My friend Howard likes to be tied up. Or down. He explained, “I spend my days telling people what to do, and when I have sex, I don’t want to have to make any choices.” We were fond of each other, respected each other, but were ill-matched for romance. I haven’t seen him in quite a while.
How bizarre, I thought. If you met him in his role as owner of three companies – supervising construction sites, giving entrepreneurs business advice – millions of dollars riding on his conclusions – you would see him as competent, brilliant, responsible, aggressive. But in bed this man likes to meet the opposite of his public nature.
Maybe that is one function of bed.
Daniel is a lawyer, and lawyers are essentially passive. They wait for the phone to ring. They are slaves to other peoples’ schedules. Daniel is a slave. His time is never his own, he works six days a week, at least, takes maybe a week of vacation a year. Even lawyers who do take vacations get phone calls at their ritzy hotels, or on their Caribbean beaches. Slavery. In bed, Daniel is aggressive, dominating. Not cruel or hurtful, just dominant. He meets the opposite of his public nature in bed.
I was confused by the many men who seemed to take matters in hand, seemed almost macho, swept women, including me, off their feet, yet in our dating life were passive or passive-aggressive. Not only were they passive in bed, they also were slow to phone, slow to plan ahead, slow to reassure, afraid.
Thinking about Howard and Daniel made my life more simple and manageable. I’m no psychologist, but for my own peace of mind, I now expect Dr. Jekyll, or is it Mr. Hyde?