Tag: desire and libido

A white woman with blonde hair sits on a bed with her head in her hands looking despairing. Behind her, a white man lies in bed with his arms behind his head. Header image for a post on polyamory as a solution for sexual incompatibility in a relationship

Sexual Incompatibility in a Relationship: Is Polyamory the Answer? [Polyamory Conversation Cards #20]

Published on by Amy

Sexual incompatibility in a relationship can take many forms. Perhaps you have a much higher or lower libido than your partner. Maybe you’re kinky and they’re not, you’re asexual and they’re not, or you’re in a mixed-orientation relationship. Perhaps your kinks, fetishes, or sexual interests don’t overlap. One of you might be unable or unwilling to have sex for reasons relating to physical or mental health, trauma, aging, or disability, while the other still desires sex.

Sexual incompatibility can be a tricky thing to navigate, and an even harder thing to overcome. It’s also one of the reasons that formerly-monogamous couples might consider opening up a relationship to polyamory, swinging, or another form of consensual non-monogamy (CNM.)

But is polyamory actually a solution for sexual incompatibility? That’s a difficult question.

In case you missed it, this post is part of a series inspired by Odder Being’s Polyamory Conversation Cards. As often as I can, I’ll pull a card at random and write a piece of content based on it. There will likely be some essays, advice pieces, personal experiences, rants, and more! You can read the whole series at the dedicated tag. And if you want to support my work and get occasional bonus content, head on over to my Patreon.

This week’s card asks:

“What sexual activities would you prefer your partner(s) to explore with someone else than you?”

Sexual variety is definitely one of the reasons I’m polyamorous, though it’s far from the only (or main) reason. I enjoy getting to have sexual adventures with different people, and getting to connect with people naturally in the way that feels right for us, whether that connection involves a sexual component or not. I have a lot of sexual desires, kinks, and interests, and polyamory allows me to meet those needs and wants with different people.

Another reason I love being polyamorous, though? It also allows my partners to get certain needs met outside our relationship.

Let’s take it out of the sexual realm for a second to illustrate what I mean. I realise I might lose my Polyamorist Card for this admission but… I don’t play Dungeons & Dragons and I’m not that into board games. My nesting partner, though, loves those things. If we were monogamous I might feel bad that I couldn’t share those interests with him, or be tempted to force myself into taking part in activities I don’t enjoy. As it is, though, he can enjoy those things with his girlfriend and everyone is happy.

Sex is much the same way. Realistically, it’s very unlikely that desires, kinks, and needs will overlap 100% in any sexual relationship. Being polyamorous takes that pressure off, allowing each relationship to find its own sexual groove. When I know that my partners can also meet their sexual needs in other relationships, I don’t feel guilty or inadequate because of the things I can’t provide for them.

But does that mean polyamory is the answer to sexual incompatibility in a relationship that was formerly monogamous? Not necessarily.

Will Meeting Your Sexual Needs Elsewhere Actually Help?

After everything I’ve just said about polyamory being a wonderful way to explore different sexual needs with different people, I have to add on this enormous caveat: for me and for many people, sexual desire for a person isn’t transferrable.

What do I mean by that?

If I want to experience a particular act, I can probably meet that need with any partner with whom I have a sufficiently healthy and trusting relationship. But if what I’m craving is sex with Partner A, then sex with Partner B will probably be very nice but won’t actually address that desire.

Of course, no-one ever owes you sex. If what you actually desire is sex with your partner specifically, and they’re unwilling or unable to meet that desire, polyamory or non-monogamy is unlikely to help. Better options might be to explore together to find other ways to connect intimately, to adjust your expectations for the relationship and make peace with the situation (perhaps meeting your sexual needs through solo sex and fantasy), or to end the relationship.

It’s also okay if sexual intimacy is a core component of any romantic relationship for you. And if it is, a relationship that is sexually incompatible on a long-term basis is probably a relationship you won’t be able to be happy in, even if you also have other sexual relationships. (As fabulous sex blogger Kate Sloan wrote, “it’s okay to break up because of sex!“)

Would You Want to be Non-Monogamous if it Weren’t for This Incompatibility?

If the answer to this question is no, then you probably don’t actually want to be non-monogamous. Polyamory and non-monogamy are things you should pursue because you desire them for their own sake, because they align with your values, and because they represent how you want to live your life. They’re not a bandage for things that are missing in your existing relationship.

Opening up a relationship because of problems or deficiencies within it is almost always a bad idea. The experienced polyamorists amongst us have seen this approach, and seen it go wrong, so many times that we have a name for it: “relationship broken; add more people.”

Is the Problem Actually Sex, or Something Else?

Sexual incompatibility can certainly be a relationship issue in itself. However, it can also be a symptom of other problems. So before you leap into opening up, why not sit down with your partner and have a conversation about what your sexual incompatibility means and what it is telling you?

Sexual incompatibility that has been there since the beginning, or that is due to a fundamental aspect of identity such as asexuality, is unlikely to change. However, sexual incompatibility that has emerged over the course of your relationship can be a symptom of all kinds of things.

Physical health issues, mental health struggles such as depression, pain during sex, hormonal changes, stress, trauma, broken trust in the relationship, resentments over other conflicts or relationship problems, or one partner coming into a new understanding of their sexual orientation or gender identity are just some of the things that can be at the root of sexual incompatibility in a relationship.

Many of these issues can be worked through with mutual willingness, shared effort, plenty of love and kindness, and possibly an appropriately qualified therapist. Others likely spell the end of the road for your relationship, signalling that it’s time to peacefully part ways. Only you two know which is true for you.

So When Can Polyamory or Non-Monogamy Be a Solution to Sexual Incompatibility?

Sexual incompatibility, like so many aspects of relationships, is complex. If you’re sexually incompatible but want to stay together, there is unlikely to be one quick or easy fix. It will require lots of time and effort on both sides.

With all of that said, polyamory or non-monogamy can sometimes be one possible way to navigate maintaining a happy, healthy relationship when you’re sexually incompatible.

It could be a good option for you if…
  • You would both still like the idea of polyamory or non-monogamy as a relationship structure, relationship orientation, or lovestyle even if you had great sexual compatibility with each other.
  • You’ve talked about what opening up would mean for your relationship – the challenges, changes, pitfalls, and fears as well as the opportunities.
  • You’re able to have open and vulnerable conversations about your relationships, sex, and your feelings.
  • You’ve done your research – read the books, listened to the podcasts, gone to the meet-ups, made polyamorous friends, and learned the theory.
  • You’ve worked on decoupling/disentangling, learning to view yourselves as two autonomous individuals in a relationship rather than a single unit.
  • You’re willing to sit with uncomfortable feelings, communicate, and maintain personal boundaries rather than relying on rules and restrictions to keep you safe.
  • You are ready to treat incoming partners well, work to eliminate or minimise hierarchy, and actively dismantle couples’ privilege.

In general, opening up a relationship to polyamory or non-monogamy should feel like the next exciting step on an adventure you’re taking, both together and as individuals. It should not feel like an ultimatum, a proverbial gun to the head, or the only way to bring a dying relationship back from the brink.

And sure, sometimes sexual incompatibility can be the catalyst for transitioning from monogamy to non-monogamy. But it’s rarely the only catalyst, and it’s certainly not a quick fix or an easy solution.

If you find my work helpful, I’d love it if you shared it on Bluesky. You can also buy me a coffee to say thanks!

Demisexual pride flag for a guest post about discovering her demisexuality by Lacie Bee

[Guest Post] The Demisexual Slut by Lexie Bee

Published on by Amy

Today’s guest blog comes from Lexie Bee (she/her), a new writer to C&K! Lexie is here to talk about her journey to understanding her demisexual identity and the role that emotional intimacy plays in her sexual attractions.

In brief, a person is demisexual if they only experience sexual attraction in the context of emotional intimacy. Demisexuality is part of the asexual (ace) spectrum and some consider it one form that greysexuality. The header image for this post shows the demisexual pride flag.

I can’t believe that in over 8 years of this site, I’ve never published a piece about demisexuality! It’s time we rectified that.

