Generosity and Selfishness

For a very long time, I didn't know what generosity in bed really looked like.  I knew it was about putting your lover's pleasure before your own, but for the most part, with a few notable exceptions, I was the one who always put his pleasure first. Most of the time, that was just fine with me.  I didn't feel cheated at all.  I loved the feeling of giving a man pleasure. I loved it more if I got some, too, but that wasn't a really big deal.

I never really noticed how much effort a man put in unless he was particularly selfish and made no attempt to help me come.  Otherwise, it was usually all about him.

I've had a new experience recently that is giving me some perspective and leading me to rethink some of my past trysts. I've experienced real sexual generosity, to the degree that I now know that what I thought was very generous before was just.... normal.

T is a very generous lover.  In fact, he's the most generous lover I've ever known. It's not just about his amazing oral gifts - although those are awesome! - but it's about how he stays completely engaged with me during the whole process and how he's committed to giving pleasure. Oh, he gets his, too, but he also gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives.

As I was experiencing T's amazing style of lovemaking today, I started to feel guilty - selfish. I wondered, Am I taking too much?  Am I not giving enough? To be fair, it's very hard to do anything when someone keeps you on the edge of ecstasy, pushes you over, then draws you back to the edge again...over and over. Still, my mind wandered to the consideration of my selfishness.

It occurred to me that none of the truly selfish male lovers I've been with ever seemed to ask the question - Am I selfish lover? They just assumed it was all about them and if they did something - anything - for the woman, that was good enough.

So why was it bothering me?  Because it was completely new. I've never experienced it before. I made the assumption that if I'm not the one going out of my way to be generous, then I must be selfish. In the deeply ingrained paradigm in my head, you were either generous or selfish; you couldn't be both, and you definitely couldn't be somewhere in between.

In my defense, I had a plan when I went to see T today.  I was going to give much more. But then I got there and he started kissing me and clothes started coming off and pretty soon it was clear he had taken charge (which I l-o-v-e....major turn on!) and then, within minutes, I was at that dizzying, shuddering, please-don't-ever-stop place, and he didn't let me leave that place for the better part of three hours. In short, my selfishness today was so NOT my fault.

As I continued to think about it, though, I realized that I need a new paradigm. If a friend came to me and told me this story, after I finished being totally jealous and trying to get his phone number from her, I'd tell her that enjoying yourself is not a sin. It's not selfish to let your lover shower you with pleasure.  No one is keeping score. As long as you both are happy, it's all good.