How Do I Roleplay Without Dying of Embarrassment?
Tracey’s Tip: Sex is supposed to be fun and laughing is all part of it!
International sex educator Tracey Cox and award-winning podcast host Zibby Owens have joined forces for a weekly Q&A podcast answering your anonymous sex questions.
This week, Tracey responds to questions about breaking up with a long-term partner, how to try roleplaying even when thinking about it fills you with dread, and what’s the right number of times to have sex with your spouse each week.
Read an excerpt below and follow this link to listen to the entire episode.
Q: I’ve been with my boyfriend for five years– since I was 18. It’s been a wonderful relationship and I love him dearly but I think I’ve always known it was more friendship than romantic love for me. The problem is I’m not just breaking up with him, I’m breaking up our families and friends as well. Our lives are so intertwined. I can’t bear the thought of hurting everyone and causing so much disruption. What should I do?
TC: My heart so goes out to you. I have been in this situation before when I was younger, and it feels almost impossible to leave this situation especially if you haven’t finished a relationship before — which you may not have since you got together so young. It’s like leaving a marriage — probably worse because I bet both your parents are desperately hoping your relationship would lead to marriage and all your lives will be entwined forever. Sadly, real life doesn’t always work out the way we’d like it to.
When you break up with someone you have spent a large chunk of your life with, you aren’t just breaking up with them. It does mean breaking up with their parents, their brothers and sisters, and their friends. While some people do stay close and in regular contact, most of the time they don’t. It’s rare for both people to want to leave a relationship at the same time, so one person is invariably hurt. And if you’re really hurting, do you really want to be around the people who remind you most of the person you’re missing, who will report back on them meeting someone else and moving on? How will you feel seeing his family and hearing how he’s still really hurting when you’ve just fallen in love again?
They will be hurt and there will be disruption when you break it off. But what’s crueler is stringing your boyfriend along for any longer if you really have decided friendship is all you can offer him. You were 18 when you met. People will be upset but they surely can’t be too surprised. It’s a rare relationship that starts at that age and lasts for life.
I don’t think you can avoid doing this and I’d get it over with sooner than later if you are absolutely certain of your decision. Both you and your boyfriend deserve to be with people you find sexually attractive and can love in a romantic way. You can’t stay with someone because you feel sorry for them. That’s not fair at all.
The way to do it kindly and gently is to tell your boyfriend how you really feel. Tell him you are devastated to feel this way, that you love him dearly but that you don’t think you can love him in the way he truly deserves. Say you would eventually love to be friends but understand he might need time first. You then need to ask him whether he wants to tell his family and friends or if he would like you to. That’s his call, not yours.
They say guilt is a wasted emotion and it probably is. I felt intensely guilty when I left my first marriage. It took me years and years to make peace with myself. But, as painful as it will be, you have to walk away.
Q: My partner wants to try roleplaying our fantasies but the thought of dressing up and play-acting fills me with dread. At best, I think I’d laugh. At worst, I think I’d die with embarrassment. What should I do? She’s insistent we give it a go.
TC: Here’s what people say when I suggest they act out their fantasies: “I’d rather wash my eyeballs in bleach.” Or “I’d wet myself laughing and totally ruin the mood.” My reply is always, “So what if you do? Sex is supposed to be fun and laughing is all part of it!”
Listen, I get the cringe factor especially being a bloke. Lots of women quite like dressing up and playing a part but men, not so much. But there are many reasons why you should let your wife win on this one. Roleplaying is a fantastic way to get couples out of that slump that comes with a long-term relationship — when you start to feel like friends rather than lovers.
What she’s hoping for is to transform you from John who takes the bins out (that’s your new name) into John the handsome physiotherapist who wants to do more than fix her bad back. It’s a way of reintroducing the variety we all crave when we’ve been with someone a long time without cheating. Roleplaying fantasies is also a great way to get the kick of trying something “out there” without any of the misfires sometimes experienced by taking them to real life.
So, my take on it is, she’s right. You should give it a try. Here are a few hints on how to do it embarrassment-free.
