What's the frequency?
For some people once is too often, for others too much is not enough. Whatever your preference, you're not alone. Readers tell us when they're having sex and why. Or why not.
Tue Sep 30 2008
NEVER HAS SEX
Photograph: Neil Beckerman
TOO BUSY
Straight female, 27, single
“As a teenager, I lived under the very strict rule of my very strict mom, so there wasn’t much chance of getting it on; then, when I was 17, my mom had a health crisis from which she has yet to recover. Now I work 40-plus hours (for an adult company, no less!), still handle my mother’s care and go to school part-time. When I do have me time, dating/sexing is usually at the very bottom of the list of things to do.”
OVER IT
Straight male, 28, married
“A few things happened at once [in my relationship]: My wife gained weight and became very self-conscious about it, we had lots of stress, and then she got pregnant and I got bored and lost interest. At first I thought I was just losing interest in sex with her, but when I saw a few escorts (which she doesn’t know about), I found that I really didn’t have much interest in sex whatsoever. Funny enough, I don’t really miss it, and it doesn’t really bother me. I think part of it has to do with the full-time stress of work and family. Also, a big part for me has been that when I look at my wife, I see partner/mother/family, and it’s very hard to ‘flip a switch,’ and for it to be ‘sexy time.’ ”
SEEKS DOMINATRIX
Straight male, 33, single
“Being a submissive man dramatically reduces my options to find partners. The number of dominant women compared to submissive men is about one to 1,000, making it almost impossible to find someone for a casual relationship—much less anything more than casual.”
VIRGIN
Straight female, 22, single
“I’m a virgin because I’m scared to get hurt—I was recently diagnosed with lichen sclerosus. It’s not fatal or contagious, but it’s a nasty little disease. Right now, I have bright white spots on my labia and vulva. The spots are where the skin has atrophied. I have no pain, but the doctors tell me I may. Eventually, my skin may tear during intercourse. The skin may fuse together, which will keep me from ever being able to give birth vaginally. But I think the spots are ugly, and it makes me not want to have sex with anyone. I feel monstrous.”
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MONTHLY
Photograph: Neil Beckerman
TOO PICKY
Gay male, 20, single
“I have sex monthly—it would probably be more frequent if I were old enough to get into a bar or somewhere else to meet guys. I have a lot of queer friends from other places, mostly from knitting groups or my job. But I almost never meet queer guys I’d like to date or have sex with that way. Which is fine, for the most part. I’d say that it doesn’t have to be that way, but usually people have to make a special effort to do something that’s all-ages, because going to have drinks is such a natural thing to do for people who are 21-plus.”
NOT CHALLENGED
Straight female, 27, single
“There are a couple of guys that I have sex with repeatedly, one in particular that is more of a friend than a sex partner. I’ve met the one-nighters through friends, bars, work events and online. There have been times when I have had two different men (one early evening and then a different guy later) in one night, and then there have been months where I won’t have sex with anyone. Right now in particular, I am pulling myself away. Need a break, I think. All a girl has to do is show up at a bar, make contact with some guy she’s attracted to and say with her eyes and smile, ‘Hi, I’d like to have sex,’ and it’s a done deal. I think I’ve gotten better at that over time, too, which is making the game too easy and too boring.”
HUSBAND DOESN’T WANT IT
Straight female, 28, married
“When my husband and I were first dating, we fucked constantly. After a few years, it was still regular, though not the nightly romp we had when we were first dating. Two years ago, I was pretty miserable. Every time we had sex, there was a hang-up. In hindsight, I think I was depressed, I was unhappy at work and had no creative outlet. Now I’m in a theater M.F.A. program and I’m creatively and academically happy. Not surprisingly, I want sex more. But my husband—well, his libido just isn’t there. I think to myself, My husband doesn’t think I’m attractive enough to want to have sex with me. It doesn’t help that I gained a lot of weight after our wedding, and feel unhealthy and unattractive to begin with.”
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WEEKLY
Photograph: Neil Beckerman
CAN’T FIND IT
Lesbian, 26, in an open relationship
“My current sexual partner lives in Massachusetts and only comes into town on the weekends, which is why I only have sex about once a week. This is not enough for me. She and I have a totally open, casual thing; however, ours is a completely anomalous situation: I hate to sound like a stereotype machine, but queer chicks like relationships, and I’ve had a really difficult time finding another sexual partner who is okay with being nonmonogamous, knowing that weekends are already reserved for the other chick. It makes me wish I was a gay man.”
TIRED BUT DETERMINED
Straight female, 26, in a relationship
“While I definitely would like to have more sex, it’s hard to make it happen during the weekdays because of work, social obligations and plain old fatigue. I’m only 26, but I feel like I’m 40, sexwise. When my boyfriend and I first started dating, we had sex all the time; the novelty and excitement of being with someone new was an aphrodisiac in and of itself. But now that we’ve been together for a while, I feel like I have to make sex a priority over other things—friends, sleep, exercise—in order to have it more than once or twice on weekends. It also doesn’t help that my birth-control pill totally shot my libido to hell—sometimes it’s an effort just to get into it.”
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
Straight male, 35, married
“To be honest, I could have sex more often, but it comes down to quality versus quantity. I find that having really good sex on the weekends is more enjoyable than having mediocre sex more often during the week. We used to have sex more frequently—three or four times a week—but we made a conscious choice to go for quality over quantity. When we had sex during the week, it was crammed in at the end of the night and wasn’t usually very satisfying. However, if we took our time and put some effort into the foreplay and got properly worked up, it was a lot more enjoyable. So we shifted our habits toward the weekend. This gives us time to get to the point where we actually want to have good sex—charging the batteries, so to speak.”
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ALL THE TIME
Photograph: Neil Beckerman
DITCHED THE PILL
Bisexual female, 27, in an open relationship
“A year ago, I had no physical libido—though intellectually I still wanted it, which was very disconcerting. My partner and I assumed he was doing something wrong, so we kept trying to figure out what he could do to turn me on more. Then we realized it was because of my birth control. When I went off it, my libido skyrocketed; suddenly it was easy again. These days, I’m delighted with my sex life: I’m getting all my fantasies satisfied, exploring with multiple lovers, and sex with my partner is better than ever.”
HORNY GIRLFRIEND
Straight male, 32, in a relationship
“This is my first relationship, so I have nothing to compare my current experiences to. It wasn’t hard to adjust from having no sex to having sex all the time; although everything still seems very new. I think dealing with the other parts of the relationship are much more challenging than just worrying about sex, but I guess that’s because I never worry about initiating anything—my girlfriend takes care of that. Left to my own devices, I’m not sure how often I would want to have sex. There’s no chance of me becoming sexually frustrated in this relationship, so it’s hard to know what the threshold would be. My guess is that a couple times a week would be about right.”
GIRL GONE WILD
Straight female, 33, single
“I’m not currently in a relationship. So I’ll go, like, six months without sex. Then, I finally meet a guy. I like him. We go on dates. Eventually, we hook up and I go fucking crazy! I fuck like there’s no tomorrow. I just wrapped up a total ‘summer fling’ with a guy much younger than I, and I swear I got fucked, like, five times in one night. It was great. I never thought I had a high sex drive until my ex-boyfriend complained that I wanted sex all the time. I was like, Who doesn’t want to have sex? I don’t know if I could have sex every day, but I certainly expect it more than a couple times a week. And, with each encounter, I expect it more than once.”
NEXT: A routine checkup How do you keep sex interesting?»
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