Just when you thought you needed a better love life, this month a new study published in the American Journal of Medicine  reveals older women are increasingly happy in their sex lives. That’s right, no fear if you’re trying to navigate the bar scene, apparently it gets better.

Surveying a group of 806 women age 40 or older (with a median age of 67), the study found that as women age their satisfaction also increases. Indeed, a majority of women were moderately or very satisfied with their sex lives. That said, satisfaction doesn’t seem to come from getting what they want when they want. The sad thing is that just under 40 percent of women never or almost never experience any kind of sexual desire. So, it’s kind of a good news bad news situation here.

Of the total number of women, only half were sexually active in the past four weeks, so apparently once you’re over 40 you have a 50/50 chance of getting laid once a month. That’s pretty depressing if you think about it. Except the silver lining is that according to the survey “at least most of the time, although one third reported low, very low, or no sexual desire.” So at least they aren’t missing something, right?

The good news is that among the half that are sexually active, they tend to have increased reports of arousal (64.5%). And it isn’t dependent on age! Yes, younger women tend to have higher frequencies of arousal (54.8%), but women at the oldest part of the age bracket (80+ years old) reported also having some form of arousal “almost always or always.”

Many of the readers of Eden Cafe know that sexuality is an important part of healthy relationships regardless of your stage in life. As we grow older, I’m sure we can see that confidence, comfort, even self respect increases as we become more experienced with our bodies, relationships, and sexuality. The awkwardness we experience in the teenage years gives way to craziness of the 20′s, and ideally the confidence of your 30′s. Sex can still be about fireworks, even if you’re in a loving committed relationship. And just because folks are aging doesn’t mean you have to have sex while discussing which bills to pay or emergency numbers to call if your Viagra interferes with your blood pressure medicine.

In my purely uneducated opinion, the trick is to keep going. If you’re aging, your spouse passes away, or you experience a divorce later in life and don’t have any interest in dating – the last thing you should do is stop thinking about sex altogether. That’s just sad. Loving your partner is just as important as loving yourself if you don’t have a partner. One important finding from doctors is that a healthy body is a happier body. Take care of your body and your body will be good to you too! If you do things that increase your testosterone levels like having sex or working out, you can also increase your sexual desire.

Playing with yourself as a means of taking care of your mental and physical needs is a great way to keep your libido up and increase your mood. Just because you’re over 50 doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be well stocked with toys to enhance your life whether you’re partnered or not! Don’t let age get in your way!

When I first “came out” as a kink, for lack of a better phrase, it was more of testing the waters rather than proudly proclaiming that I like to be tied up and spanked. I lived a super secret kinky porn addicted lifestyle through most of my 20s until I met Mr. X, and for the first time ever I was 100% honest with a lover about what I wanted. After a year of being in a committed S&M relationship with an amazing man, I’ve started to be more open about my interests to my girlfriends.

It all began when a good friend of mine asked me if I had any ideas how to help heal faster from a bruise. I asked her what kind, how big, and where on her body. Sometimes bruises near bones are different from bruises on fatty tissue etc… She said they were all over her ass and her breasts. I asked how on earth she got them there – and she shared the gentleman’s name. I told her I had no idea she was into kinky sex or I would have brought my flogger home at Thanksgiving. She told me she didn’t know she was into kinky sex, he just started spanking her and she loved it. “I guess I should have known he was kinky. I think the first time we had sex when we were in college he dripped candle wax on me,” she said about our mutual friend.

Since then, it’s almost like we share a fun secret. As we’re both experimenting with deeper and wilder kinky sex we’re sharing clubs, outfits, conferences, and play experiences. Today we had lunch, and she whispered across the table to me asking about garter belts. “How do you wear them?” I realized then that I’ve lived too much of a secret lifestyle learning about the wild world of BDSM and sexy/sleazy lingerie.

We went shopping and discovered the department stores in our sad sexually repressed city had more the style of the inexperienced vanilla couple who think little bows and roses are sexy. “These are too plain. I need something….” she said looking at me. “Kinkier..” I said. She nodded. Why is it you can only find decent lingerie online?

I often wonder how many secretive people are out there who are terrified to express what they want. We’ve made same-sex and intersex almost mainstream, at least among the sexually liberated. But somehow kink was a “weird-o” taboo subject that was just TMI even among close friends in red-state America. Many of my blog posts here at Eden Cafe  have focused on the sad sexual oppression that our society faces, and my own struggle toward fearless expressions of my own sexual liberation. My friend today said, “I think your 20s are spent trying to figure out who you are and what you want. Maybe your 30s are all about bringing that realization into actualization, and finally being comfortable enough to experiment and express it.”

I wish that were true. I think about people who are just 10 years older than us who might sleep around, but still maintain a vanilla lifestyle. To each his own. But here’s to finding your flavor of choice in 2012.

A few weeks ago I caught a special on Good Morning America about jobs that moms can do from home while their little ones are growing up. It was the typical “work from home” kind of special that addressed more about the ways that people are using the internet for advertising and promoting their expertise online. But one job you can do at home was briefly grazed over: phone sex.

