Who Do You Talk About Sex and Intimacy With?
If someone were to ask me that question, the answer would be simple. Before the Anonymous8, the answer is nobody. Zippo. No one.That is the same for about half of the Anonymous8. I had no idea how many interesting, creative, fun, alluring, sensual, fantastic ways there are to be intimate with your spouse (plain vanilla style, thank you very much). We had no idea about all sorts of things, like special clothing or grooming tips or what men like. Of course, many of us dabble in discussing sex with our husbands, but not all of us… Plus, the discussions with husbands are different and guarded.
We are well-educated women, attentive mothers, career-oriented (more so before multiple kids) go getters. Through careers and jobs, we thought we were modern and enlightened. Who knew how important it was to discuss many things about life and love and intimacy – with other women – safely, in a non-judgmental environment?
And, even more important…
Why Didn’t Our Moms and Sisters Clue Us In?
Hellooooo. No one ever discussed sex with me as a young woman beyond ”Wait until you’re married.” Truly, the discussion began and ended with that sentence. We needed to figure it out for ourselves. And we were clueless. In all of our cases, neither our moms nor our sisters had discussed bedroom politics with us. Why had our moms kept us in the dark? Is it because they were 50s wives and they themselves had been kept in the dark? They followed the tradition of what had been taught by their own mothers. (If someone knows why or has had different experiences, please do share.)
It wasn’t until the Anonymous8 that many of us began looking more carefully at these issues. You could call it “The Adult Education of Sarah Baron and Friends.” The Phd on living life (even though we are beginning our studies). Everyone I tell about Anonymous8 is jealous, yes jealous, for friendships where they discuss “the undiscussable subjects.” I guess that’s why we started this blog – to encourage you to be WOMAN.
Join us or start your own Anonymous3 or Anonymous12 or Anonymous6, or Anonymous8. Over the next few months, we’ll tell you how we started and guide you on your way.
You can start by signing in for our email updates, following us on Twitter, or posting a comment on the site. We want to know who you talk about sex with – or if you talk about it at all.
Recent Posts:
8 Ways To Treat Your Husband Like a Boyfriend
I’ve had several no-holds-barred friends in my lifetime (including my husband). Right now, I can think of 5-6 of them, but only 2 of them live near me. It’s so liberating to have girlfriends to bounce ideas off of – or to get ideas from… Everyone should be lucky enough to have friendships with no fear of judgment.
I LOVE your concept! I only person I talk to about sex is my husband. Although I can be described as an outgoing person, I am private and frankly don’t have close girlfriend who are married and or my own age, that I feel comfortable discussing the details of my life.
Thanks for the Anonymous8,I just became a subscriber and can’t wait to read what you have to offer, bravo!
What a gift it is to find friends who you can be yourself with and share everything with. Thanks for visiting!
So happy you came by. Now I’m feeling pressure to deliver good content to match those expectations! I had a discussion with a friend today and we talked about how it really should be that you talk about sex with the husband primarily but that doesn’t happen much or enough, which we think leads to low levels of intimacy in many couples. Hmmm….. I’m sensing a future post here. As far as girlfriends, my sense is that you are young. At your age, I didn’t have these friends. The began pretty much when my kids hit kindergarden. Yours too will come when the time is right!
Sarah, I really enjoyed this post and love your overall approach/concept with this site!
Personally, I really only discuss sexual stuff with my wife. We have very open and intimate communication on this subject (and others). I think our openness with each other starts with our practice of Natural Family Planning, a topic I’ve discussed quite a bit at my site.
I’m looking forward to following your progress!
Dustin,
Thanks so much for stopping by and for your insight. I have to wonder if it is that way for a lot of men – in good relationships that is – that their wife is their intimate confidant. And their wives too. In an ideal world, that’s who men should talk about sex with – their wives, right? And vice versa. My hunch is that there are so many couples whose intimate lives are less than ideal, and in those couples, my guess is that intimacy is, for many of them, a topic not discussed. I look forward to following your site as well. I also love comments from men, because it gives us a different perspective.
Thanks,
Sarah
I am only 100% open with my husband when it comes to our sex life. Sure, I have 1 or 2 very close friends that I talk with from time to time – but not in great length or detail. Simply out of respect for my marriage. What we do, like or dislike in the bedroom is for us to know.
