Sex is a huge part of any marriage, and when one or both partners is struggling with their own sexual identity, communication (as always) is key to keep things going in the bedroom.
When my husband, Jay (**alias, as it’s his secret too) first started to discover this new aspect of his sexuality, he tried to keep it hidden. He was curious. He was bored. Someone at work told him to check out a porn on shemales. He told me everything in the book as to why he was looking, and in many ways, I wanted to believe him.
This was my own by pass of a difficult conversation that I didn’t want to have, or wasn’t ready to have quite yet.
He began to talk about prostate massage and how it would be good for his overall health for him to give it a try at some point, but he wasn’t ready yet, and frankly, neither was I.
We were about a year into arguing over his growing porn use, when on a long drive, without children, we were talking about sexual desires, and what the porn use actually meant.
He told me for the first time that was hoping to have me ‘peg’ him (where the woman wears a dildo and has sex with the man anally). I told him I was willing to give it a try, if he thought it may help him, or that he would enjoy it.
We stopped at a local sex store, bought the needed equipment and went home to give it a try. The strap on wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, and the experience felt a bit awkward at first. We were both feeling vulnerable, and turned on, and questioning whether this was the best next step.
After getting through the first painful steps, everything started to just flow. For the first time in many, many months, I could see a look of ecstasy on Jay’s face. While I was not receiving any pleasure in ‘giving it to him’, seeing him thoroughly enjoying himself in sex was enough for me.
But when it was all said and done, Jay recoiled and said that it was ‘okay’ but he didn’t think he would like to do it again.
Sex returned to ‘male/female’ sex, and at the same time, it began to dwindle down. Rather than our normal 3-4 times a week, we were lucky to get 1 or 2.
I questioned him on this. His porn use was regular…..why couldn’t our sex life be as well? As much as I tried to not make it all about me, I still couldn’t help but feel that I wasn’t attractive enough, I wasn’t feminine enough…. maybe I wasn’t ‘male’ enough…. regardless of what I wasn’t enough of, the answer in my mind was quite clear…. I wasn’t enough.
Jay would reassure me over and over again that it had nothing to do with me… he was tired…. we didn’t have time…. I was tired…. we had argued….. there was always a reason. If I put the pressure on, we would have sex, if I didn’t, the sex would die off.
It was another year of this, before I really started to open up the lines of communication about this elephant in the room. We had both danced around it, but neither of us was willing to truly speak out about what was going on.
One night I suggested for the two of us to watch a porno together, to get us in the mood and initiate some good sex.
We laid naked, as the porno began. He remained soft as a woman was introduced, and the focus was on her pleasuring herself. When a man came on the screen and he was exposed, fully erect, I watched my husband grow to a full erection as well. The once soft, flaccid flesh between his legs was now rock hard and he started to stroke absently, slowly, then furiously.
I was shocked, and appalled and turned on all at the same time. How could this even be? How could he be with me when clearly what got him off was watching another man? Was he even aware of what was happening? Was he aware of how his body reacted differently to what was going on on the screen in front of him?
And did this make him gay? Or did his physical reaction have nothing to do with his level of gay-ness?
And ultimately…. how could the two of this move forward from this, or with this… was it even possible?
Fluid Couple Conundrum 