If you’ve seen the movie Valentine’s Day, you saw Anne Hathaway duck in and out of conversations while taking calls to engage in something more sexual. In a final scene, she sadly confesses to the boy she likes that she’s $100,000 in debt from student loans and has to make extra money as a phone sex operator. Nearly seven years out of school I feel her pain on the debt, and my rent takes my entire check I get on the first of the month. I’m in the market for an additional job. Something I can do that is totally different form my day job that is something I would enjoy. I half joked about it to my mother over the holidays and got an “OMG GROSS!” response from her when I suggested phone sex. My girlfriends all responded with “you would be so great at that!”

The website that the GMA special mentioned was about moms who sneak away for several hours a day into a quiet room to engage in hot talk with strangers they’re hoping to bring a happy ending. So, for weeks I’ve been researching key things I want to know about phone “actress” work. I bought a few books on how to “talk sexy” and some scripts, which honestly are pathetic and worthless. The only real suggestion is to speak in a lower tone of voice, never be judgmental, ask for details so you know where to go with it, and being turned on seems totally ok to me. Maybe my next calling is to write a phone sex manual that’s actually helpful.

What I learned, beyond the book tips and tricks, is that many phone sex companies are quick start up and tear down operations that will screw over their workers. Finding a longstanding reputable company to apply to is key. Apparently, you also have to have a dedicated land line, because there’s nothing like a dropped call at a climax to dampen the mood. “Can you hear me now?” is not part of the sexy phone script.

My biggest fear is having a call where someone has an interest or fetish I don’t know about. I’ve been practicing how to make the phrase “hang on while I google that” sound sexy. It doesn’t quite have the ring to it that I was hoping. My only guess is that I should sound intrigued and interested, and ask the caller to explain while at the same time googling ideas, photos, etc and work from there.

Another fear is that my beloved significant other and I live about 1,000 miles away from each other and hardly have the opportunity anymore to be intimate in person. If we’re lucky we see each other once every two months and ravage each other. Will working as a phone sex operator make phone sex with my partner seem like work? I’m also horribly turned on by voices. If someone has a sexy voice and speaks really well, super sexually, explicitly, with confidence, maybe a British accent…. I’m done. I’ll be totally incapable of thinking clearly, and I’m afraid it’ll turn into the caller getting me off instead of the other way around. That could end badly. Or I suppose it could end on a high note depending on if the call is being monitored for quality assurance.

I’m going to look more into it and apply at a few places. I look forward to keeping you all updated if it works out. Who knows, maybe we can make phone sex a fad again. And for those of you who are in long distance relationships, keep doing the phone sex with your partners, it’s kept us alive!

A few weeks ago, Mark Oppenheimer wrote a piece for the New York Times that discussed the Congressman Weiner scandal, and what it says about the state of “marriage” in contemporary society.

Oppenheimer’s wife was asked by him which was worse, knowing her spouse had an affair, or him tweeting photos like Weiner’s wiener. She responded that an affair was at least normal. But in a relatively conservative, Puritanistic society, where we have politicians and right-wing news anchors saying that birth control shouldn’t be paid for by health insurance companies, while erection pills can be, how can we determine what is “normal” anymore?

Do you ever hear your grandparents talk about the “Good old days?” You remember those, right? The ones where half of the country didn’t have any civil rights, and women working outside of the home was frowned upon. Where societal expectations, and the “talk” of the neighborhood dictated the actions of families behind closed doors. Ahhh yes… those were the days. Weren’t they?

Today, those same “behind closed door” activities are more secret than ever, and the idea of “privacy” and lack of “front porch neighborhoods”, according to Robert Putnam, might be dividing us. But are those divisions presenting us with more sexual freedoms than ever before? Will those freedoms ultimately be what redefines what it means to be in a relationship?

With the creation of the online world, “sexual deviants” now have a place to express themselves, as well as a place to congregate, meet up, coordinate, and organize in-person events. The PTA mom can create one of the millions of personal porn sites and make extra money, or host Passion Parties to sell sex toys to her girlfriends. The images all over Tumblr can bring porn to your iPad when your outside the home. I even read a story a few months ago that talked about the social acceptability of romance novel reading in public, because now you can read them on a digital device instead of catching the judgmental eye of Grandma on the subway.

If you take it to the next level, the ability to hide means your sexual activities can be shrouded from view as well. When I was in college, I started playing around with a couple that lived in my town, and I told them that privacy was of the utmost importance. The husband agreed, saying that his public profile was fairly prominent and having someone who could be discreet coming to their house every week or so to play with him and his wife had to be on the down-low.

He once told me of a fetish party that was open to the public, but people in the community generally don’t talk about who is at the events. He said “the only reason they would know you were there is if they were too, and they don’t want that to get out either.” I’m moving to a place where I won’t have a roommate anymore, and a friend of mine said I can start having swingers parties. My response to her was “Shit… I’ll have to buy curtains and blinds.” Realistically – that’s all you need, and it looks no different than a quaint urban dinner party.

Finally, it can mean an adjustment in our personal relationships. Beyond swingers parties and easy accessibility to the online world, we have more potential to reset the traditional rules of monogamy. The good old days had underground brothels, ogling at secretaries, and women had little recourse if they wanted something different.

