Sex Talk

I didn’t correct him, partly because I had hoped he was being sarcastic, and partly because I wanted to drop the subject, but the more I thought about it the more I started to analyze things.

Was this a form of misogynistic influence in our culture?

I mean, the assumption was pretty blatant when I thought about it. I was a married woman, had no children, was not interested in children, and liked sex…therefore I must be a sex addict.

I took it as a joke and tried to move on, but it kept bothering me. If I was a sex addict, I probably would have started sleeping around by now. My husband’s lower libido and emotional sensitivity to stress certainly keeps our sex life from being as frequent as I liked, but I didn’t feel my libido was overactive by any means.

There still seems to be this cultural shock that women enjoy sex for pleasure and intimacy building. There are probably tons of factors that play into this, much of it is perpetuated by media, though I see that starting to change as media and society become more informed, but there is still a surprising lack of accessible information out there.

Medical science didn’t start bringing women and minorities into the research until about 30 years ago. Only in the last 20 has there been an outcry for accurate representation of women in medical science. Cultural influence in America, media, censorship, and a dedication to ignorance as well as other complex factors are to be blamed for the lack of information out there about women and their sexual health (with a emphasis on the separation from reproductive health).

So let me talk a little bit about my sex life, and feel free to stop reading if you’re afraid of TMI. But know at this point I’m explaining to ask for recommendations from my readers.

My husband and I are about 5 years into our marriage and have a pretty vanilla sex life. We are both very affected by stress when it comes to sex, and complications in the bedroom to work stress all factor into performance. My husband has a lot of anxiety and a lower libido than I do, both of which impede our sex life in many ways. Giving him instruction during sex can lead to him taking things personally and not being able to continue. I often rely on masturbation for release because it’s less stressful than asking for sex.

We have decided more recently that it’s best for my husband to do his own research if he takes my instruction too personally. However, there is a surprising lack of reliable information on sexual techniques to help in the bedroom. That which is out there is pretty generic and not very detailed or graphic enough to be understood. The rest is offered by social media, but additionally, requires vetting, testing, and sorting through practical jokes. Sure they claim to be a sex therapist, but how do you know? Who can really vouch for them? Plus there is so much red tape and stigma surrounding the female body that useful information ends up being reported.

There is plenty of kink culture info out there too, but again, that doesn’t help those of us with more vanilla lives.

The lack of reliable information or extremely generalized information makes the research frustrating, but wats even more aggravating is the lack of well done advertising for stuff like OMGYES.com. Great it exists and all, but its expensive for something that doesn’t do much to advertise. It’s also targeted mostly for women. Again, great to have something out there self for women, but wishing for more to educate men.

My husband even approached his doctor at one point to ask if he had any suggestions and his male physician recommended porn. Which was not at all helpful and extremely disappointing. If you can’t even trust your medical professional to help you, then what is left to try?

So we are leaning more towards wholistic approaches. Herbalism and vitamins are not off the table.

Personally I’m looking for podcasts that talk about female sexuality and sex, but my husband is still left in the dark. He’s not much of a podcast listener. He’s more of a video guy and needs to see people and their body language to engage with media content more effectively. So if anyone out there has recommendations for podcasts or YouTubers that talk on the subject that would be very useful to us.