Sex In My 40s | Those Conversations

I was chatting with an online friend recently about how life takes its own path. We were having a bit of fun reminiscing about the fantasies we would share with each other in the early days of our chats – the late night, masturbatory sexting and cybersex. He is well aware that my husband always knew what was going on – I’m not one to keep secrets (well, mostly, anyway!).

Do the sex conversations between you and your husband change as you get older?

This is a really interesting question for me. The easy answer is “absolutely!” If only it was that easy.

Human nature and relationships would suggest that, yes, as you become deeper into a relationship your conversations are also going to evolve. I think that’s pretty much a given for any subject.

My husband and I have now been together for almost 33 years – and many things in our life has changed with experience and age. Everything from our favourite foods to our politics has shifted over those three decades – and I think that would be a pretty normal journey for most people.

In terms of sex, and sexuality, we have grown together and tried new things. We have discovered new fantasies and thrown out old ones.

For me – and this is just my view – sexual adventures are far more intriguing, exciting and properly scary when you are young and in your sexual prime. Or at least that stage of life where society says you are in your sexual prime. For me, that was my late 20s and early 30s. I was confident in my body and my looks – and I was raring to see where I could push the boundaries. I was horny and more willing to experiment.

Our sexual conversations within our marriage were almost “what’s next?” like we were living by a checklist of sexual tasks. It was fun, exciting, erotic – all those great ideas evolving and seeking opportunities to explore happening regularly.

It was during this time in my life when I finally had the courage to come out as a bisexual woman, and with incredible support from my husband, explore sexually. Most guys would say “who wouldn’t want to see their wife with another woman?” But the reality is never what mainstream porn shows you. There were many occasions where he just could not be there in order for certain things to happen. It was not a “show” for him, or staged. It was me trying to find out who I really was.

Those conversations were never about “Did you lick her pussy?” and etc. They were honest, nerve-wracking admissions of emotional roller coasters and doubt and excitement and discovery. They were the kinds of conversations you never see in lesbian porn.

Also that time in life was one where we explored a more open marriage; dabbling in swinging and seeing where we could go sexually if other people were involved. There’s a lot of stereotype around the “lifestyle” but I will say there is one that is very prevalent, and pretty much bang on: the swinging lifestyle is very much a herd mentality of picture-perfect, tight-bodied, magazine-cover-model people. If you don’t fit into a very narrow ideal, you will be on the outer edge of the experience. It’s a highly cliquey community – and nasty, and not in a sexual way.

Others will say different, but that was our experience.

Did we meet some awesome people? Absolutely, we did; some amazing people that were a lot of fun who still occasionally send a message and best wishes for life events and holidays. We also met some of the most shallow, narrow-minded, horrible people we have ever met (outside of recent political circles). In the end, it was an experience that we were happy to have tried so that we couldn’t say “what if”, but it’s not something we’d go back to.

Looking back, I can see how so much of our conversations were experiential, rather than philosophical.

Now that we’re both “middle age”, we no longer fit into that herd. We’re a little past that ideal body image and our magazine cover is more Psychology Today than Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

So, where do the conversations go? Well, they mature. We talk more realistically now about sex fantasies – and by that I mean we talk about them knowing that they are simply fantasies and we’re not going to set out in search of turning them into reality. And some of those fantasies have matured into more realistic ideas; more on my husband’s side. For example, I know he like me to dress in a certain sexy style, so if we’re going out somewhere that calls for dressing up, I will wear that lingerie underneath and then later, when we’re home I will tell him a fantastical story about how another man kept looking at me from behind my husband, and how he was undressing me with his eyes…and how I was helping him with little flashes and peeks up my dress, etc.

As we have grown together –and grown a bit older – the mind-fuck has become far more sexually rewarding than, using the above example, going for the reality of trying seduce a stranger and engaging with him sexually to cuckold my husband. If I was 29, hot, tight and horny, we might have tried it. At 48, I actually prefer how much it turns my husband into a desperate-to-please-me sexual animal after a lovely dinner date.

I still tease the hell out of my husband, revisiting those stories of my wonderful Office Guys, and how it’s challenging to draw out the naughtiness within my new male coworkers – most of whom are easily 15 years younger than me.

These days, the biggest change is how the sexual conversations today are balanced with honest topics about aging and sex. There’s no point in trying to hide the fact that we’re not 30-somethings anymore and can fuck all night long. Physically, we’re changing, emotionally as well – and like almost every other person on the planet, there’s a mental exhaustion brought on by the pandemic.

But, thankfully, we still openly share our fantasies – and every now and then, I’m wonderfully blessed to turn one into reality.

Andee     xoxo