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Can making sex a line item on your to-do list be anything but pathetic?
With straight knees I was bending over, wiping the orange- and white-colored vomit off my shoe, when I felt something stroke my waist.
"Whoa!" I yelled, twisting to see my husband, Brad, grinning a devilishly sexy smile that I hadn't seen since we were dating.
"What are you doing?" I asked, knowing full well what he was doing but hoping my tone would change his mind.
"That backside display is an invitation screaming to be answered," Brad said, approaching again.
I turned away, looking at the dishes in the sink, the toys scattered on the floor, the groceries still in their bags and the laundry piled in a basket, and said, "How 'bout tomorrow?"
My husband threw up his hands in frustration, and stepping over a bowl of spilled Crunch Berries, walked away and muttered, "I don't know, I may be busy."
I was just about to yell, "Sorry, you're not on my calendar!" when Brad reappeared with his schedule and sat down, pen in hand. "I'm ready. You tell me. When?"
Where Did the Love Go?
It had been days, even weeks, since Brad and I had had sex. I don't know why. Okay, maybe I do. Ever since we had kids, something in our sex life changed. Oh, yeah: We're busy. We're tired. Maybe even a little lazy. Trying to get to bed, get it on, act sexy or even act interested in sex is grueling work when I know my kids will be awake, searching for clothing and demanding food in just a few short, blissful hours.
Years ago I worked with a lady who told me she and her husband scheduled their sex. Every single Friday night they did the sheet dance, and if they did it during the week it was a "lucky wild card." I remember staring at her in horror, secretly vowing to myself that I-the lively, up-for-anything girl-would never be old and boring when I got married. I'd be available for sex 24/7 or whenever my husband asked for it. I'd even be the one to initiate it...on the floor, on a coffee table, on his desk, in his office, whether people were around or not.
Then I got married...and then...I had kids. After one kid, we somehow found time and energy for sex. After two, I'll admit, we got behind. After the third kid, the only time I saw my husband's privates was when he left the door open after showering. If he caught me peeking at him, he'd smile and wave, and instead of being turned on, all I'd say to myself was, "Your beard hairs better not be on the shower tiles-I just cleaned in there!"
When Is She Doing It?
For years, I avoided even the thought of scheduled sex. I wasn't ready to be old. But because my husband and I were like two ships passing in the night, we decided we had to pick a scheduled night just to see each other and connect on a human level-otherwise known as Date Night. If we had sex, great; if not, we'd just pull out our calendars and plug in another sex night before the next date night.
Looking back, I have to ask myself, "Isn't that pathetic?" Scheduling sex with the man I used to go horizontal with five to six nights a week. (Sometimes twice in one night!) But today, life with three kids is so demanding, if a task isn't written on my calendar-in bold ink so I can see it as I run-it's not on my mind, not on my radar and not going to happen.
Admit it: we're all like that. If you're still in denial, try calling a non-single girlfriend right now, this very minute, and say, "Drop what you're doing and meet me for coffee." Chances are, unless you lied and told her you were dying, you can go through a list of 20 women and not one (okay, maybe one goofy mom who never seems to have anything to do) would meet you at that very moment.
Today everyone schedules everything: play dates, gym outings, dinners at home, dinners out, library visits, doctor visits, even bathroom visits (or maybe that's just my husband). It's all down there in ink and we follow it like a dog to a meaty scent, looking down and aiming straight ahead. Usually I know what I'm doing from the minute I wake up until the time I go to bed.
If I'm not informed we're having sex until the moment it's occurring, I'll probably pooh-pooh the idea. 'Cause after a busy day, all I can think about in regard to sex is that it's another task to complete. Sex takes work. Hard work if you're doing it for that happy ending and not just trying to get it over with so you both can get to sleep. But I'll admit, once it's over, I wonder why we don't do it more. It's just the "getting started" part: Once we're going, it's a ton of fun.
The major problem with scheduled sex, then, is that more often than not it's an oxymoron. Sex should be like breathing or heartbeats-an involuntary, constant thread of life, right? Once you schedule it, it feels like a science project-something I was skillful at putting off for weeks at a time in my school days.
So now what some women do is dress up scheduled sex so it seems like spontaneous sex and then try to convince their husbands that it is, too. New positions! Sexy lingerie, and I promise to remove the fuzzy socks! Guaranteed satisfaction! Keeping sex intact in our busy married lives often calls for desperate measures.
Housework and Sex
The National Housework Survey of Great Britain 2006 surveyed 2,000 women and found that cleaning and doing chores around the house was a higher priority than personal grooming. One-third even claimed that "Cleaning gives them more satisfaction than sex," while six out of 10 felt depressed if their home was a mess.
