By:
In: Communication

Lion and I are trying to figure out our shit, for lack of a better word. He needs X and I need Z. How do we get to Y? Adulting is hard. We’ll work it out. One of Lion’s issues is that he says he can’t roll over on his left side to face me. I told him there have been many nights I’ve rolled over and been face to face with him. It happened again last night. It made me smile. I guess he can’t feel the pain in his sleep.

[Lion — Sometimes my shoulders hurt. Last night it was more comfortable on my left side. I don’t understand the sexual/romantic value of lying on my side.] [Mrs. Lion — I thought we could kiss more easily.]

I think I just have to find a way to deal with the stress of doing most things around the house myself and trying to get the psycho dog to behave herself. Even if I don’t have a sinus headache or pain, I’m still dealing with stress. It’s not so much that I have to do the things. It’s how I deal with them. I allow myself to get frustrated. It is what it is. Just do it. What other inane sayings can I come up with?

A long time ago, I used to say I needed to punch a tree. I haven’t actually felt that way in a while, but I think it’s still fitting. I need an outlet. And, no, it won’t be Lion’s butt. I’m not going to wale away on his buns when I’m very upset. First of all, if I’m not frustrated with him, it’s not fair to whomp him. Second, even if I am frustrated with him, I’m not going to allow myself to get out of control whomping him. For years I’ve said I need a punching bag. Again, not Lion. A batting cage in the backyard would allow me to smack baseballs and maybe give the dog something to do with her energy so she’s not jumping on us. Win-win. I’ll have to figure out some cheaper alternatives.

I’m coming at this from my side of things because, despite women’s best efforts, you can’t change men. I’m not saying Lion can’t change himself. Maybe there are things he can do to make things better. As much as he thinks I’m in control, ultimately he’s one of the things I can’t control.

Okay. The huddle is over. Everyone knows the play. Break.

By:
In: Communication, Sex

In her post yesterday, “Turn to Page 48“, Mrs. Lion wrote about our lack of physical communication. I’ve been feeling it as well. We face some challenges. There are two important issues: Mrs. Lion doesn’t want sex, and I have limited ability to move. The first one causes me the most trouble. I admit it. I’ve never been any good at initiating, but I was good at responding.

The way I have always responded to sexual stimulation is to reciprocate. That’s difficult when my mate doesn’t want sex. Mrs. Lion mentioned that I could react in other ways. I will try to make more noise. I’ve always been very quiet until when I started to come. I’ll work on being more expressive. I can’t initiate if I have nothing to initiate. For some reason, I can’t seem to communicate that to my lioness. If there is something I can do, she needs to tell me.

The second issue gets in our way. I am not as flexible as I was before my spinal surgery. I have limited use of my arms. Mrs. Lion has gained some weight, and it is difficult for her to roll on her side to snuggle. The combination of these issues makes intimacy very difficult. In the old days, she would lie on her side with her head on my chest. My left arm would be under her and my right touching her. She would use her free hand to play with my penis.

I can barely get my left arm under her. It isn’t her fault. I tore that rotator cuff, and it gets very painful to extend my arm under her for long. My right arm also has limited ability. I would very much like to find a way to pet her actively. I would also love to be able to arouse her.

The way I see it, there is no way for me to start sexual activity. How do I initiate one-way sex for myself? Do I start masturbating? Do I beg for sex? No, I can’t do that. What can I do? I didn’t start the football game on Monday because I figured Mrs. Lion would want to do sexual stuff first. I knew that it would be over two hours before the next window for sex once we started watching.

I’m starting to think that there is no workable solution for sex when only one of us wants it. No matter how you look at it, any approach we make is going to feel unnatural. As I’ve written many times before, there is a critical gap. I want sex for me. Mrs. Lion doesn’t want it for her. If she also wants it, she would have a hormonal alarm clock that would incentivize sexual activity. Without it, there is no incentive.

Worse yet, the most obvious way I could ask for sex is gone. Even though initiating sex is almost impossible for me, I could still make some moves that I wanted sex. I could turn her on by petting her. I’ve tried that a bunch of times. Mrs. Lion doesn’t react. Why should she? She doesn’t want sex. I figured that if I did it anyway, maybe that would signal my desire for attention. I’m not crazy about signaling interest.

Aside from my problems with getting things started–I find if my partner makes the first move–I feel very guilty about burdening Mrs. Lion with the chore of giving me sex. I feel dependent. I’m not her partner. I’m her sexual charity. BDSM and sex are only fun when both people are having a good time. I’ve spent years suggesting BDSM activities that Mrs. Lion might enjoy. So far, the best review I have gotten for my effort when I ask if something is fun is, “It’s OK.”

