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I feel like I have some explaining to do. A couple of weeks ago, I shared that lately, Christina and I have started having sex a lot more than usual. We had more sexual encounters last month than there were days in the month. We’re at about 30 for this month already.
This has led to some questions by some people. I wrote a large thread in our supporter’s forum to try and answer them all and thought it might be helpful here. Because it goes beyond just an “ask me anything” sort of post. It’s really about how we’ve adapted sex to deal with sexual dysfunction in a way that’s not only positive but actually ends up being more fun and connecting than I think most people’s sex lives are.
I’m going to try to adapt a forum thread into a post and see how it goes. If you want to read the original, then you have to become a supporter, and you can search for the thread called “Sex with erectile dysfunction and delayed ejaculation” because there’s more to the thread than this topic, but I’m just pulling out the topic I wanted to hit today in this post.
To start off, we’ve dealt with some sexual dysfunction for our entire marriage. Christina has had vaginismus (pain during penetration). I deal with erectile dysfunction most of the time and also delayed ejaculation, which means it’s hard for me to orgasm. Christina also suffers from post-coital depression, which means after she has an orgasm, she tends to get depressed for the next day or two.
As such, we’ve had to redefine sex. Most people, I find, tend to have a fairly narrow expression of sex. They often have the same routine – some sort of initiation, some sort of foreplay during which the wife might orgasm, then penetration until he orgasms, then they’re done.
It might change a bit, but for a lot of people, that’s what sex is. When they say “sex,” they often only mean the penetrative part, and foreplay is a separate category.
But what happens when penetration doesn’t happen? What if you have ED? What if you have vaginismus? What if he can’t orgasm (like I can’t a third of the time) – when does it stop? What if you’re the wife and you don’t want an orgasm first because then you get depressed/bored and aren’t really interested in continuing? Sorry, Ian, not every wife wants to come first.
These are all things we’ve had to deal with. So, how do you still have sex with all that going on? Well, I’ll tell you.
What counts as sex?
For us, sex isn’t solely defined by penetration. In fact, only about half of our sexual encounters include PIV sex. Instead, we view any activity that involves arousal and genitals as part of our sexual life. A night might only include manual sex, or it might include oral sex. It might include blindfolds, cuffs, toys and more, and still not have any PIV sex. We still consider it sex, though.
This broader definition helps us keep intimacy alive, no matter what happens. If I can’t get hard, that’s okay because we’ve built a sexual repertoire that doesn’t require an erection. We have many other options, even before we get to toys, which don’t come out that often anymore.
When does sex end?
For most couples, it seems sex ends when the husband has had an orgasm. This is part of the reason for the “she comes first” advice we see everywhere because if she doesn’t have an orgasm first, then she might not get one at all.
For us, orgasm is not the end of the fun. It’s not even the goal. For me, it’s often not even possible. Delayed ejaculation can make it so that you run out of energy before you get to orgasm. For Christina, orgasm is often not as good as the sex is, especially if you know it’s going to make you depressed afterwards. It’s frustrating at times, but by and large, we just changed our view of sex so that it ends when either we’re satisfied (which you can be without orgasm) or when we have something else to do – like go to sleep or get started with our day, or we should really start thinking about making dinner.
As a result, sex lasts anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, depending on what’s going on and how late it is. “Normal” for us is about 90 minutes to 2 hours in the evening. Mornings are more like 20 to 30-minute quickies that usually end because I have a meeting to get to and Christina has farm chores to do.
The point is the goal isn’t to get an orgasm. It’s to connect and play. When you aren’t focused on the orgasm, you can still enjoy yourself a lot without one.
Now, we sometimes still want one, and then we work to get it, but when that happens, we explicitly make it a secondary goal. Sometimes, we try, and it doesn’t work (especially for me). For Christina, I’ve gotten pretty good at edging her, so her orgasm is nearly guaranteed if I want to give her one. I spend more time trying to make sure she doesn’t orgasm when that’s not the intent of the session.
