When I was at school, I was a bit of an Overly Keen Bean. All of my reports described me as being ‘self motivated’, with one teacher forgetting to erase the adjective ‘terrifyingly’. I raised my question answering hand with such velocity and frequency that I have a recurring shoulder pain to this day. I was first to arrive and last to leave. I got prizes for enthusiasm. I attended choir even after they asked me to sign something promising that I wouldn’t actually sing in any concerts. When no Sports Day event was deemed appropriate for me to compete in, I organised a Walking Race. (I didn’t win.) And when I started having sex, I brought this level of manic pencil sharpening energy to the pants-off department.
A boyfriend wanted to bring a video camera into the bedroom - I planned out a lighting schedule. I gamely ate my own edible panties, and got gastroenteritis. My dirty talk was so detailed that one ex stopped me in the middle to shout ‘Get on with it! You’re not in a Mills and Boon!’ I bought a PVC nurse’s outfit and started saving up for a medical grade stethoscope. I put out like I was trying to win a pageant. If you had something you wanted stuffed in someone’s mouth, or up their bum, I was your go-to girl.
At 20, I thought this was the way to win someone’s love, and possibly get an audition for Cirque du Soleil. But at 30, I’m having the best sex ever with my favourite person ever, and it’s all because my sexual technique is less ‘’ho in the bed’ and more ‘Homer Simpson’. I’m lying back and thinking of England, and by England, I mean me. I have become a selfish and unmotivated lover, and it is brilliant.
Before I met my boyfriend, I approached sex as though I expected to get a grade at the end. I’m a born approval seeker, and there was nothing I wanted to hear more from my bedmates than praise. I had practised moves and I was determined that every one should score a loud ‘YES’. If someone had given me a mark out of 10 it would probably have spurred me on. They came, they snored, and I felt as though I’d conquered even if I remained unmoved. I wanted to be the perfect package, tightly wrapped with an intricate bow. In the end someone had to tug on the end of the ribbon, forcing me to come undone and forget myself.
From the very beginning, before bed, I knew something was up. On our first date, I turned up armed with anecdotes, ready for a charm offensive. I didn’t know him well, but no matter what happened I was going to beguile his face off and laugh at his jokes until my jaw cramped. But he was so at ease with himself, and so genuinely interested in me that for the first time I stopped ‘working it’ and started living it instead. By the time we were ready to sleep together, I’d lost all self consciousness and wasn’t scheming about a way to wow him with my lack of gag reflex. I was just high on kissing him and wanted to see where that went. It turns out that when you stop bringing out your ‘moves’, you start having better orgasms.
Three years later, I love sex more than ever, and occasionally I do manage something clever with a suspender belt and candle wax. But most of the time it starts with a simple snog, a hand up a jumper, a fumble on the sofa, a ‘d’you fancy it’? Being a lazy shag means that I don’t approach sex with an agenda anymore. I don’t show off. I’m just happy to go with what feels good, and so is my boyfriend. We both read around the subject a lot (I will never stop being a nerd), and I periodically check in and ask if there’s anything new he’d like to try. However, as embarrassingly soppy as it sounds, he once told me that making me come is the biggest turn on of all. (Even after I’d said ‘No, honestly, are you sure you don’t want to have a go at anal? Or we could walk to the park and do it in a bush!’)
Every one of us has an infinite array of different sexual personalities, depending on who we’re with, and how we feel about ourselves. But when I met the love of my life, I realised that I suddenly knew that ‘lazy’ was my look - in the same way that I recently realised my asymmetric pleather skirt did not suit me, and I was born to dress boring, like Kate Middleton. Being a lazy lover means I’m no longer worrying about ‘being’ good in bed, because I’m too busy feeling good. Although I’m keen to keep an open mind. After all, I’ve almost got enough saved up for the stethoscope…
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Picture: Francesca Allen
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.