Odie would like me to tell you that we had sex.  He feels, more specifically, that a blog which details our marital disharmony, especially the fact that having a child limits our chances to be intimate and that lack of intimacy taxes our marriage, needs to contain this information.

He would additionally like me to inform you that he did an excellent — nay, superior– job, and that we felt closer to each other for days afterwards.

All of this is in fact true.

You know what’s also true?  It’s been 14 1/2 months since I gave birth vaginally to my daughter, and sex still hurts.  I’ll bet if his penis hurt every time we had sex, he would still want to have sex exactly as much as he already wants to.  What? 

My point is that NOTHING will deter most men from sex.  In countries where they kill you for having sex, men will still have sex (women will too, but that dilutes my point).  Pain, lax bikini waxing practices, fat, eye boogers, fat eye boogers, flu, plague, belly button lint, dry skin, bad breath… none of these will dampen the male libido so much that he can’t get ‘er done.

I know, I’m totally stereotyping men, am I not?  There are plenty of men who sometimes aren’t in the mood.  Who have body image issues that make them feel unsexy.  Who are too tired.  Who feel like they aren’t appreciated, or they’re being used.  They’re called women.  Or they’re called men who are having sex with someone who isn’t you.

Oh, SNAP!  NO SHE DIDN’T.  She did.  She took her own experience, normalized it, and applied it to all of you.

She did.  Because it’s fun.  And really, it isn’t even my experience.  Once, I saw this episode of “Oprah” where a couple had sex every day for 101 days (not sure what went wrong on day 102) and it completely revolutionized their marriage.  In a GOOD way.  He was ecstatic.  She was still kind of mousey and bland for TV.  I had a girlfriend who had done this with her fiance for 30 days and COMPLETELY raved.  I decided to try it.  And you know what, Odie just wasn’t in the mood.  For three days in a row.  So I gave up.  I’m kind of a quitter.

Marriage without sex is friendship.  And while I enjoy our friendship, it’s not the reason I got involved with him.  I made the colossal mistake of having sex with him almost constantly for the first six to nine months.  I built up in him the most ridiculous expectation of sex in terms of quantity and frequency.  (But not quality!  BOOM!) I think that women should begin relationships with the minimum amount of sex they’re willing to have and increase it from there.  So by the time you’re married 10 years, you’re doing it every day.  Since we had Baby V, our average is probably once a month.  Some months it’s more, some it’s not at all.  That’s where the concept of an average becomes useful.  If I had started this relationship having sex with him once a month and at the end of a year had told him, “and there’s more where THAT came from,” I don’t think he’d feel so disappointed.  The flaw in my plan is that sex is an acquisition tool for women.  I don’t think Odie would have fallen into my web of seduction for a once a month bang.

It doesn’t solve all of our problems.  In fact, it only solves the one.  Temporarily. I do, however, feel like we’re married again.  It feels romantic around here.  Or it did for a day or so.  I feel less guilty, like I’m not letting him down so much.  Like I’m living up to my marriage vows somewhat.  That it will be a whole week before we’re having sex less than a typical married couple again.