After Eliot and I broke up, my heart was aching. I wasn’t ready to get on the dating apps to meet someone else. In fact, I couldn’t imagine sleeping with anyone ever again.
But my sex-drive was at an all-time high, having just left a relationship in which I was having the best sex of my life. The answer was that, for now, I’d have to do some lone-rangering.
Previously I’ve always been furtive and a little shameful when I’ve masturbated; at my girls’ boarding school it was never mentioned.
During my 16-year marriage my husband Simon and I never shared what we might be doing in the privacy of the bath or shower either. After the kids were born our sex life dwindled and I thought I should be saving any extra orgasms for my time with him.
I felt that if I pleased myself it was an admission of not finding Simon hot enough. Flawed logic in retrospect, because everyone needs to do that from time to time – and of course more orgasms lead to a higher sex-drive.
Today though, my sneaky sessions ‘twiddling my thumb’ have been rebranded as ‘sexual wellness’. I’m happy about this, because being already committed to yoga, vitamins and plenty of roughage, masturbation is yet another string to add to my bow.
My sex-drive was at an all-time high, having just left a relationship in which I was having the best sex of my life. For now, I’d have to do some lone-rangering, writes Annabel Bond (Picture posed by model)
In that spirit, I want to branch out from just using my own hand, which is what I’ve done 95 per cent of my life. I already have the basic little bullet vibrator that could double as a lipstick, but I don’t really get the point — it’s so small and buzzy. Neither do I understand the appeal of the enormous rubber penis my friends and I used to laugh at in sex-shops.
A straw poll of three other school mums confirms there’s another vibrator flooding our algorithms: the graphically named Clitoral Suction toy. No more trying to get a guy to go down there, no more issuing tetchy instructions.
The self-proclaimed ‘UK’s leading sexual wellness brand’, Lovehoney, has plenty of suction toys at all price points. The reviews were mildly terrifying; some women mentioned having to change their bedsheets late at night, others talked about the high intensity of the sucking. But I was determined to give it a go. At 49, I’m in the late stages of peri-menopause and I’ve noticed my orgasms diminishing in intensity. Surely this would help?
Shuffling off the familiar sense of guilt (should be cleaning the kitchen) and shame (thanks to my mother, for whom sex is a very dirty word) and remembering my wellness mantra, I settled back on my bed in the middle of a school day, so I was sure I wouldn’t be disturbed.
The vibrator was an egg-shaped wand, and at the top was a white protrusion with a hole in it. The box contained a helpful little diagram to show me where to place it on myself. Gingerly I pressed the + sign.
The first touch was quite startling. I’d thought the experience might resemble oral sex in some way, but the sound and feeling actually reminded me of the put-putter of my dad’s old motor boat – quite a lot of vibrating, not so much sucking, which was off-putting at first.
But after some different angling and pressing of the + and – sign, warmth started to spread throughout the general area, which initially felt more like blood flow than sexiness. And when I added some fantasy into the mix, I started to get going.
Considering what I was doing, the experience felt quite wholesome. The entire groin area was now rushing with blood – a good thing for the menopause apparently. A bit like those belts that gyms used to have for cellulite, only for the front bum, not the back.
After ten minutes of thinking I wasn’t really enjoying myself, suddenly I very much was. And very quickly after that, I had a sudden, extremely intense orgasm, which flowered and vanished into the afternoon. It was surprising, but fun. And good to know I wasn’t entirely dependent on 28-year-old Eliot for sex, even if my heart still hurt.
After Emi came back from school, I worried she’d go into my drawers and find my new toy. I think I could still get away with telling her that it was an obscure hairstyling tool. It felt good to have taken more control of my orgasms though. If only I could teach my heart the same lesson.
- Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. All names have been changed
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