Amy x

The Demisexual Slut by Lexie Bee

I’ve been dating since I was 4 years old—I was something of an “early bloomer” in that department. It’s hard to tell if liking boys was a chicken or an egg situation; was my attraction to them something I’d possessed since the womb, or had I acquired it during my hyper-feminized childhood upbringing? All I’ve ever known is that if there’s a boy, I should be interested.

This ideology led me to be a smallish, slightly sizable super romantic:

I was in love with love. 

Having a boyfriend was always on my mind, even before I hit puberty.

In preschool, there was…

– Bradley, a spiky blonde-haired boy who would kiss my hand under the pre-K playhouse.

And in elementary…

– Eric, the little Black boy in my Bible school class who gave me a necklace.

– Kyhlen and Noah, the only two Black boys in 4th grade (which meant I had to like them, since y’know, I was one of the only Black girls in the 4th grade class—and Cultural-CompHet was a lesson many years in the future.)

In middle school…

– Raymond, a sunkissed and freckled country boy who played the fiddle next to me in orchestra.

– Bailey, Joseph, and Tyler, the aptly aged trio of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who were childhood friends in my neighborhood and simultaneously pining for my affection.

And in high school, I fell for Nathaniel and Seth and Devin and Ryan and Grady and Alex…

…In college, Corbin and Mitch and Josh and Jack…

…After college, Duncan and Ben and Daniel…

And about 50 or so others!

Yes, the Autism in me made a list of EVERY guy who had a romantic tie to me, based on the central premise of the book The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart.

Maybe it was because I always felt inferior in both the looks and personality departments, or maybe it was because I saw the world through bubblegum pink glasses. But all I knew is that I wanted to be wanted.

It was the one never-ending quest: to find my Happily Ever After.

I didn’t discover that I had ADHD or very unhealthy anxiety until I was 19 and having a mental breakdown after my first year of college. It wouldn’t be until I was 24 that someone would tell me they thought I was on the spectrum, and that everyone else “thought I knew.” For my 25th birthday, I discovered that my surely delusional paranoia would be validated as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

In other words, I’ve always been something of an awkward, oddly-behaved duck.

But without even realizing it, I had become an avid hyper-fixator on two of the most universal concepts of them all:

LOVE & SEX. 

My first boyfriend was deemed a dork who would be forever alone. And I was the girl-dork who, people assumed, would also be forever alone. So we decided to date. If you can’t beat ‘em, outsmart them. Play to win.

There was a sort of power in being able to tell others I was spoken for, even if by the least desired guy around. It meant that no matter how uncool I was, I was at least cool enough to score a date. This social currency would carry me into my adulthood. So, like anyone who becomes an expert in their field, I planned and practiced.

I had a multitude of methods at my disposal, which went roughly like this:

STEP 1: Never miss your shot. Anyone could be THE ONE.

After I hit puberty, no guy was off the table for consideration. Humiliation be damned—if he could breathe, he could and would be asked out by me. Or flirted with, at the very least.

STEP 2: PLAN PLAN PLAN. 

Knowledge wasn’t just power. It was precision. I had my first kiss a month shy of my 14th birthday and lost my virginity the week after my high school graduation at an amusement park motel; nothing too far from ordinary. What no one else knew was that there was 4 years’ worth of bookmarks telling me how to kiss with tongue, folded Cosmopolitan magazines with instructions how to pleasure a perineum, and copious peer-reviewed evidence in the form of sex blogs highlighted.

I wouldn’t just have sex. I’d win sex.

STEP 3: JUST DO IT

I had my first one-night stand on a drunk guy’s floor at the end of my first semester in college. He gave me strep throat, ruined a blockbuster film I wanted to see, and I would occasionally have an awkward encounter of seeing him ride the same campus bus for the rest of the year. 

One day, after he was kicked out of college, my high school crush reached out to me to rekindle our friendship. After a year of asynchronously communicating, he rented a hotel room for an hour to have sex with me. Midway through, he made a comment on my performance that would inspire me to become a power-bottom from that point on. My anxiety about being considered “bad in bed” told me that if guys desired girls who are good at sex, then that’s the girl I needed to be. Bad sex = no sex = unattractive to the male sex.

That night, shortly after he finished, we sat beside each other on the hotel bed and without hesitation both proceeded to open and scroll on Tinder. I pretended that I didn’t care about his apathy to our reunion after those few years. I brushed away the sinking fear in my gut that I had been used.

Over time, I kept a log of everyone I had slept with. But it was becoming harder to remember the names or even faces of those people after those first few encounters. Anytime sex was asked for or offered, I took the opportunity.

Every date, good or bad, became a hookup. Think of it like an unpaid internship on a resume; a crappy job was still one you could reference. And that experience was accompanied by the liberation of being a young adult in college with my own agency, in tandem with the maturation of my body, to give out something of my own that was ALWAYS valued.

I wouldn’t have traded that feeling for the world.

To me, sex seemed like trophy hunting. It was silly and funny to laugh about dating, about how goofy it was, about the situations I would end up in. And I enjoyed being an expert at something that I thought I was, by nature, supposed to be good at. Failed dates became my friends, and sometimes my friends with extra benefits.

Sex was just…sex.

I enjoyed giving my partners pleasure. So it didn’t matter if, throughout the sex, I was thinking about what I was going to eat for dinner.

Sex itself was boring. The story leading up to it was always more interesting than the sex itself. I never orgasmed, and most of the time I never even came close. Most men didn’t mind that I didn’t mind. And I wasn’t comfortable pretending or betting that my body would cooperate and give me the orgasm we both wanted me to have. It would take a couple hours of chatting before I even felt warmed up enough to the idea of having sex. I wanted it, sure… but really, I just wanted the ability to say that I did it.

By 23, I’d had 23 sexual partners—and nothing more.

After having my heart broken more times than I could count both romantically and platonically, I finally thought that #23 might be the one.

After a heartfelt and vulnerable 7-hour conversation until dawn, leading up to an incredible date that ended in sensually connected and intimate sex… He suddenly distanced himself until I never heard from him again.

I was distraught. But for the past 5 years, I’d had one thing that always picked my confidence back up: dating apps. A few nights out with some fellas would surely bring back my charisma, right?

But it didn’t.

I felt nothing. I was swiping and swiping and trying to convince myself that I wanted to meet these people for something R-rated. But really, I just wanted to be in the arms of someone who I could talk to about my feelings. That was always the best part about the sex for me: the part when it was over, when we could talk and learn more about each other, having shared a unique and intimate experience. 

I couldn’t understand why my usual method of motivation wasn’t giving me what it had done through all of those years. I guess after years of school, therapy, and experiences… My “body count” wasn’t enough anymore.

It was as frustrating as it was enlightening.

Here I was, in my time of need, and my go-to therapeutic solution was failing me! How could I possibly have been lying to myself for so many years?! The one thing that seemed the most normal and socially acceptable about me was now somehow nuanced and indescribably complicated.

The timing was serendipitous for so many things in my life. I had just moved from my college town to a completely different state. I had cut contact with my family and toxic friends. My crappy job had me reconsidering everything I wanted in life. My inescapable loneliness left me boundless time for intense self-reflection.

I’ve always struggled with using labels to help define me as a person. Accepting the mental health diagnoses I’ve sought in adulthood has felt imposing, connecting to my ancestral roots has felt appropriative, and getting constantly excluded and ostracized through my life has left a deep-seated fear that spiraled into a never-ending habit of trying to prove my self-worth without room for error. And labels– if judged wrong– were errors.

But I started to put together the pieces…

  • Fixations of finding true love…
  • Dating in order to fit in and be desirable…
  • Receiving praise for my sexy skillset…
  • Loving the rise but hating the fall of every date…
  • Only liking audio porn…

As a Black cisgendered woman, I assumed there were a lot of things I couldn’t be:

  • Anxious, because I liked being around others
  • Autistic, because I made an extreme effort to be liked
  • Abstinent, because my body was the one thing men liked about me

And finally:

  • Ace/Graysexual, because I had had a lot of sex with various men.

Giving myself these titles feels wrong—no, it feels illegal. I’ve never been the poster example of anything, much less as a person who has eccentricities that come with explanations. I’m just “that weird Black girl” and these labels are just excuses.

Or maybe…

Maybe discovering who I am, what I need, and what I want, without worrying about what’s “right”, turned into my Happiest Ever After of them all.

