The first thing to go was the kissing.
We were on the bed when I went to go kiss him. “You know, we don’t have to make out EVERY night!” he spat, as if the mere thought of our lips touching was poison. We had been dating for less than three months.
Things only got worse from there.
Before long, making out was out of the question (My lips hurt his beard, he’d say. Looking back, I’m just like HAHAHA, WHUT?!). Then around the six-month mark, we stopped having sex. It wasn’t even like anything dramatic had happened; we had simply stopped. Every time I tried to do anything sexual with him after that, I was made to feel guilty for wanting him. The one time I tried talking to him about it, I was immediately shut down.
“I don’t get why you won’t have sex with me,” I whined, sounding like someone whose ice cream cone had melted before they had a chance to eat it. “It makes me feel like you aren’t attracted to me.”
“That’s not what I said at all,” he replied, which admittedly, wasn’t the clearest answer in the world. “I’m just not like other gays that need to have sex all the time. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Well, me neither,” I said, with the sexual frustration of a mistress without a plaything to keep them busy.
And with that–silence. We never had sex again.
Honestly, I still have no idea how I ended up–let alone stayed–in a sexless relationship for more than two years, but I did. It didn’t make much sense to my friends either.
“What reasons has he given you for not having sex?” one friend asked after I had spent the bulk of one conversation complaining.
“He’s said he’s ‘just not into it,’” I replied, “He’s ‘not like other guys that want to have sex all the time,’ ‘it’s gross’, etc. etc.”
“Huh, well…” my friend noted, clearly itching to drop some #truthbombs. “You are into it. He is not. So you guys are incompatible. Sorry ‘bout it, but that’s just the facts, buddy.”
“I know, you’re right,” I said, somewhat defeated. “But then I overthink or I find myself trying to rationalize why it’s okay if he doesn’t want to and ughhhhhhh! I can’t tell you how many sexless marriage columns I’ve read!”
It was a lot. Every time my boyfriend was at work, I would jump on my phone and Google sad things like “gay and in a sexless relationship.” At one point, I even Googled, “Boyfriend says my lips hurt his beard when we kiss.” (The results were understandably pretty skim on that one.) With every new search, I became more and more discouraged: This is supposed to be an “old couple” thing, I would think, not something that happens to a 20-something!
And yet, I stayed. For every one excuse he had for not having sex, I had fifty more for why we should stay together.
He makes me laugh. Maybe he was like this with his other boyfriend and it’s not just me. He loves me. He buys me coffee (which really is a fantastic reason to stay in any relationship but alas…).
Until finally I began to question, OMG, am I a disgusting pig that’s super bad at sex? (I’ve got great self-esteem, can’t you tell?)
Any questions or rationalizations I had were quickly squashed when we broke up after two and a half years of dating and nearly two years without having sex. The breakup, surprisingly, had nothing to do with the lack of sex… it was more a realization that we wanted different things. (Go figure, right!?)
All of that to say, if you ever have the chance to be in a sexless relationship, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. To this day, I still struggle with putting into words what it was like to be in a relationship like that, a relationship that made me feel more like a plutonic companion than a lover.
Even though I was sad to see our relationship end, I later realized that having a boyfriend that wouldn’t even kiss me was far lonelier than being single. Since the breakup, I have yet to do anything with another man, and am kind of terrified for that day to come, because it has been so. damn. long.
Of course, our breakup wasn’t completely terrible. Not even a week later, he sent me the following message:
“I want you to know that I didn’t love you any less, or think you were unattractive or something stupid. I look back and it just seems to me that we just settled into that funk and we just existed and had adventures here and there but I think you and I both lost our romantic excitement like some married couple. You listened to me whine and complain but I rarely heard your stories. Because I didn’t ask.”
It was a clear indicator that he wasn’t completely oblivious to my sexual unhappiness.
My favorite, though, came when he added, “Side note: If you write some Queerty article about this, at least hide it from me until I am ready to read it.”
To which I say to him now: Consider it hidden, along with all the kisses you never gave.
Related: Self-Described ‘Black Queer Man’ Says Being Celibate Improved His Sex Life
DistingueTraces
I’m so confused by that photo. It’s like a generic image from Photostock, and yet the guy’s got weird hair and I’m like, hey, do people from Photostock have weird hair like that now?
Also are there gay “relationship problem” stock images? Is that a thing? Or, is this actually a handmade image that has been carefully posed and shot to look exactly like something from Photostock?
What is happening?
DarkZephyr
I do know that some such sites definitely have “gay relationship problem” images. I use these types of images sometimes and they definitely exist as do models with “weird hair”. lol
DistingueTraces
Also: “plutonic”?
