A guy started chatting me up at a party. After a few minutes, he
peered closely at my ears. “Are those handcuff earrings?” (It was the
’80s, okay? Shut up.) When I confirmed that they were, and no, I wasn’t
just wearing them as a fashion statement, he shook his head
reproachfully. “That kinky shit—don’t you know that’ll
ruin you for regular sex?” I laughed. But in a way, he was right. Once
you’re used to kinky sex, it’s difficult to have strictly regular,
vanilla sex. I was reminded of that recently, because I tried.
Why was I having vanilla sex? Well, I went through a phase of
wanting to meet people from outside the kink community who didn’t know
me as “Mistress Matisse.” I just wondered what it would be like to date
without the backstory, as it were.
I went out with several pleasant, good-looking guys from a
social-networking site. I told them all, “I’m pretty kinky.” They all
replied, “That’s cool.” But the sex was all pretty unkinky—and
not terribly successful. I have skills and confidence in bed,
but I came away from those encounters thinking, “I do not understand
how to be sexual like this.”
Now, one can debate endlessly about what qualifies as kinky sex. But
I’ve figured out exactly what makes sex vanilla. The
defining feature of vanilla sex is this: You communicate about it using
only mental telepathy. Or so I’m forced to assume, because
nonkinky people don’t talk about fucking. Not before they fuck, and
definitely not while they’re fucking. With every kinky person I’ve ever
dated—which is a lot—there was some conversation about “So,
what are you into?” And during kinky sex, it’s normal to give overt
instructions: “Lick me there. Higher—yeah, like that!” Or ask questions: “Is that good? Faster
or slower?”
So the no-talking thing completely threw me. I’ve slept with men who
spoke no English whatsoever, and it felt not unlike that. But at least
those guys knew we were working with a handicap. The vanilla
guys all seemed to assume there was a default pattern of how sex should
happen, and discussion was neither necessary nor desirable. I was
consciously trying to do as the Romans do, so when my pre-sex
conversational forays didn’t fly, I didn’t push it.
But if I ever had default settings for sex, they’re gone. At a
certain point, I decided, “To hell with it,” and I just started
talking. Some of the vanilla guys proved open to direction, but
initially, they all acted startled—and not particularly
pleased—by my deviation from standard operating procedure.
They even seemed uneasy about what I thought was pretty-basic porn
talk. And one of them remarked, “You move too much.”
Apparently, that kinky shit made me forget I’m supposed to lie
still and be quiet. If that’s the regular sex I’m ruined for, then
color me happily spoiled. 
handmaid99 (@51):
I think most of us agree that MM is probably ruined for vanilla sex. We just don’t trust her proffered reason for being ruined; lack of communication.
In contrast to MM, you state that you find the act(s) of vanilla sex boring “regardless of how much one communicates or not.” You just happen to find kinky sex way more exciting than vanilla sex. MM probably feels the same way but just didn’t say so because by itself, this would not have made for an interesting column.
That doesn’t sound vanilla, that sounds crappy.
I’m a pretty vanilla person: I’m flexible and GGG and I’ve been in some pretty kinky relationships, but at the end of the day I just want to get fucked.
In any case, the closest I’ve come to that level of non-communication — and that level of feeling as if my attempts at communicating were causing discomfort to my partner — as a full-grown adult was a fling with a lifestyle dom.
It seems like a lot of folks here are equating “communication” with “noise.” Now, granted, I like screaming, crying, giggling, and yelping as much as the next gal (provided the next gal is a bonobo chimp with a flair for drama), but I do think one of the very specific communication things I’ve gotten from kinky relationships *is* the specificity. After a first time with someone new rather than saying, “That was great!” I tend to say, “That was awesome, but I’m kinda curious. You seem to do this slight hesitation with a kind of blank expression right before you come. Now, is that because you’re trying to hold back or just how you are? Is the blank expression actually preorgasmic? Orgasmic? Just curious. Oh, and when you had my leg up over my head? That was awesome, let’s try that with anal next time, kay?” The guy with the slightly weird orgasm pattern had never had anyone ask him about it before, but once I explained what I meant, he thought about it and realized that he does tend to hold back to intensify his experience. That was a useful thing for me to know, and to be able to use with him next time. Surely I wasn’t the first girl who had ever noticed, just the first who was curious enough to ask, I guess.
