Sex Toys and Threesomes

Sex Toys and Threesomes
Stacey Greenberg

Gone are the days of truly casual sex. As the parents of a 2 ½ year old and a ½ year old, my husband and I have found that it is getting harder and harder to get it on. We must actually plan for sex. (Or be prepared to drop everything the moment opportunity knocks.)

After our first son was born, Warren and I had a long standing date on Friday afternoons. We’d leave work a bit early and take advantage of the small window of time before we had to pick up our son from daycare. After several months of this, naturally, I got pregnant. Friday afternoons soon became one of the few times I could sneak in an uninterrupted nap. Sorry honey!

Having two kids meant two different childcare providers on opposite sides of town. Afternoons were out, so we moved to lunch breaks. My husband, who was once opposed to “nooners” on the grounds that it made going back to work very difficult, decided he’d take what he could get. Somewhere along the way, though, these illicit meetings morphed into the Flylady’s fantasy rather than ours. I invariably ended up emptying the dishwasher or folding laundry while Warren vacuumed.

Two kids, two jobs, two dogs, two cars, and a house are a lot to keep up with. We don’t have time to think, much less have sex. One friend in a similar situation has started emailing Steve from “Blues Clues” and another actually admitted to pleasuring herself to the “Wiggles.” We do what we have to do.

About a year ago, my husband started seeing another man—Jon Stewart. Four nights a week around ten o’clock, after the kids were in bed, Warren would disappear. These meetings were short, about thirty minutes and he was always in such a good mood afterwards that I didn’t care. In fact, I started going along. This guy was great—so funny and smart. He got us thinking about politics and got us excited about the future. Seeing him helped us connect as Warren and Stacey, not just Mommy and Daddy. It reignited the spark that made us remember why we became parents in the first place. We needed that.

I proudly tell people that Jon Stewart is my boyfriend. (And Warren’s too.) But things haven’t been the same since Bush "won" the election. It was like building up to a big sneeze and then not sneezing. Or finding out that the sea monkeys are really brine. We felt a little let down. The honeymoon was over. So, I decided to dust off the sex toys.

Lately we’ve been playing the penis game. The game involves hiding a very life-like plastic penis procured at my bachelorette party (almost 6 years ago!) somewhere that the other person will find it. Preferably in public or in front of other people. It started one day when I found it buried in the junk drawer and put it under Warren’s pillow as a joke. He said nothing, but the next morning I found it in my shoe. And so on. The game lost its appeal when our oldest son was about nine months old—he immediately put the penis in his mouth upon finding it in my husband’s lunchbox. Playing the game again, with the added challenge of preventing the kids from finding the penis, has been great. Maybe not as great as hot sex, but I’m not ashamed to admit that I was really excited upon finding the penis lurking in my breastpump the other day.

Our kids won’t always be as young and as needy as they are now and my husband and I won’t always be as busy and tired as we are now. My best friend, who just recently quit breastfeeding her second child, promises me that my sexual revolution is just around the corner. Until then, the plastic penis gives me hope. It reminds me that I am really lucky to have a great husband. And one of these days, my husband will actually get lucky.

I promise.

Since writing this I have found the penis in my box of Cheezits, in my glove compartment, and in the very last present I opened in front of my entire family on Christmas Eve.