Let’s talk about bad sex. Not bad sex in that toxic-ex-sex-that’s-extremely-hot kind of “bad sex,” but rather, bad sex in the literal sense of the word.
When I was in my twenties, I was convinced that I was completely and utterly sex-crazed.
I was one of those raging assholes that did not want to go out if the chances of me getting laid were slim to none. If I went out with my straight friends, I would leave early and troll the lesbian parties in desperate attempts to get laid. If I was depressed and sad after a long disappointing day at work, I would scroll through my phone and frantically search for someone to hook up with in order to fill the vast empty spaces in my soul. Actually, if we’re going to be real here, most of the sex I had in my twenties was about filling vast empty spaces in my soul. While I thought I was having sex simply because I was a blessed with a libido the size of Lady Liberty, I now know that those sexcapades were a whole lot more, uh, shall we say “nuanced” than I had given them credit for. My relentless urge to screw every woman in plain sight had more to do with my mental illness than my actual sex drive. (Look, it’s not fun to admit this shit, okay? Yet I teem with masochistic desires, to be honest with all of you, for reasons bigger than even my exorbitantly priced shrink can unearth.)
Here’s the tea: Most of the sex I had in my twenties left me feeling disappointed and vulnerable. Dissatisfied and dead inside. Discouraged and deranged (yes, deranged).
Of course, I authentically had good sex here and there, but if we’re going to get down and dirty with that ugly motherfucker The Truth, most of the sex I had in my twenties royally sucked. It was bad sex.
So here are five examples of BAD SEX I had in my twenties that hopefully will make you feel better about your sex life, little sisters. Or at least help you to know that you are so not alone in this world. Because as much as I deeply wish it was true, the truth is that not all sex is going to be like Shane and Carmen getting it on at the DJ booth during “The L Word,” you know.
1. Validation Sex
The number of times I slept with a girl who I wasn’t interested in, a girl who told me I wasn’t her physical type, a girl who I knew lusted after another girl at the bar and took me home as her backup plan, or a girl who had wickedly ghosted me months prior — well, that number is alarmingly high. So why did I do it? Validation, baby. If I felt ugly, fat, unsuccessful, insecure, or caught up in my nasty ego, I had sex with someone because I hoped that it would make me feel loved and pretty and important and worthy of living in this world. So why was the sex itself always bad?
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Because when you’re having sex to validate yourself as a human being, you’re never truly in the moment. You’re all caught up in your head. You’re thinking about the way you look. You’re worried more about their pleasure than your own pleasure. And then, when it’s all over you feel dead inside. Because validation sex doesn’t actually make you feel validated. It makes you feel empty. It’s sort of like the drugs you swallow or snort in order to feel better about life. Maybe for a few hours you do feel better about life, but when that shit wears off, you feel like a shell of a girl.
2. Drunk sex
When you’ve been drinking your face off for hours (namely because you’re nervous because you’re about to have sex with someone you really like, and lez be honest, that shit can be intimidating as fuck), the sex is never good. In fact, it’s usually bad sex, because both of you are sloppy falling all over each other, and usually in my case, end up falling asleep halfway through without even orgasming!
The mutual shame you both feel when the judgemental sun comes bleeding through the windows, blinding your sore, hungover eyes, and you realize that you don’t remember where your underwear is sucks. But the end result can go one of two ways. Either you’ll lay in bed and laugh about it and become best friends and maybe even have sex in the morning — sex that is mind-blowing. Or you’ll be both awkward and act like coworkers forced to work next to each other naked in bed until one of you sulks on out of there.
Either way, the sex itself is never great. Sober sex (yes, sober sex) — now that will blow your mind. I swear to the Indigo Girls.
3. Crying over her ex-sex
You’re not really a lesbian until you’ve slept with someone who, when in the middle of a spine-tingling, earth-shattering orgasm, breaks out into a hysterical SOB because she misses her ex. Nothing will make you feel like more of a hideous-looking predator than a girl crying over someone else when she’s having completely consensual sex with you! It’s Happened To Me, little sisters. Girls have cried while I was giving them orgasms, and not because the orgasms were that good. But because they missed Suzie, or Leah, or whatever other dyke broke their heart. Talk about feeling like a vulnerable piece of shit!
While I haven’t cried over an ex during sex, I have cried — ugly cried — into someone’s mouth when kissing because I missed my ex.
If this happens to you, give her a warm hug, and get the hell out of there. And don’t take it personally. It’s a sapphic rite of passage.
4. Sex with a gender you’re not attracted to sex
Yes, I had sex with a few boys in my twenties because I was sick of being so wildly heartbroken over women, and I was trying to appease society by pretending to be “straight,” and oh, boys can be so easy and so sweet. I’m not a boy-hater, so I often figured why not give it the ole’ college try? Yeah, that never worked out! I would overact and become porn star-ish in hopes to convince myself I liked the boy sex, which probably is what ruined things for so many straight women who don’t understand why straight boys expect to make girls orgasm so quickly.
Yeah, it’s because of dykes like me who tried too hard to pretend they were enjoying it (and also couldn’t wait for it to end). Sorry babes. I’ll, like, totally buy you a drink sometime.
5. Threesomes
Yeah, I had a handful of threesomes in my twenties — I’m not ashamed. I’m only ashamed that I’m not cool enough to have authentically enjoyed them. For me, they all resulted in bad sex.
Look: I’m a writer and a former actor. My whole life has been about competition. I simply don’t want to compete for attention in the bedroom. It triggers me into feeling like a rejected actress who has to wear seventeen pairs of false eyelashes and make out with someone on the crew in order to get some screen time. And I don’t want to feel that way during sex.
Now, if I were to have a threesome again, I do think there’s only one way I could truly enjoy it: If all the attention was on me. Like, the other two didn’t even kiss each other — just moi. Which I guess isn’t a threesome but a ME-some, but that’s okay, I’ll take it!
