Our sexual incompatibility & how we make it work
I’m down for whenever/wherever, and he’s more ‘whatever’
Dear Happy Endings Reader,
Today’s post is another interview with my husband, Joe. You might’ve seen our others:
I hope you enjoy this one, too. I also hope your Valentine’s Day was filled with love, especially for yourself.
Abby:
Ok, darling, you put a name to a very us relationship dynamic recently. I think it’s sexy, curious, and useful. So I want to discuss and share it with Happy Endings. Are you game?
Joe:
The down for whenever versus down for whatever thing?
Abby:
Yes.
Joe:
Yup!
Abby:
So, we have conflicting impetuses for initiating sex. It was something we were first oblivious to, right? Then we bumped up against it, and our come-ons to each other kinda missed the mark. Obviously not completely, but occasionally. And then, eventually, we found our way to not just ‘work through this disconnect’ but actually turn it into an asset for our relationship. But this whole time, we never really named it or even, really, discussed it aloud. Now is the time! Tell me your theory…
Joe:
Up for whatever / Up for whenever is the theory. And the easiest way to describe it would be with a metaphor.
Let’s use the metaphor of ice cream.
You would be satisfied if, very regularly, I cropped up at random moments and said to you, “Here, have some vanilla ice cream.”
Abby:
Ha! This is too perfect.
Joe:
You can have ice cream on a bus, on a beach, in the morning, in the evening, in the middle of the night. Wherever and whenever you’d always be happy to get some vanilla ice cream, and you’d be satisfied.
Abby:
Yes, in metaphor and not.
Joe:
Me on the other hand. I don’t need to have ice cream every day, but I do need to have a really indulgent kind of giant ice cream sundae of unusual flavors when I do have it. I am a more variety / indulgence person when it comes to ice cream.
Versus you, who maybe gets the novelty from the context. You like the vanilla ice cream in a different ornate china bowl, or at the beach, or up a mountain.
You’re up for whenever (and wherever), and if I’m going to eat ice cream, I want it less familiar.
Abby:
Oh, you’d have “ice cream” every day.1
Joe:
Of course, I’d have “ice cream” every day.
Abby:
But if it were only vanilla on the table, you’d pass.
Joe:
I just need a bit of perversion every week to feel myself.2
Abby:
Oh, don’t I know it *kiss wink*.
Joe:
But we’re not like sex nerds.
Abby:
We don’t have a safe word or anything.
Joe:
Hahaha.
Abby:
Not because we don’t value safety, or something, but, you know, we’re not adding labels and rules to shit. Unless that’s a part of the fun.
Joe:
Maybe there are times it could be useful.
Abby:
Yes, let’s discuss that haha.
Anyway, as with ice cream, the flavor of sex is less important to me than the quality. And I suppose I judge quality on connection, sure, but also on context. But in general, with ice cream, and sex, I am very easy to please.
The frequency and the type of sex we have doesn’t really make a difference to me feeling myself, but, yes, what does excite me most is the where/when. Like a quickie in a closet gives me joie de vive.
Joe:
Yes, you enjoy new experiences. And I like new things too. But I’d rather have two hours of really indulgent sex, where we get properly into it.
Abby:
Yes, I get more novelty from external, and you get that from more of an internal, interpersonal space.
Your longing for marathon-perverted-sex is fulfilled now, but back in those early days of our relationship, neither of us had shared – or perhaps even knew – this about ourselves.
Joe:
Yeah.
Abby:
And, for me, I was working from a, I guess, bias of men based on previous experiences. I was used to men who were simple-minded. They just wanted sex, period. The vagina and boobs were enough of a ‘what.’ So when I said, ‘How about now? ‘How about here?’ they were satisfied.
Joe:
Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean about being ‘satisfied’. I need more of an intellectual component, or a loss of the intellect. Or just something that is more in the mind and less mechanical. Indulgent is the best word for it.
Abby:
Yup, so my come-ons weren’t really hitting the mark. You never left me high and dry. And I learned about your needs eventually. But you weren’t necessarily bringing them to the table to begin with, either.
Why didn’t you? Did you not know this exactly, or were you not yet comfortable with me, or surprised by my approach?
Joe:
I would say a bit all of the above. Because you’re so intense with time. You’re a massive outlier on how you’re so purposeful with your time and fill your day with activities. So all the natural times that I would’ve had to initiate didn’t happen.
Abby:
I’m interpreting this as you were so dazzled by my drive that you didn’t want to stop my course of action *wink*. But, yes, I wasn’t used to an intellectual man, and you weren’t used to a type A American, hahah.
Joe:
Yeah, I think those discussions happen with proximity and boredom. And since we didn’t have the boredom…
Abby:
We were out and about a lot. In pubs. Going to gigs. Doing the life-experience shit that I prioritized.
Joe:
Exactly.
Abby:
Then COVID happened, and the lessons you were already inadvertently showing me – about the beauty of slowing down – started being forced upon me. And then, being a parent made me feel grounded in a way I’d never felt before. And I suppose that opened up the door for these moments of proximity and boredom.
Joe:
Yes. Another great benefit of having kids.3
Abby:
I think that’s where you see these erotic scripts are, on the surface, contradictory – you are a bit turned off by the ‘ok let’s have sex now because we have ten minutes’ – but when you put our scripts together, they actually feed off each other.
Joe:
Yeah, we have different contextual desires. But, really, you want to feel desired, cherished, kept, and kept on your toes.