I never quite understood the idea that labels are all bad; they are simply just tools that help us navigate in the world we live in.  

Letters, after all, use labels to get to where they need to go.

So perhaps I should begin using my labels as tools, too. However, and whenever, it helps.

About the writer:

For Lexie Bee, every awkward date or failed-flirty encounter is a new avenue for growth, connection, and of course: storytelling! Finally coming into her own as a self-described ‘Pokedex of Intersectionality’ with her race, culture, gender, sexuality, class, and neurodiversity, Coffee & Kink is her debut into public and professional conversations about her sex life– past, present, and evolving. With the duality of comedy and conversation, she aspires to give others the confidence to speak without shame (especially if you’re sitting at the table with her!)

Header image for Destiny Marshall guest post on losing your libido on antidepressants

[Guest Post] When Your Antidepressant is Anti-Libido by Destiny Marshall

Published on by Amy

Remember the fantastic guest post about navigating OCPD and sex back in October? I’m delighted to welcome writer Destiny Marshall (she/her) back again today with another post about antidepressants and libido – a struggle I know all too well! This post was inspired by, and forms a companion piece of sorts, to Karen Colby’s personal essay about losing her libido in her 50s and then finding it again in her 60s.

Over to Destiny!

Amy x

When Your Antidepressant is Anti-Libido by Destiny Marshall

Sometimes, we have experiences but don’t give serious thought to them until something or someone else draws our attention to them. That’s what happened to me when I read Karen Colby’s post about her sex life on Coffee & Kink. When she mentioned coming off certain medications and regaining her sex drive, I suddenly remembered my own experience with psychotropic medication.

For a bit of background, I grew up in purity culture, and it wasn’t until I was 20 that I had sex for the first time. Even before then, though, I knew I was really into sex. I had a multitude of crushes, and I was an accomplished flirter. Feeling guilty over my “sins” didn’t stop me from making out often.

Sometime after starting university, I broke out of purity culture. That was when I started actively considering having sex. The first time didn’t cause stars to fall from heaven, but it was beautiful and I knew I wanted to do it often. Once I started, there was no stopping me. I was sex-positive before I knew the term existed.

In 2020, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, clinical depression, and generalised anxiety disorder. My psychiatrist wanted to place me on medication. I was hesitant, because of some vaguely negative view of psychotropics. But I was at rock bottom, thanks in part to the coronavirus pandemic, and I needed help to get myself up. I was prescribed an antidepressant, and soon afterwards, an antipsychotic. And so it began.

I daresay that no doctor ever hands you a prescription and says, “Here’s to wrecking your sex life!” (though I haven’t seen enough of them to be sure.) In my experience, the only drugs worse for my sex life than those associated with mental illness were hormonal contraceptives, but that’s a whole other blog post.

I lost a great deal of control over my body while on the medication. I no longer had any say over when I wanted to sleep, because I was sleeping most of the time. I bloated up like a ball. My dreams got weirder and weirder. My already healthy appetite felt like it was on steroids. Worse still, I nearly had an aneurysm thinking I’d got breast cancer when I started secreting breastmilk (a side effect of risperidone that nobody tells you about). But, perhaps, no side effect got to me more than the loss of my sex drive.

At first, I didn’t notice what was happening. It started as feeling a bit disconnected when sexting with my then-boyfriend. I thought the physical distance between us was the matter, and I’d feel all spicy once I was with him again. But the anticipated spiciness still failed to come through when we got together in person. I couldn’t find my enthusiasm any more. I admitted to myself that I was having a low libido moment, and assumed things would be better next time.

I started getting worried when the next time was a lot worse. Here I was, with a person I loved and was crazily attracted to, and I didn’t want to kiss him. I didn’t want to be touched by him. I finally had a lightbulb moment and linked my libido dip to the drugs I was taking. It felt a bit comforting to know I wasn’t losing my love of sex out of the blues, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.

I tried to fight my way back to being a sex lover. The disconnect between the great sex I’d had in the past and my present fumbling self was disconcerting. I tried going into a performative mode to keep my reputation alive, but it just wasn’t working. I didn’t feel like sex, and that was that about that.

Tired out, I surrendered. When sex partners asked what was up, I let them know I was on medication and as a result, was no longer in the mood. I started thinking that, perhaps, I might never like sex again. I started wondering what all the fuss about sex was about. Porn nauseated me. I forgot how it felt to touch myself.

On the flip side, I was feeling better mentally. Trading sexual pleasure for peace of mind seemed like a perfectly good bargain. Despondency soon gave way to acceptance. I had lost my sex drive to my drugs, and that was alright. I settled into my non-desire for sex. It wasn’t the end of the world.

I was on the meds for two years. I got quite a lot better. But the side effects had still not really worn off, and I was becoming weary of them. After two years, I did some research and weaned myself off the meds, since the psychiatrists wouldn’t listen to my consistent request to be taken off them (medical gaslighting is a real thing). I can’t remember what I expected, but my sex drive didn’t come roaring back. For some time, things were as they were. It didn’t help that I was far away from most of my sex partners.

But slowly, my desire was returning. I started off returning to masturbating. I was thrilled to feel horny again, even if slightly. When I had been with myself for a bit, I finally wanted to be with another person again. My hormones were still finicky, so the road to libido restoration was slow and bumpy. But it did happen.

I’m glad I got off the meds. They had done their job when I needed them to, and I was doing well with therapy. I’d gotten to the point where their side effects were beginning to outweigh their benefits. The medical community has a long way to go in listening to the patient, so it helps to be in tune with our bodies, to know what they need at each point and to honour that.

Looking back at the experience, I wish I gave myself more grace and didn’t feel the need to force a desire that wasn’t there. It’s alright to not want sex all the time, no matter how sex-positive you are. We needn’t place sex-god(dess) expectations on ourselves, and we have no business shouldering other people’s expectations, either.

Sex drive isn’t a constant. It dips and peaks, based on several variables. But what we can make a constant in our lives is being true to how we feel at any given moment. The best sex we’ll ever have is the sex we really want to have.

About the Writer

Destiny Marshall is obsessed with the interconnectedness of mental health and sexuality. When she’s not writing about that, she works on her meme scientist ambitions and gets to know her bed better.

Header image for a guest post by Karen Colby on sex after 50 and losing then rediscovering her sex drive

[Guest Post] My Sex Life: From Beginning to End to Beginning Again by Karen Colby

Published on by Amy

One of the reasons I started this site was to play a role in demystifying sex and normalising discussions of sexuality, particularly kink, BDSM, non-monogamous and queer identities. However, I was in my mid-20s when I started this blog and I’m in my mid-30s now. And it seems to me that the vast majority of content out there about sex is written with the approximately 18-45 demographic in mind.

This is a huge oversight. According to experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine, around half of all (cis) women are still sexually active in their 50s, and 27% remain sexually active in their 70s. Hormonal and bodily changes later in life, from menopause and falling testosterone levels through to aging-related health issues and lower energy can all have a major impact on our sex lives as we enter the second half of our lives. Even so, many people in this age bracket still can and do enjoy a healthy and fulfilling sex life. Many more, I am sure, would if they had access to more information and resources. That’s why I was so keen to publish this piece by Karen Colby (she/her) all about her experience of losing and then rediscovering her sexuality.

By the way: if you’d like to learn more about sex after 50, Joan Price’s incredible work is the best place to start.

Amy x

My Sex Life: From Beginning to End to Beginning Again by Karen Colby

I was born in 1963, which makes me 61 years old.

When I was a teen, women in bra ads wore their bras on the outside of their blouses because they couldn’t show a bra on bare skin on television. We didn’t have porn on our phones – our phones were mounted on walls. So when it came to sex, my boyfriend and I knew very little.

We had to figure it out all by ourselves. We would make out for hours in the back seat of his car. It took him a year to get up the nerve to put his hand up my shirt, but after that he got more daring and when he put his hand down my pants, I was hooked. We lost our virginities to each other when I was 18. Fucking wasn’t my favorite activity, but I loved the things that people typically call “foreplay.” I loved everything about it. I could have multiple orgasms, and I’m talking a lot. 

