Erupting

I took this picture in my room in my sophomore year at Bard College. My blond roommate had moved out because the noise had morphed her into an insomniac. We lived on the second floor of a mansion that had temporary walls crammed into it in order to make it a suitable dorm. The result? A building where a single sound flew straight through us all. I could hear when my neighbours' cell phones vibrated.

They had really awkward sex.

But then, so did I. Once my roommate had hunted down quieter quarters, my boyfriend moved in. Our relationship was still finding its legs. He was a sex addict and I had lost my virginity to him only two months earlier. Love is so easy. Relationships are not. However, it's been two years to the day since he popped my cherry. We're engaged and after clambering over fights and tears, our sex life is amazing.

Well, it was until last night.

Why do so many girls cry after sex? It's an old cliche that crops up far too often. Maybe it's because we're the ones getting stuck in. We physically have to open ourselves and it's hard not to open ourselves emotionally too. Vulnerability is terrifying. But I pushed through that and things were good, except last night I let him do something that made me uncomfortable and the status quo snapped like a twig. Fear is back. It's back and I thought it had been vanquished.

"It's because I'm sexually liberal and you're sexually conservative," he said softly as we stared at his ceiling.

I nearly snickered at the political frame he placed on our sex life but I wasn't really in the mood to laugh. He's right anyway. At the end of the day, I'm really not much of an explorer. Toys feel degrading to me. I'm afraid of being laughed at in a sexy outfit. It's hard to get over how silly role-playing feels. Anal sex doesn't feel all that good. I find ways to have good sex and then I work to make those tried-and-true moves better. His search for new methods or new toys makes me feel like all my efforts at improving mean nothing, though I know that's never what he intends.

I can stew and sulk. Or I can keep pushing myself to express what I want sexually. There's still a very small part of me that is terrified of being vulnerable in his arms. I want to show her that she's safe. I think it's very possible.

I will be fearless in bed someday. That's not to say that I'll try anything. But there will be no shame about what I do want and no guilt about turning down what I don't.