Day Two: Not Open for Business
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:17 PM |
Lindsay Gulanes As the married Pranababe, it falls to me to drag my poor, infinitely patient S.O. into this challenge. I was nervous, since consciously cutting off that part of our relationship seems like a foolhardy thing to do.
Lovely person that he is, he reminded me last night that 30 days is nothing compared to the arduous, tricky parts of our somewhat difficult pregnancy, and then the zombie days and nights that followed. In total throughout our relationship we’ve probably had at least a year of celibacy already, so what’s another 30 days, especially if we can learn something?
For me the most awkward part of this challenge won’t be closing up shop, it’s talking about it that I dread. My friends can attest, I am the quiet one during the second bottle of wine “girl talks”. I am not especially prudish, and I love a good dirty joke, so why do I get so tongue tied when it comes to my own experiences?
My goals for this challenge are to establish a sense of comfort opening up dialogue about sex and my experiences with it (between my mister and I, close friends, and of course, this month, through my internet community), and to make some decisions about the roles that I consciously and unconsciously play in my life. When do I behave aggressively? When do I take on the submissive role? What does all of this have to do with my desire to have everyone love me? My need to be the funny one? Am I ok with these roles, or is there somewhere I want to change but haven’t figured out how yet?
Relationships must surely be the most important thing about having a human experience, yet they are tricky. It is easy to default to a certain mode and vernacular with certain people but if it becomes a habit, how can we ever tell when we are having a genuine experience with that other divine being or not? Is it humanly possible to take off all the masks?
You may have noticed by now that I quite handily moved this from a potentially vulnerable and personal post to a series of academic questions. I’m working on it, ok?