When I was 24, I got married. Our sex life was good, until I realized that I was way more attracted to women than I was to my husband. I left him when I was 31 for a woman I met in an AOL chat room. Although I was attracted to women, I had never even kissed a girl before I met her. I’ll never forget the first time we were together. It was all very soft, very gentle, and very wet. Unfortunately our relationship only lasted three years. 

After that I was a serial monogamist. That is until shortly after I turned 40, and my sex drive went through the roof. I started dating three women and absolutely could not get enough sex. That intense desire lasted for a couple of years. It was a very exciting time!

One of the three women I was dating and I moved in together, and we were together for several years. Then, a short time after we broke up (when I was 51 years old), something new and very unexpected happened: my sex drive disappeared completely.

I was single, so I didn’t even notice it immediately. One day I saw my vibrator in my drawer and thought, wow, that thing is gathering dust, I haven’t used it in so long! When I thought about it, I realized that not only had I not used my vibrator in almost a year, but I really hadn’t thought about sex at all. 

I’m guessing that having no sex drive when you’re in a relationship would be more difficult than when you’re single. But even though I didn’t have a partner, it bothered me because I had always been such a big fan of sex. I started using my vibrator once every three or four months, not because I was horny but just to remember what an orgasm felt like.

Meanwhile, my life was passing by. I wasn’t dating, because I liked being alone and without the desire for sex I couldn’t be bothered trying to make yet another relationship work. This serial monogamist was single for 10 years and had sex exactly zero times during that decade. It made me sad, because 51 felt far too young to give up sex forever, but I resigned myself to being alone and sexless for the rest of my life.

Then, earlier this year, I stopped taking a couple of medications and my sex drive came back with a vengeance. I felt like I was 40 again! I went from having no interest in sex to using my vibrator twice a day, sometimes more… and sometimes a lot more! Though I was so happy to have my libido back, I found myself in a new predicament. I was horny all the time, but had no one to have sex with. 

So I went on dating sites, hoping to find a woman nearby who wanted to meet up, but that didn’t happen. Back in my 40s, I lived in New York. Now I’m in a small town and there aren’t a lot of single lesbians here. After about a month of craving sex, I tried putting an ad on one of the websites stating I was looking for a man. I hadn’t had sex with a man in 30 years! But I remembered liking it a lot in the back seat of my first boyfriend’s car.

I found an interested guy quickly and I was very upfront with him. I told him I had lost my sex drive for 10 years and it had recently come back stronger than ever. He was very nice and more than happy to take me back to his apartment. When he went down on me, it was like the first time all over again. It was so good. I still wasn’t a huge fan of penetrative sex, but it was wonderful to be intimate with someone again. He and I got together a few more times, then I found a website where you could post an ad searching for sexual partners. So I did.

I still wanted to be with a woman again, though. It seemed unfathomable that I hadn’t touched a woman in 10 years. I decided if I couldn’t find a partner of my own, maybe I could play with someone else’s. So I advertised that I was looking for a couple, and soon found one. It’s astounding how many couples want to have threesomes! This couple were married and just about my age. He was very nice and fairly average looking for a 60 year old man, and she was incredibly pretty.

As I pulled into the parking lot of a very expensive hotel (which I never could have afforded by myself!) I didn’t know what to expect from the evening. The hotel was stunning and the room we were staying in was huge. We had drinks in the room, and they took me out for a lovely dinner. We all talked over delicious food and got to know each other a little. During dinner I kept thinking we’re going to get naked together later! which both excited me and made me nervous. I have to say that I don’t think I would have seriously entertained the idea of meeting a married couple for sex when I was younger. There’s something freeing about being older. 

After dinner, we went back to the hotel. The minute we walked into our room the wife said, “It’s time for sex!”. We started out just kissing with our clothes on. I kissed her, I kissed him, they kissed each other. Then we all kissed at once, which was fun but a little awkward. Once our clothes came off and she was in my arms, I instantly remembered why I love women. She was so soft and her breasts felt so good against mine. Of course, her husband got involved too, and that was fine with me. A good time was had by all. We stayed overnight and did it all again the next day. While she was sucking on one of my nipples and he was sucking on the other, I said, “I’m never having sex with just one person again.”

Since then, I have in fact had sex with just one person again. Actually, I’ve slept with a few guys, though I’m still looking for a female partner and I’m always buying batteries for my vibrator. My sex drive is still alive and well, and I have a threesome planned for this coming weekend. If it’s half as good as the last one, I’ll be very happy.

Karen Colby was the writer of Boyfriends and College Boys magazines

For Play Chocolate header image

[Better Sex Products Review] For Play Couples’ Chocolate

Published on by Amy

Whenever I encounter a sex-related thing I haven’t tried before, I immediately want to try it (and tell my readers all about it, obviously.) That’s why, when For Play Couples’ Chocolate came across my social feed recently, I immediately fired off an email to founder Victoria to enquire about featuring them on my blog.

She was kind enough to send me some samples of her company’s products to try. We decided to publish this review today in celebration of World Chocolate Day.

Sex and chocolate are, after all, two of life’s greatest pleasures.

So What is For Play Chocolate?

For Play Couples' Chocolate

For Play Chocolate came about when Victoria – a former CMO with an MBA – began to research the issue of sustaining intimacy in a long-term relationship. Drawing on research from an array of experts including Dr Karen Gurney and Emily Nagoski, PhD, she decided to create a product to “remind couples to make time for intimacy and play.”

Known variously as couples’ chocolate, sex chocolate, horny chocolate, and aphrodisiac chocolate, For Play Chocolate kits are designed to help couples to connect, get in the mood for romance, and enjoy greater levels of intimacy.

Each box of For Play Chocolates comes with six chocolates (three for each partner) and six “Play Cards”. The cards offer suggestions for erotic experiences to try, from taking a sexy shower together to experimenting with food play. There are also question prompts you can use to help you connect, reflect, and learn more about each other and your relationship.

The chocolates are labelled “His” and “Hers”, and there are boxes available for same-gender or different-gender couples. I’d love to see a non-binary or genderless version added to the range in the future, if possible.

They come beautifully packaged in sleek and stylish boxes in either pink, purple, or green. The chocolates themselves are beautiful, too, decorated with pink and bronze edible shimmer. The overall first impression is of luxury and high quality.

For Play’s products are vegan and made using ethically sourced 62% Ecuadorian dark chocolate. Their supplier is Original Beans chocolate, rated as a leading company by Chocolate Scorecard for environmental, sustainability, and labour practices.

How Does It Work?

For Play’s chocolate is super delicious, combining the sweet-bitter combo of quality dark chocolate with the infusion of subtle, natural botanical flavours. It melts smoothly in the mouth and the popping candy leaves a fun tingling sensation in its wake.

But how does it work?

Mr C&K had a long chat about this when we sampled our chocolates, and we came to the conclusion that this product works in two main ways. I’m going to call them “direct” and “indirect.”

The Direct Effects: The Science Bit

The direct way that For Play Chocolate works is through its botanical and adaptogenic ingredients. To understand this better, we need to delve into the science a little bit.

An aphrodisiac, in the most basic sense, is “a food or drug that arouses sexual instinct, brings on desire, or increases sexual pleasure or performance” (Healthline.) Numerous foods, from oysters to strawberries and even hot chilli peppers, have been alleged to be aphrodisiacs throughout history.

Another common food thought to have aphrodisiac properties? Dark chocolate.

Little to no concrete scientific evidence directly links most common aphrodisiac foods to an increase in sexual desire. However, this doesn’t mean there is nothing to the concept at all. Experts have attempted to explain aphrodisiacs’ apparent benefits through various means, from simple placebo to the sensual pleasure of consuming delicious things, the “luxury” status that society affords some of these foods, and the impact on bodily functions that play a role in sexual activity and desire (such as blood flow and dopamine release.)

Some foods and edible compounds, therefore, may play a role in sexual functioning in various ways. Let’s look at the active ingredients in For Play’s couples’ chocolate and what the research has to say about them.

