‘I’m a 25 year old who’s always liked short involvements or one night stands; I’m a professional woman, a boss, very into sex and, I like to think very savvy and empowered. Recently I’ve found myself dating a few of the young buck traders (I work in the finance sector – though NOT mortgage derivatives, honest!) – and, weirdly, they suddenly want to try endless freaky positions, suggest we try weird oral stuff, drop in that dogging could be good, ask if I’m into anal and even say can they fist me. Seems to me that they’re getting all this from the endless porn they’re watching – and really, poor lambs, they’re not actually any good at any kind of sex. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing… How do I get them back to walking before they run – having great normal-ish sex, in raunchy normal-ish positions and away from this crazy stuff?’
Our reply:
You know, it might be the case that you’re getting pretty much the sort of sex you’re unwittingly asking for. For starters, it’s unlikely you’re going to be having great sex through a series of brief flings or one night stands. You’re not giving yourself much of a chance to find out what you – or he – (really) likes. It’s all too easy in that case to try and impose an idea of what makes great sex on a person whose true desires you know close to nothing about – and it’s hardly surprising if they try to go on what they know of you from the boardroom. It seems to us that maybe all these men are actually trying to impress you as the “savvy and empowered” woman you say you are, maybe from what they know of porn. Without wanting to ruffle your feathers, surely someone that empowered would also be able to get what they want by strong man-agement in the bedroom.
You mention ‘dating’. It might be a good idea to stretch that approach out a little. Date more, old-fashioned as that might seem. Give them time to get comfortable with you as a person before hitting the sheets.
You do seem to be lumping ‘them’ together. Is that how you see ‘them’, as an interchangeable set of ‘young bucks’, any one of which – correction: whom – could basically stand in for any of the rest? Again, it doesn’t sound as if you’re really opening yourself up here; it sounds more as if you’re expecting ‘them’ to deliver the goods to you, rather than it being a two-way (however brief) relationship. This way, we think you’ll be lucky if any of the sex that follows is any good.
It’s maybe also worth mentioning that it sounds as if ‘they’ might be swapping ‘I fucked the boss’ stories among themselves, and the porno play is the line they’ve agreed on collectively, either as what they can get away with (or what they feel they ought to be trying to get away with) or as what you like. While you’re seeing yourself as all savvy and empowered, you might have gone down in their eyes as the office bicycle. Given that mutual respect is an important ingredient of good sex, the signs here are not auspicious.
Here’s what we suggest. Try respecting them and not being so patronising. (Come on: ‘poor lambs’? Purlease.) It could be a really good idea to choose just one of them. (You want more? Select from a different office.) Cherry-pick – and your partner might well be a virgin, who has used porn to try to gain a few insights. Then take time to train him. Tell him you want to have gentle sex. Spend time just being sensual together. Take the pressure to perform off him. Let him be relatively passive a few times and use woman-on-top sex positions to teach him about the sexual pace you like. Say you just want to do the missionary position tonight – Give him things to do that are real easy and that he’ll probably be okay at. Build up confidence that way and then you go for more adventurous sex at your pace.
And if you really, really don’t want your feelings too engaged and if you really are happy with your office harem (being as what you’re all savvy and empowered) then for heaven’s sake spell it out to them, and maybe even when you’ve got your first young buck all trained, tell him to go tell his friends that’s what you like. He’ll probably feel used and that you’re a bitch – it’s unlikely he’ll have made love well unless he cared – and you’ll generally be losing place, but that’s what you get for dicking with your currency and screwing (up) the market. Or maybe, just possibly, you don’t want that and could use a reality-check on what you really want matched with what’s achievable. Try, oh, maybe being nice.