A fifty-one-year-old woman wrote:
What do I want to hear? Easy. That I’m the best he’s ever had.
A thirty-one-year-old man wrote:
I wish she would tell me why she limits our intercourse to once a month, and what I can do to encourage her to express herself sexually.
I also asked the other side of the question: “What do you wish your partner knew about making love with you?” Here are a few of the answers.
A fifty-one-year-old woman wrote:
There is nothing he doesn’t know about me. From the start of our relationship he’s always wanted to know what felt best and I’ve always told him. It felt a bit daunting at first, but now it’s just part of our lovemaking.
A forty-seven-year-old woman wrote:
I wish my husband really knew how much I love his lovemaking and how special and beautiful he makes me feel. All I have to do is look at him and I have an orgasmic experience!!!!!
Several people want their partner’s attitude to be a bit different.
A fifty-four-year-old man wrote:
I wish she would be more adventurous.
A fifty-nine-year-old man wrote:
I wish she would be a little more assertive. Most of the time it’s fine with me giving the directions and her following, but sometimes I wish she would be more liberated.
A twenty-six-year-old woman wrote:
I wish he knew that I like creativity. Not necessarily bondage and fetish stuff, but just doing something I hadn’t expected—twisting into a new position or trying something different.
Others had specific things. I just wonder why the writer hasn’t told his or her partner. It’s not as difficult as it might seem. Asking for something different can be done in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. “I love it when you… I wish you would do it more.” “You feel so good, but a lighter touch would feel even better.”
A sixty-eight-year-old man wrote:
I wish she knew better how to suck cock.
A thirty-three-year-old woman wrote:
I wish he understood that he has to give me a minute after I climax because my clit is very sensitive.
A nineteen-year-old woman wrote:
I wish he knew that I don’t like my clit to be rubbed a lot. He thinks he’s driving me wild but sometimes it gets irritating. Another thing is that, since I had our daughter, I am very tender down there where they did the episiotomy. He isn’t very gentle sometimes and it can really hurt.
A twenty-year-old woman wrote:
I wish he knew that I need more foreplay! Lots more foreplay! I always announce that I’m coming. So if I have not said it, then I haven’t come and he might want to do something about it. Since I went on the pill and we stopped using condoms he has been very bad about helping me come.
And lastly, I wish he knew that sometimes I need to be hugged a bit more afterward. Otherwise I just feel like a receptacle.
A thirty-one-year-old man wrote:
That often a fifteen-minute petting session is more satisfying than a five-minute quickie. I know that’s supposed to be a woman’s plea but it’s just as true for me.
A thirty-six-year-old woman wrote:
I wish my husband would talk more during lovemaking, like, “Do that again,” or, “Touch here.” He says everything I do is great. Maybe he is afraid that he’ll sound like he’s barking orders at me but I really want to know.
A twenty-one-year-old woman wrote:
It’s pretty simple. The faster and harder, the better.
A sixty-year-old man wrote:
I wish she understood that oral sex with her does turn me on and how much I enjoy tasting her vulva and just eating her for hours.
IS THERE A SEXUAL THING YOU ONCE DID THAT YOU NOW REGRET?
Many people lamented their missed opportunities. Maybe that says something to us! In addition, many wrote that they now regret they had sex with a person they didn’t care about: one-night stands and the like. I had a lot of one-night stands in the dating years after my divorce and, though many were less than fabulous, I don’t regret any of them. They were all learning experiences. I explored my feelings about myself, my likes, my dislikes, most important, I learned a lot about my sexuality.
Okay, so what do I regret? I’m sure there were many times that, in my younger days with a monumental ignorance of sexual matters, I insulted or otherwise hurt the feelings of a partner. Although I don’t remember specifics, I’m sure I squashed someone’s ego or made light of something my partner took seriously. Unfortunately, it’s easy to do, and I regret that immensely.
What did others regret?
A thirty-three-year-old woman wrote:
I really regret my first time. It was the wrong person and, unfortunately, I became pregnant. I don’t regret my child—she’s a wonderful little girl—but I do regret that I didn’t love the man.
A twenty-two-year-old woman wrote:
I regret that I’ve had casual sex. It hasn’t happened often but I have, occasionally, had sex with a man I wasn’t attracted to. Now I’m sorry because I usually choose not to be with guys outside relationships.
A twenty-three-year-old woman wrote:
I guess I regret sleeping with most of the partners I did it with. As I look back I realize that, if I had it to do all over, I wouldn’t have slept with any of them.
A twenty-five-year-old woman wrote:
Yes! Cheating. No matter what was going on with us at the time, I should have been faithful. Even though there were clear signs that he was cheating, too, I should not have done what I did.
