Lately, the question of whether one would keep a sex diary has come up again and again in my circle of friends. Complex topic, because for me, there is a (sex) drought.
But it can be said: some keep their raunchy memories in inconspicuous notebooks, others have a neatly curated picture gallery in their smartphone. Regardless of whether you’re one of the writing and visual collectors, we all collect these kinds of experiences throughout our lives: funny, strange, intoxicating encounters that lodge themselves in our memories and, in some cases, still send a silent shiver down our spines to our sex organs years later.
The last time I kept such a diary was a while ago.
“I woke up today already with this tugging in my abdomen. My muscles are tight; I keep darting in front of the mirror, checking to see if my skin looks nice. My hair has enough volume to get tousled later in the heat of the moment.
He’s always late. The clock seems to stand still. In contrast, desire races in my head. I don’t really want to talk. I just want us to be close. For the few hours, we have left. He smells so good. I can’t think of anything else when I feel his warmth.
…we put the plates in the dishwasher, it’s dark outside, and the babble of voices from the Sonnenallee drifts quietly into the kitchen. It always goes the same: we fool around, then heated conversations about everyday things, and then – suddenly, his hands are everywhere. I’m addicted to this frenzy. As he presses me against the wall of the small kitchen, tears come to my eyes. And I know it’s just “this.” But that’s what I want right now.” (Summer 2020)
That was last summer. I get dizzy sometimes now, too. Dizziness seizes my body because I can imagine everything as if it were yesterday when I read my notes.
These notes are even much older:
“The Spanish guy who approached me yesterday in a club was just standing in front of our hotel tonight. He’s good-looking; everyone says so.
I think there’s something of a loyal golden retriever about the way he looks at me. We couldn’t really communicate very well. His English is so-so; I don’t speak a word of Spanish. A little tour on the motorcycle, that was all I could promise. On the back seat, you slide close to the driver because he is so crooked. The thought that what I’m doing seems a little unreasonable and maybe a little horny, I suppress. His skin is all heated up from the sun; his perfume mixes with deodorant and sweat. But I feel pretty cool. I can feel the tension in his upper body as I hold on because we’re turning corners fast. I think he works out a lot.
…The kiss is very gentle, almost hesitant. I am happy. In the arms of a man who is so terribly proud and whose name I will have forgotten in a few months. Being a teen is okay.” (Calella, 2009)
When I read the lines I wrote today (I skipped the more personal ones. since it’s still a Diary), I am glad that I am saving them from oblivion. I brought them out again when I recently read the passage in the book “The Mandarins of Paris” by Simone de Beauvoir, where Anne (the protagonist) visits her lover. Reading this passage, I was overcome by an irrepressible desire for sex, for touch. The mere fantasy that only reading can trigger is enough to make me remember that my body starves for new memories like these. Maybe my sex life is fallow; it is in a kind of drought phase. So I have resolved to struggle through this desert of writing down past encounters.
Artwork by @carabrock_
