Sex/Life is a series all about the secret sexy business of couples, throuples, exes who still fuck for some reason, LDR darlings, polycules, and any other kind of amorous grouping your perfect heart can fathom. We send them nosey questions, they record themselves answering them, and we transcribe that conversation for all of us to enjoy. All names have been changed and any identifying details removed.
Violet is 38 and Taylor is 31 – they’ve been together for 3.5 years, married for 1.5, and currently live together in a house in New England. They both work in tech sales and are passionate about television and their dogs.
And this is how they fuck.
Taylor: Are you nervous?
Violet: Yeah.
Taylor: Don’t be nervous.
Violet: I’m always nervous.
Taylor: I love that about you. Okay.
What was your sex life like when you first started dating, and how was that different from now?
Taylor: Well, I cried a lot.
Violet: You did cry a lot.
Taylor: Yeah.
Violet: It wasn’t because you were hurt or anything like that.
Taylor: No.
Violet: I think that, well— maybe you were internally.
Taylor: No, it was more the trauma, baby, because of my upbringing in the evangelical church, and purity culture, and all of that shit, plus a previous relationship had made it so that I was not… I wasn’t ready to receive it. I felt guilty receiving, and that’s where my crying came from and why you were…
Violet: I’m crying right now! I would stop and hold you every time. I just want that to be clear. I didn’t just keep going.
Taylor: No, you did not. In fact, I was the one that begged you to have sex with me the first time that we had sex, as I was enthusiastically consenting. I don’t cry anymore, unless it’s from joy.
Violet: Yeah, and it’s beautiful. I love that. What else is different? We live in a home that we bought together.
Taylor: We do, so we don’t have to be quiet anymore.
Violet: That’s true.
Taylor: We used a lot of different toys in the beginning, and I think that was because I personally had a lot of toys that I wanted to share with you to be like, “Is this cool?” You had one purple that would—
Violet: It was pink.
Taylor: Oh, and it would die halfway every time.
Violet: She was a trooper.
Taylor: It really depends on your definition of sex too, and in queer spaces we’re always redefining what sex means. The first time that we were intimate with each other was over the phone, because our relationship was long distance for ten days, which was excruciating.
Violet: Well we met each other prior to that—
Taylor: Yeah, we had a first date, and then I immediately got on a plane and went to my parents’ across the country for ten days.
Violet: Yeah.
Taylor: That meant we were already hooked and we were FaceTiming for three hours every day, but we were having FaceTime sex before we had “real” in-person sex, I should say. Do you wanna talk about being demisexual? And what that meant for you at the beginning of our relationship?
Violet: I just need to have to have feelings for a person before I want to have sex with them.
Taylor: I was away for a second so we were able get to know each other. Such a lesbian timeline! Ten days! But it’s Autostraddle, so everyone understands.
If you live together, how long into the relationship did you make this decision, and how has living together impacted your sex life?
Taylor: Immediately, essentially.
Violet: No! Babe, come on.
Taylor: Well, we were spending more time in sleepovers than apart pretty immediately.
Violet: We didn’t live together until we moved into [redacted] together.
Taylor: No, I was full-time living at your apartment in February when we got together in November. I remember making that decision, like, “I don’t want to pack a bag anymore.”
Violet: Then I moved into your place that you lived in. Officially. In June.
Taylor: That’s just like apartment leases.
Violet: Man….
Taylor: We functionally lived together.
Violet: Man, what is wrong with lesbians?
Taylor: [goofy voice] What’s the deal?
Violet & Taylor: [goofy voice, altogether] What’s the deal with lesbians?
Taylor: … Okay so we functionally lived together essentially immediately, which meant we got to have more sex. That’s how it affected our sex life.
Violet: Beautiful!
If you are parents or caretakers, how has this impacted your sex life?
Taylor: We have dogs that love to get up in our business.
Violet: Don’t say that! Don’t say “business” like that ever again! Just say, “we have dogs.”
Taylor: Business.
Violet: Some of them like to snuggle in weird places, and some of them like to just be bosses of us, and it’s pretty bad, actually. One of them’s in between us right now.
Taylor: Yeah, post-coital, like coming to you live post-coital.
Violet: It’s true. It’s true.
Taylor: We used to have three dogs. Our eldest passed away a few months ago, but they’ve always been a big part of our life. They all sleep on the bed with us. That’s why we have a Cal king. It’s just kind of like, we don’t kick them out for sex—
Violet: No, but they know where they should be on the ground.