Dark Chocolate

Cacao pods

Dark chocolate is rich in both antioxidants and caffeine, both of which can improve blood flow. It also contains L-arginine, which may enhance sexual responsiveness. A 2021 systematic review suggested that “l-arginine, as part of a combination product, may be considered for the treatment of women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, regardless of age.” (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder or HSDD is, broadly, a lack of sexual desire or very low desire that causes distress or negatively impacts your life.) Consuming chocolate also triggers the release of chemicals such as endorphins and dopamine, which are associated with feelings of happiness and wellbeing.

Maca

Maca powder

Maca, which comes from the Peruvian maca root plant, has long been thought to boost fertility and sex drive. One 2002 study indicated an improvement in self-perception of sexual desire in men after 8 weeks of maca use. Another pilot investigation also indicated that treatment with maca extract increased sexual desire amongst male athletes. Maca is only in For Play’s “For Him” chocolates, as there is currently more evidence for its effectiveness in (cis) men.

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha is a herb that originated in India and has been utilised in various ways for centuries. A 2015 pilot study showed that ashwagandha root extract could improve sexual functioning in otherwise healthy cis women. Another 2022 study indicated that treatment with ashwagandha provided a “statistically significant improvement” in sexual functioning amongst women with HSDD. Ashwagandha is in For Play’s “For Her” chocolates.

Fenugreek

Fenugreek seeds

Fenugreek, a clover-like herb that belongs to the pea family, finds use in both cooking and herbal medicines. One study found that “Sexual function analysis for all women… found that treatment with fenugreek resulted in reported increases in sexual arousal and desire in women” (Tester, 2015.) Another double-blinded and placebo-controlled 2021 study found that fenugreek “offered significant beneficial effects to sexual problems” amongst its female participants.

Korean ginseng

Ginseng

Ginseng is a vasodilator, or something that opens the blood vessels. By increasing blood flow in this way, it can have sexual benefits such as helping with erectile dysfunction. A small 2002 study and a 2008 systematic review found “suggestive evidence for the effectiveness of red ginseng in treating ED.” Likewise, a placebo-controlled double blind 2010 study found that “Oral administration of KRG extracts improved sexual arousal in menopausal women.”

In a Nutshell…

A product like For Play Chocolate is a helping hand, not a magic bullet. If you’re stressed out, angry at your partner, or suffering from the sexual side effects of health problems or medication, it isn’t going to magically override all that and make you horny. No food or substance can, because human sexuality is way more complicated than that.

What its ingredients can do, though, is give your body a natural nudge in the right direction. Combined with creating the right conditions for pleasure and intimacy – which we’ll discuss more in the next section – these adaptogenic ingredients can work with your body to enhance intimacy and pleasure.

For Play notes that you should seek medical advice before using their products if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking any medications. And, of course, you should avoid this product if you are allergic or sensitive to any of the ingredients.

The Indirect Effects: Finding New Ways to Stay Connected

For Play Couples' Chocolate

The indirect way that For Play Chocolate works is all about creating the time, space, and physical and emotional context for greater intimacy in your relationship.

Sex, after all, is mental at least as much as physical. In her life-changing book Come As You Are, Emily Nagoski writes extensively about the devastating impact that life stress, mental health challenges, lack of trust, lack of emotional safety, and feelings of pressure can have on sexual desire. To connect better with our partners and ourselves, we need to reduce stress, feel safe and seen, and make space for desire and pleasure.

Staying connected and keeping intimacy, passion, and sex going in a long-term relationship can be challenging. New relationship energy (NRE) naturally fades over time into the more comfortable, cosy warmth of long-term love. This is particularly true when you’re married or nested, your lives are very entangled, or you’re raising children together.

It is important for couples to set time aside to focus on each other and their relationship. Exploration, adventure, and trying new things can all help to keep the spark of novelty alive. With those things and a little effort, the long haul can be where the really good stuff is. There’s nothing like completely knowing someone and them knowing you inside and out, and choosing each other every day.

Using a product like For Play Couples’ Chocolate can help you to create that all-important time together. It can facilitate the conditions needed for intimacy of all kinds – including sexual, physical, and emotional – to flourish.

For Play Couples’ Chocolate is really a date night in a box. You get to set aside dedicated time for your relationship, enjoy some tasty treats together, and explore new ways of connecting. There are even some suggested Spotify playlists to help set the mood.

I found the question cards particularly great for this aspect of the experience. The question prompts sparked some interesting discussions and also plenty of laughter. Even seemingly simple questions (“What does intimacy mean to you?” was my favourite) can get you thinking and talking about things in a different way.

Verdict

For Play Couples' Chocolate

I really enjoyed this product, which is far more than just a gimmick. A lot of thought and care has gone into the formulation and creation of For Play’s kits. The quality of the chocolate, ethical credentials, and beautiful presentation really elevates them, too.

For Play Chocolates retail for £28 per kit. That’s less than you’d pay for a meal in a mid-range restaurant or about what you’d pay for a couple of drinks in a nice bar. Since you only need one chocolate each time, you’ll get three experiences out of one box. And, of course, you can continue to use the cards for as long as you like.

A thoughtful (and tasty) romantic gift or a cute way to set aside a little “us time” with your partner. There’s also a 30 day satisfaction guarantee with your purchase.

Shop For Play Couples’ Chocolate here.

Thanks to For Play Chocolate for sending me this product to test and sponsoring this review. All views are, as always, mine. Professional product images by For Play and reproduced here with permission.

Eye of Love Pheromone Perfume review featuring a woman spraying perfume on herself from a bottle

[Cosmetics Review] Eye of Love Pheromone Perfume

Published on by Amy

Scent is powerful. It can evoke feelings, stir memories, and play a major role in the sensory experience of arousal and sex. That’s probably why pheromone perfume is having a big moment right now. There are 33.5k posts carrying the #pheromoneperfume tag on TikTok and 57.5k posts on Instagram at the time of writing. So when I got offered some Eye of Love pheromone perfume products to try out, I couldn’t wait to delve into what this viral craze is all about.

What Are Eye of Love Pheromone Perfumes?

Eye of Love Pheromone Perfume in Black Diamond (left) and Red Diamond

To understand what pheromone perfumes are, we first have to understand what pheromones are.

In short:

Officially named in 1959, pheromones are chemical substances that are secreted outside of the body in fluids like urine and sweat. Essentially, pheromones are a hidden form of communication. They send signals from one individual to another of the same species. This triggers a response in the individual receiving those signals, such as a hormonal change or specific behavior.

– Healthline

Interestingly, there is still a gap in scientific understanding when it comes to exactly how, or even if, pheromones work in humans. According to one paper from 2013 published in Facts, Views and Vision in ObGyn, “Many examples exist in animals but their role in humans remains uncertain since adults have no functioning vomeronasal organ, which processes pheromone signals in animals.” Deb Levine, MA and Stephanie Watson, writing for WebMD, say, “It’s not clear how the [pheromone] process works in humans. We do have VNO organs, but they’re small and may be too poorly developed to process pheromones like the VNO organs in animals can. More likely, we process these signals through our olfactory system.”

Pheromone perfumes, then, operate on the assumption that – like animals – humans use pheromones to increase their sexual attractiveness to potential mates. These fragrances contain synthetic versions of the substances that are commonly called human pheromones. The idea, then, is simple. Wear them and people will be more attracted to you.

Eye of Love pheromone perfumes utilise two key compounds that have been deemed to be human pheromones or to have a pheromone-like effect in humans: estratetraenol and androstenol.

All Eye of Love pheromone perfumes are vegan and cruelty-free. They smell yummy, as we’ll discuss more a bit later. But do they actually work?

Do Pheromone Perfumes Really Work?

Eye of Love’s pheromone perfume can supposedly help you “be more attractive. Be more social. Be more successful.” It’s a lofty claim.

There’s a lot we don’t understand about how attraction works. And, as we established in the section above, there’s also a lot we also don’t understand about how (or if) pheromones work in humans. So whether or not these perfumes “work” in any scientific sense isn’t really provable right now.

And look, I’m inherently somewhat cynical. As a general rule, I don’t believe in things for which I cannot see meaningful evidence.

Anecdotally, pheromone perfumes do seem to have a positive impact for many people. You’ll hear stories about service staff doubling their tips when they wear pheromone perfume, people getting asked out at the shops, and people suddenly having way more sex with their long term partners when they start using these products.

