On Being Partnerless - Nenah Sylver, PhD - Rife Frequency Therapy Healing Specialist and Author

When Even Being Bi Doesn’t Help:
On Being Partnerless and Needing It

© 1997 by Nenah Sylver

I am partnerless, which in itself is no crime. But when you have a libido that runs high (the kind of starvation that midnight pizza and chocolates can’t subdue), and it’s Saturday night and you don’t have anyone to cuddle up with and fondle, that’s criminal.

I live in a large city, overflowing with bustling traffic and too many people. Yet when I want adequate sex, suddenly this is a ghost town. Most of the male friends I consider attractive, desirable, interesting—in other words, compatible—are in non-open marriages, living in another state, busy looking after too many children or simply "not home" when I phone. My straight women friends have no intention of exploring their latent homosexual drives, even though they complain to me about precisely the same lack of sexually available men in their own lives. And all the lesbians I’d want to know better are already partnered (and strictly monogamous).

What’s a healthy, intelligent, vital woman with an escalating sexual appetite to do in a city full of menus but no food?

I leaf idly through my address book, remembering Andrew. Should I break down and call him? Better not. Despite not having had sex with his wife in over three years, a week after he and I had sort of made love in a forest—he with a runny nose and I with a head full of twigs and dirt—he decided to call the whole thing off.

"Why?" I wanted to know. Surely it wasn’t the sex. He’d had such a head cold, the upper half of his body couldn’t possibly have known what the lower half was doing.

"Because I’m married. I don’t feel right about it."

"But several years ago, you fell in love with another woman and had a very intense liaison with her. What’s the difference between then and now?"

"Bernice and I almost got divorced. I seriously considered leaving her."

"But you never stopped wanting the other woman. Look, I’m not asking you to leave your wife. I don’t want a home in the suburbs. And I don’t want to live with your son—or you, for that matter. I’m not interested in breaking up your happy home; if you want to stay compulsively married, that’s your choice. But you don’t have to remain compulsively celibate."

From that day, Andrew averted his pretty blue-gray eyes and we became "friends."

It hasn’t always been awful with married men. I get to see my good pal Henry when he flies in to Boston from California on business trips. Luckily, he has an open marriage.

"I won’t be making movie plans with you this weekend," I tell my best friend, Jamie, who is also partnerless. "I don’t anticipate getting any sleep this week, and I’ll need Sunday to recuperate."

"Oh, Henry’s coming in?" Jamie is psychic.

"Yeah." I sigh, partly out of dread over the loss of precious sleep and partly from all that suppressed lust. Jamie, who knows me very well, is quietly supportive. Although she’s never met Henry, she can tell that it’s basically a good, solid relationship. But she also knows that sex once every four months with Henry (admittedly not great odds) isn’t enough.

"Have a good time," she says with genuine warmth in her voice. I really appreciate this. Jamie has not had sex in three years.

So Henry comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes. Jamie is the constant in my life. Throughout the changes that deep friendship brings, we’ve stuck it out with each other. One Saturday night in her apartment, watching a movie on the VCR in between bites of her salad and my shrimp curry, we complain about...well, there’s no need to repeat ourselves.

It isn’t as if I don’t meet people. I’m naturally gregarious and find it very easy to speak with strangers. In fact, all sorts of creeps get into my space. About once a week, some man on the subway gives me his card and asks me to telephone him. I never do. Last week I met a fellow who sounded as if he’d just stepped out of a Shirley MacLaine workshop. I threw away his card. This week, a man winking a beady eye followed me off the train and scribbled his name on a scrap of paper. I don’t like beady eyes, and tossed away his paper too.

To get away from it all, I stay at Jamie’s place one weekend. She’s preparing to go out to a party and looks smashing. (Too bad, I reflect sadly, she’s straight.) I’m about to have dinner with an old friend and have an idea. If I can’t get satisfaction for myself, I might as well try to bring a little to Jamie. That would be almost as good.

"Jamie, do you remember my friend Josh I used to talk about? He’s coming here before we go to dinner. Do you want to meet him? Maybe you two will hit it off."

Jamie hesitates. All sorts of creeps have been after her too. "What’s he like?"

"Real easy to talk to, conscious about what he eats, a great cook, does Chinese meditation, smart, funny." I’m so pleased to be able to offer this to her.

"You slept with him once, right?" Jamie has a great memory; this was years ago.

"Yes." Come to think of it, sex with Josh had been disappointing. Doubtless Josh learned a few things in the interim, and would be better now.

"Is he good looking?" (Jamie happens to be very pretty. Why settle?)

To my surprise, I answer, "Yes. At least your height, nice body, very pleasant to look at...." Gee, I find myself thinking, this guy sounds great. Why am I trying to give him away?

