The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (22 page)

You can commit to regularly scheduled times of intimacy, including physical intimacy which may or may not include sex. Set aside an evening a week, a weekend each month, to focus on each other. Married sex is good sex, too.

When we didn’t live together, sex was often and fantastic. But now that we’re married, once or twice a month is the norm. Unfortunately, this is mainly my issue. My partner is always ready and willing—me, I’m too tired, or stressed about work, or just not interested. I think she’s incredibly sexy, and she turns me on, but actually getting to the action is hard work sometimes! We sometimes schedule a “date.” It seems terribly unromantic, but it works. Actually, knowing for a day or two in advance that I’m gonna get laid, I get pumped up, and it turns out great.

Invite your partner to masturbate in your loving presence. With your arms around her, self-pleasuring may seem less like a compromise. You can read her an erotic story or retell her favorite fantasy. Your participation will assure her of your commitment to her sexual pleasure. Plus you might end up getting aroused yourself.

I have been blessed or cursed with a very healthy sex drive, while my partner tends to roller-coaster with hers. When she’s up, we’re pretty much on the same wavelength and it’s great. But when she is not interested, I will sometimes masturbate with her arms around me…. On occasion, this will turn her on and she will join in and we’ll have a nice sweet time. Masturbating with her there is far more satisfying than doing it alone.

Use lube. Lots of lube. When you were dating, you probably left wet spots on restaurant seats. In that state of limerance, your sexual response seemed always at the ready. Now your physiological response has changed and you may need to build arousal to get your juices flowing. Put some lube on your fingers before you touch yourself. The increased wetness will lead to increased sensitivity and increased turn-on.

Facing and Healing Triggers of Sexual Trauma

Intimate relationships stir things up—for
all
of us. Whatever your history, being in an intimate relationship will call on you to look at yourself in new ways. For survivors of childhood sexual abuse, sex in the context of intimacy can be an opportunity to attend to the issues of the past and to deepen your own capacity for intimacy and sexual pleasure. It can also be scary.

You get into a relationship, everything’s great…at first. But then all those old triggers, memories, and fears come bubbling up. It’s not that there is anything wrong with the relationship (though you might jump to that conclusion).Your history is offering itself up for healing.Your job is to pay attention.

Many lesbians and bisexual women are survivors of childhood sexual trauma. Since one in three girls are sexually abused before they turn 18 years of age, it’s not unusual for both partners in a couple to have experienced sexual trauma. Each may be in a very different stage of healing. One partner’s work may cause the other to face events she had never explored. Or her partner’s healing process may cause her to revisit issues she thought she had resolved long ago.

For couples dealing with sexual trauma, Staci Haines offers the question: “How can we support each other in this healing process and also take care of our adult relationship?” In her DVD,
Healing Sex
, Haines outlines what she considers the key elements to taking care of your sexuality over a lifetime: self-pleasuring, discovery, and dedicating time to your sexuality inside your partnership relationships.
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While there may be times that partner sex takes a backseat to your healing, you are in a
sexual
partnership. Do not allow the process of healing past abuse to rob you of that.

As a trauma survivor, the key is to continually to turn
toward
triggers rather than avoid them. Of course, in order to face the sources of your pain, you’ll need to create a context of safety for yourself—support may come from a therapist, coach, group of friends, or more formal network, as well as from your partner.

What exactly
is
a trigger? It’s an automatic response to present-day stimulus that is caused by past trauma. Triggers can be experienced as emotions, like anger or sadness, and as physical sensations in the body. (For instance, this sidebar may be pushing your buttons. Is your stomach tense? Are your shoulders tight? Do you feel an overwhelming urge to close the book? Want to toss it across the room? Are you breathing?)

Turning toward triggers doesn’t mean recreating or mimicking trauma. Putting yourself in harm’s way will not toughen you up. Past trauma doesn’t go away if you “butch” your way through it. Though you may become desensitized to your own painful emotions, you’ll also lose the sensations of pleasure and joy. That’s not healing; in fact, that’s a capsule description of how your body (quite intelligently) shut down to protect you from trauma in the first place.

Turning toward triggers means intentionally risking discomfort in order to stretch your capacity for sexual engagement.The point is not to avoid triggers, but to face them.This is how you can heal. Over time, you will be able to experience a wide range of sensations and feelings without needing to shut down. Sexually, this means you will be able to tolerate more and more pleasure.

What about partners? Partnering with someone in the midst of healing from sexual trauma is not easy.Your support and love really can help your partner heal. Just the fact of being loved, over time, with all of her triggers and all of her history, can be healing. Certainly, your steadfast presence can help your partner to learn how to trust. Most importantly, by taking care of yourself—including your sexual fullness—you can stand as a reminder to your partner that sexual wholeness is possible. On a bad day, that will go a long way toward encouraging your partner to stay present for herself.

Here are some suggestions for you:

• Be authentic.That doesn’t mean being selfish. It means that
you
remember who you are. What are your concerns? What are your aspirations?

• Negotiate sexual frequency, sexual activities, affection, and nonsexual touch. Be proactive.

• While you may negotiate a time out from sex—for either of you—remember that your sexual heat is good. It’s good to be sexual. It’s good to want sex, to get horny, to get hot, to feel turned on.

• Masturbate. Keep that intimate connection with yourself vital.

• Don’t take it personally when your partner gets triggered. You didn’t cause the trauma, and you didn’t do anything “wrong.” For survivors of sexual trauma, it is inevitable that triggers will arise during sex.

• Don’t shrink your shared sex life in order to avoid triggers. Keep gently expanding the comfort zone—for both of you.