Taylor: Yeah, they know when something’s going down and they need to give us some space.
Violet: They’re classy.
Taylor: Or horrified. One of those, classy or horrified.
Do you have a top-bottom dynamic? Talk about that.
Violet: Oh, we’re a bunch of switches.
Taylor: We both identify as switches. Yeah.
Violet: I love that about us.
Taylor: I do too, and I think it plays with gender as well, where there’s traditional masculine and feminine roles tied to top and bottom, and we so fluidly go back and forth within the same sexual session. You know what I mean? It’s not, “Okay, you’re the top tonight.”
Violet: In one session we can be two totally different people and that’s beautiful, we understand one another, but I love when I’m able to call you Daddy, and then also in the same session— we don’t call it sessions, but whatever.
Taylor: I don’t know what else to call it.
Violet: Same. Anyhow in the same, whatever, I ask if you like to feel my cock in your mouth.
Taylor: Yeah. I think even tonight, you said, “Is this your pussy or your cock,” or something to that effect.
Violet: I think I asked one of those, and then you responded with, “No, it’s this,” and then I switched it up.
Taylor: Yeah.
Violet: It feels so good doing that.
Taylor: It feels really good.
Violet: I love doing that.
Taylor: I feel really comfortable with you, and exploring all the different facets of our identities together.
Violet: I do too!
Do you feel like your sex drives are well-matched?
Violet: I feel like they are.
Taylor: There are times where one of us is tired and the other is not, but that’s showbiz!
Violet: We have fun.
Taylor: I feel like I am easily turned on when you’re feeling it, unless I’m fucking exhausted, but I feel like that’s pretty rare these days.
Violet: Yeah. If you’re exhausted, you’re done. Yeah, you don’t want it.
Taylor: If I have the energy, if you’re initiating, I am pretty immediately responding. I feel like we’re so in sync.
Are there specific things you like to do during sex and things you don’t like to do?
Violet: I like doing everything with you.
Taylor: Yeah. Nothing’s really off limits.
Violet: I love everything about it.
Taylor: Yeah. We’re always trying, willing to try new things if we found — [pauses, gets serious], Like, OKAY, this sounds crazy — [starts laughing]
Violet: What is it?
Taylor: It’s not bloodletting, but bloodlining…?
Violet: Baby, what!!?
Taylor: My friend was telling me.
Violet: Who?
Taylor: My internet friend.
Violet: Okay. Your internet friend.
Taylor: [Redacted], but don’t say [redacted]’s name, but they got a tattoo gun set and they’re practicing…
Violet: Baby, I don’t want to play this game!
Taylor: What game?
Violet: I don’t know. Something about bloodletting?
Taylor: No, it’s not bloodletting! but let me finish. I think it’d be like — you know, the feeling of getting a tattoo?
Long pause.
Violet: Yes, I do.
Laughter.
Taylor: We could have that at home!
Violet: Keep going.
Taylor: It’s okay.
Violet: Bloodletting!
Taylor: You’re using water!
Violet: All right, let’s keep going. Just keep going.
Taylor: Okay next question is—
What are some things you’d like to try or try again?
Violet: Oh, Jesus Christ.
Taylor: You use water rather than ink! It’s like blood and then it just — it heals because it’s just like —cutting your skin?
Pause
Taylor: Okay, you’re telling me no. Are there other things you’d like to try?
Violet: Wait, why do you want to do that?
Taylor: I think it’s just something crazy that might be of interest. You practice on a little pad first! You don’t just go on somebody’s skin.
Violet: Wait, so you’re saying that you’re going to do this on my skin?
Taylor: Well, no. Maybe you do it on mine.
Violet: With a tattoo gun?
Taylor: Yeah. Then it heals within a couple of days. It’s like a hickey.
Violet: I love you.
Taylor: That’s my best description of it. It’s like a hickey. Just consider it.
Violet: Okay. I absolutely will.
Taylor: Are there other things that you would like to try or try again?
Violet: Just always having sex in public-ish areas, not public, but I wouldn’t want people to discover it, but in areas that are considered public.
Taylor: Can you give an example?
Violet: Yeah, like a vehicle at night, or down a hallway that nobody’s going to be going into. I have no idea.
