Personal Sexual History - II: Female Trouble

I can't write a personal sexual history without discussing the breeder years. Alas. I apologize in advance. Let me assure you that I have long since considered myself a Kinsey six, so I'll avoid any overly explicit talk about sexual activities with the other gender. I'm sure I'd find it just as disquieting as you would. If, on the other hand, you're all about the female erogenous zones, well, I'm sure you can google "boobies" and find what you're looking for.

I was in sixth grade when I had my first girlfriend. I still remember her name. It was a definite case of puppy love. I remember going to a middle school dance with her and holding her hands on the dance floor. All of the cool kids, who were not willing to go that far, formed a circle around us and danced (separately) along. I could have died from embarrassment.

I don't remember much else about that particular proto-relationship. I do know that she was easy to talk to and fun to hang out with. Also that she really wanted me to kiss her, and I wouldn't. Maybe that (along with that whole sex-with-my-best-friend thing that happened a year or two later) should have been a clue. Anyway, when seventh grade started, she went to a different school, and that was that.

I didn't date again, at all, until I was a junior in high school. I developed a crush on the smartest girl in the senior class. I met her at practice for our high school's It's Academic team. I was kind of a nerd (but at least I was good at it). Anyway, we got to know each other, and before long, we were spending two hours a night on the phone, talking. We'd hang out at lunch and after school. At one point, I indicated an interest in a more romantic relationship, and soon after, we were standing in front of the library (no, really) late one afternoon, and she put her arms around my neck and looked up at me, expectantly. I had no clue.

We did eventually go on a couple of dates. On the first date, I drove her home and finally went to kiss her, and I was surprised, and not really pleased, to see the tongue come out. She later told one of her other friends that I was the worst kisser she'd ever encountered. At least I was memorable. On our second date, we went to a party at somebody's house, and she spent the last two hours making out with somebody else. After that, we figured that dating each other wasn't in our best interests, but I was still clueless as to why. She eventually ended up engaged to the only guy in her class who was smarter than me. He ended up calling off the engagement, leaving me with mixed feelings. We were very good friends for many years thereafter, though I haven't spoken to her in about ten years. I should probably e-mail her. The last time we got together, we were both married and we both had two young children. I have some explaining to do, I reckon.

I had one other girlfriend, for maybe two months, during my senior year of high school. Most of our dates ended with a half hour of making out somewhere dark in the car, but it was just kind of pleasant for me. I don't remember any particular hunger for more, and I don't remember any wood.

When I look back at that time, and the twenty or so years that followed it, I think, "How could I not have known?" In my (particularly weak) defense, I can only say that I grew up in an environment where sex was not discussed. I was raised Southern Baptist, and my parents idea of teaching me about sex was to give me a book on the subject when I was thirteen. The book had been written by someone associated with the church, so it was a combination of biology and "don't." I don't think my parents knew what homosexuality was, so it wasn't so much condemned as it was ignored. And I certainly didn't know any openly gay students. (There was one guy a year older than I whom the other kids made fun of, but he wasn't out. He lived in my neighborhood, but I didn't really know him. I was home visiting about ten years later, and I heard that he'd died of AIDS. My mother was talking to a neighbor who expressed surprise that there were "so many young men at his funeral." That same neighbor has now been a beard for her male companion for something like thirty years, and I'm not sure she knows he's gay.) Gay characters weren't at all common on TV or in movies at the time. Not that I was allowed to watch much TV or many movies. I certainly wasn't aware of any instances of two men living together as a couple, or having a relationship of any sort. I knew that experimentation and fooling around were fairly common among adolescents, but eventually, everyone grew up and got married and had kids, right?

Still, how could I not have known? And, more to the point, how could it have taken me so long to figure out. There's really no good answer to either question. It does seem, however, that my cluelessness largely worked in my self-interest (not something I'm proud of, by the way). If I had known, I wouldn't have children now. And I'd probably have been going to porn theatres and glory holes and various other venues for anonymous sex in the early eighties, and that didn't work out well for many of the people involved.

College was a particularly sexless experience for me. I lived in an all-male dorm, but aside from frequent masturbation, there was nothing going on in my room. I had a crush on one of the guys who lived down the hall, but I didn't know how to process it.

I met my now-ex-wife not long after college. I was rooming with a couple of graduate students, and they one of them thought I should be dating his officemate. His officemate wasn't interested, but she had a party where she introduced me to a friend of hers. Then she (the officemate) badgered me into asking her friend out. Aside from both being graduates of MIT (my ex-wife graduated just before I got there), we didn't really have anything in common except for a deep and abiding respect for Grace Jones, but relationships have certainly been founded on less.

I think the ex and I probably started having sex on the third date. I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but it went pretty well. I got turned on by the kissing and by playing with her nipples, things that are still major generators of excitement for me, though they're so much better with men that there's really no comparison. Most guys in their twenties are excessively horny creatures, so almost any stimulation will work. Most women have nice lips, and the ex had a truly excellent rack, so it was all good.

Problems didn't really start to surface until after we were married. We were engaged within six months of first going out, and then we were married about another six months later. She was finishing her Ph.D., so we mostly saw each other on weekends, but sex was pretty much a given whenever we were together. We had a lot of sex on our honeymoon, and then we came home and had sex maybe four times over the next year. It was just weird, and it truly wasn't me. I was as horny as ever, but she had issues. Big issues. Issues that she never finished working through, at least for as long as we were married. Sex was suddenly almost frightening for her.

I do think that a true breeder would have been so frustrated by the lack of sex that the marriage would have fallen apart after a year or so. I was frustrated, but it wasn't as big a deal for me. I could still jerk off, after all. So I complained some, but not too much, and then after a couple of years, we decided to have a child. That probably would have resulted in a lot more sex, but EFU was conceived on the first shot. Then there wasn't much sex during the pregnancy, and then there wasn't any sex for the two years after the pregnancy. After that, there were periods where we were more active, especially after we went through a period of joint counseling, but for the most part, sex was rare because she wasn't willing. We were having a bit more sex before YFU was conceived (it took several months), but then the second pregnancy was even more difficult than the first, and our sex life never rebounded. I had pretty much lost interest. At first, I thought that I had just been shot down one too many times to get my hopes up again, but it became clear that something was different. It took a while for me to understand just what that thing was (the evidence was plentiful, but I was again clueless), but sex with the ex became almost tedious for me. She was interested slightly more frequently, and I had no trouble getting an erection, but we would go at it until she was too sore to continue, and I wouldn't cum. That was awful for both of us, so I just stopped trying.

I don't think I was bad at the heterosex, though. The ex once told me that she'd initially had trouble believing that I was gay because I'd always been "so passionate" when we were having sex. I guess she must have meant compared to the other guys she'd fucked before she knew me (It was only three guys, if memory serves, but given that she's the only woman I ever bedded, I can hardly complain about her being an amateur; besides, she'd lived with one of those guys for ten years, so I have to figure they had sex at least a couple dozen times. Would that I were only being snarky.) because while sex with the ex was physically pleasant, my level of passion was nothing like it is with a guy. It's a matter of having the right tools to work with. You can bang nails into a board all day with a rock if you have to, but once you have a hammer, then you know what nailing is supposed to be. I would apologize for the obviousness and clumsiness of that metaphor, but if you've read this far, you're clearly a glutton for punishment, so shut up and take it, bitch.

Anyway, I think the last time I had sex with the ex was a few months before I finally admitted to myself that I'm gay. So that would be about six months before I admitted to the ex that I'm gay and about ten months before I actually had sex with a man. But more about that in the next installment, which, I promise, will be much, much heavier on the smut.