A twenty-seven-year-old man wrote:
I deeply regret cheating on my partner. I regret it because it hurt the girl I had sex with to know I was already spoken for. She really liked me and I was just fucking her. I also hate myself for violating the most important thing in my life—my marriage. Although it’s long in the past, I still regret that more than anything.
And this forty-year-old married man doesn’t say specifically what he regrets, but it’s pretty obvious from what he wrote:
Straying is very bad business. The other person either ends up feeling angry that she ever got involved with you, or she falls in love with you. If love happens, she then wants you to leave your wife for her, then ends up being brokenhearted and angry when you don’t. I think it’s fine to look and admire another, but mated people need to be just that.
A sixty-eight-year-old man wrote:
I really regret something I did lots of years ago. I seduced an eighteen-year-old virgin when I was in college. I wrote her erotic poems, and eventually her parents found them. I guess it was her fault for keeping them where they could be discovered, but I regret that I created a bad experience for her.
A thirty-six-year-old woman wrote:
Yes, there are things I wish I hadn’t done. When I was young, I participated in sexual acts out of a need to feel desired. I guess it was my low self-esteem, rather than enjoyment. I think that, in the long run, it lowered my self-esteem further.
A nineteen-year-old woman wrote:
The only sexual thing I regret is having been with so many people. I was safe about it every time, but I just wish there hadn’t been so many. I know there are women out there who have been with more and my number isn’t all that high especially considering how long I’ve been doing it, but I still have regrets.
A thirty-three-year-old woman wrote:
I regret being with my first sexual partner for several reasons. First, I didn’t really like him. I wanted to make love with my exfiancé and I didn’t want to go to him as a virgin so I let another guy, one I didn’t even particularly like, “initiate” me. I regret it because my ex-fiancé said that coming to him a virgin would have been the best gift I could have ever given him.
A fifty-one-year-old woman wrote:
I remember having sex with a stranger. It was many years ago, before the threat of AIDS and herpes. I danced with a fellow in a club and without any words spok
en, left with him to go to his place.
We got undressed and lay down on his bed. He put his cock into me, moved his hips a few times, and then came. Perhaps five minutes later he announced that he didn’t like sluts to sleep at his place, so he called me a cab. He made me feel so cheap. All that I was to him was a hole for him to put his cock in.
A thirty-one-year-old man wrote:
I regret taking one of my girlfriends anally even though she expressed a great interest in it. It was entirely too painful for her and I still feel very guilty for continuing even though she told me that it would be okay.
A forty-three-year-old woman wrote:
Many years ago I allowed my then-boyfriend to take my picture while I sucked his cock. He was a real pervert and kept pictures of all his conquests. He still has it and I’m afraid it will end up in my husband’s hands someday.
A forty-five-year-old married man wrote:
I regret flirting with an old girlfriend whom I hadn’t seen in several years. We had lunch together and played and teased through the meal. It was stupid to even contemplate anything, and thankfully, nothing happened. I was tempted, however.
A forty-seven-year-old woman wrote:
I’m really sorry that I once participated in an orgy. It was just sex, and devoid of anything like fun. I felt lots of pressure to perform well and I was so nervous that I hated it.
A thirty-nine-year-old woman wrote:
I was molested by a male family member (a cousin) when I was small. It was all oral, no anal or vaginal stuff. What I regret is that it stole an innocence that wasn’t his to take.
And on the same topic, a fifty-four-year-old woman wrote:
I was molested by my grandfather. Although there was no actual intercourse, he touched me in the special forbidden places. I guess I let him do it because, since my mom and dad divorced when I was small, I was starved for male attention. Now I feel that it was my fault for letting it happen and not saying no.
To feel guilty for something over which you had no control is so sad. I hope at least one of the women who wrote these answers is reading this now and will talk to a professional. Remember, you were the child and he was the grown-up. The responsibility is all his!
A fifty-eight-year-old woman wrote:
My best girlfriend and I live in far distant states, and when we visit each other we always spend our first night together “solving the problems of the world” and usually drinking too much. On this visit to her house we were wondering why it’s every guy’s fantasy to have two women at the same time.
You probably already know how this one goes. We kept drinking, and talking about how her husband (my oldest friend!), who was happily asleep in the bedroom, was always teasing about having both of us in bed at the same time. Well, as the hour and liquor wore on, we decided to give it a go (bad decision!). We staggered down the hall, crawled into their overstuffed king-size bed, and began to arouse him. We didn’t actually “do it” but it did go too far.