And those of you who suggest that maybe Matisse “try vanilla sex with Max or Monk” are, surely, joking. She writes frequently about how just because you’re a kinky person doesn’t mean every interaction has to be kinky. If you’re a kinky person, plain old missionary position with the door locked and the lights off is kinky. No, really. Try it as part of a rape/abduction mindfuck and suddenly a “vanilla” act feels really filthy.
So now you perverts are trying to take the missionary position away from us? Is nothing sacred?
The first guy who ever talked dirty to me during sex has become the love of my life… it was a revelation. I’m not sure quite how kinky we are… probably pretty borderline… but this article made me laugh regardless, because I still remember the shock of experiencing it, compared with the ‘silent vanilla’ I’d had before. Several years on it’s still a turn-on to me to be having directional, intimate conversations during sex. I remember reading a comment from Dan Savage once where he said something like ‘ask questions and expect answers, you’re not in a library!’ So true…
I think we need to move the bar, here. If a guy is silent, doesn’t like to talk about (or during) the act, and certianly if he thinks you “move too much” … it’s not that this guy is vanilla, it’s that he’s BAD IN BED.
Shouldn’t there be higher expectations? Should this sort of behavior be rewarded? I don’t even consider myself all that kinky, but damn sure sex should be talked about, or else why do you even need to involve another person?
This goes for women, too… I had one girl I really liked who would just lay there. I constantly asked her what she might like more, she just shrugged and said she liked the intensity of it. First of all, that response didn’t even make any sense…. and second, I was like, WHAT intensity? We didn’t last long, though I’m still friends with her– and her boyfriends in subsequent years never seemed unhappy.
Maybe I’m a kinky bastard after all? Oh the twisted hedonistic horror of reverse cowgirl…
I think we need to move the bar, here. If a guy is silent, doesn’t like to talk about (or during) the act, and certianly if he thinks you “move too much” … it’s not that this guy is vanilla, it’s that he’s BAD IN BED.
Shouldn’t there be higher expectations? Should this sort of behavior be rewarded? I don’t even consider myself all that kinky, but damn sure sex should be talked about, or else why do you even need to involve another person?
This goes for women, too… I had one girl I really liked who would just lay there. I constantly asked her what she might like more, she just shrugged and said she liked the intensity of it. First of all, that response didn’t even make any sense…. and second, I was like, WHAT intensity? We didn’t last long, though I’m still friends with her– and her boyfriends in subsequent years never seemed unhappy.
Maybe I’m a kinky bastard after all? Oh the twisted hedonistic horror of reverse cowgirl…
Kinky is a state of mind. Once someone starts talking about sex, reading about sex, and trying new things – once someone actually starts becoming “good in bed” – they’re no longer “vanilla”.
“Kinky” and “vanilla” don’t refer to specific sex acts, they refer to states of mind. And this post spells that out very well. I’ll be sending people to this post for a long time.
@59 J222:
It sounds like you are saying that MM is really saying: “Actually folks, a lot of people who regard themselves as vanilla are actually kind of kinky because they communicate about sex, even if their sex acts do not involve power games, ropes or toys.”
It is far from spelled out very well that this is where MM was going.
I think it’s pretty close-minded to say that vanilla sex = non-communication. Maybe you were with the wrong vanilla boys. I wouldn’t consider myself very kinky or vanilla…maybe somewhere in the middle…but there’s definitely a lot of communication, movement, excitement and noise in the sex I have.
Did I actually use the word “actually” twice in one sentence? Lame.
nothing personal, but if I were having sex with Kungfujew, I would prefer silence. Talking about sex in the middle of the act requires a certain tone that I don’t think kungfu is capable of.
@63:
I talk during sex all the time. My most frequent line is: “Yes, it’s in. Why do you ask?”
