Posted by Dinah on February 25, 2005, at 16:08:01
My husband has been dropping hints, and we haven't been intimate since our respective parents got really sick then died.
I know that some people have a difficult time talking about sex with their therapists, but I'm lucky. Even though it's a lot more difficult now that we know each other better than it was when we were virtual strangers, it is still reasonably easy to talk to him about it. With a few additional euphemisms and hand gestures perhaps. But that may be also because I'm not as adult as I used to be in session, as well as the fact that we now have a greater degree of relationship.
Anyway, I felt free (with euphemisms and hand gestures) to talk freely with him about my fears about resuming sex. The pain, my oversensitivity right now, the ickiness. But that I also knew that my husband just lost his mother and I wanted to be soothing to him.
My therapist was really open with other ways of achieving that goal without actual intercourse. And suggested that I do my best to ensure that proceedings ended prior to intercourse. He said actual orgasm is soothing in itself to men. It was sort of amusing. Some of what he says is so very blunt, and I wonder if all guys feel that way or if he's more... ummmm... *goal oriented* than most.
I remember I once told him that foreplay was even worse than intercourse, and I'd just rather get it over with. And he told me that most guys would find nothing wrong with that sentiment. And he sounded like he meant it. I sort of quietly goggled at him, because my husband is just the opposite. We've never managed a quickie yet.
Anyway, it reminds me of the conversations I used to have with my best friend in college - a male person. All about the mechanical workings of our own sex's bodies and how best to work them. They'd be unbelievably detailed and graphic yet hilariously unerotic and unromantic. My then boyfriend, now husband, knew about them and didn't mind. (In fact he rather enjoyed the results.) But we had to stop whenever my friend got a steady girlfriend. For some odd reason, they minded. I guess they didn't understand nonsexual persons like myself.
It's kind of nice to have a therapist I can have those talks with.
poster:Dinah
thread:463278
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050225/msgs/463278.html