Lower your sexpectations with the Mash’s middle-aged sex columnist, Jen Prentice
NOBODY wants sex, at least not with the person they share a bed with. It’s a faff, tiring, and engenders powerful emotional connections you could do without.
But sometimes, on summer evenings when romance hangs heavy in the air, neither of you is too tired, neither of you is too drunk and the kids have gone to sleep, a fuck seems almost inevitable. It isn’t. You can always get out of it:
It’s Monday
Sexual euphoria and Mondays do not mix. The start of the week is the time for unshakeable heaviness about the state of the human condition, not carnal pleasure. Why prolong it when you can lapse into unconsciousness and wake up with one working day behind you?
No reasonable partner can expect you to be up for it when tomorrow’s only fucking Tuesday. That’s no day to wake up with cystitis. Everyone on the school run will see you swigging cranberry juice and know exactly what’s been going on.
You’re in no state for it
The human body needs maintenance, just as a car does, and the Kia Sportage of your body is knee-high with Ginsters packets in its allegorical footwell. If I’ve lost you there, what I’m saying is the woman’s not shaved her legs and the man’s got detestably sweaty balls.
Can you really paper over the cracks by hoisting your leg into the sink for a quick warm-water splash, or straddling the bath tap in the vain hope it’ll be less trouble than a full shower? No. This vehicle needs a full valet before it fucks, to mix my metaphors.
You’re meant to be trying something new
We’re all creatures of habit. And just as you know where your husband left his car keys, you know exactly how long he’ll spend on your tits before deciding foreplay’s over and it’s penetration time. Which is reassuring, easy and directly contravenes that chat you had about revitalising your sex life.
Conversations like that are money in the bank. Having summoned the effort to broach the subject, you can now wield it like a weapon to nip any spontaneity in the bud. An ordinary, familiar shag, at this point, would be a betrayal of those promises. No shag at all, conversely, is fine.
You really went for it at dinner
The pleasures of the flesh are many, but at this stage in the marriage they come chiefly from Deliveroo. And after licking out a foil tin of Lebanese mezes, the thought of applying that same tongue to your girlfriend’s fanny is numbing. Neither of you needs any more meat inside you.
Is it the death-knell of passion that you’d rather have a food delivery moped shooting up your drive than your boyfriend shooting up your muff? No. It’s inevitable. Food sustains life. Sex merely creates it, and long-term that’s a pain in the arse.
You’re approaching a season finale
Once past episode six of an eight-part series, all sexual activities are automatically suspended until the ending. How can you prioritise a simple, low-budget, predictable penis over the sophistication and class of The Staircase?
Yes, you’ve put work into your long-term relationship, but you’ve put just as many hours into Saul Goodman, and we all know which is going to get your blood pumping faster. If your partner’s really that desperate for it, wank him off.