Yes, I agree with you on that. I have found that our discussions do not involve much detail, only grey area, out of respect for our marriages. For example, I don’t know that husband a or b is fond of this or that. It is more like, did you know that this or that works? I also think that talking to the husband is the primary person for this, if you can. Some of us do, and for some of us, we don’t.
Wow, I definitely did not have any discussions on the subject with my Mom. Being raised in that era makes it difficult to breakaway from. I do discuss intimacy my husband…you need more than a kess to build a dream on!
Assorted thoughts….
Personally, I’m rather glad that my mother never talked with me about sex. This isn’t because when she met my father when they were 18, she was terrified of going on a bus because she still believed you could get pregnant by bumping up against someone, or because she had been raised to believe you did not even kiss until you were married, and she actually stuck to that despite my father’s best efforts. This isn’t even because our house had poor sound insulation, my bedroom was next to my parents’ bedroom, my mother avoided closing doors completely because she didn’t want to risk marring the paint job of the door jams if the wood swelled with the weather, and I believed I knew more than I wanted to already, from a young age, about my parents’ rather limited sex life. It really had more to do with her personality, and our relationship, overall.
In fact, my mother randomly complained over the years that I never asked her about sex, the way my elder sister had. By the time I was old enough that she finally took for granted I was at least aware, on an informational level, of the basics, she became annoyed that I did not wish to talk with her about it. She was fairly convinced that I looked like “a dead boy” and would never attract anyone, and worked pretty hard at raising me to believe it as well, but still, she felt, I should want to seek some vicarious wisdom to balance my own hopelessness. By the time I was in college, we’d have fights because I did not answer HER questions about the sex life of my FRIENDS.
Once I was engaged to my now-husband, she attempted a more subtle approach at endearing me to the thought of bonding with her over these things, or at least attempted a more subtle approach to getting my guard down. One end-of-break when I was packing for my escape back to college, she came to me with a handful of red foil squares. “Why,” I asked, are you walking in here with dad’s condoms?!” She wanted to know, somewhat archly, how I knew what they were. Well gee, maybe because he usually had a hopeful Trojan left openly on his nightstand, and she’d long asked for my help perfectly making their Better-Homes-&-Gardens-elaborate bed. Oh. Right. Well anyway… She wanted to know if I wanted them, because she, “Didn’t need them any more,” care of menopause. She could not have more obviously been digging for information about whether I had a sex life, if she’d handed me a bunch of notes outright asking me. I told her I had absolutely no use for my father’s condoms, which was perfectly true. I assume OMGEWWWWWW is enough explanation, there.
She tried on one more fairly memorable occasion. My sister was getting married, and I’d been called to duty to accompany her, our mother, and my father as chauffer, on a trip all over the NY metro area, searching through gowns, accessories, and, all-importantly to my sister, lingerie. As we were browsing yet another department of the latter, I earned some disdain and pity over the fact that I was not taking the opportunity to shop for myself. Now, even if I — or my husband — was as obsessed with lingerie as my sister always was, I would have had no desire no shop for it in the presence of my mother and sister. The memories of being forced to bra-shop as a kid, with my mother and sister screaming my cup size across the store to each other, are not fond. (Neither is the one of my mother having my father bring home a padded push-up bra, FOR ME, because he happened to work above a lingerie store at one point and “I was never a pleasure to shop with” — and having it handed to me with an unceremonious, “Here, you’ll need this.” …I was 13, by the way.) In any event, on this occasion, they took my declination to squee over ruffly, sequined, transparent things (very expensive ruffly, sequined, transparent things, at that, for the idea of expensiveness was always a turn on for them) as permission to comment further on their assumption that I was hopeless when it came to romantic relations. So there we are, walking through a department store, my father trailing behind looking for other purse-holding husbands to sympathize with, and my mother and sister, after making it clear what they thought of my condition in life, generously offered to give me some advice on, “How to attract a man.” I declined. They went on, about how that was just like me…well, I don’t need to go into the whole schpeel…but in any event, you get the idea, and they were my only hope, you see!! Without learning from them, I’d never fake what it takes to attract someone’s, let alone the right person’s, amourous attention! At this point, still right there in the department store with my trailing father, I decided to point out that my father was my mother’s first boyfriend, and she hadn’t stopped complaining about him since — along w/ some of the information at the beginning of this comment. My sister was on her second engagement, this one to her fourth boyfriend, and before she began seeing him she’d told me she kept buying more underwear because she missed having sex. I, on the other hand, HAD
…ALREADY BEEN A BLISSFUL NEWLYWED FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS, with someone who had been my fifth boyfriend. I had both attracted more people than either of them, and done better at attracting the right one for me. And I was very confident, thankyouverymuch, that I did not need any advice from THEM.
