During the middle of last year, I experienced a dry spell. I wasn’t getting any. Like not even a cheeky kiss here or there. It was ironic, being a sex-columnist and not having sex. And of course, a sexual drought is different for everyone. I went for approximately six months without having any sexual encounters. It’s all relative, but for me, that was a lot. And you want the truth? Around the four-month mark, it really started to get to me.

If anyone has experienced a drought you will know the feeling. A few weeks pass and you don’t think about it: it’s not even on your radar. Weeks turn into months. Then one day, something happens. You see someone kissing on a night out or hear one of your friends talking about sex. Or maybe you are home alone, watching Netflix and a sex scene comes on and it seems to be screaming out at you: “When was the last time you had sex?”

And at first, it seems like a stupid question.

“Of course I’ve had sex recently.”

But then you have to think about it.

You might have to really think about it.

And then you think: if I have to think about it, is that too long?

“When was the last time I had sex?”

Once this question has lodged itself in your brain, it can start to dominate your every waking moment. Like…

“Why haven’t I had sex?”

“Should I have sex?”

“Who should I have sex with?”

My Sexual Wants

I started obsessing, thinking that I needed to get some quick, that I needed to break this drought. But there’s a risk then of it becoming a vicious circle. I found the more I thought about it, the more pressure there was; and the more pressure there was, the less I wanted to have sex.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t horny. I was. When I was by myself I couldn’t stop fantasising about sex. With my friends, I kept saying “I just want to fuck someone.” But on nights out, it just didn’t happen. I didn’t feel the vibe with anyone. The opportunities just weren’t there. Or so I thought.

I started making excuses.

“I only ever hang out with friends.”

“We always go to the same bars.”

“I’m just really busy right now.”

I had been mixing these excuses for a while, when one day someone just turned round to me and said:

“You’re not too busy.”

I was taken aback.

“You’re not too busy. If you wanted to have sex you could.”

They saw my bullshit and called me on it.

“You’re never too busy. I am sure if you really wanted to have sex, you could find someone who wanted to have sex with you easy enough.”

I was shaken a bit. I thought I wanted to have sex. Wasn’t that what I had been saying all this time?

I mean, I was busy. I was working loads, on shows and such – but I was still finding time to go to the pub and hang out with mates. I was busy, but I wasn’t too busy.

“Maybe you’re avoiding it for some reason.”

Those were my friend’s parting words to me. And that sent me into a self-reflective spin. I started asking existential questions like these. What do I want from sex? What is the meaning of sex? What is sex?

I thought I already knew the answers to these questions. At least I did in the larger scheme of things. But when I started to actually think about them, I started drawing a blank. And I worried that I had never really known the answers; and anyway that answers can change.

At some point, probably around the time that I started becoming more outspoken about sex, the time where I started to consider sex not just as an action happening to me but as an activity for me, my answers to those questions started to change.

As I have become more and more secure in my sexual wants (another thing that is a work-in-progress for me), well, I started to demand something different from sex. It seems to me that as my brain tried to process this, my body, already ahead of the game, shut off from sex for a bit to give me the space I needed.

So what did I work out? What had changed? And what do I want now?

Interestingly, my discoveries weren’t about relationships, like wanting to have casual sex or wanting a partner. They were focused around the actual sex.

Bad sex

First, I still don’t think I have everything fully worked out and that’s okay. Maybe I do know within myself what I want – but putting it into practice still takes work and that’s all part of the process. Honestly, it can be scary to ask for what you want, even for a sex-columnist – sometimes especially for a sex-columnist.

People have expectations and if you don’t fit that, or if you have insecurities, it can be scary to admit. But I now know where I am heading and the type of sexual encounters I want to engage in and that’s a good place to start.

Secondly, it’s okay not to have sex. I have always said the masturbation is amazing but even if you are not feeling that it’s okay to take time to yourself. That might sound like a strange thing to say – but sometimes there can be pressure to just fuck someone and unless that is genuinely what you want to do, it’s okay to step back for a while. I believe that the strongest sexual relationship you should have is with yourself, so if like me, you need to take time to connect back into that relationship, then take it.

And thirdly, I want to be present and vocal in my sexual encounters. I have had my share of not necessarily bad sex, but disconnected sex. When my wants have not only not been put first but ignored altogether. Where I have actively taken a very passive and submissive approach to sex, because that’s what I have been taught to do as a woman. And that doesn’t work for me anymore. I am tired of doing something because I feel obliged or don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.

Talking with friends and sharing stories, it’s eye-opening how common women have sex for any one of those reasons. Having this break from sex made me realise not only how unsatisfying that is for me sexually, but also for me as a person. So I am working to unlearn those ingrained feelings and move forward with sex that actually works for me.
Sexual droughts are interesting. For a lot of people, they may not have the deeper undertones that I had running through mine, but here’s the upside: whether you are going through a drought or not, sometimes it’s good to take a moment to check-in with yourself.

Are you really getting what you want from sex? Your sexual pleasure is one of the most important things in life – or it is for me at any rate. There comes a time to really seize the day. And that means making sure that it works for you.