The Great Orgasm Challenge: The Old Excuses

There are these cliche phrases that women purportedly use to get out of sex, like, “Not tonight, I’m tired,” or, “I have a headache,” or “¦Yeah, I don’t know the other ones, but I have legitimately had these excuses before and they have definitely put me in the anti-sexytimes mindset before. Which leads me to believe that in sex, as in much of life, cliches are sometimes cliches because they’re so widely true.

That said, I’m not a supporter of creating an excuse not to have sex. I firmly believe that in any healthy adult relationship, honesty is golden. If you don’t feel like having sex, you should be able to say so without fear of recrimination from your partner. Anyway, much of the reason I created this challenge this year is because last year, we weren’t exactly hitting 52 orgasms for the year, and looking back, I think it was because of two things. First, earlier in the year we went through some stressful changes (I quit drinking and was parsing out what my sobriety would look like, we moved to a different state, I was working an extremely stressful job, I had some highly painful dental things going on, and in general I felt like shit a lot of the time.) Those weren’t “excuses” I made up not to have sex, but a side effect was that I often just didn’t want anyone to touch me at all. Second, after a while of hearing these repeated refrains (“I’m tired, I’m stressed, I hurt, I feel like shit, not tonight, thanks!”), my partner quit asking. And the fact that he quit asking made me feel undesirable. (I know, I think it’s kinda stupid, too.) And even when we talked about it, he would be totally understanding and go out of his way to make me feel not-pressured, which made me inadvertently feel guilty for how awesome he was being about everything.

But guilt isn’t really a big turn on for me, so you can see why this cycle might have been prone to dragging itself out. Anyway, the Great O Challenge has been pretty invigorating for us. It’s still okay for either one of us to say, “No, not tonight,” but lately we’re prone to saying “Yes,” a little more often. And even if we’re not going the whole Penis In Vagina route, we’re still finding ways to be more tactile and sexy with each other. (We almost missed our pizza delivery last night because we hopped in the shower together and were laughing too much to hear the doorbell ring.)

So, in only a month and a half, I’d say that’s how the Great Orgasm Challenge is changing my relationship. How’s it going in yours? (Solo fliers, what are you learning about your bodies?)