I know she likes catching me breaking a rule. Mrs. Lion loves games. Unfortunately, she isn’t inclined to make new rules. There’s almost nothing she can catch me doing. Apparently, Spankardy isn’t fun for her. I figured that if I could help her find sexual activities that are fun for her, she would want to do them, and sex for me would go from a chore to fun.

It’s clear I’ve failed. Maybe we need to reconsider what we do.

By:
In: Communication

Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing. Sometimes I have no idea what Lion wants. When those two things overlap, I’m in trouble. I was thinking about this last night when things didn’t go as planned, again.

For some reason, Lion didn’t put the football game on right away. We had plans to eat our leftover Olive Garden food. I stopped on the way home to get salad stuff. I made the salad, heated the leftovers, and he didn’t turn the game on until I asked. Apparently, we got our signals crossed. Ridiculous, I know. We’re always on the same page, especially lately. (She says sarcastically.)

It was late when the game was done. I told Lion I’d wait till we were done playing to take a shower. At halftime, I’d tried to insert the nJoy butt plug. It hurt too much to go in. We haven’t done butt stuff for a while, so that seemed reasonable. When I started snuggling, he said he didn’t think we were going to get very far. It was late. Okay. We just watched our team lose a game they could have won, so I understood. I went off to do the dishes and take a shower.

I started thinking about Lion’s post for this morning. He says I don’t give him attention because I don’t want attention for myself. That may be part of it. Another part of it is that he doesn’t seem to participate when I do give him attention. Huh? He gets an erection. He (sometimes) gets to the edge. He has orgasms. What more do I want? How is he not participating? Sheesh!

I’ve said before how his reactions to me are similar to the wife who just lays there and lets the husband do his thing and get it over with. I mean, I know he’s aroused. It’s difficult to hide an erection. But unless I ask if he likes a certain thing, I don’t know. Occasionally I get a purr or an “oh.” Generally, it’s radio silence. I’m not sure I was ever all that vocal either, but I did try to touch him to let him know I was alive and well. If he were licking me, I’d run my hands through his hair or grab his arm.

Even when we snuggle, I don’t get much. Aside from the fact that I’m leaning against him, he doesn’t do anything to touch me. I know he wouldn’t try to turn me on, but some encouragement would be nice. He never was good at initiating, and now that I don’t want sex, coupled with the fact that I’m in charge and he doesn’t feel like he should initiate, it’s all left up to me.

As I’m thinking about last night, I realize that maybe he wasn’t putting the game on because he wanted to play before we watched. Maybe he thought we’d pause the game at some point. How would I know what he was thinking? Yes, he’s said we could pause the TV any time I want. But at that moment, last night, how would I know that’s what he was thinking? He says he doesn’t initiate because he doesn’t want to be turned down. He’s turned me down from time to time. How is that different? Even back when I still wanted sex, he’d turn me down sometimes. You can’t always expect to be on the same page. We don’t even seem to be in the same chapter. Sometimes, not even the same book.

By:
In: BDSM, Sex

I am not complaining. Really, I’m not. Sex and BDSM play have returned to last place in our schedules. It isn’t intentional. Changing weather gives Mrs. Lion painful sinus headaches. A dinner out leaves us too full. Work and the dog were too stressful. Lots of reasons. I get it. Now, sitting here on Monday afternoon, it occurs to me that we have just been together from 1 PM on Friday until Mrs. Lion left for work this morning. We had plenty of downtime over the weekend. We only went out once. That was for dinner on Sunday night.

I know that Mrs. Lion didn’t have a headache all weekend. She did some chores on Sunday afternoon and watched the Seahawk football game with me. Couldn’t we have done some play during the afternoon on Friday, all day Saturday, or Sunday morning and early afternoon? We could. It’s the same old problem. I’m the only one who wants sex, and I can’t demand action. This is the big drawback of one-sided sex. It isn’t that Mrs. Lion doesn’t want to do something with me. It’s just not a priority.

Her solution, as she wrote in her post, “Warm Lion,” was to avoid promising to do anything from chores to sex. That way, she reasoned, she wouldn’t feel bad about failing to complete her to-do list. Did it work? It might have for her, not so much for me.

You may have noticed that I’m no longer advertising my book. I’ve decided to take it out of publication. The self-publishing route isn’t working for me. I plan to rewrite it and try to sell it to an agent. Either people who read sex blogs don’t read non-porn by bloggers, or the book isn’t appealing. Either way, it’s out of print. By the way, we have a link to our podcast. These are free audio versions of our posts. It has a modest following. I am considering taking that offline too. We can afford to keep up the blog, but the frill of a podcast may end up costing too much.

That’s the news for now. Have a great day!