Ian and Alicia DenchasyHaving been together since 1988, my wife and I have pretty well run the sexual cycle; from hot, youth driven four-times-a-day beginnings in our early 20's, to flat, work stressed periods, pre- and post-childbirth and everything in-between.
We've visited swing clubs (as voyeurs), played with every sex toy imaginable, watched porn, done it in public, had sex while driving, experimented with tantra, and covered literally every inch of our living space in every position possible. So, after 24 years or marriage and counting, what ground is there left to cover?
This was exactly the situation in which we found ourselves a few months back, after emerging from a stress-filled three years of recession era setbacks and financial restructuring.
With our home almost lost to foreclosure in a home loan modification nightmare, we hadn't focused much on our intimate side, to say the least. Once things had settled a bit (we saved our home and business, and finances improved), our stress levels had dropped and we could once again breathe in fresh air and focus on our relationship.
Sex was once again put on our priority list and we figured biology would take care of the rest and drive us back into frenzied passion and orgasmic balance.
However, this was not the case — at all. Three years of ignoring our libidos, allowing our fitness levels to drop, and engaging in intimate encounters only sporadically had made us virtual strangers, sexually.
We struggled to sync our bodies back into harmony but found ourselves awkward and unable to recapture the spark we'd enjoyed for so many years prior to our financial hardship.
Resentments began to build and caused an even further degradation of physical pleasure; when we did manage to connect, our interludes were far from the stuff of movies. Indeed, most of our trysts were of the “relief” variety, whereby we'd go by-the-numbers when too much time passed to simply drain our bodies of the need.
Communication on the subject showed little improvement, as our two positions couldn't have stood at a wider chasm. On the one hand, doing it at all was a victory while, on the other, why couldn't we be doing it more? Depressingly, certain evenings would find us crawling into bed and retreating to our opposite ends; lifeless, passionless and (dare we say) loveless.
It happens.
Salvation came by way, of all things, Google. Since 2007, we've been utilizing the various Google services and integrating them more and more into our routine. When writing documents, for example, we now use Google Docs, which can be shared with anyone possessing a Gmail account.
The same goes for our contacts, mail and calender scheduling, which we've joined into one cohesive strategy to keep our lives organized and on track as we bolster our lives against future hardship. What if, we thought, we could enter sex alongside all the other activities scheduled in our calendar and attempt to follow through to slowly transform our sexual encounters into more frequent occurrences?
After a few moments of working out the details — we had to make a separate calendar due to our 13-year-old son sharing our original, for example — we cautiously entered a mutually accepted date and time approximately five days hence. If we managed to have sex prior to the agreed upon date and time, we decided it should not affect the calendar entry and sex should proceed as planned, even if it occurred earlier on that same day.
Also, we jotted down a few additional details in the notes section, such as a couple of toys to have on hand, what to wear, and even two positions we would attempt. As the date grew nearer, our anticipation slowly built as each day and hour passed until finally, the magic time arrived. With so much advanced notice, we thought the proceedings would be a bit subdued and predictable; again, we had everything scripted to the point of eliminating spontaneity from the equation entirely, so our expectations were low, to say the least.
As you can probably guess, the results were the exact opposite of what we expected. We were so giddy from the anticipation leading up to our sex date that it added an excitement we hadn't experienced in years. Our adrenaline was overflowing, in fact.
Once zero hour had come and gone, so to speak, not only had we fulfilled the calendar appointment faithfully, but with a hunger that had us reaching for the computer soon after the intoxicating effects of multiple orgasms finally waned. It's not an overstatement to write that such a simple step has had a profound impact on our lustful sides and this wonderful practice has continued on ever since.
In fact, we now only schedule one sex date each week due to our sex life taking a dramatic upswing once momentum was put into motion. We've even become more daring in our scheduled activities, adding a bit of BDSM and other daring to the description fields, as well as adding “blow job lunches” and “fellatio Fridays” to the menu.
Varying the times of day in which sex takes place has also enlivened our mornings and afternoons. The point, of course, is to get creative and get sex back on the schedule!
Sexuality is a fickle activity, to put it mildly, especially as we age and change in all manner of mental, emotional and physical ways. For us, intimacy is still a vital component of our relationship and we're not quite ready to concede it lost amidst life's countless distractions. With technology now intertwined in just about every facet of our lives, isn't it time to use these tools for more than setting lunches?
How about lunch… with benefits?
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