It’s been one HELL of a year.  Last Christmas I was married, hopefully if not happily, and, feeling empowered by our exploration of a more interesting and satisfying sex life, we arranged to do Christmas on our terms for once, not everyone else’s.  I was looking forward to a fresh start back at grad school after taking a brief sabbatical to discern my goals and attend to some neglected parts of myself.  He was looking forward to a new opportunity to connect with some like-minded folk in his field and develop an aspect of his vocational interests that had long been on the back burner.  Little did we know, nor could we ever have suspected, what 2010 had in store for us.

It started with his grandmother going into hospice and dying before the new year had even struggled through its first month.  With that, I was instantly behind in school, and the challenges of life in the once hope-filled new year just snowballed from there.  I fell in love with a woman friend of mine, ended my marriage, and withdrew from school after failing the semester due to my personal life, y’know, blowing up.  A beloved mentor died, a friend committed suicide after a long, painful, and lonely struggle with gender-identity issues, my therapist died, one of my best friends lost his father, and the oldest of my two dogs is now basically on home hospice while we wait for the day when his quality of life indicates it is time to let him go.  I moved back to my hometown mid-summer to regroup, only to discover that the saying “you can’t go home again” is more true than I ever would have guessed.  I was forced to replace my car and my computer in a two week period, without the benefit of a regular income.  My new love and I carried on an intensely intimate long-distance relationship for five months before the complexities of our lives and the challenges of being six hours apart became our undoing.  Although it was a mutual decision, it was probably the most painful break-up I’ve ever experienced.  My new therapist could not have gotten it more right when she observed that there isn’t a single aspect of my life that hasn’t changed significantly this year.  It hasn’t all been bad.  Really.  My amazing girl and I found wonderful new pleasures in each other while we were together, some that were nothing short of pure ecstasy!  Despite all the lows, there have been some incredible highs too, and some invaluable lessons learned, and a new me taking shape like a caterpillar in a cocoon preparing for new life as the world’s most beautiful butterfly.

So, after all that’s happened this year, I find myself yearning for some simplicity, some drama-free time and space to reconnect with my now more fully realized sense of self, to be in the present moment without worry for the future or anguish over the past.  One of the best ways for me to be in the present moment is to be fully present in my body.  I am the most successful at this during exercise and sex.  I can get out of my head enough to feel the physical power and connect to the amazing energy of my fleshy being, to access the intuitive awareness that I am alright, right now in the moment.  I am me, distinct and wonderfully unique from all other beings, and yet, with each and every breath, I am also aware of my connection with the universal life force.  Trouble is, exercise and sex have both been solo activities for a while now, coming up on two months actually, well before the breakup with my girl.  It certainly isn’t the longest stretch I’ve had—I was married for twelve years after all!—and I’ve long been an advocate and practitioner of self-love and self-pleasure for satisfying a myriad of sexual desires and needs.   I don’t know if it’s the biological impulse of my body at its sexual peak, or the never-fully-satisfied cravings of all those long-distance nights away from my lady love, but oh how my body yearns to be touched, caressed, teased and enveloped by another!!  I lie in bed alone longing to let myself go, give in to the moment, and fully abandon myself to the senses of touch and smell and taste. I imagine being swept away by desire-filled whispers and uninhibited moaning, lost in the pleasure of bodies entwined and lips and tongues enmeshed, given over to the heady rush of orgasm brought on by another’s careful attention.  *SIGH*

So, maybe you are starting to see my dilemma.  How do I satisfy my yearning for the intimate touch of another without sabotaging my goal for simplicity and drama-free living?  Sex with an ex is not an option and even if it was, would certainly create undesirable drama.  Sex with a friend has always sounded like a wonderful idea to me in theory, assuming the friend is relatively secure and stable.  Who better to be lovingly attentive without the complications of expectation?  Unfortunately, the only friend I’ve ever had who I could picture having sex with and who I was certain was sexually free enough to consider sex with me under these circumstances is now my most recent ex.  Sex with a stranger certainly has its appeal.  However, even if I could get over the insecurity that comes from not having had to pick someone up in fifteen years, there is all the anxiety about multiple safety concerns.  Assuming I could overcome those concerns, I still have one big problem:  How do I find the right stranger?  How do I find the right beautiful, sexy someone who is skilled in the art of shared physical pleasuring and interested in enjoying the moment without needing it to be more?

I’ve ended the two most significant love and sex relationships of my life in the course of eight months.  Anyone knowing that who would want to pursue something more than a casual encounter with me now would be highly suspect.  But I can’t assume that a casual encounter is something that another person, man or woman, is interested in.  That’s the kind of thinking that results in disrespect, and I’m not interested in disrespecting anyone.  I don’t want an empty sexual experience, devoid of connection or recognition of the lovely humanity of my partner.  I had enough of those in my late teens and early twenties when I desperately sought out sex for all the wrong reasons, engaging in pitiful encounters that provided very little sexual gratification and left me feeling worse about myself than I did before.  I just know that, for now, I can’t handle any kind of ongoing emotional engagement, much less commitment.  And yet, I still long to have a lover who offers solace from my busy mind in the form of a soulfully sexual connection and release. So, again, how could I possibly hope to find the right person?  With all these considerations, it feels like the sex partner of my fantasies is way too much to ask or even hope for as a Christmas present for myself.  It feels like a terribly selfish thing to desire.  On the other hand, why the fuck not?  Given the year I’ve had, I don’t see the point in denying myself, so I just keep hoping that an opportunity will present itself, and that I’ll be ready to take advantage of it when the universe provides for me what my body craves: some wildly delicious Christmas SEX!

By Violet Venus