Taylor: Yeah, no, I was thinking about that this morning, actually, of places where you could potentially get caught. I don’t know, that adrenaline rush is of interest to me. We haven’t done straps in a while, strapping me to the bed, but that’s always a good time.
Violet: Oh, you love that.
Taylor: Blindfolded? Count me the fuck in.
How important are orgasms to your sex life?
Taylor: I feel like I can pretty reliably orgasm and squirt if given the right kind of toy. The Satisfier Pro II, actually, we call her MVP in our home.
Violet: Are you trying to endorse this?
Taylor: I may or may not receive commission from this link.
Violet: You don’t receive any commission from that.
Taylor: It’s true. I don’t even know if they sell it anymore, but anyway, I don’t need to orgasm, but it’s like, if I’m bringing a toy to the equation, then it’s going to happen. Whereas for you, it’s very different, I feel.
Violet: Why?
Taylor: Well, you don’t orgasm or try to orgasm as much as I do.
Violet: Maybe, but I think that whenever you’re orgasming, or not even that, but feeling pleasure, I get so turned on, and that does it for me.
Taylor: You don’t feel the need to orgasm because —
Violet: I do most of the time, by the way.
Taylor: You do?
Violet: Yeah.
Taylor: Wow. Without any assistance?
Violet: Well, I’m thrusting usually.
Taylor: I didn’t know that.
Violet: I’m using my fingers too.
Taylor: Did you come tonight?
Violet: No, I didn’t, because we’re in a small bed tonight. Are they going to listen to all of this, babe?
Taylor: Yeah.
Violet: I don’t think they are.
What role does masturbation play in your sex life?
Taylor: When we were away last week and I got back to the hotel room, and you said like—
Violet: Oh my god, I masturbated so much. Yes, and then I got the flu.
Taylor: Okay. That’s not relevant.
Violet: I’ll never do it again, but yeah.
Taylor: No, but that’s very hot to me. Not the flu, but it’s very hot to me that you were alone in the hotel room, getting off while I was at work.
Violet: Yeah, I was getting off. Well, yeah, I was working too, but from the office. Yeah, I definitely… I don’t know. I went on a binge. I need to come every other hour. It was weird.
Taylor: That’s beautiful.
Violet: Thank you.
Taylor: It’s also, there are probably some people who like to come in other… Well, I feel like our go-to rhythm is sex of whatever it is, and then ending with a side-by-side masturbating.
Violet: Yeah.
Taylor: Sometimes we’ll try and plan it to come together by doing a countdown. That’s a fun time.
Violet: Oh, I love that.
Taylor: Yeah, me too.
Tell us about your favorite or most memorable time you’ve had sex together.
Violet: I have it!
Taylor: What if it’s the same?
Violet: I don’t think it’s the same.
Taylor: No?
Violet: I know what mine is.
Taylor: Okay.
Violet: I can write it down if you’d like.
Taylor: We can just say it.
Violet: Trust me.
Taylor: Mine is Santorini, on our honeymoon, when we had a personal hot tub in our…
Violet: Oh, my God.
Taylor: … area.
Violet: Maybe that is the one, actually.
Taylor: Yeah, that’s where I fucked you in the ass for the first time.
Violet: Oh, my God. Yeah.
Taylor: That is a semi-public place to me, but it was completely secluded.
Violet: Yeah, nobody was out there.
Taylor: Because we were outside.
Violet: We were facing the ocean.
Taylor: That was very hot.
Violet: Oh, my god. Yeah. That’s mine as well.
Taylor: What else were you going to say?
Violet: I was just thinking about the strap-on in the tiny house that we’re in, and your back was right up against me and I was just like, “Oh, my God,” but Santorini. Yeah, Santorini was…
Taylor: That’s good too.
Violet: I know, but you were like, “Oh, my God, this feels so good.” I was like, “Ugh. Finally.”
Taylor: I hadn’t found a dildo that fit me.
Violet: Yeah, you didn’t like any of the ones that we had. Then you were like, “This feels amazing.” The way you were just riding it was, I think about it often, but I also think about Santorini, so I don’t know.
Taylor: Well, that’s the last question.
Violet: Yeah.
Taylor: What have you learned from this activity?
Violet: I like having sex with you. I love it, and I want to have more.
Taylor: Me too. For the rest of our lives.
Violet: Yay.
Taylor: That sounds incredible.
Violet: All right, let’s do it.
Taylor: Let’s do it right now. Okay, bye.
Violet: Bye.
