Elaine* attended
a lesbian couples’ intimacy workshop under serious pressure from Robin, her
partner. Like the other couples who were
there, they had been stuck in long-standing conflict about their sex life. Robin wanted more intimacy, and wished they
could make love at least twice a month.
For Elaine, twice a year was plenty.
She said she had enjoyed sex when they first started dating, but her
passion subsided after the first few months.
Passion had completely vanished in the past year. Elaine was preoccupied with her very
demanding career, and it was hard for her to get “in the mood” to make
love. She identified with several other
women in the group who shared her “low sexual desire.” While we were talking about ways to create
more intimacy, Elaine spoke up abruptly.
“I know if you do all that it will make you feel more sexual –but why
bother? Why go to all that trouble if
you just don’t feel like it? Why is it such a big deal?” Then she burst into tears.
Elaine
cried because she felt so guilty and mad and helpless….As she talked about her
frustrations, other women chimed in with her.
Elaine was visibly relieved to hear others say they understood her
feelings and asked the same questions.
Robin was not so pleased, but she paid close attention.
Why
bother? Why do we place such emphasis on
a few minutes of sexual contact? Why
make yourself do something if you don’t feel like it? Isn’t emotional intimacy what’s
important? Why focus on what people
do—or don’t do—in the bedroom?
As
lesbians, we understand the courage it took to come out and acknowledge our
sexual feelings for other women. It was
risky to confront all our internal and external barriers to homoerotic love. It was also exhilarating to discover
authentic passion, when sexual excitement and loving feelings come together in
shared moments of pleasure. It took
courage to claim our sexuality then, but the rewards were so obvious and
immediate that most of us never looked back after crossing the line.
Ironically,
it takes even more courage to sustain sexuality in a stable, committed
relationship. The rewards aren’t as
obvious and immediate, the “romance chemicals” died down a long time ago, and
all our internalized anti-sexual messages still lurk under the surface. Instead of being carried away by romantic
waves of passion, we have to consciously decide if and how to nurture sexual
intimacy. It’s much harder when you have
to announce to yourself, and your partner, that you value sex enough to be
deliberate and intentional about it. We
weren’t trained for this! Most of us
don’t have much experience initiating sexual encounters, we don’t have huge
reservoirs of testosterone propelling us toward sex, and we’re burdened by
unhelpful myths about female sexuality.
That’s why it takes courage, and stamina. It’s also why it’s easy to back away and
wonder if sex really matters anyway.
There are good reasons for our sexual
ambivalence. Sex can give you a lot of
pleasure, but it can hurt you too. It
may happen easily and naturally, or it can take a lot of planning and
effort. It can create wonderful feelings
of intimate bonding with your partner, but you may worry about the
implications. You may feel great
sensations in your body, but be ashamed of how your body looks. You may yearn for the intense pleasures of
arousal and orgasm, but sometimes you just can’t feel it. You may be full of loving feelings for your
partner, but also full of questions: Do
I look fat? Do I seem neurotic,
inhibited, compulsive, too uptight, too loose?
Will I get wet enough, come enough, respond enough? There’s a lot going on in your mind when you
get in bed with someone, and it can make you very anxious.
…(Summary
of the research: very high correlation between marital and sexual satisfaction;
lack of intimacy associated with break-ups; comments from the 20% of
long-term lesbian couples who sustain an active sexual relationship)
…Some
corporations use “ropes courses” to build teamwork. This is where you have to step off of a ledge
and trust your teammates to catch you before you hit the ground. Sex is a lot like that: you announce your
intentions, take off your clothes, and trust your partner to catch you in an
intimate embrace. You trust that she
will respond to you with desire, attend to you lovingly, respect your
particular quirks. You trust her not to
leave you feeling exposed and foolish while she goes back to reading her
magazine. After you start making love,
you trust her to know when you’re really turned on, and not to leave hanging
halfway there. It’s just a risky
venture, all the way through. But as
they say, “No guts, no glory.”
The
glory comes with all that sheer pleasure, and deep physical and emotional
bonding, and with the ego boost you get when you take risks, face fears, and
step outside your comfort zone. It’s no
wonder that sexually active lesbian couples seem so pleased with themselves,
and with each other.
…It
helps to remember that you’re on the same team.
Your opponents are all the anti-sexual, anti-female, anti-lesbian
messages that devalue your sexual love for each other. There’s plenty of negativity about lesbian
love in the external world—you don’t need to bring it into your most personal
relationship just to prove who’s in control.
Your goal is just to work out a relationship that’s good enough for both
of you, and to determine realistic expectation that fit your partnership.
The
word “expectations” may arouse defiance, but it’s a reality of all
relationships. Most of us ask our partners to practice monogamy. We don’t ask them, explicitly, to practice
celibacy, and yet that’s what happens in many lesbian relationships. It’s important to know you can say “No,” but
don’t say “Never” without really thinking about the implications. It would be like saying you don’t want to go
to bat after signing up for the softball team.
You may not have the urge to walk up to the batting box, but in a way,
you say you would when you asked to join the team.
…The magnetic pull of sexual
attraction was once strong enough to change your life. You could have enjoyed the social
acceptability of a heterosexual lifestyle, having female friends and male
lovers. You could have tried to abandon
for feelings for women. But you didn’t,
for certain reasons—sexual reasons.
Those
are the reasons to nurture sexual intimacy for lesbian couples. We fight for the legal rights of marriage,
but forget that sex helps you bond in marriage.
It’s what makes marriage more than a friendship, strengthens your
attachment to each other, and deepens your emotional connection as you love
each other physically. Sexual intimacy
can offer you as much as a person, and as a couple. Why deprive yourself?
*
All names and identifying information have been
changed to protect anonymity and confidentiality.
