The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (20 page)

Polyamory is not a way to fix yourself. It’s a myth that if you’re polyamorous, all that sexual variety will prevent you from ever becoming bored or having sexual conflicts. More likely, it is the intentionality and awareness with which you approach your sex life that is keeping your libido simmering, not the fact that you have more than one lover.

You may have a fuck buddy whom you see now and again when your desires and schedules mesh. You may be in each other’s lives for years, share all the horrid details of your last breakup over pastry at the café “after”—or meet for sex and only sex, that’s it, put on your shoes and go.

What’s Your Style?

Monogamy:
Having sexual relations exclusively with one partner

Serial monogamy:
Engaging in a series of monogamous relationships, one after the other

Nonmonogamy:
Having sexual relations with more than one partner

Fluid-bonding:
A safer-sex strategy of using latex barriers and limiting sexual activities with all but a primary sexual partner

Polyamory:
Having more than one sexual relationship at a time. Some women use this term to mean sexual relations with more than one partner, preferring this term to nonmonogamy, a word based on a negative.

24/7:
Full-time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, BDSM role-based relationship

Your life may be centered in a spiritual practice within a community of others who are likewise engaged in spiritual development. Perhaps you study Tantra, joining your sexuality and spirituality. You may be part of a circle of women who meet monthly for erotic massage. Perhaps you enjoy workshops and group events—Body Electric, Burning Man, lesbian Tantra classes, seasonal rituals and retreats. You are happiest when you can move in groups of women and men who share your values about the role of spirituality in our sexual lives—and vice versa. Whatever is going on in your personal life at the moment, these are the relationships you know sustain you.

You Make It Happen

A vital sexual partnership is something you generate. Regardless of whether you have one partner or three, keeping your sex life alive is something you
do,
not something that happens
to
you.

Think of your partner as your collaborator in creating your shared erotic life. You each bring your strengths (and weaknesses), your experiences and histories, needs and wishes to the sexual relationship. This is true whether you are frequent fuck buddies or domestic partners.

In real life, we are busy. We have personal goals—education, jobs, travel. Children, friends, other lovers demand our time and attention. We may have aging parents, health concerns, demanding work, stress about money.

Over the years, a sameness may settle over your sexual activities. With less excitement in your life, you may experience a decline in libido. Inertia sets in. The days between sexual encounters can stretch into weeks and months. Erotic exploration seems more and more unlikely.

Fifteen Ways to Heat Up Your Marriage

The mystery is gone, you say? Well, perhaps the challenge of the chase is over, but what’s more challenging than sustaining sexual intensity with the woman whose toothbrush drips dry each morning next to yours? Here are some suggestions to help wake up your sex life:

1. Indulge…
yourself!
Read erotica, watch porn, masturbate. Fantasize. Undress the pretty girls on the bus. Fixate on that FedEx woman who dashes into your office every morning. Like any other talent, without exercise your libido will atrophy.

2. Take responsibility for yourself. Remember when your sexuality was yours alone—and not marital property? Regardless of your marriage vows, your girlfriend is not in charge of your inner life or who you dream about when you pleasure yourself.

3. Take a vacation together. Send the kids to your favorite PFLAG mom. Leave town. Don’t take your dog. Or stay at home—no phone, no TV, no car, no shopping.

4. Tell each other a story.
The most outrageous fantasy I ever had….
Then make it true.

5. Take your girlfriend sex toy shopping—online or at your favorite sex toy boutique. Giggle. Be embarrassed together. Not interested in toys? Browse the DVD section instead.

6. Use lube. Lots of lube.

7. Stop being lazy about sex.You’ve probably been getting each other off the same way for years. You touch her; she touches you. You lick her; she licks you. Your fist goes in her vagina; her dildo goes in your anus. Over and over, year after year. Even a great program loses something in reruns. Next time you hop in the sack, declare your usual sexual activities off-limits. Unplug that tired old toy—or get a new one.

8. Try something different. If your sex play is exclusively genitally focused, take turns giving each other full-body massages. Try this exercise: Sit facing each other on the bed. Breathe in synch. Run your fingers along her face and neck. Or caress her hands. When was the last time you attended to your partner’s body nonsexually? Describe what you’re seeing and feeling. Offer her your appreciation. Take turns.

9. Switch. After all these years of being the top, have you secretly wanted to throw your heels in the air? Or have you nurtured a secret fantasy of giving your aggressive girlfriend a taste of her own medicine? ‘Fess up, now!

10. Talk—to your partner. Sure, your best friend can recite your marital disappointments blow for blow. But have you talked with your partner about your sexual frustrations? Are you afraid that if you tell her your complaints, she’ll tell you hers, and you’ll realize you’re not so happy after all, and soon you’ll be down $90 a week for couples counseling—forget that trip to London—and besides, you’ll just break up anyway…. Whew! Talk to your partner;tell her your erotic hopes and dreams.

11. Speak in positives; don’t dump. Unless you’ve negotiated a humiliation scene, telling your lover of six years that she bores you is not likely to improve your sex life! Remind her how much you love her.Tell her you’d like to have the sex life of your dreams—with her. Be specific. Know what you want and ask for it. (See chapter 7, Communication and Finding Sex Partners, for hints.)

