The Soundtrack to My Sex Life

For every pivotal moment, there was a song

I was never into music — not the way other people seemed to be, anyway.

I even let a friendship lapse over it. My friend was going through an angsty teenage phase and she channeled it through music. All she wanted to do was lie around, listening to Nirvana.

I was bored out of my skull, so I stopped going over. I wanted to do stuff, and listening to music didn’t really count.

Music did become significant to me, but only after I started having sex. Somehow, mixing music with sex made it feel more important, and the songs that played during my pivotal sexual moments are hard-wired in my memory.

Those associations are indelible. Hearing the right song will bring me back to those times, even if I hadn’t thought about them for years. And the memory will be vivid, like I’m right back in that moment. I’ll remember every sensation, every detail, and all the thoughts that were racing through my mind.

With the right playlist, I could relive my entire sexual history in about an hour or so.

We Laid Under the Stars… Feeling Brave

There’s a song that brings me right back to my first sexual experience.

I had waited forever to get a boy’s attention. It seemed like everyone was dating and getting boyfriends, except me.

I was the kind of dorky, awkward girl no one really noticed, especially not guys. And I was too shy to pursue anyone. So, I just faded into the scenery, waiting for love to find me.

That’s why I was surprised when Logan asked me to be his girlfriend. I agreed, and we spent time together not knowing exactly what we were supposed to do.

He was a year younger than me and we were both inexperienced in every way imaginable. So, we hung out and tried to feel our way through this whole relationship thing.

One night, he came over to my place and we cuddled on my parents’ trampoline, looking up at the stars. It was a warm mid-summer night, but we still threw a blanket over ourselves. We didn’t have much to talk about, so we listened to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees and the Our Lady Peace mixed CD I had put on.

I felt his fingers playing with the belt loop on the side of my shorts. He tugged on them gently and stroked my skin on occasion. Every motion felt tentative, like he was trying to pretend it wasn’t intentional.

I could tell he was trying to gauge my reaction. Feeling his fingers on my skin excited me and my breathing got heavier. He took that as his cue and ran his fingers along the edge of my waistband.

He slid his fingers into my panties and pushed them all the way down to my pussy. “I didn’t expect you to be smooth here,” he said in surprise. I had been shaving my pubic hair ever since it started growing in, and I was pleased by his enthusiastic reaction.

He ran his fingers past my hairless mound and over my lips. The feeling was almost shocking because no one had ever touched me there before. I hadn’t even touched myself there before — I always masturbated over my clothes.

He grazed my clit, but only to make his way to fingering me. When his fingers penetrated me, it gave me a strange burning sensation. Not pleasurable, but not awful either.

He didn’t know what he was doing, and I didn’t have a clue what he could do to make it better. But it didn’t matter, I was excited to be having my first sexual experience. And I was quickly falling in love, getting fingered while listening to “Somewhere Out There” and glancing up at the sky.

One More Yesterday

Things didn’t last with Logan, and I started hanging out with stoners and metalheads. And that’s the music that scored the sex I had with my next few boyfriends.

I had a crush on Mark, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. He was older than me and hot as all fuck. The kind of guy you dream about but keep having to remind yourself that guys who look like that don’t go for girls who look like you.

Except he did. He always treated me like a friend, but when we found ourselves alone, smoking weed in his garage, he asked me out.

I was over the moon, and I didn’t even know how hot things were going to get.

He had a party at his house and I spent the whole night flirting with him. I must’ve had some effect on him because he grabbed me and dragged me into another room. He looked almost hungry for me when he pushed me against the wall.

“Angel of Death” by Slayer was playing so loudly from the other room that I couldn’t even hear myself panting with excitement.

The fast, pounding music matched Mark’s intensity. He made out with me aggressively and squeezed my sides firmly. I had never been on the receiving end of that kind of passion before. I had been kissed, I had been touched, but no one had ever made me feel irresistible.

My heart raced along with the guitar riffs as I learned what it was like to be wanted.

Mark roughed me up in a way that made me feel alive, but I eventually broke it off with him because of John.

John was the opposite of Mark in almost every way imaginable. He was shy, quiet, and reserved. He didn’t turn heads — he mostly escaped notice, the way I thought I did.

But there was just something about him that drew me in. I would hang out with my friends while they jammed in someone’s basement just so I could get drunk and watch John play bass.

So, when he showed a shred of interest in me, I broke up with Mark so I could pursue him.