Is that down to the perfume, though? Honestly, until there’s more robust scientific backing behind the pheromone phenomenon, I’m going to assume it’s a placebo affect. If you believe something is going to make you more attractive, you’ll act like a person who believes themselves to be attractive. This, in itself, can be highly desirable and can draw people to you in a way that might make you think “wow, it’s the pheromones!”

Let’s not forget the fact that simply smelling nice can be a turn-on to many people, too. When I see a woman I find attractive, smelling a nice perfume on her as she walks by can make her even sexier.

Shawn Talbott, PhD, quoted in a piece by Charlotte Hilton Anderson, MS, for The Healthy, also points out that “We know that plant compounds, like lavender and chamomile, can be used to reduce stress and enhance relaxation. So if stress is interfering with mood and suppressing libido, then we can use ‘plant pheromones’ to reduce stress. And if you’re less stressed then maybe your sex drive increases a bit.” In other words, the perfume might be having an impact but possibly not in the way you think.

What I’m really saying is, if you’re going to try pheromone perfumes, go in with realistic expectations. You’re not going to just spritz this stuff on and instantly become irresistible to everyone of your preferred gender(s) who lays eyes on you. (That’s fairytale love potion silliness and even if it was real, it would be highly ethically questionable!)

What you might find, though, is that you find a little more confidence. A little more of your own, internal and unique brand of sexiness. And that can be just as magical, if not more so.

Eye of Love Matchmaker Collection

The Eye of Love pheromone perfume Matchmaker Collection consists of two scents: Black Diamond and Red Diamond. Red Diamond is marketed more towards straight women and other people looking to attract men, while Black Diamond is marketed towards straight men and other people looking to attract women. (There are LGBTQ+ versions of each also available – mine both say “Attract Her” – though I’m unclear on whether there’s any actual difference in the product! I assume they contain different pheromones according to the genders of the people you’re trying to attract.)

Ultimately, though, both scents (like all scents!) are gender-neutral and for whoever feels good wearing them.

Eye of Love “Black Diamond”

Eye of Love Pheromone Perfume in Black Diamond

Eye of Love describes Black Diamond as “a bold blend of cedar, blackcurrant, and lemon. Undertones of oak, white amber, and musk.” I’m kinda wary of describing scents using gendered language, but this one feels decidedly masculine to me.

When I first put it on, the cedar is the main thing I can smell. I actually like this one more when I’ve been wearing it for a couple of hours and it’s had time to mellow out on my skin. At that point, the fruity scents start to come out a little more.

Black Diamond is definitely sexy. This one calls to mind dark corners in atmospheric cocktail bars, leaning over to kiss a soft butch girl whose lips taste of whiskey. It calls to mind the black leather and dark wood of the swankiest BDSM dungeons I’ve been to, of the tug of restraints around my wrists and the slap – slap – slap of a flogger across my back.

Ultimately, I think I enjoy this perfume best on someone else rather than on myself. Black Diamond is a lovely scent, I just don’t think it’s my scent.

Eye of Love “Red Diamond”

Eye of Love Pheromone Perfume in Red Diamond

Eye of Love describes Red Diamond as “a sensual blend of jasmine, grapefruit, and amber with a touch of citrus.” There are also middle notes of lily and blackcurrent and base notes of musk and vanilla. It feels femme and flirty, and calls to mind the way that summer sunshine always makes me feel sensual and sexy.

This one feels far more at home on my skin. I like the way it softens over the hours I’m wearing it, leaving me feeling like I’m wearing a bouquet of fruit and flowers.

Red Diamond is sexy, too, but in a very different way to its counterpart. If Black Diamond is kissing in a dark corner of a cocktail bar, then Red Diamond is flirting at a wholesome coffee shop while thinking about alllllll the terribly non-wholesome things I would like to consensually do to the pretty femme across the table.

This one smells good enough that I’ll seriously consider buying more when my sample bottle runs out.

How Did I Feel Wearing Them?

I tried Eye of Love pheromone perfume at an… interesting time. I’m not dating at the moment, mostly because I’m still recovering from the most brutal breakup of my entire life. So opportunities for trying them out in traditionally “sexy” contexts were few.

However, I did manage to find a few chances to try them out. For example, I wore Black Diamond to a kink play party with Mr C&K and Red Diamond to a munch. I’ve also been wearing them around the house to see if they can help to lift my mood amidst my endless fog of post-breakup depression, even if just for a moment.

Who doesn’t feel more confident with a sprizt of a scent that makes them feel most like themselves? Confidence is the sexiest thing of all to many people, and it’s something I have been sorely lacking in the last couple of months.

This perfume didn’t help me find the next great love of my life. But it did help me to briefly remember what it feels like to see myself as sexy, attractive, and desirable. And right now that’s something.

Where to Buy

You can get each Eye of Love Pheromone Perfume from the Matchmaker range individually (£23 for 10ml in a tube or £42 for 30ml in a gorgeous glass diamond-shaped bottle), or a set of both (£39 for two 10ml tubes) directly from the company’s shop.

Thanks to Eye of Love for sending me these products to try. All views are, as always, my own. Affiliate links appear within these posts.

Header for a post about wand vibrators and anorgasmia from antidepressants

How Wand Vibrators Helped Me Reclaim My Sexuality When Antidepressants Killed It

Published on by Amy

I’ve been on antidepressants for the majority of my adult life, in three separate stints (having come off them most recently earlier this year). I’m very pro medication for those who need it which, at the times I was taking it, I absolutely did. I’m not exaggerating when I say that those meds saved my life on more than one occasion.

Wand vibrators - Honey Wand from Honey Play Box
Honey Wand by Honey Play Box

But like any medications, antidepressants often have side effects, which can range in severity from mildly annoying to seriously debilitating. One of the worst side effects I experienced on two out of the three antidepressants I tried was a significant change to my sexuality. This manifested in different ways on each drug.

On Fluoxetine (Prozac), I pretty much lost my sex drive entirely for months. Anything that had been pleasurable just felt like… nothing. This wasn’t limited to sex, either – I also lost my appetite and all ability to derive pleasure from food. On Citalopram, I lost my ability to orgasm while my body adjusted to the meds. While this did have some pleasant results (particularly discovering that I have an orgasm denial kink), it was also upsetting and frustrating. Feeling like I had no control over my body and like I’d lost one of my greatest sources of pleasure was so damaging that I seriously considered coming off the meds that were otherwise helping with my depression.

Trying Sex Toys

The first time antidepressants killed my sex life, I was so thoroughly miserable (both from the depression and from the side effects of the meds) that I wasn’t even interested in reclaiming it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have sex or masturbate for about nine months at one stage. In hindsight, this probably made things even worse, because my sexuality has always been one of the key ways that I access pleasure and joy. At that time, I didn’t own any sex toys, and any touch from either myself or my partner left me cold.

The second time was a different matter, though. This time, the antidepressants actually took the edge off the worst of the sadness and hopelessness, and I still wanted sex. I just couldn’t orgasm, either with my partner or by myself. Though orgasm is not necessarily the goal of sex, this quickly became frustrating and then enraging. I felt like my body was betraying me. Like I had to choose between having a properly functioning brain and a satisfying sex life.

The turning point came when my then-partner pulled out a wand vibrator after about a month of this issue. That thing finally broke through the orgasm block. And, once that dam broke, it became easier and easier to get there again. I invested in a wand for myself pretty quickly after that, and it became my go-to toy.

Breaking Through the Depression-Haze

Even now, when I’m not currently on any psychiatric medication (though I accept I might be again in the future), I’m most likely to reach for my wand vibes when I’m in the middle of a bad depression funk. Contrary to popular belief, it’s still possible to feel horny at the same time as being depressed. Sad people need pleasure and orgasms, too! There have also been times when I haven’t felt horny, but I knew intellectually that an orgasm would make me feel better.

Sometimes, when I’m very very depressed, I feel as though there’s a kind of fog around me. The fog keeps me at least partly disconnected from everything and everyone around me. At its worst, it creates a sense of being somewhat outside and detached from my own body. In this state, many types of touch that would normally be pleasurable struggle to penetrate the fog. When that happens, I need intense stimulation and lots of it. It’s times like this that I might crave certain BDSM activities even more than usual. It’s also times like this when knock-your-socks-off powerful wand vibes are a Godsend.

