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How to Survive a Sex Drought

1) Remember you’re beautiful.
Don’t equate lack of sexual activity with lack of desirability.

2) Enhance your wardrobe.
Put on clothes that make you feel like you’ve just had sex. Wear a flouncy skirt. Undo your top button. Moisturize. We know the benefits of lacy lingerie (which I find hard to summon up, during a dry spell). So, in my medicine cabinet, I keep a styling product called bedroom hair.

Bedroom-Hair_web3) Stretch the Definition.
Include foreplay and passionate kissing, if it gets you off the schnide. No one’s counting.

4) Stay physical.
Keep in touch with your body. I take ballet class, which works my muscles, builds flexibility and gives me the chance, like sex, to be expressive without words. Need I add, use your vibrator?!

5) Change your focus.
Take in small victories. At 6:15 AM, I take Rose for her morning walk, and she’s tugging on the leash, her enthusiasm infectious. This time of year I see purple petals from a Jacaranda tree strewn on my neighbor’s moss-green lawn. It quiets my restless mind for a full minute. I feel grateful to be alive, even without sex.

6) Don’t tell.
Bear in mind that people won’t know you haven’t had sex for awhile, just by looking at you (except on those days when you don’t wash your face, and stay in those baggy sweats).

Discussion

16 comments for “How to Survive a Sex Drought”

  1. I love moisturingzing in lou of sex. And I always wear sexy bras. I love this post!

  2. Maria says:

    Thanks for the moral support! I’m going through this right now, its not easy but sometimes its gotta be done.
    A great post.

  3. lady with a squirrel says:

    thank you!

    another helpful remedy: Splurge on a Massage!

  4. singleandalmost30 says:

    Thank you for your post! I am experiencing a drought right now…and I’ve been having a hard time dealing with it.

  5. Well Done,A beautiful and informative piece,I would appreciate any info you can provide and sharing, inspiring me,Do you have any other recommendations? Thanks

  6. Mary says:

    A bi-weekly full body massage with “Carl” works for me! He’s tall, blonde, cute, an Aussie! and a wonderful “spiritual advisor.” (And very married…)

  7. wendy says:

    Perfect.

  8. Omega says:

    Since my hysterectomy at 35yrs (almost a decade ago) I can honestly say I don’t miss it. Then again the few lovers that I’ve had may be more the cause of the dislike. Either way I’m okay with it.

  9. Shirley Adams says:

    Sex isn’t the end all to be all or however that phrase goes. And yes you can pleasure yourself, it’s all the same ladies, an orgasm is an orgasm. what I miss though is someone to go out to dinner with or a movie, just male to female chatter and friendship. It’s even becoming harder to find that. I just don’t go searching for it, if it doesn’t come naturally, then it is meant to be. I was married for 20 yrs, and before that had many lovers, and even had a lover since but we broke up. so, I have lived and loved to tell the tale and so that’s life. if it happens it happens if it doesn’t, I’m not going to beat myself up, just stay positive and active. Keeping fit is very important, I’m a runner, you have to stay wrong and keep your self esteem and looking and feeling good and strong is where you need to be. I haven’t edited, no time. Be happy, life’s too short.

  10. mary c. says:

    well, i don’t think an orgasm is an orgasm though i would agree that male/female chatter/friendship makes the difference.I like having a warm body. Guess i’d better get a dog?

  11. wendy says:

    Cats are great, too!

  12. Dot says:

    I’ve thought about this post and tried to figure out WHY it bothers me so much?

    Is it because the very first statement goes to one’s view of themselves? “You’re BEAUUUUUUUUUUUTIFUL.” I never stopped being ‘beautiful’ when my drought began. It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with a lack of quality partners.

    Then I thought the reason it irritated me was because the second statement went to the ‘girlie’ answer – ‘make yerself feel all purty-like with girlie things’. Not a bad encouragement any day of the week, but no panacea for lack of regular lovin’.

    As for doing other things – yep, the physical keeps my mind off of the lack of ‘physical’ (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean), but in someways is worse. That full body flush I get being at the gym? Yeaaaaaaaaaaah, that ain’t just from workin’ out, it’s from being around half-dressed, hard-bodied, testosterones men flexing their muscl—- Excuse me, I’ll be in my bunk.

    Don’t tell? HELL – I tell ALL the time. I want people to know that I’m on the market (so to speak) and looking for companionship that may or may not include sexaytimes.

    The only item on this list that I use to survive a sex drought is more self attention.

    As for the rest, I try to build in even more activities that put me in front of people, so that pent up energy gets directed *somewhere*: enthusiasm in meeting new people, doing new things and excitement at perhaps, just perhaps, meeting a new partner.

    I’m not about to give up on sex – and everything that goes with a regular partner – the touch, the intimacy, the regularity. And no amount of ‘alternate survival’ activities makes the emptiness of not having those things go away.

  13. wendy says:

    Thanks, Dot, for weighing in.

    I hear what you’re saying. And perhaps your suggestion of putting yourself in front of people should have been on this list.

    Being in ballet class, and expressing myself physically, in a way that’s poetic, really helps me during the drought times.

  14. blarneyguy says:

    OK, you mentioned the vibrator. But it didn’t go front and center.

    MASTURBATE. A LOT.

    The attitude toward single life seems to be changing. Know one thing that hasn’t, and sometimes seems like it may never? Hair On Your Palms And You Will Go Blind And Die If You Jerk Off.

    (You may do all three if you don’t. The loss?)

    Masturbation:

    1. Happens when you want to.
    2. Stops when you want to.
    3. Can fit in whenever you have time.
    4. No babies, no STD.
    5. Teaches one sexual independence. It is one more thing – maybe the most important – that you don’t need someone else for.
    6. Uses the major crap out of the biggest sex organ: your vibrator.
    7. KIDDING. YOUR BRAIN. It may be the cure for Alzheimer’s!

    That so many have failed to cross this frontier may be the biggest reason the residual stereotyping about singles still lingers. (This and fearing loneliness – maybe a worse fate for those who need partners.)

    Masturbation is so kick-ass that dating, never mind marriage, has become optional for me. I don’t date because I NEED anything.

    Because I don’t. If you get me, you are lucky. That attitude could get me married, quick, if I don’t watch out.

  15. Beauregard says:

    Being a single man of 68 years in a drought I have recently discovered lesbian porn online. It is remarkably different in that it is all about pleasure whereas male porn is about humiliation and domination to an unpleasant degree. As I watch I learn because women know how to pleasure each other, and do, and I think if men would follow their lead, all would benefit.

  16. Maria says:

    I find sometime one just have to get their mind off sex. No sense about thinking of what you can’t have. IMO recommending masturbation is not a good idea because all it does is add to the frustration. Like throwing kerosene on a fire. Before anyone calls me uptight, think of it this way: We won’t be millionaires either, but do we recommend that people spend 1/4 of their paycheck buying lottery tickets in the hope they may win? No one has ever died from not having sex. So I say get your mind on something else besides what’s between your legs. Prayer helps…it really does if one gives it a chance.

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