Why Am I Having So Little Sex?

The distinction makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve never really got it when people are all like, “How long’s it been?” and then gasp if you say anything beyond a month, when men groan about not having sex as though they’re actually in pain, as though desire were a drive, akin to needing to eat or sleep. I have wondered if there’s something wrong with me because I rarely experience desire in that way, except when I’m severely hungover. Sex is easily avoidable, not because I don’t want it, but because, as I realize now, the right context rarely emerges for me. I can ignore the guy who is definitely not called James’s texts because I’m not seeing the way he looks at me, I’m not squished together with him on the sofa, my legs resting over his while he colors shapes into my skin with his fingertips. In that situation, the need would become inescapable; it would make my skin tingle, make me say things I never normally say. 

Angel goes on to be critical of Basson’s distinction, emphasizing that most desire is in some way relational. Spontaneous desire only seems spontaneous because the context has been hidden. Angel uses the example of seeing a partner after a long time apart: “Desire, on reunion, can feel utterly spontaneous, as if it comes out of nowhere,” when really you are simply “responding to a context of excitement and anticipation.” It’s the same with men’s desires: They are not inevitable, they are not drives, they are only presented this way because their desire tends to be much more entitled than women’s.

I realize it’s quite normal for people in relationships to have to work on creating the context for sex. They go out on date night every Friday, they spend more quality time together, put it in their schedule—but when you’re single it can be easy to forget that you need to work on creating these conditions too. My desire needs cultivating, it needs me walking towards men I think I might like, getting in taxis I can’t afford, in make-up I know I won’t take off, sleeping in bedrooms I won’t be able to locate a glass of water in.

“What are you doing now?” I ask the guy definitely not called James, and I get up from where I’m sat in the pub and I don’t say bye because I know all it will take is one friend saying, “but I cued Paramore” for me to be persuaded to stay a bit longer, and I put my shoes on even though I came in heels and they hurt by now, and I walk out into the night.