I look back on the first lockdown with a kind of fondness. Despite the turmoil of the pandemic, my partner and I were lucky to have a space to ourselves, which we made as homely as possible in the circumstances. We got a rare glimpse into each other’s professional selves and spent barely a minute apart, which was in stark contrast to our Before Lives, when whole weeks would pass without even a proper kiss. Ricocheting between lockdown boredom and dread, often within the hour, sex took on renewed importance for us.
Making one another impromptu stovetop coffees, flirting in the “office” kitchen, and indulging in afternoon delight sweetened an otherwise horrific time. But as lockdowns lifted and restrictions yo-yoed, that sweetness soured. I made a big change by going freelance and his life was once again dominated by the to-ing and fro-ing of commuting and work. Although all the love and physical affection remained, I lost interest in sex, sensing my libido drop from scant to six-feet-under.
Like most women, I’m used to using mental framing – AKA my imagination – to conjure desire, but getting into the headspace for intimacy required more energy than I could muster. It wasn’t a total drought, I just disliked how I felt about intimacy – dissociated, iced out, even a little bit disgusted. I tried to reassure my partner that the reluctance was about me, not him, but I couldn’t rationalise the epic extinguishing of sexual urges. We’ve had ups and downs in our eight-year relationship, however in my camp, something felt off.
When I speak with Helen Mayor, a psychosexual relationship therapist and co-founder of The Thought House, I get a little emotional. I hadn’t realised the shame I had been carrying, and the way I’d squashed what I saw as an insignificant quibble amid a world on its knees. She suggests I could be feeling a loss now that my partner has returned to his normal work life, while mine is now entirely self-motivated, and shot through with the anxieties of self-employment. “What you’re feeling is often a normal point in life, where sex stops being a priority,” she explains. “Sex and sexual excitement is a muscle, and it needs to be exercised.”
“In those lockdowns, you experienced spontaneous desire – free pleasure was on offer at home all the time and the more you had sex, the more you wanted it,” she says. Spontaneous desire means impulses show up instantly, with or without stimulation, while responsive desire happens as a result of stimulation. Dr Emily Nagoski’s research finds that men tend to be steadfast in their ability to feel spontaneous desire, but women fluctuate in this sphere. “If you wait for the responsiveness to come back, and it doesn’t, you don’t have sex,” explains Mayor.
So how to thaw out my frozen urges? She recommends cultivating a relationship with the erotic through reading, audio erotica or watching porn. “Fantasy is about escape, and you’ve got no demarcation at the moment,” says Mayor. “Go somewhere new after work, order a different drink off the menu, and talk about sex: the best you’ve ever had, the things you want to do, what you love about each other, and in doing that, inhabit a totally different space.” As she explains, long-term love is falling in love with the same person again and again, because we see them differently.
Emboldened by the conversation, I relay Mayor’s advice to my partner one evening. Sharing the possible reasons for my predicament is freeing and, unsurprisingly, the talking about having sex is quite a turn-on. The Christmas break arrives and with it, more time to explore. After dinner with friends one night, we peel off and stumble upon a flamboyant Brazilian bar for a nightcap. It feels spontaneous and a little like a package holiday. Talk turns to our fantasies, some of which we’ve shared before, and others are new.
I investigate the iterations of a new wave of female-led and created erotica, and I’m spoiled for choice. No Mills & Boon for me – it’s all very slick and discreet. I download a free trial of Ferly, an app designed by sex therapists for “mindful sex”, and find its audio erotica isn’t as cringe-making as I expected. I think I’m better suited to visual aids, though – watching ethical porn together goes down a storm. And while we’re no strangers to lube, Kynect [the new name for KY Jelly] is the kind of product I could imagine using for life, given it’s water based and contains no perfumes, making it gentle enough for daily use.
One major block that Mayor sees among sex-neglecting millennials is sleep. Indeed, our bedtime setup is an affront to passion. The cat often sleeps on my chest, and the separate duvets (because I used to steal his half) don’t exactly encourage an explorative hand when the lights go out. “Avoid always making it something that happens at the end of the day,” says Mayor. The morning sex, the post-workout sex, the pre-dinner sex, the post-flossing, pre-bedtime reading sex is gold dust, especially as my partner’s eight hours of beauty sleep is sacred.
Fun has been in short supply and desire dampeners have been rife these past few years – Covid scares, money worries, and the claustrophobia that comes from being trapped on our sad little island. I’d forgotten how transportative, fun – and funny – sex can be. We’ve been laughing a lot. Discussion of our fantasies don’t end on our night out, and we’re adding to our list whenever the thoughts arise. There’s a novel lightness in our approach, and the flirty undertones in the most mundane activities are enough to fire up some of that responsive desire in me. Reconnecting with myself and my partner has been like tuning a radio – the haze of white noise and static is gone, and in its place is something I could listen to for life.
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