Choose a fantasy that appeals to both of you
Sounds like she’s got a few ready to go! Find out what they are and choose the one that appeals the most. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You might be a doctor that delivers more than aspirin while she’s recovering in hospital. Or a university professor and she’s the student hell-bent on seducing you. Or try shoplifter/security guard, speeding driver/cop who’s open to being talked out of a ticket, boss/employee, sleeping beauty/hot intruder. The whole point of most fantasies is that they are things we wouldn’t dream of doing in real life, so park the guilt and don’t judge what your partner suggests, either.
If you don’t want to dress up, don’t
It’s the dressing-up part that most people find the most embarrassing. I think I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than put on some tacky cheap French Maid’s outfit. Symbolism is often all that’s needed. Got a threesome fantasy? Take a vibrator to bed with you. Does she fancy being ravaged by a hot workman? Strip down to a pair of jeans and no shirt (add a tool belt, if you have one).
Get aroused first
This helps! The more turned on you are, the more likely you are to enter into the spirit of things. Roleplaying is a bit like porn: the minute you’ve both had an orgasm, you’ll want to stop immediately.
If you laugh, make it part of the scenario
Work it into the script somehow. If you really can’t stop laughing, stop and have a laugh. Roleplaying is ridiculous on lots of levels, it’s pointless pretending it’s not! Then just get back into it and see if desire kicks back in again.
Have a “stop now” signal
Give it a chance but if you honestly can’t take it seriously and know it’s not going to work for you, speak up. Also, say something if it’s starting to feel creepy or making you feel anxious or threatened. A good “stop word” is something that isn’t ever going to be used as part of the role-play. “Purple” is better than “more” for obvious reasons.
Don’t do it at home, do it in a hotel room
Not just because you won’t be interrupted by dogs wanting walks, kids wanting biscuits, or flatmates looking for their charger. Roleplaying in familiar surroundings can feel fake. Far easier to reinvent yourselves in a hotel room, particularly knowing lots of strangers have had sex there before you.
Q: I’ve been married for 15 years and have sex once a week. My husband tells me this isn’t enough and that other couples do it much more than we do. Is he right? He’s starting to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me for not wanting to do it more often.
TC: There is nothing wrong with you at all! This is entirely normal. And once a week is actually on the high side of frequency for a couple who’ve been together 15 years.
There is no right number of times to have sex for any couple. The right amount of sex for every couple is highly subjective. As your question demonstrates, it has less to do with how often you’re having it and everything to do with what makes you both happy. Our sexual appetites are dependent on so many things, all of them individual regardless of partnership.
There is no “normal,” only what works for the two of you.
Why don’t we all just keep on having loads of sex like we do when we first meet? The longer you are with your partner, the less sex you have because of what’s called “habituation,” or removal of the novelty factor. This happens to couples of any age. Couples in their mid-20s to mid-30s have sex an average of eight to nine times a month. Two years into a relationship, this drops to six times a month.
And how about this for a statistic: how often you have sex in the first year you’re together, dictates how often you will have sex from then on. Research shows it sets a pattern — if you’re having an above-average amount of sex, it continues even after two years.
There’s lots of research into married/long-term sex with wildly conflicting figures. This is because factors like age, children, and the length of the relationship dramatically skew frequency. Once a week is ideal for people in serious relationships but only about half of people in them have sex this frequently. The reason why once a week is the “sweet spot” is because it seems to be just the right amount to reap all the physical and emotional benefits that having regular sex brings.
One landmark survey of 30,000 Americans collected data over four decades and found while having regular sex had many benefits, the benefits didn’t increase once the couple had sex more than once a week. Couples who had sex more than that were no happier than couples who did it weekly.
A sexless marriage is now defined as one in which sex has not happened for one year or more. It used to be a marriage where the couple had sex less than ten times per year. I know lots of long-term couples who enjoy sex once every month or six weeks and consider themselves highly satisfied sexually. So I can see why that got changed.
You’re in a “low sex” marriage if you have sex less than 25 times a year, but that’s also questionable because it doesn’t take into account life circumstances. What if you’ve just given birth to twins? What if both your parents died unexpectedly of Covid? So many life events affect our sex drive temporarily.
It’s really not fair when people try to win arguments about sex by citing statistics that aren’t actually true. It doesn’t get you anywhere. The question your husband should be asking is: “How can I make sex more interesting for you, so you might want to have it more often?” That might get him further than suggesting there’s something wrong with you!
