In defense of bad sex

Monday, September 04, 2000

In defense of bad sex
Skip the soft lighting, satin teddies and candles, and just tumble

By Veronique Vienne
From UnderWire

Enough sex-by-the-numbers already. Enough month-by-month guides to amazing
lust. Enough secrets-of-sexy-stars surveys. Let's bring back the chaotic, the
disheveled, the hasty intercourse. Let's celebrate bad sex.

To me, bad sex means aimlessly groping in the dark, blindly chewing one
another alive, slowly mapping out fleshy landscapes in the moonlight. Covers
are kicked from the bed, a coffee cup spills its murky contents on the
carpet, a stray pillow knocks the receiver off the phone. In less than 10
minutes, a pair of bad lovers should be able to turn their boudoir into a
hovel, before falling asleep in a slovenly pile.

Sexuality is an assault on conventional order — but no whips or chains for
me. All it takes to make me feel deliciously wanton is a slight sense of
domestic unrest: an unmade bed, a 5 o'clock shadow, bread crumbs on wrinkled
sheets, newspapers scattered on the floor or shoe boxes spilling out of open
closet doors. One word, one look, one object askew, and the place is abuzz
with carnal possibilities.

To sex pundits who advise that you rekindle your connubial pleasures by
lighting scented candles, rubbing one another's backs with massage oils and
donning red satin teddies, I say, Pulleeeez! All that stuff is so desperately
natty. If you really want to feel the heat of sexual desire, get down and
dirty. Sex is not the search engine for your pristine ego. It's a primitive
and baffling way to get sticky fingers and sticky thighs.

Performance anxiety is never an issue when two people feel comfortable
treating one another like worn-out sofas. Maybe that's why the most
disappointing sexual encounters often turn out to be the most endearing
moments of closeness in a couple's lifetime.

I remember the afternoon we broke the vanity mirror in the cheap motel. The
dry bouts of fornication against the radiator. The way he used to turn off
the light before removing his trousers after he lost his job. The time he
tried to make me happy on the library's marble steps. The many instances when
I felt too fat to have an orgasm. And the night I broke into an
uncontrollable yawn as he guided my hand toward his genitals.

Bad sex is about forgiveness. And love.

Veronique Vienne is a free-lance writer who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She
writes for many magazines, including House & Garden, Metropolis, Graphis,
Town & Country and InStyle.