SEX ACCORDING TO MAÏA
Are you more dominant or submissive? Clitoral or vaginal? Top, bottom, agnostic? Are you attracted to your partners’ physical beauty or their intelligence? Every summer we are bombarded with these kinds of questionnaires, which are always more creative in their compartmentalization. The promise is simple: get to know yourself better. But not many people warn us against the risk of locking ourselves into ever narrower and more rigid identities.
The paradox, however, is that we all experience moments when our sexuality becomes undefined. After forty years of heterosexuality, some mothers find happiness in the arms of a woman. After the fourth Spritz, some dominant men end up on all fours. After two sleepless nights, sex addicts prefer chamomile to sex. Sometimes a one-night stand reveals the orgasmic potential of our breasts, erotic dreams bring out a new facet of pleasure, sadomasochism tested. “just for fun” becomes a religion.
These surprises happen to thousands of people every day. To the point that if we were to add up all the exceptions, all the altered states of consciousness, all the influences, all the surprises, the idea of a sexual “essence” would collapse. Nor is it unusual that by accumulating side steps, our preferences end up turning like a pancake. White geese become formidable dominatrices, compulsives line up: never say never.
Fanatics of self-definition
If we were reasonable, we would leave ourselves a little room to maneuver when it comes to defining ourselves. It’s not that we should throw away all labels; it’s perfectly true that identities like “asexual” or “queer” allow us to better understand ourselves and each other. DO understanding and creating useful communities to resist discrimination… but this is less true for the “cougar” or the “shibari” (rope follower). As we dig deeper, sexual diagnosis tends to become more nuanced. Contingencies appear. Contradictions pile up. Preference becomes a hasty simplification of desire and, after years or decades of being a couple, can even begin to feel like a cage.
It must be said that once one has communicated one’s inclinations to the persons concerned, it is very difficult to go back. This is quite normal. It is so embarrassing to verbalize one’s own secrets that one rarely dwells on the twists and turns of pleasure… especially since, on the pillow, in a hurry, it is difficult to imagine launching into an exhaustive lecture (“I like the feel of wooden sex toys, especially oak or maple, except on Tuesdays and until further notice”).
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