Sex columnist Dan Savage, of “Savage Love”, has long advocated a plan I’ll call “Monogamy Plus.” Couples today, can make their own rules that work for their own relationship. The NY Times piece linked above, discounts writers like Savage, because their theories exhibit a contrast to the tradition of the nuclear family. But what today’s increase in sexual freedom, and comfort with alternative sexualities brings is naturally a readjustment of the traditional coupling models.

When you look at gay and lesbian relationships, many times they’re modeled on the traditional straight relationships. One person plays one gender role, while the other plays the other gender role. The same is true for the coupling – two people each in traditional gender roles playing out a long-term monogamous relationship for the purpose of somehow developing a family and children.

What Savage and others propose is that it doesn’t have to be like that, and modern couples should all feel comfortable creating their own rules for their own relationships. Marriage doesn’t have to make you more conservative, traditional, with one partner FOR THE REST OF TIME, or institute bed-death; instead it can be two partners who agree to engage in a deeper sense of adventure together, with a sexuality that works for them. Relationships, in reality, are merely an agreement to care about each other – to love one another. The details are up to the individuals. Many straight couples are already doing this. So why can’t I, regardless of how I define my sexuality?

Since I started playing with men, I came to the realization that there’s no way I can ever be in a long-term relationship with a woman without a guy involved, and by contrast, there’s no way I could be in a straight relationship without a woman involved. Lesbians tend to not be as open to bringing in men, which is depressing because I love women so much. Men, by contrast, hear me say that I could never be in a long-term relationship with a guy without another woman involved, and everything after that somehow goes unheard……

I sometimes look at where I was 10 years ago, living my life as a full blown lesbian and buying into the traditional model of relationships, yet knowing it didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know why. I can’t believe I never thought of rejecting the whole concept of what a “relationship” was defined as. I hope my 10 years of self exploration can help others realize that you have other options available that you’ve never considered before. And just because you’re LGBT doesn’t mean you’re not still stuck in a traditional relationship model.

As I navigate the complexities of relationships with people who are comfortable making their own rules, I hope to find a guy who is comfortable with adventure, spontaneity, and breaking through the traditional convention of relationships. Oh… and lets me have a girlfriend.

I’m of the opinion that all sex is good, as long as it’s safe and legal. But lately I’ve been hearing stories from my friends who are either married or in long-term partnerships talking about doing it when they don’t want to, or forcing it.

One such story comes from a friend of mine who is fairly young and just gave birth to her second child. Her husband is 13 years older than her and has been married three times now. He’s a sweet guy, just … complicated. She’d had baby number two, and about three weeks after, I called to see if she wanted to have lunch. She said she couldn’t because she had to “maintain her marriage.” I was silent for a moment before asking in all my single glory “what the hell does that mean!?” She meant she had to have sex with her husband. I asked how the hell that was possible since she wasn’t supposed to have sex until six weeks after the baby was born. She said the sex wasn’t about her, it was about giving him some pleasurable attention so that 20 years down the road in the middle of some argument he didn’t yell out “yeah well when the baby came you ignored me!”

The second story I heard from a friend who was a newlywed. He rented a vacation beach house with his wife of just a few years and her parents. In the middle of the vacation, her parents had this huge fight and spent the evening in different bedrooms not speaking. Next morning… still not speaking. That afternoon, he walked into the house from the beach to find the two sitting on the couch talking. He said something about how glad he was they’d patched things up and were speaking again. His mother-in-law said “Oh I’m still pissed… we just got together to have sex. We have needs….”

My last story is of a couple I’ve known for some time. After their son was born, their sex life dwindled and faded away. Now it’s to a point that they have sex maybe five times a year if they’re lucky. He’s miserable; she doesn’t care. She tries to say it has to do with a low sex drive, which might be a result of antidepressants, but the last time I was around just her she seemed super horny. She said that sometimes she withholds sex from her husband because she doesn’t think he deserves it.

The last story made me furious. Any time sex is used as a tool for manipulation or a form of pay-back, a little part of my feminism weeps. Not to mention, the lack of honesty is pretty obvious, and love seems to be lacking. The contrast between the new and old relationship couldn’t be more different. Yet, the dedication to the relationship is the same whether it’s the newlyweds or the couple that had been together for 40 years.

The idea of forcing the intimacy when you don’t want it seemed like a bad idea when I thought about it. If you have to force it … why are you together? The contrast in all of the situations seems to be that in the stable relationships the intimacy wasn’t exactly forced. Regardless of the situation – the couples loved each other and were investing in the longevity of their relationship. The third clearly didn’t want to have the sex, but also didn’t seem to want to do whatever it would take to ensure their relationship remained solid.

Couple number three makes me depressed just thinking about it. If you’re in a loveless relationship where the intimacy seems forced – I encourage another alternative arrangement. And if you’re in a kinky relationship where forced intimacy is part of the game, then tallyho!

