Last month I found myself at a workshop called "The Art of Sex," hanging on the every word of a spirited sex educator from Babeland (a woman-owned, “sex-positive and sleaze-free” erotic toy shop in New York City). I was sitting in this class because six months prior, my husband had stopped looking at me. By that, I mean looking at me in the way I’ve observed straight men in love or lust sometimes look at a woman: The eyes go a little wider than usual, he smiles subtly, and you can tell in that moment that whatever the woman is doing is so adorable, bewildering and awe-inspiring to him, that he just wants to marry her. (And of course, have sex with her all night.)
I’d received that look a million times during our brief 10-month courtship, but now after just two years of marriage, I began to suspect my husband was a little bored of me and our routine. I hate to admit it, but I’m one of those women who needs to feel men’s stares as a form of personal validation, so once my husband stopped really looking at me, I stopped feeling validated by him, and consequently stopped feeling so madly in love with him. And when the love stopped, the sex stopped, and then he really had no reason to look at me anymore.
I wanted desperately to share my bedroom troubles with my close girlfriends, but I was always the woman in our circle who talked frankly about sexuality, in all its glorious, graphic details. How could I possibly maintain my status as the “Samantha” of our group, if I admitted that my sex life was absolute shit? If my friends realized I could only talk the talk, would they ever listen to my advice again? Would they still think I was interesting enough to invite to bottomless brunches? Eventually it just hurt too much to keep on pretending. I confessed the problems to my best friend, and just as a best friend should, she signed both of us up for The Art of Se...
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