Day at home

[jay]

Strep hasn't knocked me down -- no fever or other symptoms -- but I felt not-right this morning, enough that I stayed home from work to try to pre-empt the bug. A telecon including hopeforyou (who was also offsite at her place) went well. Later, bad news about the air traffic project I presented in DC last week... the local NASA management group that has been putting together a new program for FY05, and using us as its poster-child for marketing purposes, is now going to reduce our part of the budget to ten percent of the total while warping our purpose into being basically just computing infrastructure support for things in which they're more interested.

Otherwise, I fixed a door closer and a balky lock, rested, and took Kevin to the park and tried to throw toy boomerangs with him. We were laughable. That's perfectly OK. ;-)

This evening, I talked with patgreene, including a lively discussion regarding whether women actually ever wanted sex for its own sake, or just went along with it in order to gain things that they valued more (like cuddling, or attention, or building emotional ties). There was no verdict... maybe more in a future post.

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Okay... I've met women who got aroused, but generally only after some time/effort was invested by a third party. Left to themselves, they could take-it-or-leave-it... "it's fun, but not important. I can live without it -- like living without chocolate-chip brownies" was a quote from last night.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Okay... I've met women who got aroused, but generally only after some time/effort was invested by a third party.

Umm, at least for me, polyamory doesn't include getting a third person in to handle the, ummm, fluffing. [G]


Left to themselves, they could take-it-or-leave-it...

I think what you're saying here is that their sexual desire is primarily manifested in response, as opposed to as initiation. Yes?

And the fancy language is important -- "manifested" is different from experienced.

I'm reminded of the old studies that "proved" only men were turned on by visual stimuli. Women said they were indifferent to it. Later on those studies were redone using scientific equipment to check who was getting turned on. Women were, too. They just didn't realize it. Were they so alienated from their bodies that they didn't know? Or was socialization keeping them from admitting their desire? Or both?

Now, I am not saying all women have the voracious sexual appetite that my lover and I have (not to mention my sisters). I know I'm at the high end of the sexual scale. But I also know I am not alone up there.

Is intense sex (particularly BDSM play) easier to achieve when I take a weekend with my lover? Sure. It's wonderful to take the time to really focus on each other, and hard play demands a buildup. But even the day-to-day desire is powerful and almost omnipresent. I look at my lover and want her. I wake her in the night to fuck. I cannot get enough of her. Most days that urgent desire is expressed only by quickies. But those keep the fire stoked.

Approach matters, yes. There are plenty of people with whom I would soon freeze up sexually, and I'm really clear on what I want, how I want it, and with whom. If I had a couple of kids and a job and a load of housework to do, and my partner helped with none of them, or treated me condescendingly, or never talked with me, I would soon lose interest in my partner. Not in sex, but in him/her. But I can make that distinction because I am sexually very aware and experienced.

The only two times in my life I've lost interest in sex were after the breakups of two long relationships. Back in the early 1980s, I left my lover, my job, my state, and the life I knew; I went into transplant shock and didn't even masturbate for about 3 months. After the end of my marriage three years ago (I married the next guy I dated after that experience), I went through a lot of changes. There was a stretch of a year or so there where I had no desire to be fucked -- to fuck, yes, to take delight in my lover's body, to play hard, all of that, but I couldn't open myself to be touched or caressed. It was damned hard for both of us, but my sex drive came back with a roar and I am back to my old insatiability. There was a slight relapse when I heard about the layoff, alas. It's hard for me to reach out when I'm doing that level of serious internal processing. But that was just a brief pause.

Remember that I'm a Domme and sadist, and my lover is a masochhist and my submissive, so I do get to dictate exactly what kind of sex I want. Although I have nothing against candlelight and roses, that's not my primary sexual mode. Passionate, loving, tender, hard, deep, silly, ferocious, and often.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

polyamory doesn't include getting a third person in

(smile) my reference was to watching someone reacting to someone else... trying to keep myself out of the frame of reference.

Although I suppose that one could try interesting things with three people in that context, come to think of it :-).

primarily manifested in response

Yes, that's good. Mostly in response to outside suggestion/seduction/pressure/etc.

I am not alone up there

I respect that there are women, like yourself, at that end of the scale. But I'd argue that you're the exception proving the rule... really, I've seen (in person) almost no women showing a voracious appetite, or at least not in the same outwardly-observable, watch-out sense that marks a man with the same appetite.

I would soon lose interest in my partner
But does the converse hold true? If you're interested in your partner and communicating well, are you necessarily going to be sexually interested as well?

I do get to dictate exactly what kind of sex I want

I started to write, "at least then your partner won't feel obliged to thank you" but caught myself ;-).

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

But does the converse hold true? If you're interested in your partner and communicating well, are you necessarily going to be sexually interested as well?

Oh my yes.