My straight friends have either been married, are married, or might as well be married. Nearly all of them. I’m single. I’m always single. A few weeks ago, Dan Savage of Savage Love fame, was on Bill Maher and made an interesting comment in passing about relationships. They had a lot of conversations about sex, love and marriage on that show, but his most interesting comment came nested in a broader conversation about married people making their own rules for their relationships.

I couldn’t find the exact phrase – but I did find his July 5th column, where he talks about straight people redefining marriage themselves – without the pressure of LGBT relationships, which people seem to be afraid is “changing” the institution of marriage. Whether it’s embracing or not embracing monogamy, swinging, two girls and one guy, two guys and a French maid, a tax lawyer… whatever you’re into, straight people seem to be changing what it means on their own, and what it means to be married seems to be evolving.

While I once considered myself to be full blown lesbian, despite sleeping with men now, I’m still not actually attracted to men. I’m attracted to the sex I have with men… but I love women, and I want to be with women. I figured I was destined for life as a single slut moving back and forth between unhappily married men and delicious lesbians. But if you’ve read my other columns, I’ve been oddly obsessed with this idea of determining the rules of your own relationship outside of the restrictive, conservative, Victorian Puritanism that so many people seem to be trapped by. Is it possible I might actually be able to have a relationship after all? Simply because my partner and I can make our own rules now?

The idea of “friends with benefits” is appealing to me, but most men I’m with mistake my high sex drive for being clingy, over-attentive, and needy. Yeah.. I needy your wang at least once a day! But men see lots of calls, emails, texts, and run the other way regardless of whether or not those are all based within the context of a booty call. My problem is that ultimately I end up in situations where “friends with benefits” with men turn into “benefits” with no real friends.

Not to mention, I have been in so many relationships that were unfulfilling and not sexually satisfying, that I don’t even want to have conversations with people before I sleep with them first. If they can’t match me in the sack, the last thing I want is to become emotionally attached. But then you end up with men who think you’re an easy whore, and they never have any respect for you once you figure the sex thing out and try to start having a relationship.

This has been the issue plaguing me since I told a friend of mine (we’ll call him Mr. Brown) I really wanted to sleep with him, but I only wanted to do it within the context of dating. This was in large part due to the complicated relationship I had with Mr. X. Mr. Brown is a bit of a man-whore. I’ve known this for some time and found it fascinating. Clearly he likes sex – in fact he likes it a lot. He is an avid porn watcher, has a great relationship with his right hand, and he loves the crazy spontaneous things I did from time to time in his office. I thought – this guy is perfectly matched for me to sleep with. I bet he can keep up, and it could be really really super fun and adventurous and crazy. Aside from that, he’s not unattractive, though I’m not sure I’m a good judge of that. He’s fairly intelligent, he’s funny and he laughs at my jokes, and the best part is he’s professionally a lot safer for me than Mr. X was.

The problem I ran into is that Mr. X did a bit of a number on me. I don’t know if I was really ever in love with him. I think I was in love with a part of him. A particularly large part of him that did really great things to me, and I became addicted to the idea of the things we did together being more consistent. Mr. Brown thinks that Mr. X used me – that Mr. X is a user himself. Mr. X definitely used me… but I also used him. I wanted to use him a lot more, quite frankly, but his mid 40′s libido was starting to take a hit, and he was looking for something warm and fuzzy and more sensual, I think. Not that I can’t do that too, but…. I crave the spontaneous adventure of crazy and kink.

The rule I set for Mr. Brown, because of my blowback from Mr. X, was that I wanted to do this “friends with benefits” within the context of us dating. Not a hard core full on relationship, but something I told him that would be a little more honest than what I did with Mr. X.

Mr. Brown said no. He valued our friendship and didn’t want to jack that up, despite the continuation of our sexual chemistry, which might be why he’s avoiding me. I see him, and I want him. It’s got to be hard for a guy to say no when there’s a girl on top of you. But, here’s the thing, we don’t really have much of a friendship. We don’t hang out, we don’t really have much going on. So, when you look at the fancy new movie with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, it isn’t the same thing. Sure the sex might be just as great, in fact I’m sure it would be, but the hanging out, and taking in a movie doesn’t happen now. What makes me think it would if we were “friends with benefits”?  So, basically we’d just be “benefits.” Which, to me, sounded a lot like Mr. X. Which is why I thought dating was the solution. Kind of like a reinforcement that the “friends” in “friends with benefits” would actually happen. Of course, with all that schtooping… probably not a lot of time for a movie.

I love the movie “Friends with Benefits”. The end was a little too much like a chick flick, but the sex and chemistry was fantastic. The casual nonchalant attitude of the couple when they started doing the casual sex thing was perfect. It’s exactly what I wanted with Mr. Brown. Sex is meant to be fun and interesting, and the movie captured the best part of a “friends with benefits” relationship. Plus, there’s this great line that captured Mr. Brown and myself, Kunis says “Oh!  You’re emotionally disconnected. I’m emotionally damaged. I haven’t seen you at the meetings?!”

My question for you, Dear Readers: Is that kind of relationship even possible? Or ultimately does 1:  the guy just ends up using you without the friendship, or 2: you fall for him, or he falls for you? Are there examples of where it can work or does work? Can you redefine relationships this much? Or are we as people just hardwired for the Hollywood ending even if we think that isn’t what we want?