All the same, I’d place bets on neither of them believing I’d ever “convinced someone to have sex with me”, until I bore a child.
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Whatever your personal beliefs or habits when it comes to discussing these kinds of things, and in what ways or details….it still makes a difference WHO even TRIES to get you to talk about these things, or is there for you to consider it with.
Shortly after we got married, my husband and I were walking around town one day when we ran into my MIL’s best friend, who is also my husband’s GodMother. She pulled me aside. “I know you guys don’t drink,” she said, “So if you have bottles of champagne people gave you, sitting around, let me let you in on a little something…the bubbles make for impressive blowjobs!” I began laughing hysterically. “What?!,” she added, “You think I don’t know your MIL? She’s going to be useless for this kind of thing, she’d go into shock at the very idea. And I met your mother, I know she’s useless anyway. Someone’s got to tell you stuff worth winking about, just in case. I used to bounce your husband down the stairs on my lap when he was a baby, but *I* know he grew up!”
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It’s actually pretty amusing to me how many friends I’ve frustrated over the years, by being surprisingly (to most people) open and honest about practically all facets of life EXCEPT my sex life. This, too, in defiance of the fact that I seem to have a sign on my forehead which says, “Please, everyone…whether or not I even know you…please, please tell me the intimate details of your sex life. Yes, of course I really feel a deep need to know. Don’t forget to leave out the kinky details. No no no, no need to ask your partner, who may or may not be my friend, if he minds. Just tell me EVERYTHING, and right now.”
As some other commenters on this post said, part of it is that it’s not just MY privacy under consideration. Part of it is that it really is a whole different kind of private thing. Yes, I’ll offer a few snarky references, here and there, in relation to past relationships with people I no longer respect, and to people who won’t know who they are. My first ‘French kiss’ was from boyfriend number one, otherwise known as “The Human Vacuum” — a sad way to first lay claim to the kissing style of my heritage.
And if someone brings up a fetish for oversized penises, I might reflect on overly hopeful boyfriend #2, who was 6’11″, proportionate, and prompted me to think now, “Ohh yeah baby!” but, “That’s a damn harpoon. Ow.” But I don’t give away anything incriminating, and when it comes to my husband, with whom incrimination is rather impossible by merit of the fact that we’re married with a kid, I’ll only speak in general terms.
Great story. Also, thank goodness there are women out there (godmothers especially) who get this kind of stuff and who make us laugh with a wink and a hint or two.
So, Ms. VanillaSnark, how did you turn out to be so normal and healthy growing up in the environment you grew up in?
No one ever talked about sex with me. I have had a very difficult past regarding sex. One being that I was molested when I was about 3. My father was not very secretive about his sex life in front of me. It was disgusting.
I had always seen sex as a negative and dirty thing. My husband has helped change my idea of it very slowly and lovingly. He has been very patient, kind and understanding about it all.
I have grown so much in this area. I still do not talk about it in real life all that much. I am more comfortable with it then I used to be, but I do not have any female confidantes that I feel I can talk about sex with.
I have just now, after almost 10 years of marriage, gotten comfortable talking about sex freely with my husband. I am comfortable going to him about things that I like and don’t like.
Now if I could just figure out how to increase my libido, we would be all set.
Interesting topic and it is definitely something that needs to be talked about more without it being taboo.
I just realized that in the second part of my above comment, it should be, “NOT, ‘Yeah, baby’”, not, “NOW, ‘Yeah, baby!’. Ahh, typos.
Sorry, Sarah….are commenters supposed to be notified when they get responded to, or something? I only checked back here by happenstance. Eniways, I can’t help but laugh at your question, because I get that ALL THE TIME. I get it in relation to many facets of and the sum storytime total of my whacked-up life, though pretty much anything but the fact that I come from an abusive family will get posted un-anonymously — which makes any of THAT trickier to bring up, ironically enough, in this anonymous comment!
