many different people, ages, body types, organ styles. All sexual activities within moral reason. I feel better about my body.

So what if what you want is completely absurd? Behind the impossibilities lie elements of plausibility. OK, so ejaculate may not taste like a fruit drink, but the rest of this woman’s ideal sex life is quite within the realm of possibility.

As are these:

If I could order a new sex life I wouldn’t change anything about the current one—the only difference would be for me to have a higher sex drive so I could satisfy my woman more.

My partner and I can’t keep our hands off each other. We engage in every sexual activity imaginable—fisting, S/M, using strap-ons, etc. I feel wonderful and sexy.

I see myself having a family of friends, some of whom are also lovers. I see myself having a LOT of time to myself as I now understand (after 18 years of monogamy, spread over three relationships) that I need to live alone.

You can heal your sexuality of the traumas of the past, and in so doing, invent a sex life that works for you. (A woman interviewed for
The Survivors Guide to Sex
reports, “I think survivors who have done their healing have some of the best sex lives around. We do all this healing work that most people need to do, survivors or not.”)
¹

In my dream life, I’m not depressed. I have a healthy self-image and I don’t have to take daily medication just to stay alive. I’ve gotten rid of the baggage from my childhood and sexual abuse, and I have multiple partners and exciting, fun sex.

Allow yourself to imagine the ideal sex life for you. Don’t worry about whether it’s realistic—we are trained to evaluate limitations, we are not encouraged to think freely. We worry we will be seen as greedy, self-centered, or immoral if we insist on sex lives that work for us. Don’t judge. Just brainstorm. If you keep a journal, or like to write, set a timer for five minutes (or 10 or 15) and write down everything that comes to mind when you imagine your ideal sex life.

You might surprise yourself—both with the ordinariness of what you want and the fantastic:

I’d get rid of all the time-consuming and energy-consuming things that interfere with sex. More three and four-day weekends! The physical limitations could go, too. I’d like to have the resilience, flexibility, and stamina that I had when I was a young woman, but with the mind I have now. I would definitely stick to my current partner, though. She’s a great lover, and I get hot just looking at her.

I joke about how in my next life I’m coming back as a beautiful, well-hung fag in an age without AIDS and STDs and I’m going to fuck myself silly. I’m going to have innumerable sexual encounters. I’m going to have circle jerks and orgies and everything under the sun. It’s gonna be quite a party.

Be Specific

When asked what kind of sex life you want, do you answer: “Great sex with a woman I love and who loves me”? That’s too vague a statement to build a life around. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to be sexually satisfied in the context of a committed relationship—of course not! Many of us want this. But a statement this vague leaves too much room for disappointment and frustration. What do you mean by “great sex”? For that matter, what do you mean by “love”?

And if yours were a truly satisfying sexual life, how would you know it? Don’t minimize this question. What would have to be true for you to say, “This is it! I’m totally happy about my sex life.” What sexual activities would you engage in? With whom? How frequently? How would you feel about yourself?

You can be rigorous with this. Don’t let yourself get away with easy statements and vague yearnings. (“I’ll know it when I see it” is not an acceptable answer.) Don’t fall into the trap of forever seeking out greener pastures or settling for a sex life you don’t really enjoy. Take the time to fill in the blanks. After all, it’s
your
life—your shared erotic life.

Here’s an example:

• You and I spend waking time in bed, where we are erotically focused on each other, three times per week. We might talk about sex, give each other massages, or have sex.

• At least some of the time, we include cunnilingus in our play, and at least some of the time, we include anal penetration.

• Sometimes we are playful, sometimes romantic, sometimes wild and hot.

• At least once a month, we share some form of erotic entertainment—an evening with a porn DVD, a night at a drag king show, a trip to the toy store, a photo shoot with our new digital camera.

• At least once every three months, we explore something that one of us has never done before (or even that neither of us has done before).

• At least once every six months, we go away together for a long weekend—no cell phone, no laptop.

• We tell each other what we need to get off.

• We tell each other if we feel unsatisfied, jealous, too vulnerable, or freaked out.

• We give each other lots of compliments.
²

This list is certainly specific. Is it possible to achieve? For instance, are both of you home often enough to meet up in bed three times per week?

Most important, are the items on the list measurable? Is it possible to say, “Yes, we are meeting our expectations”? Or “Well, we’re doing OK in some areas, but not in others”? Or even “I haven’t even thought about sex in weeks”? Back to the drawing board….

What would you put on
your
list?

One woman said that she couldn’t imagine being with a partner who didn’t like oral sex—without receiving cunnilingus on a regular basis, she simply would not feel satisfied. Another said she needed to get fucked, on her back, heels in the air, three times per week, at a minimum. And a third said that she didn’t care so much about frequency or what particular sexual activities she and her partner engaged in. What matters to her is that her lover is her equal in adventurousness and curiosity, willing and able to meet her wherever her explorations might go.

Do you want a partner who is romantic? Daring? Who’ll try anything once? (Who has tried everything once?) A partner who knows more about sex than you do? Do you want to mentor a novice? Do you feel desired and protected by a partner who never leaves your side—or does such possessiveness repel you?