So this is Sex for Middle-Aged Daters?

At eighteen years old, my boyfriend returned from his fall freshman semester of college with a few new tricks. Maybe it was the Catholic upbringing. Maybe it was being partially undressed in the back of a steamy car in the middle of the high school parking lot, surrounded by beer-drinking teenagers. Either way, as his mouth journeyed down to my nether regions, my virgin, naive self reacted with ‘what are you doing down there?!’ I was so horror-struck that he’d put his tongue there, that it never occurred to me that what I should have been asking him was, “what the hell are you learning at that college?”

A year later, when I went to college, it had been my experience that guys just wanted a quick and dirty fuck. There wasn’t much in the way of a prelude other than some kissing and heavy petting. It was fun but not very satisfying.

Then I met Stu. He and I were hanging out at his frat house’s weekly Friday night Beer & Brew party when we made our way upstairs to his room. With a nice buzz on, we rocked in his water bed (it was the 80s) when he he went down with his mouth. Believe it or not, that was the first time since the high school ex. All I thought was ‘why would he want to do that?’ After a couple of minutes, I pulled his head up and guided him to the main event when I realized that oral sex was his go-to move because he was rather deficient in other areas.

That was my limited experience with cunnilingus.

It wasn’t until several years married and some soft porn on cable TV that I became curious about oral sex. Like many married couples after years of jobs, kids, and adult obligations, we had become so efficient at sex that I started timing the act from the first touch to the happy ending—we had it down to seven minutes. It was pleasant but not very satisfying.

“How about freshening up our sex routine?” I asked my husband while he was trapped in the car sans kids. “If I get some books would you read them?”

“Yea, I guess,” he said.

At night, we sat side-by-side in bed studying. I learned how to give a proper blow job with the hope of some lick jobs in exchange. We gave it a few good tries but before long, we returned to our old routine. I wondered, ‘did I smell bad? Did I taste bad? Did I take too long? It must be me.’ I accepted that seven-minutes-in-heaven may be the best I could expect.

Nine months after our separation, at fifty-three years old, I learned that kissing-the-bean was widely practiced in the middle-aged dating world—every. single. time.

I’d be asked, “how do you like it?”

‘There are options?’ I thought, feeling like a naive, cunnilingus virgin, still concerned with ‘did I smell bad? Did I taste bad? Did I take too long?’ I was un-used to the man accommodating me.

Don’t get me wrong, there were still those men out there that haven’t advanced from their college jackhammer technique. To them I quote Ariana Grande, “thank you, next…”

Thankfully, there are men who have matured not only emotionally but also sexually. They are the ones that have taught me how to lay back as they willingly and happily make the trip downtown. I no longer wonder and just enjoy the journey.