12. Don’t assume you know what she likes, either. Ask. Then listen.

13. Be blissfully wedded…novices. Pick a sexual activity neither of you has ever done—and do it. Never played with anal beads? Rope bondage? Attended a live erotic performance? Have you thought of cross-dressing?

14. Find a role model. Whether in a self-help book or on your dyke rugby team, find someone who’s in an intimate relationship and has hot sex. Get details!

15. Face your demons. Bet this isn’t the first time your desire has fizzled out on a lover. If so, you’re not alone! Many people find intimate relationships daunting. Why does closeness snuff out your desire? Why do you want to bolt before the ink is dry on the rental agreement? Finding the answers will require some soul-searching, and maybe some help. Do you want an intimate sex life—really? You may have to work very hard to achieve that, but the results can pay off, big-time.

Believing that loss of sexual desire is inevitable—which is what we have been told to expect
³
—discourages us from trying to do anything about it. That gives our sexual relationships a quality of resignation. This belief also makes it hard to maintain loving relationships—monogamous
or
polyamorous—since most of us would rather not have to choose between an active sex life and a stable love life.

None of this, by the way, is any more true for lesbians than it is for heterosexual or gay male couples. “My view is that my lesbian clients who come in complaining of reduced sexual interaction are experiencing real life,” writes lesbian sex researcher and therapist Suzanne Iasenza. “[N]ot unlike their heterosexual brothers and sisters, and gay brothers, the women met, fell in love and created a life together. Their work and family lives developed and demanded attention and energy, sometimes at the cost of quality intimate time together.” Iasenza goes on to say that a “careful” reading of sex research “provides little evidence that lesbian sexuality is less active or less fulfilling than gay or heterosexual sex.”
⁴

Real life need not doom us to a sexless existence. We can have thriving sex lives. Regardless of the demands we face, we can have fully realized, rich sexual partnerships. With as much sex as we can handle, many of us are not complaining.

So, if it’s possible to maintain a vibrant partnered sex life, how do you do it?

You make it happen. You bring intention (followed by action) to your sex life. You replace resignation (“We’ve been together ten years—we’re lucky we have sex once a month”) with curiosity (“What would it be like if we decided to have sex
twice
a month?”). You prioritize your shared erotic life with your partner—with each of your partners, if you have more than one. And you define what that means, which will be particular to each partnership.

That means doing some work.

Don’t Complain, Collaborate

We talked about how much sex we wanted in our relationship. I had never really ever thought about it. For the first time, I was able to figure out in myself what I wanted/needed in a sexual relationship, and my girlfriend encouraged me to share this with her. The outcome was amazingness.

Your sexual satisfaction is your personal responsibility. Don’t just react to what you think is wrong with the sex you are having—or not having—with your current partner. If you only attempt to fix what’s wrong, you’ll end up with a sex life that is shaped by your disappointments, past and present. Make sure you know what you want in a sexual partnership—not just what you don’t want.

Ask your partner to do her homework, too. What would she put on
her
Yes/No/Maybe list? What are
her
sexual standards for satisfaction? You may find that your partner is also not getting what she wants. Or that what she wants is very different from what you want.

You can compare Yes/No/Maybe lists—with the addition of a few items, like sexual frequency and variation. You can combine your sexual standards lists (see “Be Specific,” above).

There are many models for talking about your shared sexual values. Sex coaches and therapists can help here—they may ask you to clarify, on paper, each of your values, histories, expectations, concerns, and desires regarding sexual partnership.

Authors of books on relationships (see chapter 19, Bibliography) offer their own approaches to designing partnerships. Most of them are not specifically looking at sexuality, much less lesbian sexuality, but you can adapt their methods to your own needs. One author who does write about sexuality in the context of relationships is Jack Morin, author of
The Erotic Mind
. He is convinced that “couples who openly confront the difficulties of combining intimacy and passion are the ones most likely to thrive.”
⁵

Remember that the goal isn’t necessarily to see where your wish lists match. If you look
only
for common ground, you will eliminate all the sexual possibilities that do not appear on both lists. Here you want to avoid winnowing your lists—which contracts your sexual possibilities. Instead, think about expanding your sexual possibilities.

Whatever your method, the main thing is that designing your sexual partnership becomes a conscious practice, considered and deliberate and done with awareness and intention. It’s work, yes, but it’s hardly drudgery. You may find the experience of talking about sex in this much detail to be a real turn-on.

The most courageous conversation we’ve had was about using toys in the bedroom and the outcome was great! We talked about who would feel more comfortable purchasing the items, what kinds of things we wanted, what was an acceptable size/shape/texture for a dildo. It made us more comfortable talking about sex with each other.

This practice can be as much a part of your ongoing sexual relationship as, well, sex. You needn’t think of this as just something you do before you get to the good stuff—or an exercise you do to prevent your sex life from withering. Inventing sexual scenarios together, sharing fantasies, solving problems is part of who you are as sex partners. Some of the best conversations you will have with your partner will be ones in which you reveal yourselves sexually to each other. Partners who are able to talk about sex on this level say it’s one of the best things about their relationship. Plus it will get you hot.
Promise.

You make your sex life happen. You generate the energy, time, interest, and desire. You develop sexual standards for your relationship, which you can review periodically—you can check in to see whether or not your relationship is meeting your mutual hopes for it. You can also note where your priorities may have changed. Some couples do this on their anniversary, on Valentine’s Day, or in the wee hours of New Year’s Day.