The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (23 page)

You may have reasons for staying in the relationship despite a lack of sexual satisfaction. Love, companionship, family, or economics may trump sexual satisfaction for you.

If you are staying in a relationship out of fear of loneliness or because you believe that you won’t find another partner—or even because you believe you are needed to care for your partner and family—understand that this is not your lover’s “fault.” You are making a choice—don’t blame your lover for your decision to stay with her regardless of your sexual dissatisfaction. Taking responsibility for your choice can go a long way toward easing resentment—and helping you move forward in your life.

It is your right to end a relationship because you see no possibility of sexual happiness. You are not selfish, immature, perverted, or misguided to prioritize a full and rich sex life.

Find Your Passion

Passion is energy, a specific kind of energy that you can feel in the sensations of the body. In the heightened state of falling in love, your passion is fueled by dopamine flooding your neurological system. But even after those weeks, months, or years have passed, passion is still in you.

It’s a romantic myth that if you’re meant to be together, the flame of your passion will never flicker—and that if sexual passion doesn’t last forever, well, then there must be something wrong with the relationship. Or with you. Or your partner.

It’s also a myth that the most passionate sex is spontaneous. What you most likely mean by spontaneity is that “something”—an overpowering lust—comes upon you. All other cares fall away, and you fuck fuck fuck until you and your partner are a blissed-out sweaty heap of limbs and discarded clothing.

What really
is
that buzz? Can you describe the sensations of passion? Sexual pleasure radiating from your genitals? Your vaginal muscles vibrating with anticipation? Heat flushing your chest and face? Every hair ringing with arousal? An energy propelling you forward—as if you could come anytime, anyplace?

If you can’t locate sexual passion in your sensations, can you locate your passion for something else? When was the last time you were so excited about something you couldn’t sleep? Or sit still? That feeling of excitement
is
passion, and it can be nurtured in all areas of your life.

Your capacity for sexual fire is something you cultivate. If you want to increase passion in your sexual relationship, first try increasing it in your
self
.

Sexual Community

I once told my girlfriend I wanted to try a threesome, so she talked about it to a really good friend of ours, and one day they surprised me while in my sleep. I was freaked out, but in a good way because I enjoyed it a lot.

One of my favorite partners and I invited my gay friend over and he photographed us while we made love for three hours. The photos were not great, but it was hot to have someone else in the room.

For many of us, sexual community provides the larger context for our erotic relationships. These are the people whose examples we learn from and to whom we pass on our expertise. In a culture where inheritance is not biological (most of us grew up in heterosexual families), our community is our legacy.

Who hears your sexual stories—victories, disappointments, frustrations, dreams? Who tells you hers—or his? Where do you go for advice? Who’s got the first-hand report on the new sex party, sex toy boutique, lesbian video, or strip club? When your partner wants to try something new, whom do you talk it over with? Who helps you sort out your questions about gender and sexual identity?

What good are bragging rights if there’s no one to brag to?

Think of your sexual community as a place you can go to replenish (and share) sexual energy. Hearing about others’ exploits can put ideas in our heads—and get us hot. Sexual community doesn’t necessarily mean group sex (though that may be a perk) or that everyone has slept with everyone else.

Sexual isolation can be a problem particularly for monogamous couples and those whose sexual interests don’t match up with ready-made networks, such as women’s leather organizations or discussion groups for women whose partners are in the midst of gender transition. It can be difficult, too, if you are isolated geographically as well.

If you share your inner life with no one but your partner, your relationship exists in a kind of bubble world: Nothing comes in, nothing goes out, and you could suffocate for the lack of fresh air. The same holds true for your erotic inner life.

You may feel disloyal sharing the intimate details of your relationship with others. Your only model for doing so may be couples therapy—which is OK, but what if you don’t need a therapist? What if what you really need is sexual community?

I’m not talking about gossip or maintaining secret friendships, or keeping from your lover the nature of the inquiries you are in. I am talking about cultivating a community of people with whom you share your erotic life.

Your local sex toy boutique may be the locus of an informal community through events like book signings, classes, and workshops. You may have access to specific sex and gender communities—for instance, coming out support groups, safer-sex education projects, and BDSM organizations. There are online communities to match every possible sexual interest. Many members of email lists and discussion boards invest these venues with a great deal of trust.

Here are some ideas for reaching out—including having sex with others. Many “monogamous” couples have a negotiated nonmonogamy when it comes to sex parties and other erotic events. (Wrote one woman, “Playing with others together is great, a reminder to both of us who is number one—and a celebration of sorts.”) But you don’t have to have sex outside of your partnership in order to participate in community:

• Enjoy some erotic entertainment. Go to a lesbian strip show or a drag king show.

• Volunteer to teach Bondage 101 at your local community center.

• Don’t skip the explicit screenings at your town’s gay and lesbian film festival—take a group of friends.

• Go to a sex party. Decide in advance whether you want to attend as voyeurs, engage in open flirting, or hook up individually or as a couple. (A sex party is not a good place to bring up the subject of opening your relationship!)

• Sign on to an email discussion list—together. Read, post, and make new friends.

• Take a class or workshop.

• Arrange an afternoon with a professional dominatrix.

• Tell your friends about the new queer porn DVD you just discovered. Encourage them to do the same. You’ll create a sense of community.

• Ask your friends how they would answer sex survey questions in magazines like
On Our Backs
—or even in the women’s glossies.

