In praise of maintenance sex | Savage Love | Chicago Reader

In praise of maintenance sex 

Dan Savage seconds Amy Poehler on milking the husband. Plus: the ethics of "briefs breathing"

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"Sometimes you go into sex 'not wanting or needing it,' and then you start to enjoy it too. Those are the times when mellow, low-impact, low-stress maintenance sex turns into mind-blowing, toe-curling, sheet-shredding sex."


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I'd say about 25 percent of the time we're having sex, I'm doing it for maintenance purposes. I always enjoy it, and I get off the majority of the time, but I don't always go in wanting it or needing it. Is this wrong? Am I not the feminist I thought I was? —Maintenance Sex Supporter

AI'm pro maintenance sex, MSS.

Sometimes I sex my husband when I'm not feeling it; sometimes he sexes me when he's not feeling it. We take care of each other. But maintenance sex isn't the same thing as enthusiastic sex. The person asking for maintenance sex—the horny partner who's being indulged/milked/sexed by the nonhorny partner—shouldn't expect mind-blowing, toe-curling, sheet-shredding sex. Maintenance sex is mellow sex, it's low impact and low stress, it's sex that requires minimal effort, and it's likely to be nonpenetrative sex—and gratitude is the only appropriate response.

Another important note: Being pro maintenance sex doesn't obligate a person to have sex whenever his or her partner wants it. Proponents and practitioners of maintenance sex still get to say no. There's a difference between indulging your partner when you're not feeling it —when you could take it or leave it—and forcing yourself to have sex (or being guilted/pressured/forced) when you're too exhausted, too sick, or too angry for sex.


QI've recently discovered that I'm a panty sniffer. Though since I'm a gay man, maybe I'm a briefs breather? Whatever. The smell gets me hard and gets me off. I discovered this when a fuck buddy left his shorts behind, and for the next few days I jerked off sniffing his shorts. That brings me to the young millennial techie guys at my work. They are fucking slobs, and they're always leaving their underwear and socks on the floor of the company's gym in our office. The janitor picks them up and puts them in a lost-and-found bin. I started checking the bin, and nothing was being removed. So I started taking a pair every now and then. At home, I fantasize about who they belong to, and when I'm done with them, I just toss them. First question: Am I stealing? I assume the guys aren't missing them, since they've been in the bin for a week or more and I haven't seen notes or anything in the locker room about lost underwear. Second (and more important) question: Have I become one of those perverted panty sniffers from those old Chester the Molester comics? —Singleton Now Inhaling Funky Funk

AFirst answer: technically, yes. But a case could be made that you're reusing and recycling. If there were a green certification program for kinks, SNIFF, yours would qualify.




AWhen someone says "That's so gay" but means "That's so stupid," he or she is being homophobic. Obviously. But a straight guy who says he's gay for musicals isn't saying he's stupid for them, TCJ, he's saying, "I love something that many gay men are passionate about—and I'm not talking about cock." Likewise, I've heard gay guys who avidly follow the NFL describe themselves as straight for football. You saying "I'm gay for musical theater," or a gay guy saying "I'm straight for football," amounts to a humorous acknowledgment that most men interested in musicals or football are gay or straight, respectively. In neither case is it an insult or a put-down. But while I think you can continue to say that you're gay for musicals, TCJ, some gay men (or some of our more annoying "allies") may take offense. You don't have to pay attention to those people—they're just gay for taking offense.


AThanks for sharing, VEGGG.

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