We all know women can't have sex, especially spontaneous sex, when the house is a mess. If you've seen Oprah lately, you know that even her designer Nate repeatedly says that in a messy bedroom, no one is having good sex.
Could a husband helping with the housework be the foreplay-the secret to getting women to feel sexy or thankful enough to have spontaneous sex?
Amy, a mother of three from Pennsylvania, once told me: "My husband's friend Eddie was visiting for Thanksgiving and when dinner was over, he got up and began washing every dish that passed in front of him. I asked him to sit down and he said, "No, I enjoy doing the dishes." He wasn't an attractive man, and I would never cheat on my husband, but when he said those words, I actually felt a strange tingle between my legs! What a turn-on!"
"I told my husband I'd give him sex and a bonus every time he unloaded the dishwasher," recalls Mary, a mother of one from Los Angeles. "It worked for about a week and then he gave up. I think he decided it just wasn't worth it. The best part is, he doesn't bug me for sex anymore. It's like this ‘deal' we made. It's so liberating that I'm actually enticed to go to him for sex once in a while. But he finally understands what I need to make sex happen. 'Cause now when he wants it, he doesn't say a thing-he'll just start doing the dishes, the vacuuming, even a bit of light dusting. That's my sign to go shave my legs."
Baby-Making Sex
Someone has to say it: Scheduled baby-making sex (when it doesn't happen in the first three tries) is tedious, annoying and frustrating. Luckily for us females, it's always on our schedule, not our husband's, who are often reduced to begging for mercy if not informed in a timely manner of the grueling schedule ahead.
Getting pregnant the first time was a shock. I was married, but mentally, I wasn't ready for kids. And definitely not ready for the bulging tummy, which screamed to everyone in the world, whether I wanted them to know or not, "Laurie McDermott has had sex!"
After we had one kid, we wanted two. That started the Triple S: Serious Scheduled Sex. Meaning if you forget to schedule or check your ovulation cycle or screw up the timing of sex, having to wait another 30 days just to try again could send even the sweetest of girls into anger-management class.
In the beginning, scheduling baby-making sex was exciting because my husband liked me taking control. But after a year of unsuccessful trying for the second baby, I became Drill Master and scheduled sex became torture for him. Because now he knew the truth. He was there for only one reason: sperm. If he couldn't make it happen or "get the boys out" properly, we both became stressed and irritable. So we'd schedule sex three to five days in a row, and after day two, his ability to perform fell like a dead tree in the Amazon. Only this tree I could hear, loudly. He became the wife I always feared becoming. "Sex, tonight? Again? Ugh. It's sore...it could break!"
"When I was trying to get pregnant, my husband would get so stressed out," reveals Karen, a mother of one from New Jersey, "that I stopped telling him and just hit him with what he thought was wild, spontaneous sex. I got what I needed and...well, so did he."
Diane, a mother of two from Texas, said her husband fretted over the idea of knowing when sex had to happen. "I was trying to get pregnant and after three months of trying with no pregnancy, my husband just turned on me," she describes. "I think he had performance anxiety. I tried to make light of it, but I needed him to perform. Some months I was so desperate, I was ready to call in the U.S. troops for donations. ‘Help! SOS-Send Out Sperm!' They should sell it at the grocery store with a turkey baster. I'd buy cases of the stuff."
"I was so tired of having to ‘help' him get his tool ready that on our third scheduled night of trying to get pregnant, we simply stopped wasting time and started the DVD player. Out came the porn," relates Maggie, a mother of five (yes, five, and she's completely sane) from my Pilates class. "It's great! He sits in our bedroom getting ‘ready,' watching his show. I go make lunches, fold laundry or send emails, and when it's ‘time,' he yells for me. Bing, bang, boom! No fuss, no fights, and it's over in like 30 seconds."
Date Night
Brad and I have Date Night every Thursday. We picked Thursday because restaurants, theaters and other venues are less crowded than on Friday and Saturday, and it makes our weekend feel longer. Sometimes there's so much sexual tension, we attempt to have sex in our car. (It always looks so hot in the movies, but we've never been able to make it work without cracking up at our Twister-like contortions.)
Date Night can be exciting. Sometimes I'll go buy an outfit, a new shirt or pants that I'll hide till Date Night. The same babysitter comes every Thursday an hour early so I can shower and dress in peace. Then my husband comes home to a clean, made-up, barf-free wife. It's on those nights that scheduled sex always finds its way in. (Only I must remember not to talk about finances or his mother.)
Good or Bad?
No one interviewed for this article said they hated the idea of scheduled sex. Most were simply thrilled to be having it any way they could. But the spontaneous thing is exciting once in a while, and I must remember that on occasion. So, the next time my husband reaches for my waist or I catch him in the bathroom post-shower, I just may go in and close the door. And what happens in there will definitely never appear on my calendar! o
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