It’s hard to tell who gives more awful sex advice: the media or the experts.   Much of the media’s depiction of sex seems directed at 14-year-olds, who can’t figure out where the legs go.  The experts seem completely hung up on making people feel good about themselves, which is not really the name of the game:  it’s making your partner feel good and how to do that.

Both camps miss the main source of la misère sexuelle in adult life, and it’s boredom.

The Two Levels of Sex: Human Connectivity and Adventure

Sex can be understood at two levels:  One is as an extension of normal human connectivity.  We become attached to someone; sex is a means of showing that affection.  Fantastic!  But that doesn’t necessarily make for good sex.

Two, erotic adventure.  Sex can be full of adventure, but that’s not necessarily compatible with monogamy or stability.  Getting your wife of twenty years to explore S-M?  Good luck with that.

Erotic Boredom

So, people go crazy with erotic boredom after a few years together.  They start to fool around.  The marriage dissolves.  This works for no one.

Men have a time-honoured way of dealing with sexual boredom:  they frequent prostitutes.  This happens often, and the wife usually has no idea.  With prostitutes, men can explore all the stuff they’ve been seeing in porn flicks:  roleplaying, cross-dressing, and boot worship.

After they orgasm, in a cooling-off period (because they still have half an hour on the clock), they ask the escort if there is something wrong with them because they have these tastes.  The escorts, who see this stuff half a dozen times a week, offer reassurance.  Some escorts keep a supply of wigs and large-size high-heels in the closet for their cross-dressing clients who don’t even want penetrative sex.  They want to be made up, cross-dress, and go out in public for a cup of coffee.  You can’t do this with your wife!

Wives Bore as Easily as Their Husbands

The problem here is that there are almost no male escorts who cater to bored wives (because the wives get bored as easily as the husbands).  Some escorts accept female clients, but you have to work to find them.

And so the women have to stew in silence, friended only by their sex-pal: the Hitachi Magic Wand (which is by far the best vibrator going).

So, where are the TV shows about vibrators, about even-gendering the escort population, and about cross-dressing and how to do it while retaining your dignity?

These shows do not exist, because the world of TV and of expert sex is mainly focused on sex as connectivity and not sex as adventure.  The adventure market is turned over to the adult industry, which many women find a turn-off. (There is, however, porn made by and for women.  See my book, Stormy’s World: Inside Porn.)

Bottom line:  Sex as connectivity depends on fondness.  Sex as adventure depends on a willing partner, paid or not — but probably not your spouse.