Abby:
Yes *teary eyes*.
Joe:
And I need to feel that I get my opportunities to indulge myself. And those aren’t contradictory. The more satisfied you are, the more positivity there is in every aspect.
It’s a positive sum thing – if we have an indulgent 2-hour depraved shag-a-thon, then the horniness of that makes me more horny the whole week.
Also adding in how we make vids makes that even more the case – it gives me more indulgence, which inspires the spontaneity which you love.
Abby:
That’s exactly it. I think of sex more in a ‘where/when,’ but sex isn’t (and I know this is surprising to say given that I write about it so much) the thing I want so much as, yes, like you say – those expressions of love, the feeling cherished and noticed and known.
So when you put my core needs, my desire contexts, and your needs and contexts together, we both feel loved and satisfied. This is like love languages, except legit.
Joe:
Yes, it’s not zero sum, it’s a positive feedback type of thing.
Abby:
And we couldn’t have known these things about each other at the start of our relationship – so naturally, now that we do, we’re able to fulfill them for each other, and ourselves.
Joe:
Yes. I think our interests are also our strengths. I want the ‘whatever,’ and I also know what ‘whatever’ I want. Whereas you don’t suggest the contexts that appeal to you as readily.
Abby:
That’s true. I think the external context of where/when help me discover the ‘what’ that appeals to me. Getting frisky by the Mississippi made me suddenly crave anal, as an example.
Joe:
Hahaha, yeah.
Abby:
I am a bit simpler than you. I could honestly just have a kissing-to-penetration-to-oral-to-penetration routine, just plopped into new contexts. The kitchen counter, the bathroom at the pub, the morning, the evening. And through those moments, I’ve learned the best ways to touch me to give me my best orgasms. The external context brings me nuance and novelty. Which you’ve introduced me to, too, through roleplay.
Joe:
Yes, yes. But, there is risk for me to propose these contexts because you’re more varied than me in terms of… Sometimes you want to be the ‘disposable fuck doll’ and sometimes you want to be the ‘pampered empress.’
Abby:
Hahah, indeed. Like the other day when I came out wrestling and biting you. You thought I wanted to be roughed up.
Joe:
Hahah, yes, *crazy eyes* because what else would I think?
Abby:
Yes, yes. I am contradictory. But really, I just wanted to be a goofy brat and have you coddle me a bit.
Joe:
Biting and punching me, maybe, wasn’t the clearest way to communicate that, but I guess the misunderstanding was fun.
Abby:
It was fun, right? *Thinks about the safe word thing again*.
Joe:
Definitely.
Abby:
Those misunderstandings are a part of the play. You start roughing me up, and I can pivot it dramatically by calling you a bastard and telling you to hold me tight or lose me forever. And that’s hot.
Joe:
Yes, it was hot.
Abby:
And I suppose that’s a metaphor for our seven years together, and why we never thought our sex life was a problem. There have been misunderstandings, but we’ve been playing and learning.
Joe:
It is a good metaphor, because even though there might be minor moments when it steps in the wrong direction, overall it trends upwards. It’s also demonstrative of the fact that neither of us are monopolising the relationship and imposing anything on each other while the other just goes along with it for the sake of simplicity.
Abby:
I do have my cycles. That’s just me as a human woman, mother, creative, person with a job, etc. I think that’s why we haven't labelled it, even as we now know about it. We know these differences because they go beyond our sex life. I know you’re a heady man who just wants an excuse to get in his body. You know I’m a little neurotic and like external excitement. We slowly learned this through the context of our lives. And then, given that we know our sexual selves aren’t removed from our overall psyche, our sex life improves with our mutual understanding of each other.
Joe:
Yeah, I love that, it’s like peeling back the layers and seeing what you find, that’s what makes sex together so great.
Abby:
Aren’t we so cute? I love you.
Joe:
I love you.
Abby:
Ok, baby, how do you suggest others find their way to this point – to discover their disconnect and make it into a positive thing?
Joe:
You just buy a butt plug and say, “Oh, I bought a butt plug,” but not necessarily do anything with it then.
Abby:
Hahaha. That simple, eh? But, yes, I mean, that is it.
We found our flow by trying new things without pressure, bringing in new elements, and watching how we each reacted.
Try, notice, learn, repeat.
Which, really, is the same thing as the ‘miscommunication as play’ theory above.
Joe:
Exactly. Well, that’s made me horny.
Abby:
Then kiss me.
Then comment to tell me about your experience — are you a Joe, a me, or another type of love initiator?
I actually do love ice cream. It is my favorite food. Joe could take it or leave it.
Joe is not being ironic here at all. He really does think having kids is mostly all upside.
This is great. Had me hooked the whole time.
Love this! I can relate. Sometimes, absolutely I'm down for a deeply intimate four hour long kink session. But I'm also quite active in many domains and I tend to approach sex more organically and pragmatically than my partner. I'm down for a quickie bent over the kitchen counter before we head out to a thing, or a midday romp in between emails and meetings. He prefers to take his time, building things up slowly for maximum connection. For me, connection happens energetically in an instant — or not— and I can feel unmet if things are moving too slowly. It sometimes seems like I inhabit more of the masculine polarity and he the feminine. Maybe that's a stereotype crumbling with the rest of western civilization, I'm not sure. Anyway we are still working the kinks out and this is helpful! ♥️ Oh yeah, and he's German and I'm Canadian, so defo a vibe difference there.