I realize it’s not exactly the conventional thing to do. I fell head-over-heels in love with my now-husband when we were 18, and we got married five years ago when I was 23. So here we both were at 28, and both of us had barely even kissed anyone else. Then about a year ago on our tenth anniversary together we finally decided to "go poly" for real (something we had been talking about since well before we got married). Now we're conducting the kinds of sexual experiments that everyone else was doing when we were busy being cuddled up together in our extra-long twin bed together in college. Although most Americans have a lot fewer partners than commonly believed, both men and women sleep with most of their lifetime sexual partners by their mid-20's.
This youthful sexual frolicking makes sense coming from a cultural expectation of monogamous marriage, but I think it's a lousy method for promoting sexual satisfaction. So I started compiling a list of reasons why it’s so much better to slut it up when you’re older and preferably partnered (clearly, you have to be poly for this to work) than when you’re younger and single. Now you could just keep slutting it up all your life, but I think there's something to be said for establishing yourself and then sleeping around, if you can manage it. Here are some of the most compelling reasons why:
- You're a lot better at sex when you're older, and the people that you're fucking are better at it too. Forget drunken frat party fumbles; sleep with people who've been practicing for a decade, and you're probably going to have a much better roll in the hay. Plus you've been doing it yourself long enough that you should have a decent idea about what you're doing too.
- Most of that idiotic teenage sex angst (the Sex-Is-A-Big-Deal/Should-I-Sleep-With-Him?/What-If-I-Get[gasp]-Pregnant???? kind, anyway) is gone. Like me, many people spent a stupidly long period of time in the Land of Technical Virginity, worrying about going too far too fast. I'm so over it now, and I don't know anyone my own age who isn't. I can hammer out a safer sex agreement with the best of them, and if someone thinks less of me for sleeping with them on the first date, well then, I think a hell of a lot less of them.
- You're a lot less shy, and they're a lot less shy. You know how to use birth control and talk about it. You know how to take someone's clothes off.
- You have a much better idea about what you like. Sure, you might still be exploring what you enjoy and what pleases you, etc. (this is part of why you're slutting it up, right?), but you've had time what kind of people you like and to learn about the kind of sex you like.
- According to one sociologist I read recently, higher-order relationships are often doomed because they feel inadequate to us compared to our first loves; later loves feel less intense, and we grow more cautious as we age. Well, if you can just hang on to that first one, it doesn't matter as much that the later ones aren't quite as intense, now does it?
- You've already got a partner. You're much more likely to sleep with people because you want to rather than out of desperation. And if you get dumped, your partner can comfort you and will still be there for you.
- You have more money! Dating is costly and having more money is great. In particular, it facilitates another advantage, namely...
- You have your own place (hopefully)! Admittedly, you're sharing that place with your partner, but it's probably a lot less weird than your college dorm room. If you're poly. Anyway, you're less likely to end up screwing around with people in totally awkward places and sexiling your roommate. And heck, your partner might even want to join in.
In all seriousness, I realize that my eccentric path is probably not one that is really possible for most people. Most people aren't lucky enough to fall madly in love at 18 and form a sustainable relationship at that age. But I think that a lot of people end up pessimistically abandoning good relationships when they're young because they want to "explore" other people. Well, my husband and I did/do too: we're just doing it now instead of when we were younger--and we didn't have to break up to do it. The fact that I keep meeting other young polys (under 35) who have been with their primaries for a very long time suggests that we're not the only ones trying this strategy. Looking over this list makes me think it's a pretty damned good one, knock on wood.
Categories: Personal Stories Tags: personal story, polyamory, self awareness, maturity, sexuality