The Two Kinds of Bad Sex

I mentioned recently on Ruthie Knox's blog that there are two kinds of bad sex. This formulation comes from the heroine of my women's fiction story, Revising Libby. Here's Libby's analysis, suitable for readers over 18:One Kind of Bad SexOnly it didn’t work out that way. It was bad sex. Every woman has been there. You lie there, dry as midsummer Arizona, trying to help the situation by spreading your legs wider or moving an imaginary scratchy piece of pubic hair out of the way. You try to think sexy thoughts but invariably find yourself thinking about something that happened earlier that day—in my case, I couldn’t get the desiccated nursery and its embittered owner out of my head. If you’re lucky, eventually nature takes over and you find yourself enjoying the whole thing, almost against your will. If you’re unlucky, the whole event—by Murphy’s Law prolonged through a sudden attack of staying power on your husband’s part—will turn into a kind of endurance contest—can you complete the act without revealing your misery? One little wince and you’re in big trouble: faced with the Big Question: What’s wrong, aren’t you enjoying this?This was the second category of bad sex, but I was able to hide the wince until Matt finished and retired to his side of the bed. But then I couldn’t sleep. The guilt had grown heads and wings and teeth.And now the first category:The thing is, there are all different kinds of bad. This started out standard-issue bad, with Matt awkward and huge up on one arm, trying with the other hand—without squashing me—to maneuver his condom-swathed penis to its goal. I was dry and he wasn’t all that hard, and it took him a long time to work his way in. All the while I was relishing the standard-issue badness of it.He finally got himself situated and started in with a steady rhythm, and it was still kind of that way, I could ignore him and hum a little mental tune. And it went on that way for quite some time; at one point I thought I really could fall asleep with him doing his thing.Only entirely against my will I started to enjoy it. The friction melted away and he was suddenly gliding in and out of me on a silkiness that fed on itself, and my hips were lifting without my bidding.I thought, I should stop him—but then I wondered, And say what? Offer what explanation?In the meantime I had groaned against my will, and now, despite the fact that I clamped my mouth shut, groans came out of me anyway, cries, I was breathless—he called my name, sounding like he was begging, and then his name was on my lips and I was coming. And crying.He paused in his thrusting, elevated on one arm above me, and regarded me. He was clearly pleased with himself. He had taken my tears as what they usually were—I had often cried during or just after sex when we were in high school and college—just an expression of strong emotion. He wiped away my tears with the rough pad of one broad thumb, then the other. He said, “You haven’t done that in a while.”I didn’t know whether he meant crying or coming, but I just nodded. If I could have, if I hadn’t been pinned under him, I would have turned my face into the pillow. But Matt wasn’t done. He resumed his work above me, and this—while not physically uncomfortable—was torture. He was pushing the breath out of me with his weight and his motion. I couldn’t find a place to rest my eyes. I felt like my guilt was playing like a movie on my face.He yelled “I love you!” when he came.