I grew up in the seventies when heterosexual teenage girls who wanted to have sex were called “whores” “sluts” or “nymphos”. Naturally, they had to keep their desires and partners a secret. Have you tried to keep a secret in high school? Here were your choices: If you were lucky, you had a boyfriend. Otherwise, you were a virgin or if you had sex, a slut. Boys, on the other hand (the same ones having sex with the girls) were either single, someone’s boyfriend, or a player. Player or slut. You tell me which label is worse.
Here’s something I’ll never forget: The week before I went to college in Boston my mother was driving me into Manhattan to buy some clothes for school. No dresses, by the way. Us college girls wore Frye boots and painter pants.
We were on FDR Drive, and she was maneuvering through heavy traffic. Without looking at me she said, “Now listen, college is where you’re going to meet your husband.” What? But yes, where I grew up mothers believed that. I immediately started stressing because I was going to college to study journalism. I wanted to discover the me that was always covered beneath the veneer of “good girl” in my small town. I wanted to meet new friends and new guys. I wanted to walk the streets of Boston—learn its secret hills, pubs, food, and the kids from all the other colleges. I wanted to learn how to improve my writing. I wanted to meet other would-be writers, broadcast journalists and TV producers. I wanted to smoke weed freely. I wanted to go on the pill. A husband was not on my to-do list.
But then my mother said something else I’ll never forget. I can’t remember the context of the conversation, but the exact words were “sex in a marriage is very important.” Are you kidding me? My mother actually said that? To ME? I was dumbfounded. And thrilled. Maybe this marriage thing wasn’t so bad, although it would take me another fifteen years to meet the man who was right for me.
Those events informed some of the writing in my novel, Friends with Issues. I wanted to tell the story of three women (Brooke, Elizabeth, and Susan) who are at the crossroads of their lives. My characters grew up when I did. They got married, had children, and built big careers. Once they are in their forties, they want something different, something more. They are willing to take a chance and try for their new dreams, even if it means losing the privileged lives they now have. My characters have the courage to follow their own passions. Not the ones society has imposed upon them.
A lot of that “more” is about claiming their sexuality.
Brooke hasn’t had sex with her husband in decades. She meets an unhappily married man with whom she has a deep, “mind-blowing” sexual awakening. Once she experiences it, she’s angry for denying herself this important pleasure and is determined to keep him in her life.
Susan refuses to make love with her very desirable and wealthy husband because she’s discovering her attraction to another woman. Susan never thought of herself as gay, but she finds herself wanting to make love with her female trainer.
And while Elizabeth struggles with MS, she wants more of the lusty and creative sex she has with the husband she adores. But not just on his terms. When she wants to make love, and he’s not in the mood, he withholds. Elizabeth is frustrated that she can’t have the sex she craves with her husband. She communicates that to him, and he wants to try and change. He has his own insecurities that inform his sex life. He’s also afraid of hurting her because she has an illness. But she tells him she can speak up for herself. If she’s too fragile to have sex, she’ll tell him. They love and are committed to each other. They’re working at trying to compromise and understand each other more in the bedroom
I think it’s a lie that women aren’t as sexual as men, and I try to show that with my characters.
Many of the women I’ve talked to over the years want to have more sex with their partners, not less. Sexual desire and prowess are not exclusive to men.
And those men? They suffer too from the preconceived notion about their desires. Not all men want to have as much sex as they’re portrayed to in books and movies. If they’re less interested than our society thinks they should be, they’re labeled too. We call them shy, not having enough of a sex drive or somehow “not normal.”
So, sex. It’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s wonderful. It’s a free place for consenting adults to play and experiment. But it’s also an emotional minefield. Learning what we want, willing to be naked—physically and emotionally– overcoming our insecurities, speaking up for ourselves about what feels good and doesn’t is a process. After years of dissatisfaction, my characters are finally committed to asking for what they want. Not only in their careers and marriages, but with their sexuality too.
Friends with Issues is available at Amazon and Bookshop.