How You Can Deal with a Dry Spell and Why It’s Not As Dramatic As Everyone Makes It Out to Be
Look Clearly at Your Desires
Sex is important yes, it’s essential in a relationship yes, it’s a necessary part of self-love and healing yes. But we don’t have to get so dramatic when we don’t get to fuck.
What are you using sex for? Is it to satisfy your libido, to feel love, to feel valued? Do you use it to release stress, feel in control, or try to be out of control? They are all legitimate reasons.
Many people attribute sex as if it’s so important that without it we will die. Maybe your relationship can be over without it, but you won’t.
So stop being a sexual Shakespeare, I will tell you how to deal with the tragic dry spell.
Confession: I was not good at staying sex-less
Ask yourself, between no sex, bad sex or sex with the wrong person (or more relevant now, sex with a superspreader), which one would you rather endure?
For a long time, my loneliness and insecurities led me to choose bad sex and sex with the wrong guys. “no sex” wasn’t an option. As soon as I am not attached, I reinstall Tinder and ready to ride.
The quiet nights were unbearable. I didn’t care if that guy lacks skills with his tiny penis or it was simply spark-less between us. Let’s just get my desire over with.
Maybe what I really wanted was someone to murmur “I love your tits!” in the middle of a sweaty night to make me feel better about life.
So the actual question is, are you actually lonely, insecure, fearful, wanting a cuddle, or do you want to have sex. I think most of us will realise, sex has been used as a means to an end. We use sex so that we can feel something that night, and suppress certain unwanted feelings too.
What has changed for me?
I changed my relationship with myself, but more importantly my relationship with sex.
I grew up with very low self-esteem. Someone close told me that I was too ugly to find a husband and etc. So ever since puberty started, my hormones interacted with my neurons in the most devastating way, that I ended up valuing myself only by how many guys can I attract.
There was never a gap where I didn’t have a crush or wasn’t in a relationship. I had no time that is completely chilled. One after another, from teachers to people in my swimming club, there were always boys drama (sometimes girls).
Before I met my current boyfriend, I had a 3-month gap where I didn’t date or have sex.
I was struggling a lot with my anxiety and there was a lot of mental chatter in my head, I didn’t want to speak with anyone, I didn’t want to sleep with anyone. I just wanted peace and quiet. My libido was gone, sex? What sex!
This was the moment when I see how desires control us. We have desire to be liked and admired, desire to have sex, and we are controlled by the desire to feel safe and in control. Our desires have power over us!
Detaching from desires
The world has made desire really sexy. The French are considered to be sexy because they are a nation of sexual fantasy and passion. The Italians are sexy because their food is orgasmic. The Germans are not sexy because they are too mechanical. Even the German football team wasn’t sexy when they won 7–1 against Brazil in the 2014 World Cup, they don’t have the hotheadedness, like Neymar Jr.
But these are marketing stunts, most likely dominated by (white) men for centuries to entice customers with sexiness. Because men will do whatever it takes to get orgasms, and women have long been following their line of duty.
“Between 18 and over 80, but most of them were 50 or 60-year-olds. These women were at some point ready to say: I have served my husband’s fantasies for so long, now it’s my turn.” — Regine Thoeren, ex-sex shop owner in Cologne, Germany
Sex itself is a neutral act. Process-wise it’s merely sexual organ stimulation that creates orgasm to satisfy one’s libido, and function-wise it serves as an incentive for human reproduction.
What’s not neutral is how this desire is being represented and blown out of proportion. What’s weird is how overly sexualised the world has now become. Why do ladies have to wear short skirts to a nightclub in winter? Why does James Bond spend so much money on suits?
If we look back in history, the role of desires was downplayed for centuries (mostly by church) until the rise of romanticism. Romanticism is a movement began around 1770 and continued for hundreds of years. It glorifies individual needs, passion, and emotions, over collective needs, rationality and duty. It’s so rebellious and sexy, very much like Neymar Jr.
So, dry spell
Romanticism was so influential and powerful that once the flame was fueled there was no turning back. We look the “one” to get married, but this the one might not work after a few years, so we get a divorce. If you don’t have sex four times a week with your partner, you are doomed.
Anyone stops for a second and challenges the legitimacy of these statements?
It’s time, rather to blindly follow desires, but to detach from it and form a healthier relationship with it.
Your desire shouldn’t govern you. Your dissatisfaction at your love life should spark conversation, not infidelity and divorce. Your low self-esteem should lead you to a therapist or spiritual awakening, not one night stands and serial dating.
The dry spell shouldn’t be equated as a state of agony where your sexual desires are not fulfilled. Of course mastrubation is always an option, but it should also be a time when you take a break.
We are part of nature. So just like agricultural land needs rest after a year of growing and harvesting need resting, fishermen stop fishing from time to time for the produce to grow. We don’t need to keep fucking, we can take a break and admire more interesting things around us.
So for your dry spell, just relax! Read a book, bake a cake, watch a movie. Surprise surprise! Netflix and chill can easily be done alone.
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