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Some friends and I were discussing sex and relationships the other day and one of them brought up an interesting premise. She thought that most people could be divided into two types: thrill-seekers, and comfort-seekers, and that those impulses drove their sex and relationships behavior.
In other words, in her book, there were people who thrilled to wild energy, adventure and novelty; that led them off into open relationships, testing themselves with practices outside the sexual average (tantra, BDSM). These were the folks who liked their feelings to be written large, and who always savored a noticeable bit of risk. They wanted to “challenge their assumptions, push their boundaries, and leave their comfort zones.”
The other sort of person, my friend said, was a comfort-seeker. This type of person valued the deep intimacy, quiet engagement and trust over time of familiar relationships. For them, sex was best as a safe, loving and nurturing space—not a place to push the boundaries of new experiences.
I am interested in these categories, but truth be told, I think most people—myself included—fit into both. Aren’t there moments when sex is comfort, a deep intimate exchange with someone you love and trust? Moments when being together is soothing, a way to find refuge and go inside. And then aren’t there other moments when sex is a kind of play? When the fun and the exuberance get dialed way up--and stay there for a long time?
Part of what makes this question interesting is understanding yourself, but the other part is how to you communicate to keep you and your partner in synch? It can be challenging, but truly, this is one of the areas where communication is key (aren’t they all?)
I admire my friend, whom I will call Patty, who’s been married for 10,000 years to a guy for whom sex is as comforting as a crock-pot. Steven is always there for her and she loves him, but geeze, things are always at a simmer. For Patty, who was married and monogamous for 18 years and then woke up one day and said “My heart has dried out!” (not to mention her body), turning up the heat has meant negotiating with hubby how she can add more excitement to her life without breaking their vows. For the past 15 months she has—with hubby’s knowledge and approval—been taking all sorts of massage and sexological bodywork classes and finding ways—like tantra workshops—to have more of that wild energy and heat she craves without veering off into full sex with other people. And of course, she always comes home to her guy.
I have another friend. Jayme(not her real name either), for whom sex and relationships are always about the adventure. Jayme—as she’ll tell you herself—is a new relationship energy junkie, feeding off the passion and surprise of getting with new people, but pretty outta the relationship as soon as that feeling of comfortable familiarity sets in. “I don’t do long-term,” says Jayme, who doesn’t describe herself as fickle as much as she’s still exploring, needing lots of room to grow, and fascinated by new people.
And then there’s my friend Lora (another changed name) for whom sex is both, often at the same time. On one hand, she’s the woman who wants to nest at home, cooking her guy meatloaf and hanging on the big, cushy couch; on the other hand, she’s an enemy of complacency and wants to feel like things always have an edge and are always getting better. “I see sex and relationships as things that don’t just happen,” Lora said when I shared these ideas with her. “I like having a familiar partner, but it takes work to get closer.”
For Lora, that work can mean going to self-development workshops together like Landmark or HAI; it can also meant deep talking about what she and her partner want, then trying to act on those feelings. “But you have to want compatible things,” Lora says. “If you want unpredictability and he wants to check out swingers—well, you may be too far apart.” (Department of TMI: She earlier broke up with a guy like that.) With the person Lora is currently seeing, lots of talking about their fantasies, assumptions about one another, and things they might enjoy are charting the balance between crock pot and blow torch.
For myself, I currently veer toward the thrill seeking side, even though I’m