• Arrange a three-way—or four-, five-, or six-way. New sexual partners offer the opportunity for conversations of a kind you and your partner may not have shared in years.

• Join your local BDSM organization—get involved.

• Don’t hoard—lend out your erotica collection.

• Bring out the eyebolts and invite your friends over to play. You may find that spanking your partner in the presence of another couple makes your play more fun.

• Start a book discussion group at your local gay community center or independent bookstore. You can read erotica collections, memoirs, or books on sexual and gender politics. You can organize a queer reading group, or one for lesbians, for transgendered people and friends, and so on.

I have a wonderful sex life full of laughter and pleasure. That has taken a bit of work to maintain because life intrudes. Still, my partner is beautiful and sexy, so it hasn’t been too difficult.

Keep It Happening

We have a Sunday rule. Sunday is Sexday…we have lots of sex on Sundays. It is our law. We cook a lavish breakfast of bacon and eggs on the BBQ with orange juice and freshly brewed coffee and read the papers in the sun. Then we retreat back to the bedroom for some more loving. Monday is always a joy after that!

Your sexual partnership is your erotic playground. (If you maintain more than one sexual relationship at a time, you are playing on a big field.) Bring your creativity, sense of humor, sexiness, receptivity, aggressiveness, and love to the swing set:

We have this cuppa tea and mint biscuits joke that only she and I get. Dunk the choc biscuit in the hot tea and then smear it all over the nipple and then lick it off. Even just when we are fully clothed at the table having a bowl of ice cream after dinner, it is like “Shirt up, bra up please….” Yeah, you get the picture.

One night, I asked her to pretend she was a sex doll. She couldn’t move or respond or touch me. I used her however I wanted and twisted and turned her all around the bed. I fucked her like she was a plastic toy. It was wild for both of us. She didn’t keep quiet for long.

We played a game where we had to bonk every night. It lasted over ten nights.

I frequently help my partner undress. This can involve me roughly or slowly removing all of her clothing, caressing her as she’s exposed. That always leads to fun.

We get clothes and take turns at cutting them off each other. We have a whole drawer of clothes we have made, for instance, we cut the nipples out of this one tight tee and we cut the breasts out of another one. I have cut the material out of the bras so it is just the straps, seams and underwires. We make G-strings out of cord. We get jeans and cut and cut until you are just left with some very scanty hot pants. The resulting orgasms from a night of doing these sorts of things is always mind-bogglingly amazing….

I feel sexy when I perform a striptease for my partner. I know she gets excited watching me put on a naughty show.

We simply indulge in our sexual desires whenever possible. If we can’t do it, we talk about it, write notes, send emails.

One Friday night, I had left a note, a key and a map on the table for my partner when she got home. The note told her to meet me at a local hotel room. We pretended we were strangers having an illicit affair. It was very rejuvenating and naughty.

The most important thing might be talking. We try very hard to talk to each other about what feels good, what doesn’t, what we aren’t getting enough feedback about, either physically or verbally. The next thing is probably setting aside time for each other, time to make love, and showing lots of affection. We touch each other, kiss, look—just small signals of love that are continual reminders.

Without a doubt, we are living vibrant, diverse, richly fulfilling sex lives. We share sex filled with heat and surprise, delicious lovemaking and hard, hard fucking. We play out scenarios that would put a filmmaker to shame. We have threesomes and sex parties, sex in public and private, and adventures to stretch the limits of our imaginations. We have great partnered sex. Don’t believe anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.

I have the best sex life possible. I have wonderful diverse sex partners. a loving amazing primary partner. I feel great about myself. I have vanilla and kinky sex and everything in between. I continue to learn something every day. I don’t know what more I could have other than all my sex partners in one house with a dungeon in the basement.

Suggested Web Link

“THE BIG LIE: LESBIAN BED DEATH,” BY SUZANNE IASENZA, PH.D.

www.GayHealth.com

SOURCE OF QUOTES

Jack Morin,
The Erotic Mind: Unlocking the Inner Sources of Sexual Passion and Fulfillment
(HarperPerennial, 1996), 276.

Wendy-O Matik,
Redefining Our Relationships: Guidelines for Responsible Open Relationships
(Defiant Times Press, 2002), 4-5.

chapter nine

Breast Play

I like it all—rough, gentle, caressing, grabbing, pinching, sucking.
Got the picture?

OUR BREASTS OFFER A DELICIOUS RANGE OF SENSATIONS. We enjoy caresses, fluttering kisses, moist lips on nipples. We like squeezing, pinching, kneading, slapping, and nibbling. We like having our nipples tugged and bitten, pulled and twisted. We enjoy soft touches around the curves. We crave feeling our breasts nestled together with those of a partner. We relish a woman’s hands on our pectoral muscles. We luxuriate in voluptuous breasts overflowing our grasp and we adore pert breasts with pointed nipples teasing the palms of our hands. We delight in juicy bee-stung nipples that fill our mouths. We love hard masculine chests proudly fronting a woman’s body. We even like to suck a drop of colostrum from a partner’s nipple.

Breast play isn’t only for partner sex. You can stimulate your breasts during masturbation—some women keep a set of nipple clamps by their bedside for just that purpose. Women with large breasts can even suck on their own nipples as they stimulate their clits.

Women who love breast play crave attention to their breasts, especially to the nipples. Their breasts seem to perk up at the possibility of touch, and once stimulated, they experience a current of sensation running from nipple to clit. Some women can reach orgasm from prolonged nipple stimulation alone.