Sex can be funny.  It can be adventurous and fun and crazy. But there can also be huge mistakes and accidents.

The funniest one I heard was a few years ago, but I heard it retold by a couple at a party last night. It all began with an innocent game of “Never Have I Ever.” A fantastic game, if you’ve ever wanted to get to know your lover or a group of close friends better. The game rules are that you go through the group and each person cites something they like to do and those that ARE into it take a drink. The object, of course, is to get the other players as hammered as possible.

One young woman said to the group “never have I ever NOT liked to have my ass licked,” and then took a drink. The group, a fairly open but vanilla crowd, looked on with astonishment and anxiety. No one drank.

Later that afternoon one of the couples was discussing the game, and the “ass licking”, and the girlfriend decided to test her partner’s level of devotion. “Would you ever do that to me?” she asked her partner. He was uncomfortable, a good Christian boy from Rural America. “What if it was something I really liked and really wanted?” she asked him. “I just don’t know…” he said.

That evening the couple met their friends for drinks and both had way too much. They returned to his apartment and started fooling around. He started to give her oral sex and grazed her ass with his finger. At the time she thought this was an accident. He quickly flipped her over with his farm boy strength, and before she realized what was going on through her drunken haze he was reaching for the bottle of water that sat on the night stand. Only… instead of water it was nail polish remover. The kind that takes off fake nails, that has acetone in it.

“It was like I couldn’t catch my breath” she describes. Farm boy was immediately in the bathroom with his manly bits in the sink trying to wash them off. “He was right up against me when he poured it. My ass bled for a week, and he had to kneel to pee.”

Hilarity of the story aside there are two lessons here. First, is that communication is key. I know so many couples that can’t talk to their partners about their desires. I wrote about the slew of men I know who are having affairs a while back – this can be the byproduct of an unfulfilled partner (male or female). This goes beyond sex and desires, however. What are you not talking to your partner about that is critical to your life, your past, or what you need emotionally as well as sexually? Sure, it sounds simple, but breaking the news to your partner that you’re miserable can be a hard discussion to have at the dinner table.

Here are my tips:

1.  Try asking how they feel first. “Does it ever bother you that we don’t have sex anymore?” might not be the best way to start off, but something easy like, “How am I doing as a partner?” might help ease the tension into the conversation. Generally the reciprocity is the same question in return, “What about how I’m doing?” which gives you an in to say something like “I wish I could be closer to you, more intimate, and express my love physically, whether it’s sex or touching or whatever you’re comfortable with…”

2.  Think about how you wish the conversation could go in a dream world. Write it all down. Think about every way you could bring the topic up, or how to say it.

3.  Bring up happy times when you did the kind of things you want more of. “Hey remember that time we were shopping for Christmas presents, and you tried on that dress and I snuck into the fitting room and …. What did you like best about that? How can we do stuff like that more often? Because that was fun!” Thinking positively and putting a positive spin on it can make difficult conversations easier for both of you.

Lesson number two about what you can learn from the acetone story, is all about the idea of testing your partner. I’m starting to think this is a girl thing. What is with women who want to play games with loyalty and trustworthiness? I doubt my friend was doing that in this case, and was probably joking around, but when you’re in a relationship, any relationship, you’re taking a risk. You trust your friends, your family, and your romantic partners with your baggage, your faith, and your emotions, and you hope that they won’t take all of those things and crush them along with your soul. When they do it hurts so miserably you think you’ll never recover, and you’re left with a little less trust and a little less loyalty and a whole lot of fear. Playing games isn’t the way to solve it, even if you’re just joking around.

I suppose a third lesson is not to keep flammable chemicals next to anything intimate, whether it’s a sex toy or a bed. That’s what bathroom drawers or linen cabinets are for!

My friend jokingly said that night her ass did atone for the sin of “testing” her man.

When I first started dating it was hard enough to deal with the whole girl on girl thing. Throwing kinky sex into the mix was just too much for two girls in their first relationship. Fast forward six years into our relationship, and my interest in kink turned into a profound porn obsession, along with emails to people on kink personals sites.

Don’t let this happen to you! You deserve to be in a relationship with someone who pleases you emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and sexually. If one of those things is out of sync then I suggest you look somewhere else. But before you hit the reject button, think about some other options.

How do you talk to new lovers about your special interests? It isn’t easy. For some it might be – but my guess is even the most bold of individuals feel a little hesitation when it comes to talking about it. We’re all a little nervous about the judgment of our lovers.

For me, I bought a dozen DVDs of the movie Secretary. Inevitably, I give it to a potential lover I’m flirting with, or interested in, and ask them what they think about it. The best responses I got were via text from two lovers. Mr. X said “It was hot!” I asked which part. He said, “The part where he bends her over the desk and spanks her!” I knew Mr. X was open to exploring kinkier sex. The current boy I’m sleeping with responded “I thought of you the whole time I watched it.” I asked how he thought about me, he responded “being rough with you….. sexually.”

