Sex.

Who’s here for a bit of Friday sex chat? I know I am. I have spent a lot of time obsessing over sex in one way or another. As a teenager it’s the biggest thing in your brain’s galaxy. When is it going to happen? Who with? Will it hurt? Will I do it right? The list of questions surrounding sex when you are a teenager are long and complicated.

Girls (and later, women), inevitably, carry the burden of anxiety and fear surrounding sex in a way that men never will. The consequences of sex for men are minuscule compared to the potential consequences of sex for women. For men, from the day dot, sex is a sport, something to be enjoyed, sought out. For women, it’s a risk and we don’t even have the same inevitable physical joy to rely on. It can also be dangerous.

In your twenties, it’s just fun. Or it should be but the reality probably is that almost everyone reading this email had a negative sexual experience in one way or another. It may be that you only realise it was negative when you look back at it through the lens of social awareness about sexual boundaries between men and women. It may be that you were very aware of the negative, perhaps destructive, experience it was. Either way, in my experience, every woman has a story to tell.

And then you get into a longterm relationship and your sex life transforms again. Sure, it’s all clothes ripping and insatiability at first but, after a while, it dies down. Doesn’t it? For me it did. I imagine for a lot of you it did. But I have friends for whom it didn’t. At first I used to be suspicious. As if, I thought, they are still having sex twice a week with two kids under two, but some of them were. Mind blown.

I’ve been with my husband for 14 years and married for 10. Our sex life has evolved and changed. Sometimes it’s been ferocious in its intensity and sometimes it hasn’t even factored in. After having kids, it didn’t factor in for a long time. Trauma will do that to you, especially trauma that you don’t deal with collaboratively. Trauma isn’t sexy and I found childbirth traumatic. Depression. Anxiety. These things also aren’t sexy and we’ve dealt with our fair share of those things in the last few years. There was a time when I wondered whether we’d ever have sex again.

But here we are, rediscovering our passion for each other. Rediscovering each other. Sure it took some therapy and some time but our sex life is back on track and better than ever. I’m not bragging…there’s a reason I’m telling you this story.

There is no normal. What one couple is doing is just as normal as what another couple is (or isn’t) doing. Your normal will change throughout your time together. Sex is important but there will be times when it won’t be. Like everything else in your life, you have to prioritise. There will be times when you prioritise exercise, work, travel…and there will be times when you don’t or can’t. It’s the same with sex. Just because you’re not having it now, doesn’t mean you won’t. Like everything when you spend a long time with someone, things shift and change.

What is important is that you continue to talk about sex, even if you’re not having it. I used to say to my husband, “I’m so tired all the time and I can’t even consider finding the energy to have sex, but I want you to know that I think about having sex with you a lot and if I had the energy I’d rip your clothes off right now.”

We understood. The early years of parenthood weren’t our time for bumping uglies - we had way more to deal with on a practical and emotional level. But now, we’re back and maybe there’ll be a time in the future when we’re off again…but I know this, we’ll never stop talking about it.