Sexual Disaster and the Adventure of Coupled Sex

I have been writing and thinking a lot about how people’s sex lives interact with the rest of their relationship over the course of many years. As a culture, coupled sex is almost always played for a gag or a tragedy. (Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are hysterical, but they are also gorgeous and super sexy). Very rarely do we see long term coupled sex as sexy. It seems to squeak us out like seeing mom and dad. And yet the vast majority of sex that is being sexed is between people who have been together for more than 2 years.

The fear of being disgusting to one's partner is pretty powerful. Like the earth being hit by a comet, an ill-starred event, coming loose from the cosmic order. It is horrible enough to be sexually disgusting to a stranger who one never have to see again, but to risk being disgusting (and not in a sexy “you dirty, dirty boy/girl” way), perverse, shameful to someone we have to raise children with, share a mortgage with, go to see family for holiday dinners with, that is sexually adventurous.