It's Complicated

Sex.

Was there ever a word, thought, impulse, deed that was so fraught with conflicting emotions? From adolescence on, the moment we figure out what feels good and what our minds and bodies are capable of, we are sucked (or thrust - even the verbs are evocative) into the maelstrom.

At 12, when most of my peers were reading Nancy Drew or Teen magazine, I swiped Fear of Flying off my mom's bedside table (and Wifey a few weeks later), and entered a world of adult fantasies and emotions that probably warped my sensitive little mind and formed the individual I am today. Or else it merely jumpstarted my erotic life and caused me to get off about 5-6 years earlier than the rest of my friends - but hey, he who dies with the most orgasms wins, right? But I do have cause to wonder if my appetite might be a little more...healthy...than most women I know, and if the cause is heredity or environment.

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a courtesan. Not a wife, not a woman with a traditional career, and certainly not a whore, but a highly-educated, intelligent woman who negotiated a contract with her sexual partners according to their wealth, intelligence and position in society. Today I find this curious -- what was it that I, as a 16-year-old, found intriguing about this situation? The sex, of course -- but I think it was also the independence, the control, and the fact that there were other elements (the intellectual discourse, the witty repartee?) involved. Marriage sounded so boring, but a courtesan, THIS was fascinating.

Fast forward twenty years to when I had my first child, and every woman's/parenting magazine I read talked about how to get your sex drive back, how to lose those last 10 lbs and look sexy for your husband, how to know if you were ready for him to touch you again (and how to tell him you weren't without making him feel bad). It was enought to make me scream. Where were the articles, I thought, that told you what to do if you were ready to get down but your husband wasn't? What if there wasn't any baby weight and I still looked good? What if I wanted it three times a week but he wanted it three times a year? What then?

Despite Sex and the City, in my experience, real women (or perhaps just real married women) don't talk about sex openly or freely. None of my friends felt the way I did -- they were all siding with the women in the magazines! When I revisited the whole courtesan idea they looked at me as if I'd suddenly grown another head and perhaps a couple pair of horns as an added bonus. It was enough to make me wonder what the heck was wrong with me. Which still makes me mad -- why wasn't I wondering what was wrong with THEM?