@13 I totally agree with you, not ALL vanilla sex is boring and lacking communication, I’d also chalk it up to uncaring bad lovers!
Hahahaha @ 55 thanks for a good chuckle!
Just a note.
I’m over 70 and i love and admire a woman of any age who will admit she likes/loves sex. But sex is something to be enjoyed by both partners.
In order to receive the pleasure we’re seeking, sometimes direction is needed in order to produce the desired effect. I feel there is nothing wrong for either partner to coach, encourage or direct in order to get the job done to the satisfactin of both.
I assume the people who responded “my partner and I have mind blowing sex for years and are exclusively vanilla” win some sort of prize? Fantastic, how nice for you. I thought that some of MM’s story was meant to be wry and funny. To suggest that she shouldn’t draw conclusions based on a handful of fucks assumes this topic is so important to her that she should do a scientific sampling of at least 1 percent of the entire vanilla male populous before making such spurious statements. Uh, again, I think she was just making a somewhat humorous observation about a few experiences. And, dollars to doughnuts, I’m betting half the people suggesting she just encountered the wrong vanilla partners would merit their own wry comments if personally experienced.
Who among us wouldn’t merit a wry comment or two? (Except you, of course, Jaguar.)
If you have sex with men who are boring out of bed, it will be boring sex. Sex with clever, witty people who make you laugh is much more fun, matching kinks or no . . .
hey, i’m a straight female, and usually don’t get too deep into kinky stuff. i like it a little rough [bites, etc.] and like to be held down or tied at times. but it isn’t often and now its pretty rare since my boy seems to like it [and gets me to like it] with no kink and just passion.
but, although my boy isn’t kinky at all he loves it when i “move around” and whenever we have sex he talks to me and asks me where he should what, if it feels right, if i want to change position, etc. to be honest i get way more hot and bothered when he talks to me. WAY more. i couldn’t imagine being still and silent in bed anymore. it would make me feel like there was something wrong. or just… cold in a way.
i hope that if you try “vanilla” again you’ll find someone who isn’t boring in bed.
Based on my experience of cultural expectations about sex, versus reality:
Ordinary, “romantic,” vanilla sex is not supposed to need communication–things just fall together and work out perfectly with no work at all, because you’re “soul mates,” you just have that “special connection.” There’s also an expectation that women have sex in order to be emotionally intimate with their partner, not in order to get off, so they don’t really have likes and dislikes, they’re only fucking to please. Men are assumed to have sex just to get off, and only communicate or use romance to get to the end goal of sticking it in. So this cultural assumptive view is both incredibly ridiculously idealized, and horribly cynical.
In reality, these assumptions can be downright dangerous. I know a handful of women who have been raped because they didn’t know that if they’re not in the mood, they can say no, and their boyfriends didn’t know that trying something and seeing if the girl says “no” is not, actually, a fair way of gauging interest in a sex act. Since women are not supposed to really want sex or be active in it, and no one’s supposed to talk about it because it should just magically work, these assumptions lead to an atmosphere in which abuse is easy and unchecked.
Of course, kinky sex has abuse potential too, and a lot of potential for danger. But at least in the community, safety, saneness, and consent are highly valued, and along with these comes a deep need and value for useful communication. Bad kinky sex is definitely possible, but this framework of communication in safely-done kink does seem to limit that possibility.
Me? I’m pretty vanilla, especially compared to the illustrious Mistress, but I admire this aspect of kink and I try to apply it in my vanilla experience. *shrug* take it or leave it.
does anyone else think that @50 might be one of the boring vanilla guys MM slept with?
@72 I have tremendous empathy for people who feel violated, but people who don’t attempt to express their refusal (unless they’re incapacitated/drugged) should not be called rape victims.
Because I’d want to be supportive, I wouldn’t say this to someone working through such an experience unless they were pressing charges, but I say it as often as I can in less charged sex conversations– we HAVE to draw a line in defining something that can get a person imprisoned/ostracized, and “let my partner think it was ok” is surely one such line.