Never Give Sex as a Gift

I Learned It the Hard Way

Photo by Ryan Pilato

There I was, five years ago, desperately rummaging through my closet searching for lingerie I hated, just because he had requested it.

It was two in the morning, and instead of being comfortably in my bed, I was trying to squeeze myself into a piece of lace that made me feel like I was wearing dental floss between my buttocks.

I was that type of woman — the one who would do anything to sexually please her partner. The one who would contort herself into uncomfortable positions, wear clothes she hated, and pretend it was all exciting. All in the name of his pleasure, while my own pleasure took a backseat.

“Just this once,” I told myself while adjusting the uncomfortable lingerie. But it was never just once. It was a pattern that repeated itself with frightening regularity.

Like that time he “kindly asked” me to surprise him with oral sex in the kitchen because it was his fantasy.

Or when I dressed up as a 1950s pin-up, complete with garters and high heels, for a date where he showed up drunk and didn’t even notice the effort.

It was a vicious cycle of self-denial disguised as sexual generosity.

“You’re such a good girlfriend,” he would say, while I choked down my discomfort with a…