The thing with my favourite wand vibes is that ultimately, they can wrench an orgasm from my body with very little active input from me. This has a lot of fun potential (forced orgasm scenes anyone?) It’s also extremely useful during periods of significant depression. If I want to orgasm at my own or a partner’s hand, or with a lower powered toy, it can be fun but often requires significant effort, mentally if not physically. With a powerful enough wand, I basically just put it in the right spot and wait for the orgasm to happen. In this way, I can access pleasure and the positive physical and mental health benefits of orgasm even when I feel so low I don’t want to leave my bed.

Sexual Pleasure Matters

When someone is dealing with severe health issues, either physical or mental, it’s often tempting to see sexual pleasure as trivial. Certainly when I spoke to my doctor about the side effects of my various medications, they dismissed my concerns. Did I want to be able to orgasm or did I want to not be sad? Because I couldn’t have both.

Except I actually could, and I needed and deserved to have both.

If you’re struggling with pleasure or orgasm due to health issues and medication, I want you to hear this: sexual pleasure matters! It’s not trivial and it’s not unimportant. If it’s important to you, then it matters. And you deserve to have what you need to feel sexually satisfied – whether that’s a change of medication, a super powerful vibrator, or just to change up what you’re doing.

Thanks to Honey Play Box for sponsoring this post. All views and experiences are my own!

Header for guest post about masturbation and sexless pregnancy by K. Maira

[Guest Post] My Sexless Pregnancy by K. Maira

Published on by Amy

One of the reasons I opened up Coffee & Kink to guest writers was to share experiences that I’ve never had or can’t/won’t ever have. From the trans experience as an erotic writer to fetishes I don’t share to aromantic identity and much more, my guest writers have generously shared their stories and made C&K a more vibrant and expansive place to discuss all the nuances of sexuality. Today’s guest writer is K. Maira, a pseudonymous writer who is sharing her experience of a sexless pregnancy and the solo sex life she cultivated.

As a lifelong childfree person, I’ll never experience the unique intersection of sexuality, pregnancy, and parenthood, so I am delighted to be sharing this fascinating and intimate piece with you all.

Amy x

My Sexless Pregnancy (Unless You Count with Myself!) by K. Maira

Sex during pregnancy is usually taken as a given. After all, if you’re pregnant you must have a partner, right? Well, not for me. While most people worry about sex hurting the baby in some way, I was thinking about all the orgasms I was missing out on. My baby’s father disappeared when I found out I was pregnant. But then again it was a one night stand, so I can’t say I was all that surprised. I was, however, very horny. And I wasn’t exactly on the dating scene with my ever-growing belly.

I had to give myself all my own orgasms and I’m so happy I did. It led me on a journey to sexual self discovery. I realized things about myself I would have never known otherwise. Only having yourself to make the magic happen for so long opens up a whole new perspective on sex. I’ll walk you through the journey of my masturbation-only pregnancy, trimester by trimester.

First Trimester

The first trimester is famously known for being three months of hell. The morning sickness and fatigue alone could put you on the ground. With no horndog of a partner breathing down my neck, I was able to completely relish in the woes of those first few months. I felt just fine looking like shit, my breath smelling of vomit and passing out before 5pm. No pressure to look and smell nice there.

On the rare occasion that urge did strike me, my fingers could just walk their way down my pants and enjoy. Nope, I wasn’t shaved, but my fingers didn’t care. I was able to fully enjoy my orgasm in a way I wouldn’t have otherwise. And I could do it on my time. There was no waiting for the guy to get out of work, or for him to drive over to my house. There were only orgasms on demand.

Second Trimester

Oh, the second trimester… it’s so much different than the first. It’s this one where the body feels an almost constant need for sex. I struggled with this for a while, craving what a man would give me that my toys could not. But never underestimate the power of porn. It’s the porn that got me through this trimester.

Being on a strictly porn diet taught me a lot about myself, and the sexual interests I didn’t know I had. I found myself watching a lot of lesbian porn and bi mmf porn. And oh, did it make me cum over and over again! I came harder than I had ever cum from watching those kinkier videos. I know these weren’t pregnancy cravings, because I still crave them and they still get me off.

Third Trimester

Sex in the third trimester gets a bit more complicated. I knew this – I had been pregnant before and had tons of sex during my past pregnancies. That big belly gets in the way, your feet are swollen and there’s constant pressure down there. While I used to solve this problem by opting for anal most of the time, again, it wasn’t an option for this pregnancy.

This is when I learned other ways of masturbatung could get me off. This is where the grinding came in. Grinding pillows, the arm of the couch, grinding whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I’d never done it before then, but I’m so glad I discovered it!

I’ve added it to my current masturbation routine even though my pregnancy ended over seven months ago. You read that correctly – I’m quickly approaching 18 months with no sex, unless you count with myself. And it doesn’t bother me, because those nine months of solely masturbating has taught me how to better enjoy my own body.

Go Ahead and Enjoy Yourself

Here’s my advice: if you find yourself in a sexless position, go ahead and enjoy yourself. Experiment with new things and try a variety of porn. What you find yourself liking may surprise you. It’s possible to have a sexually fulfilling relationship with yourself! Have some fun and when you do enter into a new sexual relationship, you just may start having better sex.

I was a very sexually active woman prior to this last pregnancy, and was already leaning towards the kinkier side of the spectrum. During the last 18 months I’ve moved even closer to it. When I do decide I want to start having sex again, I know my sex life will be better than it ever was, because I’ve discovered new things about my sexual interests and about my own body.

Thank you so much to K. for contributing this fantastic post! You can pitch your own story here or chip in a few £ to the tip jar, which I use to pay my guest writers.

Header image for a post about transition, fraysexuality, aromanticism, and sex toys

[Guest Post] “Silly Rabbit, Toys are for Everyone!” by Velvet Divine

Published on by Amy

Velvet Divine (fae/faer) is back again with another fantastic guest post, this time about transition, sex toys, body image, and lots more good stuff. Don’t forget to follow faer on Twitter!

“Silly Rabbit, Toys are for Everyone!” by Velvet Divine

“Hey, I’m really flattered and hella down but it’s been a while since we talked and there’s been some new developments. I’ve been on HRT for a bit now and it’s started to affect my downstairs equipment so things don’t really work the same as before.”

“That’s fine, we can still have amazing BDSM sex without a dick or even any kind of penetration.”

“You’re absolutely right, I guess I’m just still getting used to the new situation and never really thought I’d be here, ya know?

– A snippet from a conversation I had recently with an old flame about being physically intimate again. 

I was born with a penis and although knowing I was trans femme and being out socially and professionally, for the most part, I was not able to begin the medical portion of my transition until around five months ago. I shan’t bore you with the minutia of the HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) process but want to focus on one aspect of my experience: the loss of libido and erectile dysfunction as a result of the low blood pressure from Spiro and the Estrogen.

It’s not a bad thing in any capacity, mind you, I was never particularly attached to my bio dildo, to begin with, but it’s different – for the entirety of my sexual history up until these past few months, it was largely the main event or performing a duet with various accoutrements. That’s not the case anymore.

Now, I find myself in the process of learning how to make sensuality, foreplay, and various accessories the headliners of the experience. This isn’t a problem in and of itself but I have noticed that it can get tricky trying to navigate expectations, both mine and others. I’m typically physically and sexually intimate with other femme-coded people and more often than not those people have vaginas and, in the case of my last few encounters, came from mostly if not exclusively being with cis men.

A few of these people I was intimate with prior to HRT and then during, which became an interesting exercise in shifting expectations and accommodating material realities. Those liaisons did not last but they were incredibly affirming and I could not have asked for more at the time. The ones that followed were less affirming and a bit more awkward. There was disappointment that my equipment did not perform to expectation and trepidation about trying toys for the first time. They weren’t bad experiences but they were not repeated.

Orgasms are different too, they’re not quite as jolting as they used to be and I no longer feel the mounting pressure to like climax like I did prior. They’re rad enough but they’re no longer the ritz. I could take them or leave them. And I leave them more often than not nowadays since penetration used to be my main vector for climax.

