The Scarlet Letters: Two Sides of the Same Sexless Coin

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

GoLocalPDX Love & Sex Advice Team, 'The Scarlets'

This week’s Scarlet Letters features letters from partners on either side of the low-sex-drive coin.

FAIR TRADE

Dear Scarlets,

I am a former sex worker. I saw clients (men) for appointments (sex) for a over a decade. I was lucky: I was successful and safe during my run. I quit the industry in 2011, so I could stay sober, and now I’m in a LTR with a great guy. We’ve been together over 3 years, and I think we have a great relationship. The thing is, I’m totally not into sex. I’m over it. My man is sexy, good in bed, ‘GGG’ as Dan Savage says, all that. I find him attractive, and we have a lot of sex, because I want him to be happy. But….I’m just doing it for him. He knows it, and, being a great guy, he wishes he could please me. We talked about all this before we jumped in the sack. I knew sex would be weird, with my past. Now I’m almost 46, peri-menopausal, and still having sex when I don’t want to, except now it’s for love, not money. My feeling about sex is pretty “whatever.” It’s not a big, sacred deal for me. It’s more like a favor: he likes it, I want to make him happy because I love him, so I fuck him. He rubs my back, I f*ck him. That’s our agreement. My question is this: Do you think this is unhealthy? Please advise.

Signed,

Doing It for Love

Dear Doing It,

Life is about relationships, and relationships are about contracts. You have a relationship to every single thing in your life, and a contract attached to that relationship. You have a relationship with gravity, air, emotions -- and with people. And each of those relationships is attached to a contract. Gravity won’t let you fly off into space as long as you have mass. Air will deliver oxygen to your blood as long as you breathe it in. Emotions will wreak havoc in your life as long as you are human. Simple.

Contracts with people can be a little more complicated. However, the contract you have with Great Guy is not: he gives you backrubs and you give him sex. As long as everyone involved considers this a fair trade, it’s a solid transaction. Sexy? No. Romantic? No. Unhealthy? No.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that what you enjoy is rollerskating, and what Great Guy enjoys is basketball games. No one would think twice if your contract, most likely a tacit agreement, allowed him to take you to a basketball game for each time you took him rollerskating. It would simply be the kind of arrangement couples make to accommodate the facts that they like each other, like being together, and have different interests.

Because your question involves trading sex, a lot of people will be uncomfortable with our answer. That’s their business. Ours is to tell you that if you feel good getting backrubs and feel neutral about sex then you are getting a hell of a deal. You are handing over something that means nothing to you and getting something you value highly in return. In addition, you are building intimacy with Great Guy by validating each other’s interests and needs honestly, without judgment, and with love. There is nothing unhealthy about that interaction.

Without getting all up in Herstory, let’s just agree that men and women have treated sex as a commodity for, oh, ever. As a society we now agree that’s BAD. We act like it doesn’t happen anymore. Dear Reader: when was the last time you had sex for a reason other than burning desire? Think about it while I finish this martini.

Ok, done! What did you come up with? The time you had sex to make up for being grumpy at your partner for something completely unrelated to your partner? The time you did it because your partner wanted to? The time you got it exactly that way you like because you went to his/her family picnic and he/she “owed” you? It was somebody’s birthday? You were trying to get him/her to stay with you? You wanted to have a baby? You wanted to get it over with so you could go to sleep? Goddamn, this list is getting long.

Our point is we have sex for lots of reasons. We often use sex to trade for what we want, just like we use smiling, money, and yelling. Trading sex for what we want isn’t bad unless we feel bad about it. You, dear Doing It, seem to be completely ambivalent about sex, which makes it something you can trade for something you value without losing anything in the process.

If even half the people on this planet were as honest with themselves as you are about even half the contracts they enter into each time they have sex, this would be a better world. We wish you the best in your sobriety and satisfaction in your backrubs.

Love,

The Scarlets

EVERYTHING BUT…

Dear Scarlets,

I am a 43-year-old woman in a 14-year-old relationship with 41-year-old Wes. We do not live together. Our relationship is great—we love doing stuff together, we’re very emotionally open with one another, and we laugh together all the time. One glitch: we pretty much aren’t physically intimate anymore.

He's my everything except romantic. I love him, I enjoy him, and I can’t imagine being without him...but a girl has needs.

Several years ago I said something to Wes about our sex life that inferred I wasn't terribly satisfied. I have NO IDEA what was said, but ever since then he's held this "what was said" up as an excuse not to have sex. He seems to have shut down about the issue.

Before he seemed at least a little interested in sex, but now he seems to have lost his sex drive entirely. He’s never been all that cuddly, but now I pretty much have to coerce him into bed.

Help!

Signed,

That's My Issue

Dear TMI,

This situation is difficult because we are actually dealing with someone else’s problem that has become yours. So you’ll have to stick with us because this answer is multi-layered and your solutions are multiple choice.

Since the no-sex issue originates with Wes, your initial options for addressing the problem are contingent upon how he addresses it (or doesn’t) -- so let’s start with him.

Does he want to fix it?

Wes might agree that there’s a problem and he wants to work on fixing it. That would put you halfway toward a solution. Then you have to figure out if his problem is physical or tied up in relationship knots. Either way, it’s fixable, and can be sussed out by a doctor, a therapist or both.

Is it a dealbreaker?

If Wes denies there’s a problem or doesn’t want to fix it, you may decide that life is too short to be a sexless affair and leave. If you choose this option, you are not selfish or heartless. You are a person who knows what she wants and deserves. That’s a good thing.

What happens if you stay?

Maybe, even without the sex, there’s just too much good there to leave. If that’s the case, there are just two more choices in this multiple choice answer: you can either live with it, or outsource part of Wes’ job.

If you just live with it, nothing changes, your life passes with no whopping orgasms, and your juicy lust becomes bitter resentment. That doesn’t seem like a choice to us, but many many women have gone down that route.

The joy of outsourcing!

If you want to keep Wes as your primary partner and find other providers for the sex parts, you’ll need to renegotiate your relationship with Wes. He may or may not be interested in polyamory, but you won’t know until you ask.

Does this seem extreme? Perhaps to some, but then so does denying your partner sex and not being willing to discuss it or work on it.

Just remember to approach the issue as half of a team: you, as a couple, have a problem that needs to be solved and you can both play a role in solving it, or, if he’s not willing to be involved, you can solve it yourself. We’re hoping he’d rather be part of the solution.

Advocate for yourself and your pleasure. There may be some difficult conversations in your immediate future, but having them could bring the sexy back. We endorse that outcome.

With love,

The Scarlets

You’ve just read The Scarlet Letters, a sex and relationship column written by two redheads on a mission to eradicate slut shaming, uninspired oral sex, and the myth of “normal.” Send your sex and relationship questions to [email protected]. (Want your email address anonymized? Try Anonymouse here, or any number of other email anonymizers on the webernets!)

The Scarlets:

Allison Picard had a long career in publishing before she got antsy and divorced, and then one in event planning before she got tired of working. Now that she's retired she can turn all her attention to sorting out your sex life. Other issues, proposals, invitations? Write to [email protected].

Courtenay Hameister is the Head Writer and Co-Producer of Live Wire Radio, a syndicated radio variety show distributed by Public Radio International. She is currently working on a book that will be released through Audible.com in 2015. Follow Courtenay on Twitter at @wisenheimer.