I have a confession to make. Before I was married, I used to hate foreplay. I found myself rushing through the preliminaries, anxiously pushing towards the main event. I mean really, who has time for ear nibbles and a kiss on the back of the thigh? I had foolishly assumed that I was more thoroughly evolved, less needy, and more perfectly suited to a heterosexual relationship in terms of my needs and libido. A typical session involved me smiling in tolerance while I submitted to a thorough toe sucking, and then asking for what I had wanted all along. Way back when, I actually endured foreplay. After five years of marriage, I sit here and wonder…what changed?
In the beginning, there was light—in our bedroom I mean. We were a new couple. Sex was exciting. The lights were on. Lingerie was a must. And my future husband was virile and thrilling in every sense. And then, lo and behold, after the first few months of sex, he acquiesced to my requests and foreplay was kept to a minimum. Could it be? Would I be freed from the prison known as petting? We progressed wildly, free of any rules, and then, just as our relationship began to build and deepen, our sex became more and more shallow. He responded to my dissatisfaction with a rather uninspired thirty seconds of nipple-tweaking. I responded to his humdrum technique with less and less passionate involvement. We were engaged, in love, and utterly bored with sex. How could this happen to me? I’d always been the girl who loved sex in any form—boring or otherwise. Then it hit me. I loved sex in any and every form, and our coupling had become just one form—formulaic.
There’s a certain amount of trepidation one feels when one must eat her own words, admit to being wrong, and beg for a little warm-up before the final workout. Thank goodness shame and tact have never been sentiments that weighed heavily upon me. So, I told him. Like the lovely man that he is, he altered his behavior that night. Unfortunately, he got it all wrong. I had taken inspiration out of our lovemaking, and my poor husband was the one left tripping all over himself. It was awful, similar to an extended handshake gone horribly wrong. The corner of his mouth pursed in consternation as he went through the motions.
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