How Learning to Speak My Mind in Bed Saved My Flailing Sex Life
By Madeline Salter
The phrase ‘children should be seen, not heard’ never registered throughout my childhood. From the get-go (and as the middle child, of course), I had been the spotlight stealer – the foghorn in an otherwise placid part of the ocean. Walking into a room full of strangers never spooked me, one on one conversations didn’t make me uncomfortable; I had always been ready and willing to speak my mind with confidence. But this side of me seemed to scuttle into the dark recesses of my psyche whenever things turned sexual with a partner. My inability to speak my mind to them led to a long slog of unsatisfying, mediocre sex instead of the years of exploration, fun, and mutual pleasure I should have had. Until now.
As women, we know the routine. We read about it, by torchlight underneath the covers, in romance books we were too young for. We’ve soaked up every rom-com where some semi-domineering male swoops in and gives us the best sex ever, followed by a happily ever after. In these stories, the female protagonist is without fail charming and polite, yet also sexy and bold; fierce and fiery, yet meek and mild. I’m not sure who came up with this idea of how a ‘perfect’ woman behaves – probably a person in a basement who has never encountered a woman in real life – but for some reason, it was the kind of woman I always tried to emanate whilst in bed. I became a people-pleasing character that I didn’t recognise. The foghorn was silenced, overpowered by all the other faceless voices that told me who I should be in order to be worthy of a man’s affection and attention.
Trying to behave like such a dichotomy of a person was exhausting. During one particular moment in bed, I realised that I couldn’t go on the way I was. Imagine this: having sex that’s so uncomfortable that you’re glad the lights are off because your partner can’t see your eyes welling up, but not saying anything in case they don’t want you as much. Scary, right? I, and I’m sure many other women, have ended up in these situations multiple times. Even though I was in physical pain, I couldn’t voice these feelings for fear that I would no longer appear to be the ‘perfect girl’ all men ‘apparently’ desired. According to endless romance books and films, I was supposed to be enjoying everything that my partner was doing, and if I wasn’t, perhaps it was because there was something wrong with me.
After things came crashing down from the weight of too many half-truths with one particular ‘casual’ partner, I came to understand just why I couldn’t find my voice with these men. It was because I knew, despite them appearing to be ‘oh-so-caring’, that they didn’t actually want to listen. They weren’t the storybook Sex Gods who wanted to sweep me off my feet; they simply wanted to satisfy themselves. None of them had been as invested as they made themselves out to be.
Humans are – and I know there’s copious amounts of evidence to suggest otherwise – actually pretty smart. Subconsciously, we pick up on the shifty looks and vague promises the naked eye can’t see. We know when people are being insincere. But we’re pretty good at lying to ourselves, at ignoring that gut feeling we have when something’s not right. I realised the reason that I never felt I could fully speak up in these uncomfortable sexual situations was because I never fully trusted these men. My body knew it, and that’s why it would often shut down and become unresponsive. But my conscious mind had a struggle keeping up. It was a relief when I figured out that there was never anything wrong with me, that my body was just looking out for my heart, protecting it from the false words of untrustworthy people. It would not allow me to fully give myself to anyone who didn’t really want me.
After this epiphany, I vowed to dive head-first into figuring out what men wanted with me before getting in over my head. Now, that’s not to say that I wanted someone to confess their undying love for me and shove a ring on my finger – in fact, that would probably make me run in the opposite direction. What I did need, however, was to know where I stood. I’d shed the skin of the ‘perfect, easy-going protagonist’. I knew that pretending to be that person never brought me joy and that it never would.
Having all the cards on the table enabled me to let go. I knew what I was consenting to, and my body thanked me for forcing an open, no-holds-barred conversation with my most recent sexual partner. Sure, we could have danced around the subject, played coy, and pretended that we were looking for anything other than sex – but that would have been a lie. And it would have played on my mind every time that person touched me. I didn’t care that he only wanted sex from me because at least I knew what I was entering into from the get-go. Any fantastical, imagined storybook ideas were replaced with something far better: reality. Honesty. Which led to far better, far more freeing sex.
The Bermuda Triangle of all relationships, whether they’re platonic, romantic or purely sexual, is bad communication. We sail into these misty waters and then wonder why the trust has vanished. When you’re sharing your body with another person, the one thing that’s essential is trust. It can be developed within an honest five-minute conversation. But because we’re all so concerned with coming across as ‘too intense’ (a word that should be used to describe a full-bodied wine rather than a human being), we avoid communicating completely. It’s clear to me now that people who use this phrase are often the dishonest ones who aren’t worth your time.
Although it took five years to find my voice, I’m determined to never let that voice be silenced again. I will not allow my ship to steer into the dark, quiet depths of non-existent communication because I know, now, that this is a place where trust sinks to where it’s practically impossible to reach. I know that I don’t need to wait for some kind of mythical soul mate who moonlights as a sex genie – that idea is archaic and restrictive. It’s clear to me now that truth and honesty are a kind of true love in their own right. And this kind of love really has set me free.