What a Dry Spell Taught Me About Sex
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I’m coming at this from the other side.
Yes, friends: I recently had sex.
Sex is an interesting thing. When you’re having a lot of it, you don’t think about it too much. But when you’re not having it at all, it seems to be all you can think about. Every time you pass a person on the street, you’re wondering if they’re having sex. Are they thinking about sex? When was the last time my Tesco Express checkout person (lovely lady) had sex? You watch a movie, and when anyone has sex or even mentions the sheer idea of having sex, it’s a personal attack on just how little sex you’re having. I mean, she’s going to die before the end of the movie, so she might as well get laid, right?
That, my friends, is what we call a dry spell.
I’ve been having a dry spell since the first lockdown. A complete lack of any sexual romancing and touching.
But you’re not here for that—you’re here to know what it’s like when you’ve made it out from under the enormous weight that is not getting laid for extended periods of time.
After finally getting out of my dry spell, I’m here to share every thought I had while I was in it and what I learned.
Porn got very boring.
Like any normal person, I turned to masturbating to get through my dry spell. While I don’t need porn to get wet, I watched it because I enjoyed it… For a while… But after enough times, it just wasn’t fun anymore. I’ve seen every storyline. Porn used to make me simultaneously horny and laugh. Now, I feel nothing. I am numb. I got more satisfaction from #kinkymemes on Insta than I did porn.
OK, but erm… Vibrators are crazy these days.
I don’t need a partner to have sex. The vibrators that have graced the market these days make women a priority and remind us that another person isn’t necessary for pleasure. Five minutes with a Vibrator and I forget men exist. Women in dry spells, you’ve met your match. Order a new vibe.
Have I gone through every single man?
It’s official: I’ve seen every single straight man in my city, through their Tinder, Hinge, POF & Bumble profile photo’s and somehow they’ve all seen mine and none of them want to have sex with me.
*cue desperation*
Would it be so bad if I matched with a guy who lives an hour away out of London? I’m not against it anymore.
Texting my ex rn would be so easy.
But I can’t. See, my ex isn’t your average f*ckboy and actually the both of us spark a huge forest fire in each other and somehow I am the one that always ends up getting burnt.
I know if I text him right now, he’ll come over. I’ll feel good for 10 minutes, but then I’ll feel horrible for weeks. I started telling myself that sex with him wasn’t curing my dry spell, it was just propelling it even longer. Sex with him isn’t sex or pleasure; it’s self-destruction.
I did however pay a visit to my nicer ‘it is what it is’ friend.
How do I speak to a man again?
I’ve never been good at speaking to guys. I had male friends growing up and it’s either all flirty and sexy or I’m telling them about an embarrassing story. It’s either turned all the way on or all the way off, and the lack of regular practice makes it so much worse.
W-w-woo-u-ld you like to … go … out … with my friend??? Because I’d rather die than ask a guy out myself.
You’d think that a dry spell would make you fear rejection less, because what do I have to lose? Rather, it’s the opposite. I’ll just stick inside my bubble because my lil’ heart can’t take the beating again.
Night time … sucks ASS.
Ah, can’t wait to go home and lay on my sofa for three hours eating Vanilla Cheesecake and swiping left and right on people who won’t have sex with me! Riveting!
The dreaded “So, any new Hinge dates?”
I have nothing to say to this question ten times over. The closest thing I’ve gotten to action in months is when a man leaned across me to grab the last seafood cocktail sandwich in M&S, and I went home and thought about it for days. Firstly because he was so close to me and smelt quite nice, secondly because the bastard took the sandwich I wanted. My friends have continuously been telling me that I should “join Hinge.”
I tried it, several times and now I would like to permanently go into hiding. Hello, FBI, how can you make this happen?
WOW, I’ve saved so much on Ubers.
All those 2am visits with a f*ckboy who lives 20 minutes away, which roughly equates to a £12 Uber each way—yes. It adds up.
Will not having sex make me get sick?
I read something once that having regular sex can boost your immune system to fight off viruses … so I’ve now convinced myself that because no one will have sex with me, I’m at a higher risk for Coronavirus. *washing my hands for one full minute once every hour now*
Ah, I feel so deeply undesirable.
It’s one thing to just feel ugly. To feel like you’re just not a pretty or attractive person. It’s entirely different to feel like no one desires you in a sexual way. To feel like there are zero people on this Earth who fantasise or think about sleeping with you. As much as sex can just be about having fun and getting off, we’re kidding ourselves if we think it’s not intimate or indicative of attraction. Not having sex is a really easy way to feel like you’re just deeply unattractive.
But it doesn’t have to be so dreary.
When you’re not having sex, you have time to think. A lot. So after a night of self-loathing and drinking wine in my bathtub blasting “What Now” by Rihanna (it’s my #1 cry song), I think a little more clearly. I laugh at myself. Just because someone isn’t having sex with me every other night (ya know, even once a month would be pretty LIT … ) doesn’t mean I’m doomed to celibacy forever.
There is hope.
So yeah, I had sex.
2 weeks ago. However, it wasn’t a problem-solver. I didn’t have sex and immediately feel hot and dangerous. Sex isn’t a solution, and while it can be a confidence-booster, it won’t make you love yourself either. All that anxiety and self-doubt that happened during the dry spell won’t just magically go away; they were just brought to the surface because you weren’t masking them with orgasms and pillow talk on the regular degular.
Sex is one of my greatest pleasures on Earth, possibly only behind Rihanna and Harry Potter. But going through this dry spell was eye-opening to just how much weight I put into sex as a way to make myself feel confident and sexy. When the sex was over, I realised I still felt how I felt. I still wanted to text my idiot ex. I still felt lonely. Having sex didn’t make all those thoughts go away because they had nothing to do with sex in the first place. My body-image, my past relationship trauma, and feeling alone are issues I need to deal with outside of my sexual well-being. I can have an insane amount of sex, and I’ll still feel all of those things until I address them specifically.
(Hello, therapist? It’s me. Again.)
And now we wait again.
I had sex and the dry spell has begun again.
First Things First: buy a new vibrator.
Here’s the thing …
After my epiphany, I started to realise I’m not so alone after all. Everyone has a dry spell, whether in a relationship or single. If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you probably also have a dry spell on your hands (or just read in sympathy because you’ve been there before). It won’t last forever, and eventually, you’ll be having this same realisation. As far as I’m concerned, life is comprised of about a dozen dry spells after another. Let’s just ride the wave and LBL #LiveBestLife
Thanks for coming to my TED TALK
haha… ha.
Stay safe and take care,
Sammi xx
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