I’m sure you’re about to say, “Velvet, that’s a barrel of bananas if not a whole jungle. There are so many other forms of stimulation you could receive or do for yourself”. And you’d be correct, dear reader – but here’s the kicker:

I do not want other people touching me any more than they have to. Or more accurately, by the time the trust and foundation needed for me to feel safe being touched intimately, my Fraysexuality has usually kicked in and the liaison plateaus platonically. (Fraysexuality being on the ace spectrum and characterized by a loss of sexual attraction as a platonic relationship is established and cemented. Think of it as the opposite of Demisexuality.)

Despite the complexity and frustration of the present situation, I’m making a concerted effort to approach it as an opportunity to heal and better conceptualize the relationships I have with intimacy, both the one I provide myself and the one I get from others.

I do not like my body, never have, but for the first time, I don’t actively loath it. Sure, there’s hair in all the wrong places, I feel like I’m built like a titan from the eponymous anime, and I still cringe if I catch the wrong angle in the mirror. But I’m growing boobs. That hair is growing back slower and it’s more manageable. The hair on my head (the one I actually like) is the longest it’s ever been and when it cooperates – my curls are fuckin’ hot.

(Note on the breast development: for the first twenty-four years of my life I was pretty unaware that I had nipples. Now I’m entirely too aware and they’re sore more often than not. But, boobs. So I’m pretty damn stoked.)

Inhabiting this mortal coil usually feels like being stuffed in an iron maiden two sizes too small and trying to provide myself with intimacy feels just as unwelcoming. Self massages, oils, and most spicy toys don’t quite hit the mark but hugging squishmallows, breaking out a weighted blanket, and even taking those extra five or ten minutes to pop a hoodie in the dryer for a warm treat on a cold night, have been baby steps that I can stomach.

Getting intimacy from other people, however, has proven more Icarian than Herculean. Not the least of which by virtue of the fact that being some flavor of aro/ace (Aroflux and Fraysexual in my case), at least for myself, makes it extremely difficult to discern the exact kind of attraction I feel for certain people and harder still to know the way I would prefer to express or receive that attraction.

In the event you may not be aware, there are different forms of attraction besides the classic romantic and sexual. Aesthetic revolves around enjoying a person’s appearance or style, without any desire for more. Sensual refers to wanting to touch and be touched by that person, in as far as hugs, holding hands, kissing, cuddling, etc. Alterous attraction means the lovely limbo north of the platonic but not quite romantic, you’ll often hear it in reference to queerplatonic situations.

Some people I find incredibly and even frighteningly attractive, but the buck stops there. I’m just happy they exist and I can respectfully look at the insta feed. Others are a little trickier. They might have beautiful hands that I’d like to hold and kiss, maybe I want them to hold me and play with my hair while I get lost in their eyes (no, you’re thinking of specific people right now, don’t project onto me), and some I’d be cool with having them ride my face for an evening.

And once or even if the mode of attraction or vector of affection is identified, how the fuck do you make that known. I mentioned in previous pieces here that approaching femme-coded people as a trans femme, especially still looking as masc as I do, can be pretty frightening but there’s even less of a script for bringing up niche topics outside of those niche communities.

Amatonormativity has set such a draconian binary between platonic and romantic affection that even among LGBTQIA+ people it can be difficult to ask for intimacy or establish connections outside of this script imposed upon us. Thus, we may end up in situations that often don’t serve us or that are downright uncomfortable because we don’t know other ways to fill those needs.

You might settle for a romantic relationship even if you’re not interested in romance because it might be the most convenient way for you to get a nesting partner, co-parent, or a source of emotional closeness when a queerplatonic situation might better serve you. For me, I engage in a lot of casual sexual intimacy not necessarily because I want sex but because it’s the most socially acceptable and convenient way for me to get the sensual intimacy I need.

And sure, I could ask. I won’t, but I could.

Besides the fact that I would rather be dead than vulnerable, there’s this tremendous fear that opening that Pandora’s Jar would irrevocably change those friendships. 

Would they understand that my sensual attraction isn’t sexual and a testament to how safe I feel with them or would they be uncomfortable around me moving forward?

Would they reciprocate or be at least comfortable with my alterous attraction to them or just consider me the latest in a line of friends that ruined the connection by burdening them with my confession?

People are complicated. Try, if you have the spoons and the patience, but toys are always an option too.

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Sex Tips for Bad Depression Days

Published on by Amy

Hi, I’m Amy and I have depression. (Plus anxiety, PTSD, and a whole fun laundry list of Brain Stuff! But today we’re focusing on depression).

My depression and I have learned to live with each other over the years. It’s not exactly a good relationship, but we’ve reached an uneasy truce of sorts. One of the biggest challenges for me has been navigating the impact of depression on my sexuality.

To that end, here are some of the things I’ve learned about sex on bad depression days. Take the ones that work for you, discard the rest. We’re all different, and what works for me might not work for you.

It’s okay to not have sex

I feel like this should-be-obvious-but-isn’t point is often missed out of conversations about sex and depression. If you just can’t right now, that’s okay! You’re no less of a partner or a sex-positive person if you sometimes can’t or don’t want to have sex at all.

If you don’t feel like it? Give yourself a break and let your libido return in its own time.

But you’re also allowed to want sex!

There’s a school of thought (that I hate) that says it’s not okay to have sex with a depressed person. Well if that was the case, I wouldn’t have gotten laid at all since… March?

If you want to have sex, even while you’re depressed, that’s okay! As long as you have capacity to consent, there’s no reason not to go ahead and enjoy having sex if you want to.

One of the worst things past partners have done when I’ve been depressed is decline sex (that they otherwise would have wanted) to “protect me from myself”. A depressed person is still a grown-ass adult capable of making choices, and doesn’t need to be protected from their own desire for sex.

See sex as self care

If you’d like to have sex and think it would make you feel better, why not conceptualise it as being in the same category as drinking a glass of water, going for a walk, or meditating? That is, as an act of self-care.

I find this particularly useful when it comes to masturbation. If I push through the fog and get myself to masturbate, an orgasm will invariably make me feel better… or at least help me sleep (which will make me feel better).

Have low-energy sex

For many people, including me, one of the primary symptoms of depression is debilitating exhaustion. When I’m in that space, four-hour marathon fuck sessions in all kinds of creative positions are just not going to happen.

But lying back while my partner fucks me? Crawling over their lap for a spanking? Pushing a wand vibrator against my junk (possibly through clothing) and just leaving it there until I come? That I can do!

Use the physical to take you out of your head

Lots of people find intense workouts or adrenaline-fuelled challenges comforting when they’re depressed. This is because focusing on something very physical can take your focus away from the dark places your brain is going to.

For me, that intense physical experience is sex and/or kink. If I have highly physical sex, it allows me to focus on something else besides the hell my brain is dragging me through. Whether it’s the thud of body-on-body or the slap of a heavy flogger across my butt, physical sensations take me out of my depression spiral and ground me in the moment.

Honour where your body is at

Sometimes, depression can mess with physical arousal. In other words, the brain might be willing, but the body has other ideas. For people with penises, this might result in difficulty getting or maintaining an erection. People with vulvas might struggle with a lack of natural lubrication.

The best way to have great sex on bad depression days is to honour where your body is and meet it there. That means staying curious, staying adaptable, and trying not to get frustrated or cast blame.

If you can, see it as an opportunity for learning and experimentation. If you want to have sex but your penis just isn’t getting hard today, why not pleasure your partner with your hand, your mouth, or a toy? And if genital stimulation is difficult right now, you could trade massages, experiment with kink, or just hold your partner and whisper filth in their ear while they jerk off.

Use the tools that help

Sex toys are amazing any time, but they really come into their own for me on bad depression days. If a partner’s bio-dick isn’t getting hard (or they don’t feel like using it), they can use a dildo on me. If I’m not up for penetration, clitoral vibes can provide tonnes of pleasure.

Then of course there’s probably my favourite depression-sex tool of all time: lube! When I’m sad, I can be mentally turned on but my body might not have the physical response to match. Tonnes of lube keeps things painless and fun.

So there you have it – my sex-and-depression tips. I’d love to know if any of these work for you, or if you have any favourite strategies I’ve not thought of!

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