That was new for me. I had never actively pursued anyone before. I always waited for someone to hit on me. But John was so damn passive that nothing would have happened unless I made the moves.

I pulled out all the stops — well, as much as a shy girl could anyway. I flirted with him hard. I tried to impress him. I used every opportunity I could to seduce him.

All that effort finally paid off. John was at a party, sitting by a fire with a few other people. I walked up to him and pretended to mope because there wasn’t a spare chair for me to use. He offered me his lap.

Jackpot.

I spent the entire night sitting on him while he drunkenly caressed my thighs. I took that as my green light to start kissing his neck.

We made out until we had to leave the party. Then, we made out in the backseat of our friend’s car on the drive back to his place.

Megadeth’s “99 Ways to Die” blasted through the car speakers and I could feel the pounding of the bass and the pounding of my pulse competing for my attention. I was about to make my boldest move yet.

I leaned in as close as my seatbelt would allow and whispered, “Do you want to have sex?”

“I think so,” he replied with a mix of eagerness and nervousness.

John was a virgin and I didn’t want him to feel pressured, so I asked “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he replied in a shy hush.

When we got to his house, he grabbed some blankets from inside but suggested we had sex on the trampoline because he didn’t want to wake his parents.

So, here I was again, about to have another pivotal sexual experience on a trampoline.

We tugged our pants off and I lied next to him. I was expecting him to mount me, but instead he asked me to climb on top of him.

I wanted to impress him. I wanted to be the cool, sexy, experienced girl who gives him a wild ride for his first time. I didn’t want him to know this was my first time fucking on top and that I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing.

I tried to compensate for his nerves by faking confidence. So, I climbed over him, positioned myself over his erect cock, and lowered myself onto it while he held it in place.

The sound he made as he entered me was somewhere between a groan and a grunt. Hearing it made me realize he would remember fucking me for the rest of his life, and I loved knowing that.

I tried my best to fuck him well, but it was a struggle. The sink from the trampoline didn’t help. After a while, he gave my thigh muscles a break and started thrusting his hips to meet my efforts. We fucked like that until he came.

The whole thing made me feel so energized. I really liked him and I had made this happen. I seduced him. I made him want to fuck me.

Pleasantly Caving In, I Come Undone

I stopped fucking to Slayer and Megadeth when I met James.

He existed outside that metalhead world, like he was too mature for it.

When he pulled me into his life, it felt like everything was suddenly in technicolor. I was so sure I had found an actual, grown-up relationship. He touched me sweetly and tenderly, in ways that made me feel desired, loved, and safe all at once.

In return for that, I gave myself to him, completely and thoroughly. I was devoted to him and so loyal that I didn’t even side with myself.

I was head over heels in love and the sex we had made me feel even closer to him. It wasn’t just a physical act — it bonded us.

But it’s not the sex that I remember when I hear the music we listened to together. It’s the loneliness and the anguish I felt after we had sex.

After a few weeks, the way he had sex started changing. It got rougher and rougher. He only seemed to enjoy himself if we fucked in ways I didn’t find enjoyable.

But when we fucked, he touched me. He paid attention to me. That’s all that mattered.

The thing that hurt most wasn’t the rough sex — it was when he stopped touching me after it. I’d go over, we’d fuck, and then he’d spend the rest of the night on his computer, chatting with other people and listening to Queens of the Stone Age.

I’d sit in his bed with my pants still off, feeling lonely and worthless, just hoping he’d come back and fuck me again because at least then there’d be something happening between us. His bed felt like an island. He was across the room but he might as well have been miles away.

I was desperate to win him back. I was willing to do anything to get his attention. So, I would sit there every time, trying to talk myself into giving him whatever he wanted. If I let him fuck me in ways I didn’t want to be fucked, he would be interested in me again.

I knew he wanted to fuck my ass. It was practically the only thing he talked about. So, I told myself to do it. Give him anal and he’ll care again. He’ll touch me again. When I do it, he’ll know I love him. And maybe he’ll love back.

“No One Knows” was playing when I finally made the decision to let go of my boundaries. I lured him back to bed by offering my ass to him.

It worked. He touched me the way he used to. But it wasn’t enough to keep him interested. I gave him everything he wanted, but he still didn’t want me. Our relationship didn’t last much longer.

So Happy Together

Music was a big part of my relationship with Jake.

