I love sex, but if I had to choose between
touching myself and letting my husband do it
for me, more often than not, I’m going solo.
After nearly 20 years of marriage, I have no
reservations about owning what I want and
how I want it in the bedroom, and doing it my
way when necessary. But owning this fact
about myself was no easy feat.
My husband and I met when we were 16 and
married two years later — so in the early days
of our marriage, when we were both young
and uninitiated in the ways of good sex, I
masturbated in secret. It wasn’t that our
missionary-romance was bad; it just wasn’t
enough to get me there. I didn’t want to hurt
my husband’s pride by telling him I never
came during our sex sessions, and previous
attempts to show him how to touch me left
me with a bruised clitoris and him with a
bruised ego, so I kept a lid on my sexual
frustration. As soon as my husband would
jump out of bed to clean himself in the
bathroom, I would quickly and silently bring
myself to orgasm.
A year into my covert masturbation operation,
my husband surprised me by walking out of
the bathroom too early, catching me
pleasuring myself.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
On the brink of an orgasm, I tried to cover my
tracks, but he knew. Through stilted breaths, I
salvaged the moment by claiming I was
simply still in the mood. He seemed puzzled,
but accepted my explanation. That Christmas,
he gave me my first dildo. I accepted his gift
with elation and the understanding that
sexual satisfaction was my own
responsibility.
Although we never spoke of it, I was
convinced my husband knew I was unfulfilled.
When I reached for the sex toy as soon as he
climaxed, he didn’t protest. Instead, he
tenderly kissed my breasts and allowed me to
finish myself off, establishing what would
become our sexual norm.
But our sex lives were on a loop, the same
moves getting replayed over and over — and
in autumn of the fifth year of our marriage,
my husband and I separated. By then, we’d
had two children in quick succession, and
spent the majority of our time either fighting
or too exhausted to touch one another.
Sensing our demise was near, I foolishly
reached for religion in the hopes it would fix
us. It was kismet, then, when two Mormon
missionaries knocked on our door with a
message of salvation and eternal family bliss.
I gave everything I had to my spiritual
conversion. Determined to follow a path that
promised a happily ever after for my marriage,
I threw my beloved dildo in the garbage the
day of my baptism. Casting orgasms and
Satan aside, I waited for God to make my
relationship feel like heaven on earth. Not
surprisingly, that moment never arrived. A few
months later, we filed for legal separation and
I moved a state away with the kids for a fresh
start.
In my new apartment, I flipped God the middle
finger by masturbating my heart out once the
kids were asleep. Those orgasms were some
of the best I’d ever had. I formally ended my
relationship with religion not long after,
preferring the sweet release of sexual
fulfillment, even if it meant eternal
damnation.
In my newly single life, I reacquainted myself
with dating and casual sex, which meant a lot
of shaving (so much shaving) and an
introduction to types of sex I didn’t know
existed. The sexual education I received made
the excessive cost of razor blade cartridges
more like an investment.
During this time, I learned how much I love
oral sex. My husband had never been
interested in trying, and therefore I didn’t
know what I had been missing. Once I got the
weird “what if you smell or taste bad?” voice
out of my head, I found the experience
liberating. I no longer had to (or wanted to)
masturbate immediately after sex because I
was satiated. Suddenly I had a right to expect
equal satisfaction to my partner, and it was
incredible.
Over the course of our separation, neither my
husband nor I took the necessary steps to
finalize our divorce. We talked often — even
about the relationships we were in, although
never crossing the line into details about
sexual liaisons. We became better friends and
more open in our communication. In one of
those funny Jane Austen twists, that
longstanding friendship led to a rekindling of
our love for one another and in the spring of
what would have been our seventh year of
marriage we reconnected and reclaimed our
lives together.
Old habits die hard, though, and while our
emotional and mental connection was
stronger, our sexual chemistry reverted to its
infancy. Like before, our post-coital
connection involved boob play and me
finishing myself off.
