"She's got me talking dirty. And it's a real turn-on. Have you ever been with someone who liked to talk dirty?"
Well yes, Will. But actually, that was a while ago, and lately I haven't been getting any, never mind the kind accompanied by a few choice nouns and descriptive phrases.
The next day, another friend called up. We'd had plans to go to a movie but she'd just started dating a new guy. "I'm too tired," she begged off. "I had a date with Greg last night and I didn't get very much sleep." Gotcha.
Unless one is very lucky, very skilled or very unfussy, there comes a time when even the best of us goes through a period of sexual inactivity. The "dry spell" is one of the most feared phrases in the single person's lexicon -- along with "high-school reunion" and "baby shower" -- and is also often accompanied by the feeling everyone in the world is hooking up but you.
As those of us who have difficulty jumping from one relationship to another know, it can be a time of stress, fear and uncomfortable moments at the X-rated DVD rental outlet. So we asked a few friends (names changed to protect the frustrated) and a couple of sex therapists what a dry spell means to them, and how best to cope.
"It's like Michel de Montaigne says: 'There's nothing greater than being self-sufficient,'" says Chris H., a teacher/musician in his early forties who apparently copes by reading 19th century French essayists. "And I really think, especially if you have an artistic bent, if you're with someone you're not compatible with just for the sex, there's a little voice in the back of your mind saying, 'I could be working on my writing or working on a song or watching pornography and getting more turned on.'"
Dry spells can be a time to focus on other things, he suggests, like work, career or that Claymation film idea you've had since dropping out of art school. "I would say in theory it gives you a little bit more fortitude and a little more perspective," says Chris, a feast-or-famine type of guy. "In reality it just means you jerk off more."
Even thinking of a dry spell as such can be detrimental, says Elizabeth K., 35, a philosophy prof and all-around opinionated gal. "If you're thinking of it as a dry spell, it's a distraction, and you've problem-atized it," says Elizabeth, whose longest period of enforced celibacy was the year she spent away from her boyfriend while studying overseas. "If you're single and happy it's not a problem. The whole idea presupposes people need to be humping all the time, and so it becomes a deprived state."