“Since I’m Sarah Palin, and you’re an anthropomorphic Bridge to Nowhere, and it is the cold Alaskan winter, let’s not lick each other, because we will get stuck. And then we’d all die.” Or say I don’t want to have oral sex. “As a couple of seismologists working on top of Pompeii, I think it would be a bad idea for you to induce an orgasm in me, because the tremors would certainly be so strong as to re-open the magma flow. Say I’m trying to tell you that I’m not going to have an orgasm and you shouldn’t try too hard. (And I know this is going to sound weird.) But think about it–if you’re role playing James Bond and a sexy Russian spy, or the President and the Secretary of Defense, or the last two people on earth, at least you’re making the script transparent, and somehow, if you both acknowledge that there’s a script at work, it’s a lot easier to change it up and do some improvising. It’s hard enough to check in about enthusiastic consent and safe sex (two things that should be in every script no matter what) so how do you expand your communication skills to include all of these other possibilities? How do you take charge of sex, and not let the looming script take charge of you? What if I know I’m not going to have an orgasm (my sticking point–I feel obligated to tell people beforehand so they won’t get disappointed during) or what if I know I’m going to be in pain (but want to be intimate anyway) or what if I just want my toes licked, dammit? Maybe said partner and I are the only two people in the world who have a sense of a script looming over our heads during sex, one which we sort of know the outlines of but not the details, and one which we may very well not want to, or not be able to, perform. But what if I disappoint her when I push her hand away? What if she thinks I don’t find her attractive? I do find her attractive, I just don’t want to have sex, not today…” My penis is kind of sore today and it would probably be really painful to try to have sex. He wasn’t a sexual abuse survivor, but he knew exactly what I was talking about. “I’m probably the only one who feels like this, it must be because of how during my sexual abuse I had to say just the right thing or I would get yelled at, so even though you’re a lot nicer, I still feel this pressure…” When I first explained this to a partner, I immediately excused myself. But he just looked up at me, oh no, he must know I don’t know what I’m doing…” Also, am I expected to be moaning louder? I kind of like moaning just this much. It feels good, but in most scripts this is followed by penetrative sex, and I just want to stay here tonight.
#SEXY ROLE PLAY SCRIPTS MOVIE#
And if I miss my cue or flub my lines? This movie studio is not going to hire me again. Let’s talk about the middle part of that, shall we? Whenever I enter into a sexual encounter, I feel like I’ve been thrown onto a movie set where I haven’t read the script, but I’m expected to know it anyway. You want the answer to the question “What made the sex so good, how did you of all people manage to have it, and who was it with?” And I’m writing this down because I needed to read it about a hundred times before I believed it. It was time to admit that for me, sex did matter, and that there is nothing wrong with wanting to find and live your own sexual Telos, whatever that may be. Just as I imagine people who have chosen abstinence feel unrepresented by a hyper-sexual culture, and people who are gay by a hyper-heterosexual culture, I was having my face rubbed in my own misery whenever I heard about people having good sex. “You’re an intellectual! Sex is stupid! You shouldn’t care so much about it!” This didn’t work. When I was dissatisfied with my sex life, I would chastise myself constantly. I should start this column by saying that I had some pretty great sex this past week, that there’s a spring in my step because of it, and that this isn’t something I need to feel funny about.
See the about page to read more about the DG. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996.