Sex and Intimacy

So, the time has come to take a good hard look at the world of sex and intimacy in my life. I am being…challenged by a friend of mine who thinks that perhaps I have never considered my own needs in the bedroom before. First of all, I have recently been told that I give off perhaps the aire of a…dirty ho, I believe was the phraseology. Which is so ironic because I am probably far closer to such a description now than I was at the time it was given. I don’t really think I am now, either, but I am definitely in a different league than before the big breakup. When I was together with my husband and Mr. Darcy, although I did have an “out of the ordinary” relationship, I still stuck to a very clear moral code. I did not stray physically or mentally. I never fantasized about anyone else, nor did I ever pretend I was with one rather than the other. But I was very open-minded in the confines of the relationship and had very little I wouldn’t at least try. I also was never comfortable with the word FUCK. It always seemed so mean, and was only used in anger. And sex was something I did not share except out of love. Ironic, huh? It is not a well known fact but before the end of my relationship with Mr. Darcy, I had had only two lovers in my life. I had been somewhat intimate with other people early on, but Mr. Darcy was my first, my husband was my second and there was no other. And I loved them both deeply so casual sex was not part of my vocabulary. I had rather romantic notions about the whole thing.

My numbers have…shifted up a bit in the last few months and I have attempted exploration out of the realm of true love. Though love still exists, it is the love that exists between two friends. But I spent so much time not being touched by not one, but two men in my life, and for a while I simply accepted that this is now how things are. This is what happens in long relationships, the passion fades, the complacency sets in. I never even questioned it. What does that say about me, my paradigms, my role models? My parents were married nearly 40 years, many of those quite happy but always tempestuous. Perhaps we are always slaves to our visions of what has come before us. What if we simply walked away from those preconceptions? Is it even possible? If so, what else may exist beyond the realm of expectation?