Afraid to rock the boat, or be rejected, I didn’t
tell my husband to go down on me, even
though that’s what I really wanted. I also
didn’t want to hurt him or make him feel like
his lovemaking skills were less than
incredible, so I said nothing and masturbated
vigorously for nearly a decade.
Were there times I tried to nudge him in the
right direction? Sure. But the few times I tried
without success cemented my belief that our
paltry sex life was something I just had to
accept.
Then my husband threw a wrench in our
relationship and managed to completely
renovate our sex lives in the process. In what
could only be an admission born of guilt, my
husband confessed to having an affair three
months before we married. I wasn’t angry
about the brief fling he had before we’d ever
said our vows, rather by the fact that he’d lied
by omission for so long. We argued, I cried,
and in a calm moment, a thought occurred to
me – he wasn’t the only one who had been
keeping a secret in our marriage.
Emboldened by this realization, I decided to
share my truth once the dust had settled. In a
difficult conversation, I admitted how much I
hated our sex life.
I expected my husband to get angry, to push
me away and even feel betrayed. He did none
of that. Instead, he took my hands, looked in
my eyes and promised to change it.
Once our egos had cooled, we found our way
back to the bedroom. Full of renewed hope, I
used masturbation to show my husband
exactly how I liked to be touched. He was
eager to learn, and he was a quick study.
Sex with my husband transformed almost
immediately. For awhile, we were like
teenagers, going at it daily, later laughing in
each other’s arms about how much catching
up we had to do. Like most people in long-
term relationships, however, that earnestness
soon fizzled, placing us back in a
comfortable, although much more satisfying
schedule of sex a few times a month.
You would think this turn of events would
mean I put down my two fingers and never
had to masturbate again, but you would be
wrong.
Sex takes a lot of work. From bathing and
shaving and lotioning to making sure both
partners are available and in the mood,
there’s little room for true spontaneity. Plus,
I’ve got to be relaxed enough to lie back and
let myself be pleasured, which is not as easy
as it sounds.
Sometimes, I just want the release of an
orgasm but I don’t want to delay my
gratification to see if my husband is down for
a romp, or run in the bathroom and make sure
I’m well groomed. In essence, sometimes I’m
just too selfish and lazy to pick sex with him
over sex with myself.
If I want to go through the elaborate ritual of
getting my body ready for mind-blowing sex, I
do — and I can now know that it will be great.
Masturbation has finally become exactly what
it was always meant to be: an indulgence, not
a sad coping mechanism meant to replace the
real thing. But still, more times than not, I’d
rather delight in touching myself (thereby
skipping the guaranteed razor burn the
following day).
Sex with my husband transformed almost
immediately. For awhile, we were like
teenagers, going at it daily, later laughing in
each other’s arms about how much catching
up we had to do. Like most people in long-
term relationships, however, that earnestness
soon fizzled, placing us back in a
comfortable, although much more satisfying
schedule of sex a few times a month.
You would think this turn of events would
mean I put down my two fingers and never
had to masturbate again, but you would be
wrong.
Sex takes a lot of work. From bathing and
shaving and lotioning to making sure both
partners are available and in the mood,
there’s little room for true spontaneity. Plus,
I’ve got to be relaxed enough to lie back and
let myself be pleasured, which is not as easy
as it sounds.
Sometimes, I just want the release of an
orgasm but I don’t want to delay my
gratification to see if my husband is down for
a romp, or run in the bathroom and make sure
I’m well groomed. In essence, sometimes I’m
just too selfish and lazy to pick sex with him
over sex with myself.
If I want to go through the elaborate ritual of
getting my body ready for mind-blowing sex, I
do — and I can now know that it will be great.
Masturbation has finally become exactly what
it was always meant to be: an indulgence, not
a sad coping mechanism meant to replace the
real thing. But still, more times than not, I’d
rather delight in touching myself (thereby
skipping the guaranteed razor burn the
following day).
Source: elle.com
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