Sex in the Suburbs? (You Bet!)

Today I want to talk about sex in the suburbs. Now, hold that yawn! I know it’s fashionable in an outré kind of way to assume that married couples with kids have bad sex or no sex and that an article about “sex in the suburbs” would be very short if not nonexistent, something along the lines of the purely snow-white pages of The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro Agnew I spied in a head shop back in 1969.

My dear blog reader, such an assumption is very, very wrong.

But don’t take my word for it. Check out the essay of my friend Jane Black, who has just received her contributors' copies of Love in the Time of Colic: The New Parents’ Guide to Getting It On Again by Ian Kerner and “naughty mommy” Heidi Raykeil.

You may remember Jane’s excellent story “The Painter” from Clean Sheets and her eloquent report in support of my Oakland reading for X: The Erotic Treasury. Her essay, “S/M in the Suburbs” is yet another example of her fine writing. It's witty, honest, beautifully written and yes, surprisingly romantic. Although I’m but a dabbler in edgy eroticism (although inarguably hardcore when it comes to gingerbread houses), I recognize this sentiment very well:

“Playing out an S/M scene colors our relationship for days -- and sometimes weeks -- afterwards. The afterglow lasts much longer than it does with vanilla sex. We're more gentle with each other. We touch each other more. We laugh more. We're more patient with the kids.”

And kudos to Ian Kerner and Heidi Raykeil for having the guts to include this essay in a book that is obviously getting plenty of reads from Amazon-shopping suburbanites. (Check out my review of some of his earlier books).

You can read a slightly longer version of the print essay online over at Good Vibrations. A must for parents—and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the erotic mind.