prairiebean

Not a question, but every time you comment and start with, "Biologist here!" it makes me wish you had a pop up graphic to accompany you, somewhere between this and this.

I feel like the fear of rejection probably cranks up anxiety and noisy brain things that make it hard to emotionally connect with each other, which I relate to. I come from a background/family/culture that discouraged eroticism and made it deeply awkward to verbally own my sexuality. (Whereas my husband is a frank, open, horny person with no trouble in this area.) I’m also an anxious person so the unspoken build up to “will we? Won’t we? How do we start?” can really complicate things for me and get me so worried that I can’t get in the mood properly. Also my husband knows all that and tries very hard not to pressure me, but I also get more easily revved up if he initiates, so he’s walking a tightrope a lot. If those sound at all related to your situation, what we’ve found helps:

• We jokingly started asking each other “do you want to rendezvous later?” (Eyebrows, eyebrows) at some point earlier in the evening. And rendezvous means: spend intentional time together that may get sexy. And it’s ok to say: yeah!, nope, or I’m not sure let’s see how things go. That helped remove some of the anxiety around will we / won’t we, and trying to read each other’s minds without applying pressure.

• I get anxious about knowing if he has a particular vision/fantasy for what he wants to do, and whether I’ll also want to do those things on that day. We somehow ended up calling that “the menu.” So now we have a way to talk about it. what’s on your menu today? I don’t think that menu thing works for me today because X / Y. My menu is open- what’s on yours, and I could be down, etc. (This also creates a space to suggest new scary things and talk about it vulnerably before trying something in the moment that the other person may not be ready for / reject, which can blow the mood.)

• The transition from just hanging out / watching tv, into getting sexy, is murder. I hate it. Largely because it’s like trying to mash two different wavelengths into one synchronized wave. We’ve found that intentionally transitioning with music helps a lot. After the last show, or when we finally settle down together, we put on some chill music, and just listen and cuddle for a minute. That gives us a chance to feel each other’s physical vibe, breathe and relax, often we end up talking through things we haven’t touched on yet that day which helps me clear my head and turn down the mental noise to make space.

• and in the words of my therapist: be kind, be honest, say the thing. Recovering from a dead bedroom and feeling intimidated by sex are huge vulnerable emotional projects. I hope the two of you feel comfortable talking about your feelings and taking emotional risks to be honest with each other. Communication is really a balm. Scary and hard but so good if you can use it.

I wish you luck and patience and excellent orgasms together.

my brain is zipping around my head

I love this description. The anxiety mosquitoes in the latest season of Big Mouth finally helped me explain to my husband that THIS IS MY BRAIN and his doesn’t do that. He is amazed that my brain bothers/has the energy and I am horrified/fascinated that his doesn’t, but wow man: truly doing laps in there.