I've been meaning to write this for months.

Quick recap: Both me and my wife are in our early 50s, together for 20 years. I'm HL, she's LL and while we've never been in a dead bedroom situation, the conflicts we've had around sex have been the only consistent source of tension we've had over the years. We are in a much better space with one another now and personally, even if the overall quantity of sexual intimacy is less than I might ideally like, the quality of sex we have is as good as it's ever been, mostly because we both feel so much love and gratitude to one another for sticking it out and trying to do right by each other. It makes the sex we do have (~2x/week) oriented around pleasure and affection and that fuels more passion.

That brings me to the point of this post: one thing that really changed things for us was the idea/practice of "taking turns", both during sex itself, but also with the intention of the overall session. To explain, part of this began with me learning about Betty Martin's "Wheel of Consent". Martin developed this for her couple's counseling work and it's primarily premised around an exercise of touching rather than sex but one can easily adapt it into the realm of sex.

The basic idea is this: intentional touch can be done for someone else's pleasure (giving a gift) or for our own pleasure (receiving a gift). "Giving" doesn't mean you're the person performing touch. If I allow my partner to touch me in a way that pleases her, then I'm giving her a gift (i.e. you can touch me) even if I'm the person being touched. She's receiving the gift of consent to touch me in a way she enjoys.

(Martin created what's known as the "3 Minute Game" based on this idea where a couple takes turns touching one another in 3 minute installments. The first 3 minutes, person A touches person B in a way that A enjoys. Then they flip roles for 3 minutes, with B touching A in a way that B enjoys. Then A touches B in a way that B enjoys for three minutes. And then they flip for the last 3 minute installment. Trust me: this is much simpler than it may sound.)

The point here is getting people to understand that touch — which extends to sexual touch — can be done with intention. Martin argues — and I agree — that if two people are both trying to be "givers" simultaneously, it usually isn't as enjoyable as when one person is deliberately giving pleasure and the other person is receiving it. If it helps, imagine trying to give a massage to someone trying to massage you...the intention may be good — "I want you to feel good while you're making me feel good" — but it's also pretty awkward to actually pull off.

(It's one reason why some couples just don't like the 69 position: it's less pleasurable for them to try to both give and receive pleasure at the same time. They'd rather focus on one role vs. trying to juggle both.)

EDIT: /u/myexsparamour made a point in the comments that I left out and needs to be said re: Martin's idea of consent:

I wanted to say a little more about Martin's work around consent. She says that true consent is what makes all of these roles (serve, take, accept, and allow) healthy and positive. When consent is violated, these roles become their shadow side, which is abusive and harmful.

So in the 3 minute game, when one person makes a request, the other should look deep within and notice whether they are able to give a whole-hearted yes. If not, then they should say no.

This is why Martin calls it the wheel of consent vs. the wheel of touching or whatever. What the exercise does is allow people to not just explore touch and pleasure but to also recognize, insist upon, and respect consent. Each person asks the other "may I touch you like this" or "may I be touched like this." And that gives the other person, whether they are doing or having something done to them, the power to say "no." Without that power then touch — let alone sexual touch — isn't seen as something pleasurable or inviting but rather as intrusive or even violating. Sorry for leaving that part out originally; it's pretty fundamental!

In any case, the idea here is that you can take during sex, meaning you are performing an action for your own pleasure and the other person is allowing you to do so. If you think of a basic scenario you see in porn for example, it's someone moaning "take me!" i.e. "fuck me however you want."

By the same token, you can also serve, which means you're performing an action for your partner's pleasure. Again, using a porn scenario, it's the "receiving" partner saying "don't stop, keep fucking me like that." That's you, serving them.

On the flipside, to complete the quadrants of Martin's Wheel, for the person receiving actions, there's "allowing" ("you can do whatever you want to me") and there's "accepting" ("I accept this gift of pleasure you're giving me").

I realize that this may seem kind of complicated and I promise you: it's not. It simply names the roles that most of us take during sex without really thinking about our intentions. The important part, to me, is that reminds us that when we play with one another, going back to childhood, "taking turns" was often a way to make play easier and therefore, more enjoyable. I keep stressing intentionality because that's fundamental here. It's about being present with your partner (and vice versa) in a way to heighten each other's pleasure (and again: with enthusiastic consent).

And of course, for most of us, we enjoy our partner's pleasure so it's not like this is ever truly one directional with no benefit to us. I love going down on my partner because I know how much she enjoys it which only heightens my enjoyment of it. In that scenario, I may be "serving" but as anyone who's ever played with even very basic BDSM dynamics, there can be a ton of pleasure from serving others. I certainly get off on it.

With that in mind, here's a basic scenario to illustrate what I'm talking about: my partner and I start off with our basic foreplay (talking to one another, light touching, maybe a little bit of porn if we want a boost). When we're ready to really be sexual, we begin setting our intentions.

• I ask to go down on her. I'm serving, she's accepting. Sometimes, she'll get so worked up that she'll ask to ride me.

• Once she starts riding me, now she's taking, I'm allowing. Maybe after a while, she decides to climb off and go down on me.

• Now she's serving, I'm accepting. I may then flip her on her back and have my way with PIV.

• Now I'm taking, she's allowing. And so forth.

This is all done fluidly and organically, meaning we're not pausing between positions to stop and have a discussion but there's still tons of communication happening both verbally and non-verbally, all designed to maximize each other's pleasure. The role switches here can happen in a blink but it's still done with both of us understanding what the deal is...if she rides me until she comes (she's taking, I'm allowing), I'll wait until she's coming down her peak and nudge my thigh to see if she's ok with switching to missionary. Without saying anything, she'll roll over and let me take over as I try to coax another climax out of her by now serving her while she accepts.

But, if at some point, I decide "I'd like to climax like this," I'll ask if that's ok (see below) and usually she says yes and then, without changing positions, I'm now switching from serving to taking and she's switching from accepting to allowing.

Like I said, all this happens very fluidly, it's not remotely awkward. It's simply being present (mindful, if you will) with one another and being clear about what you want from the other person. For us at least, this doesn't detract from pleasure. It amplifies it through focus and intention.

And remember: especially for couples who've been together long enough to really know each other, these negotiations around consent happen nearly instantaneously and they don't have to involve literally asking. Example, what sounds like a command — "I want to ride you" or "I'm going to ride you" — basically has an unspoken "if that's ok with you" appended to the back of it since if I'm not ready to be ridden, I can say so however directly or indirectly.

Here's an example. Everything in [brackets] is implied but not literally said aloud:

• Her: "I want to ride you [if that's ok]"

• Me: "[I'm not hard enough yet so why don't you] go down on me first [if that's ok]"

• Her: "[Ok]" starts going down on me

• Me: after getting harder "You can ride now [if you still want to]"

• Her: "[hell yes]" climbs on top

There's only three things being literally said but as you can see, there's a longer conversation happening in silence that's all about these quick negotiations of consent designed to maximize people's pleasure.

Ok, this is pretty long so I'll split this into two posts.

TLDR for this one: taking turns during sex — by setting intentions around who's doing what to who and for who's benefit — is sexy as fuck and amplifies people's pleasure during sex.