It's time we get out of our own way when it comes to sex

"Sex is all about pleasure. We enjoy it because it feels good. Because being turned on is a rush that makes us tingle and throb in all the right places. Because the sensation of cumming, of an orgasm. is fucking incredible. Why are we shy about saying it?

My entire life, I’ve been a ‘relationship girl.’

In my 27-year dating history, I’ve been single for a cumulative six months, going from one really long relationship in my teens and early 20s, to a medium-length relationship in my mid 20s, to meeting J.

I did all this, for the most part, without ever really playing the field.

My first relationship was a teen romance that lasted way longer than it should have. We didn’t have a lot of sex, and the sex we did have, I didn’t enjoy. When I finally ended it - because I’d always been faithful, and this guy was my first kiss along with everything else - I was 23 and had never so much as kissed another guy. You might think that would cue me going off the deep-end for a while and sowing some serious wild oats but, actually, by the time I got into my next relationship, I could still count on one hand the number of men I’d had sex with.

My second relationship was a good one with a good guy, but after an initial flurry of activity, sex - again - never really played a huge role.

J was a different story from the start. The attraction was real and from the moment we got together, we were an easy fit in every way. I knew I’d found the guy I wanted to spend my life with. But sex was still something I was sort of shy about; an area that I’d never stretched, explored, or experimented with. J was the first man to buy me lingerie, to buy me sex toys, to ask me what I wanted in bed, what felt good, what I liked, and to encourage me to share my fantasies - something I initially found quite difficult (see last week’s ‘fantasy’ blog). When we first got together, the idea of actually talking about sex was mortifying to me. I blame a small northern English town upbringing and an incredibly prudish family for my embarrassment at attempting to verbalise any sort of horny thoughts or feelings. J spent years patiently teasing me out of myself as the synapses in my brain fired and rewired. And then, when we began exploring this lifestyle together two years ago, things hit another level.

Today, in my 40s, my relationship with sex couldn’t be more different than it was in my 20s. In this last week alone, I’ve bought both sex toys and lingerie, spent the night in bed with another couple (on a video call, steady on…), met a guy for a drinks date, booked us into a sex party for next month, and exchanged countless sexy photos, videos, and texts. Ohh and I’ve had plenty of sex!

It’s as if, finally, this lifestyle has given me permission to play; to be indulgent. That’s what it does; it takes sex from the sidelines and puts it firmly front and centre in your relationship. Because sex is not one-note, and it can enhance so many aspects of your relationship, if you let it. Of course sex can be the thing that reaffirms feelings and connection, but what I think so many people lose sight of is that, at its heart, sex is about pleasure, about unapologetic and indulgent enjoyment. I believe too many people, particularly women, are embarrassed to admit that they enjoy sex. Sex is all about pleasure. We enjoy it because it feels good. Because being turned on is a rush that makes us tingle and throb in all the right places. Because the sensation of cumming, of an orgasm. is fucking incredible. Why are we shy about saying it?

We’d be the first ones to tell our friends “God that chocolate cake looks amazing, I can’t wait to eat that,’ or ‘I’m so ready for a cocktail,’ but when was the last time you told a friend “I really just can’t wait to get fucked by my husband tonight, I’m sooo horny…” If you have, my hat is off to you!

There are all of these ideas that exist around the concepts of what sex should be - how you should talk about it, who you should have it with, how often you should be having it - and they’re all rooted in our upbringing; ‘norms’ that have been passed down to us through generations of people. But, where did they actually come from..? Throughout most of human history, polygamy and sex with multiple partners was commonplace, that was the norm. Monogamy only came into existence in Western marriages around the 6th century. That means, at some point in history, the good people of Britain and Europe were happily fucking multiple people, and having the bloody time of their lives, thank you very much, right before this change began to seep in.

So how many of us today are living our lives in a way that was decided upon by people thousands of years ago? How many of us are resisting exploring and experimenting with sex for fear of being labelled a slut? For fear of being seen as’ easy?’ But who decided what ‘easy’ is? And who decided that a slut - a strong, independent woman who enjoys sex, who is in charge of her sexuality, and who has sex with multiple partners - was a bad thing? It certainly isn’t around my neck of the woods…

There are so many things in life that limit our pleasure - gaining weight and becoming unhealthy get in the way of us eating and drinking whatever we like; responsibilities and work get in the way of our time for our family, our friends, ourselves; money limits the amount of holidays we can take, and the material things we can buy.

But sex? Sex is a pleasure -  perhaps the most pleasurable of them all - whose only constraints are the ones that we’ve allowed other people to put on it for us. We know it’s great for you - your mood, your mental health, physically - so the only thing stopping us all from complete sexual freedom (and a whole lot of fun) are the voices in our heads of people saying ‘ahh, you see, we made this rule that, when you commit yourself to one person for life, you must not explore sex outside the confines of that relationship. Sorry…’

…by the way, these are the same people that decided homosexuality should be outlawed, that witches should be burned at the stake, and that rainbows were a display of God’s pleasure with their actions. (Don’t worry, I’m not about to get all religious on you here, but everything else about this point stands.)

Somewhere along the way, we’ve updated our thinking on so many things, and this one is next, I feel sure of it. It is the next band of thinking that needs to be addressed, reframed, reworked. And for many of us out there, that address has already begun.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date to go get ready for…

See you next week,

- The Secret Hotwife