When we started dating, he made me mixed tapes. I told him I liked metal, so he assembled some heavy songs he thought I’d like. The music wasn’t always to my taste, but the fact that he customized them for me was so sweet.

His bedroom had a large stereo with a 60-CD changer. We could theoretically load it with enough music to play for days on end.

We’d hang out, talk, and fuck while the stereo cycled through album after album.

So many songs remind me of those days we spent just lying in bed together. When I hear anything by The Cure, New Order, or Talking Heads, there’s usually a sexual memory attached to it.

Sex with Jake was long. We fucked to albums, not songs. It would never stop before I had an orgasm. And when I came too quickly, we’d cuddle and get handsy until I could go again.

But it’s mostly the opening tracks of albums that bring me back to those moments.

We touched each other while listening to Prince’s “Dirty Mind.” He’d run his hands all over me, touching me with the same tenderness I got from James. Only, it never stopped. I didn’t have to crave his touch because there was always another fix.

He fucked me to the erratic rhythms of Joy Division’s “Atrocity Exhibition.” It felt amazing to have his cock pump in and out of me, but it felt exciting knowing it might last the entire length of the song and that we would still be all over each other when the CD played through and the stereo whirred and clicked as it changed to the next album.

Some of my strongest associations have to do with oral sex. Maybe it’s because I could just lie there and let the music wash over me while he pleasured me. Maybe it’s because getting eaten out just feels so damn good. But whenever I hear “Inertiatic ESP” by The Mars Volta, I remember it drowning out my moans while I gripped his hair and he lapped his tongue furiously against my clit.

I felt like I could be myself with Jake. I didn’t feel the need to constantly impress him. Instead of just listening to what he was into, I embraced my own love of pop, new wave, soul, and 50s rock n roll. I could listen to Wham! or Bill Haley and the Comets without worrying that he would think I was uncool.

It’s also with him that I realized I was bisexual.

That gave me so much clarity. Everything started to make sense, and I had finally figured out who I was.

I felt liberated. I felt proud. But I also felt pent up. I regretted taking so long to figure this out and that I only figured it out after it was too late to do anything about it. I had settled down before I could fully explore that side of myself.

Around that time, I got a copy of Tegan and Sara’s So Jealous. I would listen to it while I worked through all my complicated feelings. And I would lose myself in daydreams about fucking women while “You Wouldn’t Like Me” played.

No matter how much I wished I could have fallen in love with a woman, my love for Jake never wavered. Nothing could diminish it.

We went through all the milestones I used to daydream about. We moved in together, moved together so we could attend the same university, and got married.

The Turtles’ “Happy Together” had been our song and we played it while singing our marriage certificate because it meant so much to us.

We walked down the aisle to New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” and had our unchoreographed wedding dance to Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”

And none of our guests knew those were songs we loved fucking to.

You Mishear All My Songs

Those long, deep conversations where I learn new things about myself kept going well past our honeymoon period and our actual honeymoon.

It was with one of those conversations that I understood for the first time that I’m polyamorous.

That revelation was hard. It made sense of so many things. It explained the way I’ve always felt about love, sex, and relationships.

But I also didn’t want to fuck up my marriage by opening it.

Getting to know Rob was reassuring. He was the first person I developed feelings for after opening up my marriage and he’s the one who made me feel like it was the right decision.

He was also my return to fucking to music.

Jake and I stopped having sex to music when we had kids. We needed to be sure we could hear the baby monitor, so we had to keep the room quiet. When the kids got older, we didn’t pick up the habit again.

But I was usually listening to music while sexting Rob.

I kept hitting repeat on Taylor Swift’s “Delicate” because it encompassed everything I was feeling. I was falling for this guy, but it put me in a really delicate situation. I didn’t know how to approach it properly. I didn’t know how to be excited about this without making my husband feel inadequate. I didn’t know the right way to be a wife while also sparking up a situationship.

Mostly, I was just having fun. I’d stay up late and exchange dirty emails with him. We’d play out our fantasies with each other.

I was excited to hear the ding from my notifications because it usually meant some dirty talk or fresh dick pics.

But then I caught feelings and I caught them hard. And that brought everything to an abrupt stop because it was clear he wasn’t interested in anything other than sex.

I was devastated. I was hurt. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and ruminating about the whole mess I had put myself through.

We had completely cut contact but he still weighed on my heart for a long time.

But I eventually got over him so completely that the only Taylor Swift song that makes me think of him now is “I Forgot That You Existed.”