• Develop a trigger plan.
The Survivor’s Guide to Sex
suggests survivors create a detailed, step-by-step plan for handling triggers during sex. You can create a similar plan for yourself. How do you want to handle triggers that come up for your partner? By listing your options ahead of time, you’ll have more choice in responding to triggers that arise during sex.You can talk about it with your partner and come up with a joint strategy for maintaining your shared erotic life while respecting the need for safety—for both of you.
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• Don’t be a martyr or a savior. You can’t “save” your partner from the pain of healing by sacrificing your own well-being.

• Get your own support, including touch. Along with friends, therapists, and discussion groups, support can include massages, bodywork, and hugs from friends.

Two helpful resources for both survivors and partners:
The Survivor’s Guide to Sex: How to Have an Empowered Sex Life After Childhood Sexual Abuse,
by Staci Haines, and her DVD,
Healing Sex: The Complete Guide to Sexual Wholeness.

Bathe your senses. Aromatherapy candles, sensuous fabrics, dreamy lighting, fresh flowers, music, art…. Engage all your senses to feed your libido.

Share your fantasies and invite your partner to share hers. For some women, hearing a sexy story can be just enough stimulation to get the motors humming. On the other hand, some women prefer to keep their fantasies private—a personal source of sexual potency whose power, one woman explained, she doesn’t want to dilute in the telling.

One woman decided to give herself a “no decline” rule. She reasoned that with so many practical things coming in the way of sex, she would say “yes” to every invitation. “This comes out of my commitment to my partner,” she said. Her partner, she said, knows her well enough to approach her in a way (and at a time) that would work for her. And she knows herself well enough to know that she can “get over the hump of
not interested
,
distracted
” to come back to her body and notice the sensations of sexual stirring. (Her partner, a survivor of childhood sexual assault, does not share that practice—in childhood, her entire body was a “no decline” zone.)

Make sure you do not sacrifice touch. Maintain your physical connection. Take a massage workshop together. Engaging in nonsexual touch can keep you in a physical connection while taking the pressure off. And speaking of pressure: negotiate—don’t avoid, play the victim, nag, demand, or blame.

My girlfriend and I have had numerous talks about what to do about my low sex drive and her through-the-roof sex drive, and we came up with some things that we both were willing to change in order to help the other out. For example, she won’t try to have sex with me every time I kiss her goodnight, and I will try to initiate sex.

Take responsibility for your own libido. What turns you on? Buy an erotic novel, rent a DVD. Understand that there are times when you have to create sexual energy in yourself.

Take responsibility for your health as well. If you experience a sudden drop in libido, check in with your physician or other healer to make sure there isn’t an organic reason for this.

You can also experiment with herbal libido support, like yohimbine, or medical solutions like testosterone patches. (See “Herbal Supplements” in chapter 2, Anatomy and Sexual Response.) Watch out—don’t medicalize the normal fluctuations of desire over a lifetime. The pharmaceutical industry will be only too happy to label your changing libido a sexual dysfunction.

Real-life sexual relationships have ebbs and flows. Sex is not consistent: three times per week for the duration of your relationship. If it were, your sex life might not be nearly as interesting and varied. Observe the flow of your internal erotic life—just don’t rely on it to maintain your sexual partnership.

I am a cancer survivor and when I was going through treatment, even when I was having good days and was feeling sexual, my partner didn’t want to have sex with me. I guess it was difficult to separate the disease from the person, especially because I had lost all my hair, had a tube in my chest, and while going through radiation, had burns on my skin. The issue for me was that I felt worse—because I am a sexual person and I really wanted the feeling of being intimate and was being denied that, along with everything else the disease was denying me.

What? No Sex?

I tell her that I’m always willing and able, and she tells me she’s too tired and passes out and then we pretty much have to wait until we can have three hours of quality sex time.

How far should you go to stay in a relationship? Well, what are your sexual standards for satisfaction in a relationship? How important is sex to you?

Can you handle no sex for a month while one or both of you sorts out a personal issue? Is a month long enough for you to worry about your relationship? Or is a month over the course of many years no biggie? How about six months? Or a year? Is that where you draw the line?

I feel that she controls our sex life because she has less desire than I do.

i have a fairly high sex drive + went out with a girl who didnt, it didnt really work out, she felt that if i kissed her i always wanted it to lead to sex (not entirly true) + i was frustrated, we broke up although not entirely over that it probably helped the feeling of “this isnt working out”

What if you want more sex than your partner? Must “no” trump “yes” if you are to be respectful of your partner’s limits? Not necessarily—if you are
both
motivated to explore what is possible between you.

You can negotiate a time out—say, a month, or even three months, during a time of inner work, after which you will revisit the matter. Be intentional about this. Support your partner in facing difficulties like recovery from sexual trauma, depression, addiction—or hormonal changes. You can allow for the “inevitable changes/challenges that face partners”
⁹
and
take care of your sexual relationship. Knowing your standards for sex in a relationship is not an excuse to abandon a partner with whom you have a shared commitment to a relationship.

But don’t allow her “no sex” to preempt your sex life. Addressing this could be the most intimate and courageous conversation either of you has ever had.

You can also negotiate changes in the structure of your relationship. You may have agreed to monogamy from the outset. And over the years, monogamy may have come to mean that you refrain not only from sex with others, but from any outside sexual stimulus. You may have stopped fantasizing or even masturbating. “I have seen in my practice that many lesbian couples believe that they should, above all else, remain sexually monogamous regardless of changes in sexual satisfaction and sexual needs over time,” writes Suzanne Iasenza. “In some of these couples, one partner may either consensually or in secret find alternative sexual outlets (affairs, sexual fantasy, sex clubs, paid sex, phone or Internet sex).”
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