Tonight at happy hour, one of my gal pals asked me how she should approach bringing a vibrator to bed with her and her boyfriend. I told her to use it on him first to massage his balls, or give him a little extra sensation while you’re giving him oral. It’s just a hop skip and a jump to start using it on your clit when he’s inside you!

Sometimes it’s as simple as hanging a pair of fuzzy handcuffs on the bed post, or browsing products at EdenFantasys with your lover. My favorite suggestions, however,are about getting creative. First the most fun – watch porn together! You know what you like – show him/her what turns you on. When I’m getting to know someone, I love asking what kind of porn they like, regardless of whether I want to sleep with them or not. You get to know someone really fast that way!

Second idea is to write your fantasy out in fictional story form and email it to your lover.  Sometimes it’s easier to say something online than it is in person. Make up a story about your favorite fantasy. Be specific, use dialogue, be descriptive, be naughty, be dirty, and make it so delicious your lover wants to act out every ounce of it. All you’ll have to do is put a new toy on the bed and smile.

Happy playing!

In the past several months I’ve become the de-facto therapist for three of my male friends who are unhappy in their marriages. All of them have cheated on their wives – none of the women know about it.

This afternoon I had a long conversation with one of them who works literally seven days a week trying to afford the lifestyle that his wife requires. They live in a very large home, and she has a brand new car. This isn’t his problem with the marriage, oddly enough: the lack of sex, the fact that she acts like she doesn’t even like him, her refusal to go to counseling, and she won’t allow him to sleep in the same bed with her, are his concerns.

He previously asked me if I thought he should leave his wife for his mistress, who he’s now no longer seeing. I told him absolutely – leave your wife, but don’t leave because of the mistress. But I prefaced the advice with being a borderline hedonist, and such advice might not be the right thing for someone who is married with children. The advice he received from the guys he works with – all of whom are on their second marriages – was that he needed to stay with his wife…. for the kids.

This week he told me of another friend who was separated from his wife for 9 months after cheating on her. Their counselor said that this idea of “staying together for the kids” is BS. It’s great for couples, he said, to consider their kids as a top priority, but when your kids take priority over your marriage… your marriage, as well as your parenting, takes a hit. Consider your marriage and your spouse first, he said.

I was shocked by this. Both my mother and my step-father place their kids priorities above their spouses. I’m more important to my mother than my step-father, and his son is more important to him – and they’re ok with that. When I was sleeping with Mr. X, it became quickly obvious how important his adult son is to him, and in my head I considered what a relationship with a man like that would feel like. Ultimately, I resigned myself to the idea that I was absolutely comfortable with taking second fiddle to his son.

While at happy hour with some girlfriends I brought this up, and while they disagreed with the idea of leaving the relationship for the mistress specifically, they agreed that if he’s not happy he should get out now before his children are older. Apparently there are specific ages where incidents of trauma can have a greater impact on the development of children. The teenage years for daughters are particularly important, and if they lose their father they spend years looking for men based on a father figure. Daddy issues, I believe we call it.

Is staying together for the kids good or bad in the long run? If a daughter’s only perception of a stable relationship is that Daddy sleeps on the sofa every night and fights with Mommy all the time, is that just as unhealthy as divorce? Doesn’t that give her an unrealistic concept of a normal and stable relationship? If parents stay together until the day the children turn 18, could your child feel responsible for the years of unhappiness? Hedonism aside, there seems to be a lot to question about this idea of staying together for the kids.

For the last 6 months I’ve been spending more time studying straight relationships, comparing them to my past lesbian relationships, and to the near relationship with a guy I fell for last year. The results of this personal exploration were a lot of heated conversations with my straight girlfriends and constant disagreements with my mother – oh and I lost the guy in the end. Let’s start at the beginning.

Know Thyself

The Tao Te Ching says that knowing others is intelligence, but knowing yourself is true wisdom. In a world where things tend to be black and white, right or wrong, yes or no, it was only natural that I thought my sexuality options were gay or straight. This was exacerbated by gay friends who cracked jokes about our bisexual friends, such as “bi now gay later”, and one even referred to my past bisexual lover as a hoe. He’s now bisexual, by the way. 

I was no different than any other youngster who grew up in red-state America with all of the homophobia that entailed. But throughout my entire coming out process I still watched straight porn, I read and wrote straight erotica, and I was always friends with straight men. I assumed I liked reading or watching the girls in the porn, and loved my guys, because my masculine side needed a place to express itself. All of this could have been a pretty big indicator, to a more open and flexible mind, that I was open to men. Lesson number one: As Socrates said “Know thyself” and don’t be afraid of the unknown.

Enter The Dude

Sure, I’d had guys hit on me before, and I’d ignored advances or made jokes out of their attempts. Newly divorced Mr. X was the first one that got to me. I believe chemistry is what they call it. He had the same need to shock, and for exhibitionism, that I had. During our first conversation, we spent more than 3 minutes playing hot-potato with scandalous stories. But I won with the best, “I’ve never been with a guy before.” He wasn’t the first to offer me the experience, but he was the first I would accept, and he became the first partner I would ever be honest with about my interests in crazy kinky sex. “I’ve evolved,” he once told me about his sexuality. 
What followed was a “no strings attached” intro that ultimately turned into a year of on again/off again hook-ups. It became a kind of sexual casting couch before I decided if I was brave enough to date him. This was after years of me not being fully sexually satisfied by my lovers. But with Mr. X each time was more exciting, and the more I got to know him the more I grew to care for him. 