Like, was he dead? Was that why there was no sex, because this was a relationship beyond the River Styx in the realm of Hades?
So many questions!
Heywood Jablowme
Some men are from Pluto, some are from Uranus!
Or their sex life was radioactive like plutonium.
I always get a kick out of “plutonic.”
Unlike the misspelling of discreet as “discrete,” which is REALLY annoying.
MikeE
well, discreet and discrete are from the same latinate source, but their meanings have gradually diverged, and each now has a distinct difference. neither is “incorrect”.
Paco
That is typically what happens when the relationship is based on sex and not much else.
mawbinatl
I have to totally disagree with you.
While sex isn’t the most important part of any relationship, it is a PART of a relationship. Remove that part and all you have is a friendship or a roommate.
It should be more of a compromise and that’s how it should be in any relationship.
I can totally empathize with the person not feeling desirable, attractive or sexually adept because his “lover” tells him that he is. Not so much in his words, but in his actions and ludicrous excuses (beard hurts his lips? Seriously? Is he kissing the beard?)
How the sexual denier will end up is alone if he doesn’t make some concessions regarding his asexual behavior (which I don’t believe that he is asexual since he had sex with the partner in the beginning). He may have lost the love of his life because he chose not to discuss what was going on in their relationship especially regarding his not wanting to be sexual with the person who was his lover/boyfriend/partner/husband.
Ari Gold
No, this is what happens when your boyfriend just doesn’t want to have sex with you. Plain and simple.
Jimmay1979
as someone that just got out of the same situation, I can tell you exactly what a sexless relationship is: friendship. I started dating a man 3 1/2 years ago who was a virgin. I am ok with virgins and told him to take his time. After 6 months, we had sex. 5 times. In a week. At this point, I was told he didn’t want to. Then a week later it was not tonight. Then a month later it was how about just foreplay. Each time I asked do you want to have sex and I was told some other reason not to have sex. After a year of asking, I stopped asking. I stopped feeling sexual slowly towards him at all. I felt more like a best friend rather than a bf. The longer we went, the thought of sex with him started to feel dirty, like having sex with one’s brother. We broke up NYE 2016. I’ve fooled around once or twice, but have come to the realization that sex needs to have something behind it to be worth while. I hope the ex the best and would like to stay friends, if that is a possibility.
Lvng1Tor
1st off…YES, the guy in the pic has hair that confuses me…2nd some gay guys are asexual or gray ace and that is ok. In the gay man’s world this sounds like a sin but it’s just who they are. We are so overly sexualized that we don’t take into account how this is for a gay man to realize, understand, begin to even think about that they could be romantically attracted but not sexually attracted because we make it seem like it can’t happen and if it does, there is something wrong with that person. In the end, it’s about finding people who are compatible with you and your romantic and sexual identities. Stop villainizing, diagnosing or calling liars gay men who aren’t into sex or have low libidos. OH, and if the relationship works for you …it isn’t just a friendship…it’s your relationship and that kind of intamacy doesn’t only happen below the waste.
Paco
Amen!
SumSay
Preach.
Chris
As usual, these stories present just the writer’s perspective. But it seems that they didn’t really talk things through until after they broke up. And even then, it seemed rather shallow. That is what makes this story so sad.
Ari Gold
I’ve been in a sexless relationship before and it went a little like this: I was the one denying to have sex with my boyfriend and it really bothered him. But unlike the guy in the article, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to, he and I just weren’t sexually compatible. Which led to me cheating because unlike the guy in this article, I did need sex lol. It was a frequent discussion and we did try to make it work, but ultimately we decided to just give up on sex. But believe it or not, our relationship was very strong and we loved each other regardless of our lack of sex.
PretenderNX01
“We had been dating for less than three months.”
Well there’s your problem. So many gays rush into being “in a relationship” status update they don’t even bother getting to know the guy. You were not compatible. You have a big gap in sexual needs and level of interest. You need to find someone you love all of and who loves all of you more than you love the idea of being in love with them. Next time, just make sure you’re compatible before emotionally committing to them.
Jack Meoff
I think that sex goes out of many relationships over the years but for it to go out of a relationship after only a few months has got to ring some warning bells. I think a lot of gay men stay in these kind of relationships because they are terrified of being alone and think even a sexless relationship is better than none. It also leads to sex outside the relationship and open relationships which are rampant in the gay community.
Jack Meoff
And yes the guy in the pic has dreadful hair. He is giving Elvis a run for his money with that pompadour.
