Coming Out Of Sexual Hibernation

There’s a weird spectrum when it comes to sex: you’re either on the one glorious end, having it regularly, or somewhere in the middle, in varying stages of dry spell with the occasional blip of sexy time, or clear on the other end, where your parts are basically starting to grow black mold from disuse.

At first, when you go from having sex to not having sex, you get kind of bitchy about it, kind of morose in a Sex and the City sort of way. You’re all like, “Ugh. Not getting laid, again. Of course. Guess I’ll just watch Mean Girls and order pad Thai.” But then, after a certain point of continuously not having sex, it doesn’t matter anymore. Sex sort of fades out of the picture and you forget it ever existed. You think about sex with another human and you feel tired, you masturbate occasionally to take the edge off, you snuggle down in your blankets with your laptop, happy to be alone getting stuff done instead of having to deal with someone else’s needy body. It’s this unreal dream state of nonexistence in a way, but it’s oddly comfortable. Oddly.

But wait! What if someone wants to have sex with you, suddenly? What if some random interested soul has crawled out of the woodwork, you’re finally out of a frigid relationship, you’ve reached the end of a year of celibacy, or some other thing has happened to shock you out of your no-sex coma? And holy shit, it’s terrifying. And now you need to reevaluate your life.

When you’re not having sex, there are some things you just don’t care about, period. Like your body, for instance. Now I know there are the empowered among us who are all “NO dammit, I look good for MYSELF,” but let’s be real: at one point or another, most of us no-sex types get too busy/depressed/apathetic to worry about how we look. We just can’t be bothered. I’m beyond guilty of it — I’ve been in a long-distance relationship until recently, which means that I haven’t had sex in more months than I care to think about, which means that I’ve been subsisting on Ramen and almonds from a bag and going to class looking like the Crypt Keeper because I’m too “busy” to run a brush through my hair. On the plus side, I have seen every episode of The Office and have religiously started on The Mindy Project and Trailer Park Boys, so there’s that.

Well. Now said relationship is over, which means that my vagina is no longer on lockdown, which means I can have sex with anyone I want. The problem is, though, I haven’t had sex in so long that I’m terrified of having sex with anyone, ever.

Here are some things I’m terrified about:

Asphyxiation. Attachment (developing/becoming attached to). Being bored. Blanking. Breaking concentration. Charley horse in each leg. Crying because it hurts. Crying because it’s beautiful (?). Emotions (developing). Emptiness (feeling). Falling (in love). Farting (in bed). Forgetting (how to do stuff). Getting my period and/or getting pregnant. Losing rhythm. Not being flexible enough (range of motion ~ironing board). Overthinking (like right now). Rigor mortis (of the neck/spine/genitals). Sleeping arrangements. STDs. Stressing them out. Thinking it means nothing/something. Throwing up (from nervousness). UTIs.

I wish I didn’t worry about these things. I wish I could just go out there and have sex and throw caution to the wind like I used to. But it feels different now, the whole thing of it. Everyone says sex is like riding a bike but it’s something you have to relearn. Everyone’s body is different, so by default you can’t do the same thing twice. And since I won’t be sleeping with the same person I’m used to, I’m going to have to learn a whole new map.

Maybe I’m just worried I’ll have to rip it up once I learn it.