I’m not going to lie, though. It’s not just time that healed those wounds. It was also turning my attention to Will.

Will made me feel the way I did when I met James. He was someone I had a crush on and was surprised when he gave me some attention.

I was so intimidated by him that I had to apologize for taking so long to reply to his texts. He gave me such intense butterflies I had a hard time thinking straight and figuring out what to write back to him.

I eventually confessed that he made me nervous, and he told me I gave him butterflies, too. I turned those words over in my head for a long time. I was driving alone, listening to Tom Waits crooning “The Piano Has Been Drinking” and thinking “I can’t believe he just said that to me. I can’t believe it. He might actually like me.”

The song still reminds me of those days when I was just filled with nervous, excited energy.

We flirted for a while and then he introduced me to phone sex. Because I had put him on such a pedestal and because he had a bit of a dominant demeanor, he helped me tap into my submissive side.

He made me feel ways I hadn’t felt in a long time. He could turn me into a quivering, vulnerably horny mess with only a few words.

I was attracted to him. Then I was drawn to him. Eventually, I became addicted to him.

He was like a drug in every way. It hurt me to like him. I knew it wouldn’t end well, but I couldn’t help myself. I still wanted to go for the ride, even if I knew it ended in a crash.

I told myself that being liked by him for a brief amount of time would better than not being liked by him at all. So, I put up with the heartache and drug it out instead of doing the work to move on.

I wanted to be special to him, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. I was just one of many women he cycled through.

That’s his business, but the problem is that he had a way of making it seem like I was special to him. When he was on, he was on. And I went along with it, even though I knew it would fizzle out and he’d be distant again.

The whole thing had me feeling hurt and confused. But it also helped me understand some important things about myself. I was a polyamorous woman, but getting involved with Will taught me exactly what kind of polyamorous woman I am. I’m not built for casual sex. I just can’t handle it. It gave me pleasure, but it gave me more pain.

I still had trouble quitting him. Every time he came back for more, I was tempted to give in to him. He gave me a tiny shred of hope and that was just enough to keep me going.

I thought of him every time I heard the opening lines to Meghan Trainor’s “Wave”: “I want what I can’t have, still holding on to hope.”

I wished he would just cut things off — be merciful and ghost me for good. Either love me or leave me. None of the in between shit.

He never left me entirely alone, but he did give me enough space for me to get over him. He came back less often, and each time he did, I felt less and less addicted to him.

We lost whatever chemistry we had. He didn’t feel intoxicating anymore. I could finally move on. I kept the memories, kept the lessons, but let go of what we had and what I wished we could have been.

That’s made me associate a third song with him — “Party Favor” by Billie Eilish. Because “now I know we could’ve done it better, but we can’t change the weather.”

Let’s Stay Together

Like I said above, my husband and I stopped having sex to music when we started having kids. That’s almost ten years of fucking in otherwise quiet bedrooms.

I have no complaints. We fill the silence with groans, moans, and dirty talk. That’s all the sound I need.

But I had been thinking about all the key moments in my sex life that were scored to music. I started cataloguing all the songs that I associated with fucking my husband. When I was done, I realized I had a playlist.

The associations I make with music changed over the years.

At first, they were part of those key moments that awakened me sexually.

Lately, they’ve been the soundtrack to me processing my feelings about the guys I get involved with.

But the songs that I associate with my husband all take me back to a time when we were totally enmeshed. When nothing outside of us mattered. It was a time when fucking each other felt like the most important thing we could do.

It was a little pocket of bliss, and I got nostalgic for it. So, I put together a list of our old sex jams so we could listen to them while fucking.

It started with Al Green’s soothing voice singing “Tired of Being Alone” while Mr. Austin spread my lips apart with his fingers and gave my clit slow, soft licks.

The Cure’s “Pictures of You” carried us through some more vigorous mutual manual sex.

We got into the spooning position and fucked slowly to Prince’s “Take Me With U” and then he pounded me to Peaches’ “Hit It Hard.”

I don’t know that it made the sex any different. But it did feel familiar. It brought me back to that honeymoon period, when I would think about Mr. Austin constantly when we were apart and I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off him when we were together.

I don’t know if you used to fuck your partner to music. But if you did, consider having sex to your old playlist. It might just bring you back to those early days and remind you of what it was like to fall in love with them.

And make sure to add a few Peaches songs to the end of it. If the playlist doesn’t bring you back, at least you can still get a nice, hard fuck out of it.

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