Then I found out about the re-connect with his “girlfriend.” My immediate reaction was one of flexibility. Why should he have to decide, when I don’t even know if I’m in love, or what the status of my sexuality is from day to day? I told him I wanted to continue to see him and sleep with him, but that I was falling for him, and he should know that. I doubted he’d be with Miss X long. She was significantly younger, extraordinarily religious, didn’t believe in sex before marriage. She was the type of girl who, I thought, probably wanted a big white wedding and to have his babies some day. I was sure he saw her merely as a sexual conquest. By contrast, I was happy to give him my body, but not my trust or my emotions. I wouldn’t let him in until we were together. I’d just go with it and see what happened. Lesson number two: Jump.

Attack of the Straight Girls

For months I’d been glowing, and smiling, and happy, and giggling like it was the first time I liked someone. When I updated my girlfriends on the status, and the conversation Mr. X and I had about continuing to see each other as he also dated Miss X, it was as if I had made a major cultural faux pas. 

”That’s unacceptable!” one shouted. ”Are you his whore now? He’s just screwing you while he wines and dines Miss X?” The others were just as harsh: “He’s using you” and “He doesn’t give a shit about you – you need to end it now” and “He’s treating you like you’re worthless and meaningless.” One even questioned his maturity asking why someone who was in his mid 40′s would be dating someone in their mid 20′s. 

I tried to be understanding, thinking about it from his perspective. If I was new to dating after a long relationship, and met two people I liked – I’d want to see what came of each, and not rush into anything. It wasn’t as if he was lying to me. At the same time I was still confused about this new attraction, and terrified to jump all the way into the deep end of the pool. But then the girlfriend clincher: “If you really want him to fall for you and respect you, stop having sex with him,” one said – and they all agreed. 

The whole conversation with them made me feel awful. How could he feel that way about me? Doesn’t respect me? Think’s I’m worthless? Sure it all started out as an experiment and for fun, but the last time we were together was different. It felt like we were together – not just screwing. I reluctantly assumed I was wrong – these girls had more experience than I did. A week after I told him that I was falling for him and he responded with “I just don’t know,” and “I’m scared,” I told him we were done with the sex because he made me feel like a whore. Lesson number three: You know what’s best for yourself.

Really?  No Sex?

Months of misery went by with the many awkward encounters. I was angry he didn’t respect me, I was furious he’d used me, and convinced that his “I’m scared” excuse was a lie straight men tell to stupid women. After years of being a strong proud lesbian who commanded respect from everyone around, I’d been reduced to nothing by a penis. 

So here’s the lesson in denying sex to your guy – it can only be done by woman who aren’t that into sex. I’m not that girl. Especially since I was falling for him. My dear friend, a colleague, a hopeless romantic gay man, moved to town and convinced me I should ignore everyone, including my own fears, and follow my heart. My heart said it wanted to be with him. Two months later, I reneged on the no sex and tried to build us back to where we were. But it didn’t matter, the damage had already been done, and he was now in a full on relationship with the girlfriend. While he told me he wasn’t exactly interested in her – he wasn’t interested in me either.  
Our escapades were infrequent, and I could see the guilt in his face as he cheated on his girlfriend. While I tried to talk to him about the stupidity of my mistake, and my affections, it didn’t matter. He didn’t like me, and I felt I was prolonging the inevitable.

The Old School Traditionalists

What I ultimately realized was that it wasn’t him that made me feel like a whore, like I wasn’t respected, or that he didn’t care about me – it was my girlfriends who shouted those words at me. When I was with him – I felt fine. I was ok with where we were. My “flexibility” and comfort with being in an open relationship wasn’t accepted by them. Their association with my “lifestyle” was not unlike the friend who associated bisexuality with being a hoe. I got angry. But realistically, it was my fault for not being comfortable enough in myself.  I wasn’t comfortable enough with non-traditional sexual situations yet, to stand up to my friends and let them know that I was ok with the arrangement.

 Then came the debut of the new Bravo TV show Watch What Happens Live, where a straight guy gives his perspective on relationships to girls who call in. Think Dr. Drew’s Loveline, but more traditional and not open to alternative sexualities in any way. I was watching it with my mother when the question was posed, “My husband and I have been together for a few years, and he’s been hinting about wanting a threesome for his birthday. Should I do it?” Andy Cohen – the “guy” on the show, who is a TV Vice President and not a psychologist, counselor, or sex therapist – answered “Absolutely not!” His reason was that men will fall in love with what they can’t have. They’ll become obsessed with the other woman and start having an affair, and your relationship will be over. ”His birthday wish is to be with someone else?” the co-host asked. 

