Sex Talk: Don’t get too carried away 

I am all for breaking monotony and routine, but hey, not everything you hear/read about is for you. Run everything by your spouse first.

If your spouse is not into using sex toys, could you drop the idea already?

And just because you have seen heterosexual couples discussing anal sex online does not mean you come home and flip your wife over to “try something”.

I am starting to think that many married people are closeted homosexuals that have found holy matrimony to be the perfect place to hide in a homophobic country like ours, because no one can look there.

Why else are marriage counsellors in all faiths, religions and beyond receiving teary wives on the verge of throwing in the towel, because their husbands are only interested in ‘that outlet’ during sex?

I first heard this from a Muslim friend who at the time ran a religious-based counselling service. She was appalled by the number of married women who came to her asking what to do about their husbands who seemed more sexually fascinated by their wives’ rectums than the vaginas.

More recently, a church-based counsellor expressed that very same concern from her clients. What exactly is going on?
Wives are silently walking out of marriages and refusing to talk about why they left, or about reconciliation. But when you dig deep, you will find a husband that tried to hide something else behind his wife.

And it is not limited to husbands; marriages are increasingly a hiding place for sides a spouse may not want the public to see. That way, one carries on elsewhere without suspicion. A couple of years ago, one wife told me her close friend – also married with children – came to visit and share about their struggling marriages as usual.

When the hostess poured out her heart to the visitor about how unhappy her marriage had become, the visitor went from concerned friend to seductive temptress, touching her hostess in inappropriate ways.

When the hostess protested and rebuked her guest, the other wife asked her why she did not get on board; that many corporate wives in Kampala stuck in unhappy marriages were satisfying one another sexually in lesbian arrangements. That way, she reportedly divulged, they could stomach their errant husbands’ bad habits and stay put for the sake of their children.

That was the end of that friendship, and it changed how the seduced wife deals with her girlfriends, going forward. And the husbands are blissfully ignorant about what is happening, although their lesbian-wives are reportedly no longer interested in sex with them.

It is really unfair to loop your spouse into something they are not, just because you want it. Even for simple changes and experiments that go outside what you usually do in your marital bed as a couple, it makes things easier and more enjoyable if you talk each other through them first.

Don’t just swoop in like an alter ego after ten years of marriage and start installing swings, harnesses, handcuffs and whips, just because you read about bondage, dominance and sadomasochism somewhere.

First discuss all fundamental changes in how you now want to approach sex; otherwise, you could be rewarded with a divorce for all your concerted efforts.

carol@observer.ug