Sometimes, we stop because she can’t take any more pleasure and needs a break to cool down, or else she’s going to orgasm when that’s not the plan.
What does sex look like then?
To have this sort of sex, first, throw out all the ideas of what’s foreplay vs sex. Call it all sex. Also, there shouldn’t be predefined sequences of what should come first before other things. There’s nothing to say oral sex has to come before penetration. There’s no rule that says you can’t go back and forth between penetration and manual sex. We switch positions and activities probably a couple dozen times during an encounter. We’re just playing and having fun. If your arm, jaw, neck, shoulder, or whatever is getting tired or sore, if you get a cramp in your hamstring or quad (both happened this past week), switch to something else for a bit, then switch back if you want.
Next, add in a lot more communication. We talk almost constantly during sex – more me than her, but she definitely participates. If you’re only working to keep your spouse’s body aroused, but you are ignoring their mind, then you’re only having sex with their body, and you’re leaving the best stuff on the table. Get your spouse’s mind aroused, and their body will follow. They will beg you to play with them.
In short, I do my best to make her an absolute puddle by the end of every encounter, both physically and mentally.
If you want a more specific answer than that, one of my supporters had asked if I could give a run-through of what a sex session is like for us with all this in mind, so I added a breakdown (in a very non-erotic way) in the supporter’s forum.
What does this lead to?
Honestly, this leads to you being really good at sex, no matter what life throws at you.
Do you know how good your sex could be if you weren’t worried about whether or not you’d have an orgasm? If you weren’t worried about staying hard or having the stamina to keep going long enough. If you had an entire repertoire of stuff that turned you both on and felt amazing, then if something doesn’t feel great that day, you can just switch to something else. If you could pause, take breaks, switch activities and go back to them as desired. If your spouse could say to you, “You can do whatever you want to me because I know it’s going to feel amazing, and I trust you not to do anything that won’t.” If they weren’t just physically turned on but mentally so aroused, they can hardly stand it and have to ask for a break or else they’re going to burst. What if sex was so good for both of you that you both had the mindset that sex is an option any time you’re in the bedroom together? Because why wouldn’t it be? It’s going to be amazing. If on those days it’s not amazing, you could just shrug it off and say, “That’s okay, we can try again in the morning/tonight/tomorrow,” and know it’s not going to be another few weeks before you get the chance.
That’s where this leads to. At least, it has for us.
Now, there’s more to it than this, of course. I’ve spent a lot of time talking about attitude and communication, about actually loving your spouse and acting like it, which also plays into this, but this is a big element for how we have an amazing sex life, whether the frequency is high (as it is right now) or not (as it was a couple of months ago). Good sex takes practice. It’s not going to get better if it’s only once a month. It won’t get better if it only lasts 10 minutes. You’re not going to become a better lover by following the same routine for sex every time. If you’ve gotten really “efficient” at sex, then you’re going in the wrong direction.
My goal these days is not to have efficient sex. It’s to draw it out as long as possible and still be responsible adults. We’ve had to have a discussion recently about how we’ve been spending too much time in bed lately and should probably be devoting some more time to other things.
That’s how we’ve managed to still have an amazing sex life despite ED, DE, Vaginismus, post-coital depression, ADHD, and everything else life throws in our way.
If you want to know more, check out the supporter’s forum. You can sign up for less than the price of coffee at Starbucks, and I’m willing to bet you will get more out of it. Or, just stay tuned as I continue to unpack a holistic approach to sex and marriage from a Christian viewpoint every week.
And as always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them below in the comments section.
what if one’s wife is totally willing to participate in anything but doesn’t want to be aroused? post menopausal disinterested in sexual anything but totally available for me, it feels so one sided like she’s willing to fill up the waterbaloons but not interested in throwing them but will if asked. I feel like i’m playing tag with myself.
Do you mean she actively does not want to be turned on, or that she doesn’t want to go through the effort of being aroused? Those are two different things.