Still trying to puzzle this one out, I open the door for Josh who starts sending out sexual signals—to me. I feel guilty about having promised Jamie something I may feel reluctant to deliver. Soon after, Jamie leaves. Josh and I are alone when something inside sounds an alarm. Josh is sitting smack against me trying not to look as if we’re touching on purpose. When we finally say goodbye, he gives me a tantalizing hug. It’s accompanied by a sheepish grin that communicates, "Jeepers, I actually let on that I have these, uh, sexual impulses." Now I recall why it didn’t work out between us the last time. Josh does not let himself know what he wants. I’m fine without a long-term relationship. But Josh wouldn’t even be able to hold his own with prolonged kissing, let alone a couple of hours in the sack. And he certainly wouldn’t do for Jamie either.

Then there’s the problem with my puppy Flocon ("flocon" is French for "snowflake"; she’s all white). When I took her home from the animal shelter several months ago, I had no idea what I’d be in for. Her chewing has known no bounds: vitamin bottles, a grease pencil, the corner of a client’s coat and the inner sole of Jamie’s sneaker. While this has gotten Flocon and me into horrible fights, I could live with it—almost. I could even deal with her being in heat and the subsequent false pregnancy, which gave her such morning sickness that in order to coax her to eat I made special meals in a blender and fed her by hand. But nothing had prepared me for her favorite pastime: lying on her back with paws up in the air, genitals blatantly exposed and head cocked in a way that you just couldn’t refuse. The Sensuous Dog. From the moment she moved in, her demands for belly rubs assumed hedonistic proportions. In the morning she snuggles with me in bed, her snout burrowed in the crook of my arm.

This has only driven me more crazy. Flocon is lovable, charming, warm, pulsatingly soft—and she adores me. There’s nothing worse than getting a little bit of nice, only to not have any follow-through. I must seem strange to my neighbors. I kiss Flocon on the mouth, call her sweetiepie, and tell her how much I love her as well as change her water. The dog has responded by chewing on everything that has my smell, a most intimate thing to do. If she can’t be near me, her doggy brain reasons, she may as well get the next best thing—like my cervical cap, a kind of tight-fitting diaphragm I had obtained from England with great difficulty. My beloved cervical cap will never block another sperm cell again—assuming I’d be fortunate enough to need it. Puppy has virtually devoured every bit of the soft rubber that once snugly and securely hugged my cervix.

"Did she eat it while you were wearing it?" I stare blankly at the friend who has asked me this, whose identity I will not divulge out of courtesy.

"If she could do that," I retort, "I’d marry her."

Alas, my affectionate friend ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, and as she continues to cuddle in the mornings my skin groans, feeling more enervated with each passing wiggle.

I’m desperate. I must do something.

It’s just as well, I say, trying to console myself. You never know what you’ll pick up from who you pick up.

I think of my friend Becky. She’d met Lawrence at a party. They had a couple of outings before he even invited her to his apartment and attempted to kiss her. Because of his laid-back approach, she was positive he was gay, and was therefore (logically or not) quite concerned about communicable diseases.

"Before we go any further," she said to Lawrence, "I want to know your sexual history."

"What do you mean?"

"Are you at risk for anything? I mean, are you gay?"

"NO."

Becky was almost speechless. "I’m sort of surprised. I’m bisexual and I always think everyone else is."

Becky informed me later that Lawrence did give her his sexual history in great detail (this she didn’t share with me), which included a complete lack of communicable anything. "Things progressed sexually, as one might expect," she said. "He turned out to be a great lover."

I’d listened with some envy. A clean, skillful and gentle guy. Where is Lawrence now? Somewhere in India meditating, trying to find himself. Does Becky, a single woman approaching forty, mind? No. She has not a theoretical 40, but approximately 80 percent of the population to choose from.

This brings me to my own affairs with women. I instantly flash to Sue. It would be my luck that when the big night finally arrived, Sue had intense abdominal pain and at 3:00 A.M. we ended up in the emergency room so her IUD could be removed before it punctured her uterus. Then there was the incident of Sue’s crabs. I didn’t catch them by having a wonderful time making mad, passionate love with her. I got them from sleeping on her sheets. She wasn’t even home at the time.

Henry calls me long distance, jolting me out of my reverie. Would I consider going for an AIDS test? His wife is a doctor. She is understandably nervous about his having sex with anyone else. If we’d rather not use condoms (assuming I can get a replacement for my cervical cap), I would have to be checked. I readily consent; I know I’ll test negative. Going to the health department for a free AIDS test is not at all as nerve-wracking as the prospect of using condoms. Especially if it’s going to be once in a blue moon, I’d rather feel an unadorned penis inside of me than rubber sheeting.

I am assigned to a counselor at the health department. "Do I have to be high risk in order to be tested?" As if I weren’t feeling insignificant enough, they’ve given me a number to ensure anonymity.

"No," she replies, "but why do you think you’re not at risk?" I don’t have the heart to tell her.

The news that my test has scored negative and the counselor’s cheery congratulations pale beside my starvation. Maybe I shouldn’t rely so heavily on Henry. Although I have generally been uncomfortable around diehard (read: separatist) lesbians, I’ll give it one more try. I certainly don’t want any of the men I’ve been meeting.