My mother echoed her comments to the TV. ”Wait a minute,” I began. ”What if you’re bisexual, and you’re the one who wants the threesome because you can’t imagine spending the rest of your life with a guy, and you want to be with a girl and with him?” Mother said the relationship would be over in the blink of an eye, because men want to stick it wherever they can. She didn’t like my question about why that was a bad thing. We are sexual beings after all. We’re meant to procreate. ”You have to control them,” she said. If that’s healthy, I thought….

Everyone Else is Wrong

The more I read about relationships and men the more confused I got. Here I was, a single economically stable female, near the peak of her sexual desire. I’m starving for one partner in particular, not just comfortable with, but happy to bring another woman into the bedroom, not interested in a big expensive wedding or having children (perfect, I thought, for an older man), eager to learn new sexual tricks, spontaneous, and adventurous. And did I mention I was absolutely crazy about him? Why didn’t he like me back?

 Everything I was reading about men told me I was an anomaly. I signed up for an account on a kinky lifestyle site, did a detailed biography and listed my interests, and within 48 hours had 10 messages. Invitations to be a gift for their wives, their husbands, their partners, each other. Women loved me. Men loved me. I was like a new sex toy across three states.

Then I came across a great article by Cooper on EdenCafe about why he and his wife decided to swing. His disclaimer conveyed the traditional perspective that extends well beyond the idea of swinging: 
”WOAH! I know, right? Never become a swinger unless your relationship is perfect, because swinging will magnify all your problems and blah blah snore… I’m sure there is a lot of validity to that, I’m SURE of it. Swinging has magnified problems, but again, as this is a Why WE Swing story…” He wrote of a typical sitcom storyline where the fat old husband gets caught by his hot young wife looking at another woman. At the end of the show the couple makes up, because he could never EVER be interested in someone other than her. Cooper states, “It may definitely be true that he doesn’t need anyone else, ever, for all of his life, but WE ALL LOOK. And that bothered me for many years. I agonized over why my ‘I want to fuck that girl’ drive would so quickly kick in when I’d meet a new female friends. Or why I don’t have any female friends I DON’T want to fuck. These are things we’re not supposed to be thinking, right? RIGHT?! So we hide from ourselves and our partners. At least I did. For ten years. Pretended to not think of anyone but her. But then it all fell apart. Because as we know entropy ensures that the center will not hold, and our feebly constructed fantasies will all come tumbling down around us in the end.”

I empathized with him; thinking about Mr. X, and how miserable it would be to be in a vanilla relationship with someone who was probably loving and nice and good friends with him, but ultimately would never please him the way I did, or be open to trying everything he’d ever dreamed of. I knew this life well. I’d been there. Twice. How many people out there end up in relationships with loving partners who they care about, but the sex sucks year after year, resulting in affairs, deception, and lies? This, I discovered, was what made me different from all other woman:

Sex to me was just as important as love, respect, and friendship.

Most women need the love and friendship first, and sex second, third, or not at all. I began to understand why all of my previous relationships weren’t satisfying. I loved them, all of them, but they were friends not partners. Why didn’t Mr. X like me back? Maybe he hadn’t really evolved. Or his idea of “evolution” is going from sex being a priority to having friendship be a priority, when both are critical. He was older after all, maybe he was just too traditional. And when he said he was scared, it was that he was afraid of my alternative understanding of sexuality. Maybe he didn’t have a sexual appetite and he was afraid he couldn’t handle mine. I am a handful.

“Despite our friends saying that ‘you guys have the friendship, many marriages don’t even have that’ we even got around to discussing the big D word,” Cooper said.  He and his wife’s solution was to swing. “We’ve surrounded ourselves with a brand new crowd that for the first time doesn’t have to be held back by society’s decorum and the sexual tension that accompanies wanting to fuck your friend’s wife. We’re on even keel, for the first time in our lives. And now even the problems seem minor.” (emphasis mine)

While Mr. X and I never got the opportunity to swing, have a threesome, or even try half of the things we’d wanted, I can tell you that Cooper’s piece was exactly what I needed to understand why I should never listen to my mother or my girlfriends about sex or love again. They’re wrapped in a kind of sexuality that is too traditional for me, with stereotypical gender roles and responsibilities of male/female relationships that just didn’t fit with who I am, or the partnerships I seek. Was I the one that had actually evolved?

I’ve read everything I could get my hands on at EdenCafe. I’d found my place, and finally had the wisdom of knowing myself and what I need. I’ve been with two men since him and done a few threesomes. I’ve learned and I’ve explored. I’m now seeing someone new.

And Mr. X?  Well, this story doesn’t end as beautifully as Ashton and Natalie. The last time we were together I did apologize for everything that I did, but he doesn’t know the whole story. Sometimes I want to turn it into a movie and fight for him with an outstanding soundtrack behind me. After all, he’s the only one I’ve had chemistry with. The other part of me understands that knowing what I want, and having a willingness to be open and communicative to my lovers, will guarantee that I’ll find someone that is just as good or better. I still love him, part of me always will, but I want him to be happy. If he doesn’t like me, and if he doesn’t think I can make him happy, then I’m not the right girl. If he is out there, and he decides he does like me, he knows how to find me, but I can’t allow my newly understood sexual confidence lie dormant.