I’ll preface this by saying a) I’m obviously writing this purely from a heterosexual female perspective, I don’t know if it’s the same for men or LGBT people, and b) obviously sex may well be even better in your forties, fifties, sixties, seventies and so on. If it is, then there really is a silver lining to ageing. Bring it on I say. For now obviously I can only speak from my own experience but if anyone reading from a different demographic wants to weigh in on this, I really am all ears.
Orgasm inequality
I didn’t have an orgasm until I was 19, and it wasn’t even me who did it – yet I’d been having sex for five years by then (as disturbing as that is)! I’d hope it’s improved a bit for young women these days, but if that’s not a startlingly clear example of the difference in sex between boys and girls then I don’t know what is. You’d be hard pressed to find a male aged 19 who’s never had an orgasm. Looking back, it’s depressingly obvious that I was too focused on what my body meant to the opposite sex rather than for me. How odd is it that I had been giving my body to others as a source of pleasure for years but never actually worked out how to properly satisfy myself? (Not to mention that the idiots I’d already slept with clearly didn’t know the proper way around a vagina.)
After that initial experience, things improved a bit sexually in that I could actually climax with my partner – however, never through penetrative sex. I know this is true for a lot of women regardless of age, and actually nowadays there is quite a lot written about it, but personally in my twenties I found it quite frustrating as I felt my body was perhaps different, or difficult.
Faking it (sigh)
These feelings of frustration are exacerbated of course when the guy you’re with doesn’t quite understand it, or worse – doesn’t care about it, and if like me at that age, you don’t have the confidence to discuss it openly. This isn’t helped by porn, TV or movies of course, where the woman often appears to reach climax effortlessly after a few seconds of thrusting and no foreplay.
What this meant was that when I left that initial relationship and met other people, I ended up faking it constantly when it became apparent it was never going to actually happen. Something ingrained within me felt it was important that my partner’s ego wasn’t damaged, or that they got their own thrill out of it as it was apparently such a “turn-on to see/hear me come” (eye-roll).
I feel quite embarrassed/ashamed to admit all of this, even now! I’m not a shy wallflower, I can speak my mind, I won’t let people walk all over me. So why did I put up with mediocre sex without speaking up, for literally years and years?! It baffles me.
So, how are the thirties different?
Well, when I broke up with my last serious partner I was almost 29. With anyone I slept with after that, I’m not even sure that it was a conscious decision, but I simply gave my own needs an equal (or sometimes higher) priority to my partner’s, sexually. I guess I was just tired of acting. It felt like a waste of time to have sex with someone and not be satisfied from it. There’s only so long you can keep up the “ooh,” “yes,” and “I’m close,” before you get thoroughly fed up of having to finish yourself off in the shower.
I also realised that it’s unrealistic to expect sex to be perfect from the get-go. It can take time, confidence and sometimes patience too. It’s always new and exciting with a new partner and sometimes you just want to soak up that passion and not risk ruining the moment. But it’s worth it. If you don’t help someone, they’re not always going to be able to help you, so to speak.
This new outlook seemed to relieve a whole load of pressure, in many ways and other areas too – like not being too obsessed with my appearance or being crippled with embarrassment if I wasn’t as perfectly groomed as I’d like. The other clarity I had was just accepting that I knew my body and what I liked. Previously the pressure I’d felt had made me perhaps do some things that I wasn’t 100% in to, because I felt I had to be “open to anything” to avoid being seen as boring in bed. Bizarre, right?!
By the time I hit thirty I had just met my now-husband, and this new mindset was paying off big time in the bedroom (OK, I accept that maybe he had something to do with it as well…). The other thing I should mention here though is that around this time I had recently stopped taking the Pill. I definitely don’t want to blindly recommend everyone does that, as I am quite clearly not a medical expert, however I’d been on it for probably eight years and after my body had settled down a bit, I do feel it made a difference physically. My libido definitely grew and honestly, it now takes a fraction of the time to come than it used to.
Clearly this is all positive, but I do also want to clarify that I’m not sitting here boasting about my perfect sex life; far from it! I’m saying it’s a lot better than it was in my twenties, but we still have to work hard at it and there’s always room for improvement. The important thing, though, is that I’ve made it known that it isn’t okay to not value my orgasm. I’ve had to reinforce the point a couple of times too, trust me! At the end of the day, if we are gonna do this, we both need to get there and it’s a team effort. Otherwise what’s the point in playing?!
What do you reckon? Let me know in the comments, or send me a note if it’s really juicy!
Thanks for reading!
XD
Thirty Secrets 