When I came to my senses, I fled their bedroom for the guest room, wondering whether I could get an early flight home instead of ever seeing them again. Thanks to my friends’ understanding and good sense, we talked about it in the morning, placing no blame, and we all decided that it would never happen again. We also prayed no permanent harm had been done to our relationship.
Well, although it caused a temporary rift in our friendship, we’ve all recovered and our friendship is even stronger now. I’m still haunted, however, by the fact that it could have permanently damaged a relationship that is one of the most important in my life.
A thirty-one-year-old man wrote:
I deeply regret the time that I tried to bargain sex from an ex-girlfriend because I knew she still loved me and I was horny. In the end she asked me whether I still loved her. I couldn’t even lie to her, and she was very hurt. Sometimes men behave badly.
A forty-one-year-old man wrote:
As a young man I did some homosexual playing around with another boy my age. Those days only pop into my head occasionally but when they do it scares me to death.
A forty-two-year-old man wrote:
While I was dating a fun-loving lady, I took several nude Polaroid photos of her. We didn’t really split up, we just sort of mutually decided we weren’t going anywhere in our relationship, so she started dating other guys and I kind of entered a dry spell. She let me keep the photos when we went our separate ways. When I later got married, I destroyed them but I wish I had kept them. I would just like to look at them now. I always wondered what became of her.
A forty-five-year-old man wrote:
I think I may have picked up a mild urinary tract or prostate infection when I had unprotected anal intercourse with a woman I was dating several years ago. I went to my doctor and, on his advice, I took a full course of antibiotics. The infection seems to have been cured.
I just want you to know that I didn’t regret the sex, which was superb, but the urinary frequency was no fun. Now I plan ahead. Always.
A forty-eight-year-old man wrote:
Once when I was feeling really horny I pressured my wife for anal penetration while she had her period. I really wanted to have plain old sex with her, but she used to get bad cramps if we did.
We used to joke and tease about having anal sex but to that point we hadn’t done it. Well, I was so horny I didn’t realize that she was telling me to slow down and went ahead and penetrated her. I hurt her, and she resented it a lot, as she should have. I regret having hurt her and, secretly, I regret having poisoned her on anal sex. I would like to try it again, but I know she wouldn’t want it. After that, alas, we never did it again.
A fifty-year-old man wrote:
Fifteen years ago, while traveling for work, I got a blow job from a hooker. A male friend and I were away together and we’d both had some drinks. My friend suggested we “rent” a woman who was working the lounge we were in. I was curious, so I succumbed and I regret it to this day. I felt as if I let my wife, and worst of all myself, down.
A fifty-six-year-old man wrote:
A couple of years ago I met a lady for sex whom I had previously only known through the Internet. She was not what I imagined she would be, and I probably hurt her feelings.
A seventy-four-year-old man wrote:
My biggest regret is the night I had sex for the first time with my high school steady, no protection, no nothing. It seemed great at the time but, as I look back on it, we were too young and reckless. Our whole lives could have been changed. It’s really scary.
A thirty-year-old woman wrote:
I regret having sex with a boyfriend and then giving a blow job to his older brother while he watched. He said it was a fantasy, but why with his brother? You’re the only person I’ve ever told.
A thirty-eight-year-old woman wrote:
I regret having had anal sex with my ex-husband. I regret it because I gave that part of myself to him when he never really loved me. And most of the time it hurt and he never cared. He was so selfish.
A sixty-two-year-old man wrote:
In the late 1960s, early 1970s, I did a lot of swinging. It was fun and I enjoyed it; my wife at the time did, too, at first. Eventually, however, she grew disillusioned but I was addicted and all but insisted that we continue.
Now I know that she endured to please me, but in the end it broke us up. It was a bittersweet experience for me. I still have some good sex memories but I know I hurt her and am not proud of it. Young and stupid sums it up. The idea still appeals to me, but both partners must be equally committed.
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ORAL AND ANAL SEX
DO YOU AND YOUR PARTNER ENGAGE IN ORAL SEX?
The statistics were almost exactly the same for men and women: 96% of the men and 95% of the women who responded said that they engage in oral sex.
Most of the answers, across all age groups and both sexes, were short and sweet and decidedly positive.
A sixty-eight-year-old man wrote:
>
Oh yes!! I love it. I worship clits and vulvas, and love the smell, taste, and texture.
A twenty-one-year-old woman wrote:
Oral sex is great foreplay! I honestly enjoy giving more than receiving but I cannot complain there either! I love knowing that I am pleasuring him while it is a major turn-on for me as well.
A thirty-one-year-old man wrote:
Naughty Secrets Page 14
