Nothing to See Here…

Wouldn’t it be nice if the female body came with an instruction manual?

I saw Doctor Ruth once in an interview.  She said “You must be very clear in telling your partner what it is that you enjoy.”  The question she didn’t answer — who is going to tell ME what it is that I enjoy?

Last night after the kiddies were all tucked away and it was just my darling husband and I in bed, I was doing some thinking.  He was reading his book and I was laying next to him with my head on his chest just thoughtlessly rubbing my hand over his chest hair and touching his shoulders.  His reactions were so predictable.  He’s like a freaking robot - if I did this thing here, he reacted that way.  If I happened to touch right there, he would react this way.  He could have easily been documented by a tech-writer, the visual representation of his libido detailed on an intricate diagram.  A blueprint.  With a big enough budget, we could create a replica of him that reacted just so at every touch, tickle, pinch (please don’t, the world just isn’t ready).

On the other hand, my own body - the one I would expect to be intimately familiar with being as I’ve had the damn thing for 41 years - isn’t nearly as precise.  What worked last month most likely will not work today.  And yes, I do like when you do that THERE but you can’t go doing that right away, you have to work up to it slowly starting over THERE.  That is, unless I have PMS or if the moon is in Venus or there is a big sale coming up at Kohl’s this weekend.  When any of those things are true, none of the rules apply at all. 

And?  Each time I give birth, the rules that govern my body change altogether again anyway, just like my shoe size seems to change.  Things I used to hate, I may now love and vice versa.  Sometimes I like you to start me off with a romantic back-rub but there is an 80% chance that will relax me so much I might just fall asleep.  Other times, it is like someone has inserted code into my brain that has me guard my breasts with my very life which, of course, is very contradictory to those rare times where I might or might not say something really corny like “See these, big boy?  You like them?  They’re ALL YOURS.  Now what are you going to DO with them?” (in my best Mae West voice.)

So as I was contemplating all this, doing figure-eights over my husband’s nippular area and making him jump with delight each and every time, I was thinking - gawd, how nice would it be to have a SIMPLE and uncomplicated body.  A body where my partner knew exactly what to do to get the reaction he was seeking.  A body where the encrypted launch sequence wasn’t both completely arbitrary and more complex and harder to decode than that Navajo language that was used in WWII to transmit secret messages between governments.

Remember the John Cleese role in The Meaning of Life where he’s teaching the class on sexual relations and tells them “Start her off with a KISS, boy.  Why go leaping straight for the clitoris?”  I find myself giving similar instructions to my husband, although the words KISS and CLITORIS are often discarded for some other sexual advance dujour.  Sometimes kiss, sometimes NO.  And never touch THERE unless you’ve already built up plenty of, um, interest.  And if you’re not sure how to build up interest?  Well, neither am I.

Last year, after Raena weaned, I had a 3 or 4 week period where I was just, well, HORNY.  For the first time in our 13 years, I felt that maybe my sex drive was, well, not aligned but maybe in the same ballpark as my husband’s.  But alas, it didn’t stick around.  I want that.  I would like my body to work that simply, to respond that consistently.  Do they sell that at Ikea, do you think?  No?  Ebay?

As it is, my husband and I are generally not aligned, libido-wise.  Me?  I have to be in the mood.  He only needs to be in the room, with his pants down around his ankles, saying “I’m ready, are you?”  I don’t know the answer to this one.  For years, it’s been me trying and trying and trying.  Some years much harder than other years when I’ve been knee-deep in pregnancy and nursing an infant and returning to work while I’m not even getting a full night of sleep myself.  But whether good years or bad years, I’ve always fallen short.

The baby years are mostly behind us.  My little one is almost 2 and we’re all getting full nights of sleep.  So it’s time for me to figure this out.  What is the answer?  I have no clue but I’m all ears if anyone else has figured this out.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this, an image I saw awhile back that really struck a cord with me.  Yes, yes.  This is quite an accurate visual depiction of “man” and “woman”.  I don’t think my husband created this image, so I’ll have to assume there is at least one other couple out there who has the same issue as we do.