Sex Drive

I took these photos a decade ago to express how I was feeling. We were on a trip together and the fire between us was dead and gone. The rejection was crushing.

I submitted the photos on Tumblr to a fellow self-shooter who solicited confessions in photo form. And here was my confession “Sometimes I feel ashamed of my high sex drive.”

These photos weren’t staged, I was trying to get his attention. It didn’t work. He finished his book (The Fountainhead lmaooooo if only I’d known the red flag discourse) and went to bed. I stayed up all night smoking and ruminating.

I do have a high sex drive, and it’s something that most partners appreciated at first, championed even. But when they couldn’t keep up, or my sex drive was inconvenient, it was incredible how quickly these cheerleaders would turn on me. Wounded ego, lashing out. So easy to put down a woman who wants.

We were both socialized to believe that men always want it, and women shouldn’t. Good women shouldn’t. All these cultural narratives and bad sitcom jokes about how the wife never wants to fuck. “I have a headache.” So it was confusing for both of us when that’s not what happened. Eventually it shifted and I wasn’t interested either.

Shame eats us up. Sensuality and sexuality are best when you can let them flourish and bloom.

My current partner likes the challenge, she likes to try to wear me out. She doesn’t take it personally if she can’t. She calls me a “true athlete”. Once when she was making me watch the new Top Gun movie she launched into a whole theory about how my pussy is a high performance engine, and my elite sex drive should be respected as such. Inspiration strikes anywhere.

I like my high sex drive. I love that part of my brain that likes to play with pleasure, the part that’s curious about limits and excess. Life is for living, bodies are for experiencing. I love the connection that comes with intimacy, and the way my body hums with a slow warm energy. I love how alive it makes me feel.