When was the last time you saw a book titled: “How To Keep It Hot With That Sexy Stranger Who Can’t Keep Her Hands Off You”? OR “How To Get Turned On the Next Time It’s Your First Time With a Sexy Newby”? OR “How To Have Hot Sex With the Partner from the Dance Club Who Can’t Wait To Get You Into Bed”?
Unlikely.
There is quite a bit of pre-marital and extra-marital sex that is flavored by the uniqueness of the sexual experience --- a different individual, a new location, an unexplored sexual boundary. Is it a surprise that there is so often a thrill (“a rush”) that goes with it?
Let me ask the married readers: When was the last time you couldn’t keep your hands off him when you saw him coming back from taking out the garbage? When was the last time you got turned on by watching her get her hands all soiled changing the baby’s diaper? [Please read “soiled” as: covered with poop.] When was the last time buying groceries or filling the car with gas or vacuuming the carpet left you so hot and bothered that you couldn’t wait to make love to your spouse?
Married sex is a unique experience.
A few years ago there was a non-traditional student (translate: she was a little older) in the Psychology of Marriage and Family class that I teach. When we got to the sexuality portion of the course, she talked in class one day about her high school experience, which went something like this. She was from a small town in northern Minnesota and during much of her senior year in high school, she and several classmates would spend every Saturday night together in an old abandoned house outside of town. She talked about the excitement, the sense of anticipation, the thrill --- not knowing who was going to show up that next Saturday night / would there be someone new? / who you would be hooking up with that week?
A few days after talking so openly in class, she came in to see me in my office. When she asked if she could close the door, I suspected that the topic might be personal. [I’m pretty sharp, huh?] She didn’t waste a whole lot time as she blurted out: “I’ve been married now for a little over 2 years and I don’t know what to do! I love my husband --- he is a great guy and I am lucky to be married to him and he treats me like gold and he is the best thing that has ever happened to me --- but I am just not excited about our sex together. It’s not that sex with him is bad, it’s just that it’s not very exciting. I’m not trying to put him down, but our sex life is largely same old / same old. I miss the excitement, I miss the thrill of sex, and I don’t know what to do.”
This student’s lament is not uncommon --- anyone who has worked with married couples has heard it: “Our sex as a married couple pales by comparison with what we had before we were married (or what I’ve had with other partners).” There are many motivations for sex --- from the discussions we’ve been having, at least 18 of them --- but it’s safe to say that not all of these are equally conducive to ongoing successful married sex.
I enjoyed the book that came out last summer ["Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses)"]. A wife wanted to give her husband something for his 40th birthday --- something that no one else could give him --- and so she offered him 101 straight days of sex. He deeply appreciated the offer, but he (hesitatingly) suggested that she maybe think through her proposed present --- he didn’t want her to offer a gift that might in the end be too difficult to give. So she thought about it for a few more days, and then came back to him with the same suggested birthday gift. This time he did not hesitate. [By the way, when I first picked up the book, I asked my wife if she might be interested in giving me a special birthday gift…….. She suggested that a new reciprocating saw would be just fine.]
The thing that I enjoyed about this book is what these 101 straight days of sex did for this couple. It began to transform their motives for having sex. They began to have sex more as a way to express affection that as a way to get a rush / more to become close than to obtain a sexual release / more for unity than for power / more as a gift than as a yearning for pure pleasure.
We live about a mile from the University where I teach, and one day as I was walking home I passed a wine shop and a young man ran out shouting, “Dr. Buri, Dr. Buri, I haven’t seen you in years.” It turns out that he had been in the Psychology of Marriage and Family course about 10 years earlier --- in fact, he had met his wife in that class. He proceeded to tell me that they had been practicing in their marriage something they picked up in that class. He told me that he and his wife have regular rendezvous --- about 3 or 4 times a year, his wife will go to a happy hour in a Twin Cities bar and wait for him to get off work. He has to come in and “pick her up” --- he has to convince her that he would be a good person to spend the evening with. He said that last year his wife threw him a new wrinkle in their rendezvous --- she didn’t tell him which bar she was at, so he had to find her first, and then win her over. But as he put it: “It is so worth it! I was hot after her before we were married, and I am determined to stay hot after her now!”
Last summer my wife and I had a little time away in Duluth (a pleasant little port city along Lake Superior). At one point I had to go back to our hotel room to get something we had forgotten, and when I came back, Kathy was seated on a bench looking out over the Lake Superior. As I approached her, she pretended not to know me --- I had to convince her that I was someone who might be good person to go to dinner with. I have to admit, I am a little rusty --- I tried several (of what I thought were) good pick up lines, but to no avail. Then I came up with this one: “You know, my wife died about three years ago, and I would really love to have the opportunity to sit and talk with you. I was wondering if you would be willing to go to dinner with me?” Kathy melted. And not only did she go to dinner, but she also spent the night with me.
Married sex need not be boring, but admittedly it doesn’t come naturally as hot and steamy as does a lot of sex outside the context of marriage.
