quizzical pussy

There are several reasons you might not be getting sex at any given time. Right now I’m not having sex because my boyfriend lives several towns over and I haven’t yet organized an elite, round-the-clock Fuck Quizzical Pussy Squad yet. YET. Historically, various other reasons have come into play. Some of these have included, but were never limited to:

1. Just had sex. Mumbledamn refractory periodumble.
2. No one likes me; eating worms instead.
3. I am eleven.
4. Hell, I’m seventeen.
5. Long-distance, monogamous relationships For The Lose.
6. I’m too sore. (This has happened. Twice.)
7. I’m more-or-less oblivious to flirting, declarations of interest, and outright propositions, so I’m often unaware that I have actual offers on the table.
8. Someone wants to fuck me, and I know about it, but it’s an icky someone.
9. I’m saving myself for marriage. (This one never really happened.)
10. The person I’m trying to fuck foolishly wants to do other things, like “going to work”, “eating”, and “living a healthy, balanced life”.

I could go on, but you’re with me, right? There’s never-had-sex, long-term not-having-sex, short-term not-having-sex, and extremely short-term not-having-sex (my favorite of these options, also known as taking-pants-off time).

But one could argue that there’s a particular torture inherent to being in a serious romantic relationship and still not getting any. Like, ever. Laramy would chime in here to say that there’s a word for this phenomenon and it’s called “marriage”, but I can’t see my way to being quite so cynical or quite so hopeful. Involuntarily sexless relationships can arise whether you’re married or not, whether you’re straight, gay, or queer, and whether you see it coming or not.

I’d say that sexless relationships (I’ll be concentrating on the ones where at least one of the partners does have an issue with it. If two people are enjoying the hell out of not fucking each other, well, there’s no issue to speak of, now is there?) fall into two categories: in the first, sex used to happen much more frequently. Something that used to work is no longer working. In the second, lack of sex has always been an issue, perhaps even to the point where the relationship is unconsummated.

The first usually has a cause-and-effect reason, even if it’s hard to admit and/or suss out. The most cut-and-dried example would be a physiological issue: one partner’s hormones go out of whack, sex drive plummets, and the sex dies. This can be the result of a medical condition, a medication, stress, menopause, andropause, or a whole host of other things you can talk to your doctor about. Sometimes the reason is emotional or attraction-based. People fall out of lust, or out of love. Sometimes the reason your partner isn’t sleeping with you is because he or she doesn’t want to anymore.

But for me it’s the second that’s a little harder to grok. I can imagine having a medical condition that affects my sex drive (because it’s happened) and I can imagine having a sex life that runs purely on lust take a nosedive when I realize I don’t really like the other person (also happened), but I can’t realistically imagine starting a relationship with someone I’m unwilling to bone.

And yet, even though I personally don’t get it, somehow it happens! And that is shocking. To me.

People will sometimes try to force themselves to be less shallow, and date someone they’re not really attracted to in the first place, and so might very simply not ever get interested in having sex with them. Some people physically cannot have intercourse for any of a wide variety of reasons.

But what about people who have literally never experienced, or only felt very low levels of sexual attraction for anyone, ever? At that point, although as far as I know it’s a self-identification so I’m not sure it’s 100% accurate, we need to start thinking about asexuality.

This subject is not my area of expertise, so I went to an expert. Well, a website.

An asexual, according to the Asexual Visability and Education Network (AVEN), is a person who doesn’t experience sexual attraction. Asexuals may or may not have an interest in romantic relationships. Asexuals may or may not experience sexual arousal; they may or may not masturbate. Asexuality seems to me just about as diverse as sexuality. And if your partner doesn’t seem to respond to you or anyone else sexually, it might be helpful to think about your relationship dynamic in terms of being an asexual/sexual union.

AVEN has a great FAQ about relationships and asexual people here, but even more compelling are the AVEN community forums, which have a section for Sexual Partners, Friends, and Allies. This section is invaluable because you can read accounts of people in relationships that may be hauntingly similar to yours. Observe:

We do have a sex life. A very boring one but we get each other off once in awhile. Maybe twice a month is it. Always initiated by me. And all he will do to me is finger me and sometimes perform oral sex. He lets me jerk him off and sometimes perform oral sex on him and I have to admit, if he didn’t ‘cum’, I would never know he did! He NEVER makes a noise, a moan, a sigh, nothing. I have never been with a man who is so quiet when he has an orgasm. Not that he has to be noisy, but a little enthusiasm would be nice. At least let me know!! – bluegal

Initially in our marriage we had sex on average 4 times a month. Once every Saturday or Sunday. Over the years adding two children into the equation it has gotten worse. Now we have sex twice a month. She has recently come to the conclusion that she’s asexual…I truly feel like I’m in a no win position. She doesn’t want me looking at porn (and I can honestly live without porn), but she won’t have sex with me, so I don’t have a sexual outlet. – mrroper

I noticed immediately that sex was awkward for him. He would do what he thought he should do, but, it was very clinical. There was no passion, no “I want to devour you” moments. He was not comfortable having sex. I knew this from the get go. He admitted to me that sex was not his “thing”. He told me that he was not very sexual. He said that he the mind was much more alluring to him. Okay… go figure. – kazzpurr

If you’re in a situation like any of these, go read those and other threads. The feedback from AVEN’s asexual members may be especially illuminating.

(image source)

Find Part One of the Fuck-crossed series here. There will be a Part Three, unless I get distracted by squirrels or blinky lights.

I have a friend who has an interesting hobby: sending his male coworkers the most sexually harassingest text messages ever, ending each with “no homo”.

Example:

I wanna give u the 3rd best rimjob you’ve ever had in ur life, man. No homo.

And no, he hasn’t been fired. Yet.

When he told me about this I’d actually never heard the phrase no homo before, and thought he’d made it up. Turns out, not quite.

But now we have these, come to restore the balance of power, and I’m pretty sure I need one: