I remember years ago hearing the term “Lesbian bed death” for the first time on the L Word.

“Lesbian bed death is a term coined by University of Washington sociologist Pepper Schwartz in her 1983 book American Couples.[1]According to Schwartz, lesbian couples in committed relationships have less sex than any other type of couple, and they generally experience less sexual intimacy the longer the relationship lasts.[1] The study has been criticized by the lesbian community and some psychologists as popular myth.” – thank you Wikipedia.

I distinctly remember thinking that this sounded like bullshit and that I was such a nympho this could never, would never happen to me!!!

Then I got married.

Or more specifically, we moved in together. Which is when it all went down hill. Before living together, Remi and I were more then adventurous. We had sex all the time, everywhere, no matter who was around!! We even got caught by cops several times who thankfully, at the sight of two chicks getting it on, simply let us off with a warning and a smile. But after living together, all the cliches kicked in and kicked our sex lives ass.

You know, all the usual excuses actually happened to us and even worse, they happened to be true! We were tired, she was working all day, life got in the way, we became best friends and sex became less important. Bla bla bla …… Over time, sex took a backseat to the daily grind and we found ourselves without much of a sex life at all!

The weird thing about that was that whenever we did have sex, it was mind blowing. She makes my body do things I didn’t even think it could!! She makes me cum harder and faster and more then all my past lovers combined. Yea, basically Remi is the most gifted lover I’ve ever been with and I don’t know if she’s lying or not, but she says the feeling is mutual. So WTF is our problem?? Why aren’t we still fucking like bunnies?? …. Well …. Life happens.

But after my recent post on open relationships and all the comments that rolled in, we really started thinking and talking. Then I wrote about S/M and something sparked. Then we went to an extreme sex class, bought some toys and talked some more, yes, it’s true lesbians can really talk something to death. But it’s our recent mantra “open communication no matter how much it sucks to say some things or hear them.” But it was during this particular talk that we carefully broached the topic of her being my Dom. I say carefully because whenever the topic had been brought up before, it never ended well. And neither would this one.

As we drove home from the toy store, our open and honest communication turned ugly and I asked her, “How would you feel then, if I have a lover just to be my Dom since you don’t want to,”

She said, “Not good. That makes me feel like you’re looking for something in someone else because I’m not giving you what you need.”

I said, “You’re not.”

??Ughhhhh …. Can I please have a time machine so I can go back and NOT say this?

She said nothing …. She just drove. Eyes on the road. But I could see from her profile that I hit below the belt. I felt like shit. So what did I do?

I said, “It’s not your fault that you’re too normal and healthy to want to do all the fucked up things that turn me on.”

“What makes you say you’re fucked up? You’re not, you just want something I don’t! I don’t want to hurt you and you want me to. That’s where we have the problem.”

At which point I started crying inside because I felt hopeless. Was I destined to live the rest of my life without ever having rough sex again?? I know that sounds petty, but it made me feel trapped and hopeless …. and …. and …. depressed. Partly because before this relationship, my sexual prowess shall I say, was a big part of the way I identified within my own self. It was something that made me feel sexy and powerful and beautiful.  And now, I felt like I would never feel that particular way again.

The conversation was starting to get really upsetting. We both got frustrated and hurt. Would our differences in sexual turn-ons be the ultimate demise of our marriage???

Then I went back and thought about something. She said she didn’t want to hurt me. Because what I told her I like sounds and maybe even looks like it hurts. But it doesn’t.

So I said, “Wait a minute, I think we’re having a semantics issue. I think we’re using some of the same words, but they mean different things to us. You say you don’t want to hurt me. But what I want isn’t to be hurt, it’s to be dominated. Those are two different things.”

This conversation went on for hours so I’ll give you the highlights of what we learned:

She loves me and doesn’t want to hurt me. So when I say I want her to be rough with me, it scares her that she’ll be doing something contrary to “loving and caring for me” in the way she thinks is right.

When I talk about being dominated and rough sex she immediately connects those things with being a jerk, with hurting me, with causing me physical and emotional harm.

But I don’t!!

I thought about why I like to be dominated in the bedroom and I came up with the following:

It  makes me feel wanted and desirable. How so? Because she wants me so much, she just takes me when and however she wants to.

It makes me feel beautiful and sexy. How so? See above. She wouldn’t want me so badly if she didn’t think I was beautiful. Right?

It makes me feel safe and taken care of. Now this was a big one for her. How so? Because if someone is strong enough to dominate me in bed and take total control, then she’s strong enough to take care of me in other areas of our life together. And this turns me on. This to me, is a show of strength.

Why do I like, want and need to be dominated in the bedroom sometimes? Well …. For the same reasons powerful, wealthy men hire a dominatrix to dominate them in some way. Because they’re in charge all day, they have a lot of responsibility. It’s a total pressure and stress release to be able to totally hand over control to someone else, temporarily. No, I’m not a high powered man. But I am a femme and excuse me for a minute, because what I’m about to write is going to read like I’m a conceited bitch but I’m not. But Remi put it like this, “No one has more power in this world then a beautiful woman and you always get your way. It makes perfect sense that you need someone to take charge of you once in a while since you’re so used to getting your way all the time!”

And right there people is where Remi and I had a major breakthrough for our relationship. All of a sudden she began to see what I wanted in a positive way and I began to see the possibility that she could give me what I so desperately want.

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