Shared Sundays

How comfortable are you with your body? Not at all? Join about 75 per cent of all sexually active adults. There’s very few who are confident enough with all of themselves to not be freaked out about the thought of having sex with someone for the first time it’s actually supposed to mean something.

Now, to be fair this isn’t a column for the ultra-confident sex fiends amongst you – I’ll have something for you a little later on. This is for those of you who fall into the 75 per cent or so who could probably get through a one-night stand, carry on a somewhat healthy “relationship” with a f#$%-friend but get over analytical and panicky about meaningful sex with someone you’re trying to build a loving relationship with.

Everyone thinks about sex. And yes, though men think about it more than women I’d be willing to bet a women who hasn’t had sex in a while thinks about it quite a bit too. Thinking about it is easy. It’s the thought that comes after the initial thought that starts to mess with your head and leads to a whole slew of insecurities, odd behaviour and most likely a first-time story you’ll end up pretending didn’t happen (the second time will eventually come to be known as the ‘best first time’ story).

So, lets examine a typical thought process about sex from the point of a typical woman (can you guess where I’m getting this information from?)

• Meet guy.
• Like guy.
• Guy seems to like me.
• Become friends with guy.
• Start to “like” like guy
• Guy seems to “like” like me.
• Crap.
• insert over analytical thought process to get you from the “like”like stage to actual dating to be discussed over in dating section and assume you’ve been successful in this and start dating despite your borderline crazy tendencies to over analyze everything
• Start dating, enforce sex rule (no sex on first date, three date rule, one month rule, not until you meet the parents, etc..)
• Date some more, start thinking about approaching sex date – very excited
• Get closer to sex date, date some more, start doing some crunches to flatten out tummy a little - still very excited about sex date
• Get a wax, sex date is getting closer and don’t want any pricklies.
• Crap, sex date is around the corner – why on earth did I set a time for this?
• Shit. Tonight is the night. My tummy isn’t any flatter and he’s going to see me naked.
• Shit. We’re making out. We’ll be having sex soon. Did he just feel that mini roll on my hip. I feel so gross. I need to get out of this.
• Go to bathroom to freshen up. Pace, sit down. Feel like throwing up. There’s no getting out of this. It’s time, you know it’s time you want it to be time. Maybe all the lights being out will help.
• Go back to making out. Did he just undo my jeans?
• Thank god I waxed.
• Hey wait, he seems really into me. Maybe I don’t need to worry – still happy the lights are out.
• Good lord, I’m naked. I’m actually naked. I bet he’s not thinking about how naked he is right now. I hope he’s not looking at me. Oh, he’s looking. What is he looking at? Oh.. that...
• insert sex act here. You didn’t think I was going to give you a play-by-play did you?
• End sex.
• So happy. I wonder if he’s up for a second go at it?
• Wait, still naked. He’s naked. Now what?
• I need to pee. But if I get up he’ll actually see me naked…
• ...etc

It’s a cycle that goes on for a while until a certain level of comfort is established and this is different for everyone.

I’d be very interested to see if any man has to go through all of this, or if any other woman would actually admit to going through it but I know we all do. But what surprises me is that at some point we actually believe that the lights being out actually makes everything less awkward. When you’re naked – you’re naked. You don’t get much more vulnerable than that.

Really, what it comes down to is trust. If you can trust the person you’re about to have sex with then you should be able to trust they are with you and all of your flaws (though, they probably don’t think you have as many as you think you do), want to be with you and want to be having sex with you. They want to share that experience with you.

I’ll be exploring this idea more, and how developing a level of trust will not only make sex easier but will help add to your sexual repertoire as a couple.