Daniel-Reader
Perhaps having a conversation about relationship expectations like a mature adult would save much grief and time. If you are man enough to have sex, be man enough to have a candid conversation about what you are looking for in a relationship. Otherwise, just date casually and don’t be anything more than a hook-up until you find that person you can have that conversation with who is compatible.
trelin
The 3 C’s. Communication, Compromise, and Commitment. They lacked on 2 = failed relationship. You cannot compromise on one side if your partner fails to do their part. There was a lack of sex…one partner communicated, the other did not = incongruent. Why he wasted two years was a bigger question.
I remember hearing someone refer a relationship to an actual ship. If you both aren’t working hard to sail it, it will sink. It’s actually true.
skilos
Ask him if it’s all been worth the money.
JamJewel
My last LTR ended when the sex stopped and I was expected to be the housewife and take care of his children on the weekends when he worked nights.
radiooutmike
It’s one thing for sex to go out of the relationship because of external issues like kids, work or whatever; or if one person (or both) have some kind of illness that limits their sexual intimacy in some way. This is tacitly assuming that both people are on the same page about their sexual relationship. These issues can be remedied.
But when one person denies another consistently and is not open to help- the relationship needs to end. If someone has a lower sex drive or is asexual, they should seek out these types of people to have relationships with.
Many people say, ‘Oh, sex isn’t the most important thing in an relationship’, and while they may be right…they might not have experienced the frustration of constant rejection. And like the OP’s mate, it just isn’t limited to sexual acts, general affection takes a hit as well.
I was in a long marriage that was pretty sexless for a variety reasons. We were best friends that’s but about it after only a few years.
My first boyfriend also had some hangups, that I was willing to work through, but he just acted so ‘old’ that it took a toll on the relationship. We amicably broke up, but the one line of his about our sex life was that; he felt he needed more foreplay. In my head, I thought, ‘Really…?’ I put all the effort into the sexual relationship. I initiated, I did all the foreplay, I wore the sexy underwear, I begged for it and I rode it. Then he tells me, I did not put in enough foreplay? FU.
Wow, that felt good! I guess I needed to vent.
JMD41
8 year LTR- 6 years no sex and we are both in our 60s. I was infuriated every day of those 6 sexless years. He claimed he had chronic depression and ‘no libido’ anymore. Testing revealed nothing organically wrong nor did the antidepressants he was on contribute to the ‘no libido’. Six months ago I moved out of our shared bed and into the guest room. I then proceeded to purge my ‘stuff’ and make arrangements to move out West. Gave him one final chance and something must have finally clicked; we are now having regular romps just like the old days. My problem is that I love this man with all my heart and continue to have intense hots for him like I’ve never had for anyone else. However, if he pulls the same $hit again, I’m out of here. If I were a younger man in a similar situation, I would not have held on for so many years. Life is precious- don’t waste it.
workin35man
Bravo! I so agree. Age should not slow down sex. So incredibly selfish for a partner to with hold sex. Good for you for doing something about it!
captainburrito
If i really loved the guy I could cope with it. Long as we can still cuddle. lol
But the text he received after they split was nice. At least there was an acknowledgement.
cinderron
I have been in the same kind of relationship for over a year now but the difference is , we have never had sex to begin with . It can be very frustrating and very hard on my ego but I try to have understanding on his issues . I’m must admit I don’t really feel he is even attracted to me but I do love him and can’t imagine life without him .
notsurewhattothink301
In a sexless relationship for over 10 years now. married and the porn account and callous buildup and carpal tunnel are getting pretty old. Love him but the thrill is gone. Much tied up and invested but now his mom just recently died. Don;t know what to do. All sorts of challenges and yet so little time. Not trying to kick someone while they’re down.
I’m open to some side sex as right now could care less about building a sex life with the guy but care about him as a person.
rtlipz
My boyfriend and i have Been dating for 2.5 years and we haven’t had sex in almost a year . He is a bit older then me but old to start losing his sexdrive . I tell Him i wanna Have sex and he says yes but finds an excuse not to when the time comes . I always put out signs that I’m ready to have sex, i ask to arrange a night but nothing happens. I feel like he is not sexually into me any more and just puts up with me because i cook And clean up for him , i feel Like I’m a roommate/maid . I feel Sex is a way to feel connected . Not just kissing. I wanna Have sex 2-3 time a week but it’s happenkng . I feel he’s not into me like that . I’ve talked to him about this and he just brushes it off . Idk what to do anymore , I’ve contemplated leaving him because I want sex to feel connected , i put Up a shield when I’m turned down but im over doing that . I don’t wanna give him an ultimatum , but i feel It’s gonna come to that . I love him and would do anything for him but to me sex is a way I feel loved by him and connected . Am i wrong for this ?