I call Ann, a playwright whose number I have been given by a mutual friend. We go out for dinner. I’m enjoying our conversation: she’s bright, attractive, involved in many of the things that matter to me. And then I mention the "B" word.

A surprisingly number of lesbians don’t like the fact that other women are bisexual. Ann noticeably retreats in her chair. I gulp inwardly and mentally give myself a pat on the back for encouragement. After all, I tell myself, my sexuality is a part of me and it’s better that Ann know now than after we’ve gone to bed.

Or is it?

The fact that I even think heterosexually apparently gives me poor credentials. Ann eyes me with suspicion, although at the same time she can’t help but like me. I’m quite personable. So I decide to give it my best shot. "Isn’t your demand for purity, as it were, really a need for reassurance that I’m not male-identified and won’t go running off with someone just because he’s got a dick between his legs?"

Ann is listening.

"What I think lesbians really want," I continue, heartened, "is for me to be there, totally present. Well, I am. That’s after all the basis of art—you know that as a playwright. Focus, concentration, being totally there. And that’s how I think relationships should be, too."

Ann and I come to a lovely conciliatory moment where we’re both in the present before she leaves me at the restaurant. As I walk slowly to the train, I seriously consider having a sex change—like getting a permanently embedded electrode to stimulate the orgasm center of my brain. That way, my hand wouldn’t get tired and I’d never have the hassles of relating to anyone else.

I step onto the train to go home. It isn’t as if this hasn’t happened before. We’d become lovers, and then at some point I’d have to inform her about my multi-faceted sexual needs. My mind goes over the scene.

She: "Listen Nenah, I can’t sleep with you anymore."

Me: "Why? Is something wrong? Tell me."

She: "This is really hard. You’re cute, bright, sensitive, sexy, the best hugger I’ve ever met—"

Me: "So?"

She: "But I can’t make love with you anymore. You’re a bisexual and I’m a lesbian."

Me: "So?"

She: "So that’s a big difference. How do I know you’re not going to leave me some day?"

Me: "But you sleep with other women. You’re not monogamous either."

She: "Yes, but they’re dykes. You’re not. There’s a difference."

Me: "What difference? I’m really trying to understand. Is there something I’m doing that you don’t like? You can tell me."

She: "Yes, you sleep with men."

Me: "No, I mean in bed, with you."

She: "There’s nothing wrong with you in bed. It’s been wonderful."

Me: "So why does it matter who else I sleep with? As long as you have other partners, it’s balanced."

She: "Look, I don’t expect you to understand, and I can’t explain it any better. Let’s just say we’re on different wavelengths, okay? I can’t make love to you if you have sex with men."

She leans over and gently kisses me on the forehead. "Stay in touch, okay?" The scene fades as the train pulls in to my stop.

At home, Flocon greets me in her usual spirited manner, but I can only half-heartedly run my hand across her back. She is perplexed but I am too preoccupied to feel guilty about hurting her feelings.

The telephone rings. A pleasant-sounding young man claims he’s taking a survey for Masters and Johnson and would I mind answering some questions about my sexual habits. This irritates me. Any woman who lists her full name in the telephone directory would be nuts to fall for a line like that. I’d need two notebooks to record how many obscene phone calls I’ve received since moving to this city.

"No," I snap, "I’m not interested."

Rather than hanging up, cajoling me, or starting to talk dirty, the young man sounds genuinely amazed. "Really? You’re not interested in taking part in a Masters and Johnson study?"

Upset and not knowing what else to do, I yell "NO!" and slam down the receiver.

Immediately I regret it. He sounded scholarly, sincere. Why didn’t I have the presence of mind to ask him for his number so I could call him back and verify that he was indeed an M & J statistician, as he said, who got my name at random from the telephone book? Damn! I can’t even get involved with a telephone sexual survey. I just blew my chance to add my own, unique voice to the documentation of America’s sexual practices. Talk about feeling left out and unheard.

Miserable, I hold my head in my hands. Nothing’s working out today. Flocon bounces over, wanting my attention. I look down at her. I love the smell of her paws. I don’t know why, but that especially really turns me on. Since she’s constantly licking herself to keep clean, there’s no problem if I put her paw in my mouth. There’s nothing to it, really. Any mother would wrap her mouth around her child’s foot. My kid just happens to have four instead of two.

I bury my head in Flocon’s fur. Thank goodness she doesn’t smell like a dog. Her breath is quite fresh, undoubtedly because I feed her only health food and never let her eat stuff off the street. She wants to lick me. I sigh. Why not?

"Give me a kiss." Ecstatic, she starts lapping and I pull her across my body to cradle her. She’s lying on her back in bliss, on top of me. It’s her favorite pastime.

* * *

This essay first appeared in Libido (Summer 1989), and was reprinted in Thundering Grasshopper Review (Spring 1992), and in Raizirr (Summer/Fall 1993).