The joy of sex... or not...

Let’s talk loving sex.

I’m going to give you a glimpse into a very personal part of my life with Riley. When we first met and our love was fresh and new, our sex life was incredibly good. Love making took place at any time or place that the desire hit us. Foreplay started in the early morning hours and lasted through the day.

I thought Riley must have been given some kind of gift from God that was my personal instructor into such parts of the life. What can I say… I was young and sexually naïve. He was my lover and I loved him completely.

Let’s talk sex and alcohol.

As time went on, Riley became more interested in alcohol than he was in making love to me and the very frequent basis that it had been was considerably less often. Foreplay became a means to an end and became routine. We were simply two people who engaged in satisfying sex without much expression of love.

Riley began trying to encourage me to have sex in ways that I had never considered and was not interested. I didn’t want anything to do with swapping, a common practice in certain social circles during the 1970s. Neither was I open to any form of S & M practices. Of course, back then, we didn’t have Christian Grey to lead the way.

The increased alcohol consumption seems to have awakened in Riley a longing for a more interesting sex life. I was simply Vanilla and he was craving Rocky Road. He took that craving and found other women who were more in line with his desires.

Let’s talk sex with an alcoholic.  

Kissing an alcoholic is like sharing his last drink. The taste of vodka, or the drink of the minute, lingers on his lips and leaves the recycled alcohol anywhere that the alcoholic decides to kiss.

There is a pungent order to the alcoholic that does not wash away in the shower. It’s always there on their skin, in their clothes, and on their breath. It’s difficult to get around the odor to even give a friendly kiss, let alone be close enough for coitus.

Drunks are often sloppy in love-making and revert to a “get on, get off, and get out” mentality. Kisses are slobberly messes that create saliva trails on the partner’s skin. It’s like taking a spit bath with real spit generated from the most current booze refill. Their muscles have no firmness so they cannot support themselves over the body of their partner and end up lying flat on top as though the partner isn’t even there. Once ejaculation is achieved, they simply slide off the partner into a hazy unconsciousness leaving ejaculate spread like butter over the partner’s abdomen and legs.

When the alcoholic has sex the partner is not considered because sex becomes simply a way of achieving orgasm. There is no consideration for the partner’s satisfaction. The encounter may turn into a mindless “f . . k fest”.

For me, as a woman who has been married and intimate with a full-fledged alcoholic, I would rather engage my electronic toys and summon an imaginary lover from the creative part of my brain, than to deal with a drunken male counterpart.

From a clinical point of view:

Alcohol numbs the frontal lobe of the brain which is the home of things like common sense, logic, rational thought and values. When this part of the brain is saturated with alcohol all the things that reside there go to sleep and what would normally be forbidden now becomes acceptable. Inhibitions are lessened and rational thought no longer available to prevent making bad decisions.

The absence of the things that prevent a person from being foolish allows the drunk to take risks that would commonly not be taken. Sexual acts not previously acceptable, become desirable during the course of the drunkenness. In that moment, it isn’t really experimentation because it FEELS like a good thing to do. In a sober state of mind, those things would not take place but with the entrance of an over-indulgence of alcohol, anything goes.

You may be thinking… “Wow. That’s great. I’m going to get drunk so I’ll be more open to sexual encounters.” But, it’s not all good when you think of the physiological aspects of excessive alcohol consumption.

For men who imbibe, testosterone production is decreased and can even be inhibited all together. The reduction of testosterone results in adverse effects on libido and physical arousal. Ejaculation is not as intense or physically satisfying. Emotionally, since the frontal lobe is essentially turned off, there is very little connection between the act of sex and any emotional feeling. Sex becomes more mechanical rather than personal.

So when a sober man says, after a night of drunken sex with someone other than the significant other, “It didn’t mean anything.” Sadly, he is telling the truth.

In short, you can’t get it in if you can’t get it up. Once it’s up it doesn’t matter who or what it’s in. You could have sex with a warm blooded human or a blow up doll, it makes no difference.

For women, with inhibitions gone, sex may become more exciting and even more enjoyable. Alcohol has a tendency to INCREASE the levels of testosterone which may result in more interest in sex. However, there is a decrease in the intensity of the orgasm while increasing the amount of time that the orgasm will continue.

There are other concerns for both men and women. The lack of concern for birth control may result in a pregnancy with a person who is essentially a stranger. With common sense gone, intercourse without condoms may result in sexually transmitted diseases. If the two people are strangers, there is always the old “OMG! I hooked up with an axe murderer!” possibility.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m all for sex. I’m especially in favor of sex with a partner who knows my name and remembers who I am during the act. There are times when I simply want sex and then there are times when I want love-making. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, I always want my partner to have his frontal lobe in full working order before we get to the bedroom.