Truths and Lies about Sex

Irina Pino

HAVANA TIMES — People tend to lie to their partners in matters of sex. Nothing is what it seems. I see marriages based on lies that nonetheless project an image of false happiness to others. Ups and downs are the norm and routine tends to be stronger than love, so feelings change despite appearances.

We all have secrets we do not share with our partners, desires we would like to fulfil with other people, fantasies, both plausible and not.

A friend once told me she used to lie to her boyfriend when he asked her if she’d had a good orgasm after sex. She would tell him it had been marvelous, but, in secret, she would masturbate and experience a far more explosive orgasm. On occasion, she would watch a film with a lesbian sex scene and that would excite her even more. She never confessed this to him, she was worried he’d think she liked women. This woman said she loved this man, however. It was hard for her to be frank.

Men find it hard to admit the problems they have when they fail to get an erection. Most chalk it up to stress. I met a young man who claimed that, whenever he put on a condom, his penis went soft, such that penetration was impossible. He would constantly insist we do it without a condom so I could see. I of course never let him, as I would have exposed myself to STDs (he had another relationship).

There was a young man who suffered from a similar problem, but that one would lose his erection once inside the vagina. I urged him to go see a doctor. He had a leak in his penis which was later corrected through surgery. Luckily for both of us, it all worked out fine.

Some years ago, I ran into a former schoolmate who had been a close friend of mine. He invited me out for coffee so we’d catch up, and told me he had married a woman with similar tastes. They were both unprejudiced. They both felt they liked sharing sexual experiences with others and that only a threesome was gratifying for them. “This woman is my soulmate,” he told me. “We’re always looking for people to have threesomes.” They would go out hunting on weekends. Once, they even shared a bed with a transvestite. He wasn’t too thrilled about the idea, but he did it because she was curious as to how it would be.

Laura, a neighbor of mine who’s already over forty, explained to me that she doesn’t have the same sexual desires she had before and, when her husband wants to have sex, she fakes it to get that out of the way, so he’ll leave her alone. What she does is fake orgasms. She also gives him oral sex, without wanting to. She says “pleasing a man is very easy.”

I know of men who love having a finger inserted into their anuses but are afraid to ask a woman to do it, fearing they will be dubbed “gay.” Once, I did this to an ex-boyfriend of mine as a joke and to see how he’d react. The kid took it well and even ejaculated faster. We never spoke of that, however.

Lying to others is quite simply lying to ourselves. Many a time, we build lies out of fear, so as not to hurt others or to keep things the way they are.