The answer is, in a way, that I learned very easily by negative example. From the people in the first 18 years of my life I learned who I did not want to be, what I did not want to do, and the kinds of relationships I did not want to have. I knew what I considered healthy, what I considered a worthy ideal worth aiming for, etc. etc. That part came easily to me, by whatever miracle which allowed me to defy both nature and nurture. The part that took a lot of work is that while I held a desperate belief that the best relationships MUST be possible even in the worst circumstances, I was successfully raised to believe that they would never be possible for me.
A child who has a black hole where their self confidence should be, sucks towards them the kinds of people and experiences that will only reinforce their anti-ego. They are a self-fulfilling prophesy of the hopelessness that, even if they don’t quite believe they deserve, they can’t quite understand how they deserve better than. You don’t come through that unscathed, no matter how far you get through it, or beyond it, in the end.
My relationship is a work of art, but you might say that it’s a mosaic…that the art was crafted from a lot of broken pieces put back together in a wonderful way.
The fact is, I have body dysmorphic disorder. I’m self-aware enough to TELL you I have body dysmorphic disorder, and I’m all too aware of how I ended up with it, but I have it, all the same. Oh, it’s not the only echo of the abuse that remains, but it’s the one that still whispers in the most corners, that I have to tell to shut up the most often. You might say that I eventually cut the chains of abuse around me, and eventually cut the chains of abuse inside me, but this one link is too thick for me to cut (I just have some great help slowly filing it thinner, over the years), so it remains, worn like a bracelet.
Interestingly enough, that stage — upon which my mother in particular performed — was set by my paternal grandmother. I still remember distinctly when my awareness of a body as a BODY first “clicked”, (just…thanks to her, in the wrong position). I was three years old, and, like most three year olds in the Summertime, believed myself more than fully dressed since I was wearing underwear and an undershirt. I’d gone into the den — where both my grandmother (who I had already learned to not like) and my father were — and went to give my father a kiss so as to delay giving my grandmother one. Now, my father was always a large man. Even with him sitting on the couch, three year old me had to more or less climb a squishy mountain range, to reach his cheek. Me being three, that’s what I did. That’s where my grandmother stepped in. “That’s disgusting! How can you let her climb all over her father like that, and she’s mostly naked?!” BAM! Body awareness and body shame, all in one easy-to-swallow, fast-acting tablet.
And so it began. Through my life the abuse (which, for the record, was largely emotional/psychological abuse, some degree of control abuse, very rare and limited physical abuse, and never sexual abuse) ranged in topic(s) at any given moment, but the development of a horrible relationship between myself and my body image was a constant. No, I never developed an eating disorder, though I’m regularly aware of just how easy that would be for me — which is a good part of why I never have. I never started cutting, either, though I have comparable control-behaviors like plucking out hair stubble one by one with tweezers, which meets the same kind of need but without pain, and with visible progress towards LESS physical “imperfection”, as a reinforcement of that behavior as a coping mechanism for insecurities at large. I was always very practical about my poor body image, if only because I felt I had enough grief from everyone else in my life at the time, so I really didn’t need to add any more.
But self-awareness, and a healthy control over what I’m aware of, doesn’t mean I’m healthy. It’s kind of like I’ve got a non-terminal disease that can’t be cured, it can just be treated. Well, self-treatment has become automatic and fairly effective, but I’m still aware of why it’s necessary. I could sit here and type at you at least one complaint, about every single part of my body, without pausing for thought. That’s what’s automatic for me, that’s what’s reflex. While I firmly believe in how attractive my husband finds me, thinking about why that is, though….that takes actual effort. I could sit here and tell countless stories of the various ways my monolith of an anti-ego was built, stone by stone, but that doesn’t actually change anything.
Be honest, with yourself and with others. Look at the reality, each element, each perspective on each element, of what you’ve got to work with. Then make something even better with it. I think I’ve made something pretty damn (surprisingly) good. I know I have trouble seeing it that way, myself, but I also know that I should. I know others who I respect and trust, do. And while I’m still somewhat surprised whenever someone does, I’ve come far enough to think, “They’re missing out,” to anyone who doesn’t.