Deidre, 30
“I am in a platonic marriage with my 25-year-old best friend, who happens to be a straight Black women, while I’m a gay white woman. We’re more than just close girlfriends, but even so the relationship is platonic. This is despite us being hyper intercoures people, who deem s e x to be an important need for both of us. Which is why rather than go without, we choose to seek s e x outside of our relationship in casual encounters.
We’ve found over the last year that we have been together and especially now we are newlyweds, that people don’t really understand our relationship. And questions like are we secretly in love with the other or do we have s e x , are common queries which I disdain quite a bit. It’s not just strangers and friends, our families are confused by our setup too, but we don’t feel the need to explain ourselves.
In the past, romantic relationships have often caused us to gamble with our self-worth and ambitions, but we feel that we are each other’s soulmate and we’ve found true happiness in our non-intercourse relationship that centres around emotional support and caregiving over romance and s e x .”
“s e x holds varying importance depending on who I’m with”
Marta, 25
“My ‘nesting partner’ – the man I live with and have been in a relationship with for the past three years – and I discovered early on in our relationship that we both wanted to be free to enjoy the beauty there is in connecting with others, and the different expressions of intimacy that can bring to your life. When we discovered the concept of polyamory (the practice of having intimate relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all parties involved) we knew this way of life was something we wanted to explore, but it wasn’t till we moved from our tiny town in Croatia to the UK that we had the opportunity and freedom to do so.
Three years later, and after having had experiences with people of all genders as well as those who identify as non-binary, I’m still not ‘out’ to most of my family and friends and I’d feel really uncomfortable if someone outed me there. So, being able to explore my intercourse here has been life changing, but it has also meant s e x holds varying importance depending on who I’m with.
In my previous monogamous experiences, an increase in physical intimacy felt like a natural progression, but now it’s all dismantled – all my relationships can be whatever works for us. If I don’t have enjoyable s e x with one partner it doesn’t mean the relationship has to end or that we need to work on the physical side; what’s more important to me is the connection we have. But equally, if I have pleasurable s e x with another partner there is no pressure for it to be more than that.
Conclusion
The research also indicates intercourse satisfaction levels in the UK have decreased, with only a third of adults now satisfied with their S E X lives, compared to just under half in 2015 and 2014.
And we can’t blame the pandemic either, because even before coronavirus disrupted our lives, we were already well and truly in the midst of a intercourse recession. If we’re really doing it less (and maybe enjoying it less too), we got curious about how important S E X really is to those who are coupled up in 2021. Here, we talk to 10 women about the role of S E X in their lives.
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