On Withholding Sex From Men

Photo Credit: Aiony Haust

I withheld sex from a man this week. To be honest, as a woman who likes sex, it’s something that I rarely do. But certain times call for certain measures.

I was lying topless in my jeans on the couch in Miguel’s apartment. It was a Monday. He had a nice enough place. His dog sat across from me in a small, bundled bed on the living room floor. There was a large TV and a box set of Catan sitting on the low table beneath it. We were on the 5^th floor. The apartment’s windows looked out over the gentle night sky and the lit football pitch of a park nearby.

This was the second time Miguel and I had ever met. I had left him a vulnerable voice note in Spanish that morning:

“I’m feeling kind of lonely these days. Any chance I could come over and we could cuddle?”

At this point, we had been making out for about an hour. Miguel had gotten up to fetch the food we had ordered from Rappi. I was left there, puzzling to myself: Was I going to have sex with him? Did I want to? Of course I did. He had a great mane of thick, long hair. He was far taller and stronger than me. Strangely enough, he had almost exactly the same day job that I used to have in Business Analytics. At times during our brief conversations, he had been gentlemanly and sweet. He had served me a small glass of whisky. And yet. And yet.

I jumped up off the couch just in time, as he opened the front door of his apartment, bag of sushi in hand.  

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I called out. But I didn’t need the bathroom. I needed a small, quiet moment with myself.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My skin was pale. My hair, a short bob perpetually fading from blonde to brown, was a mess. I wore a multi-colored beaded necklace. My eyes were deep, dark brown, and my cheeks were rosy. I felt attractive, but I also found myself playing along a dicey line. Part of me desperately wanted to have sex with Miguel. And part of me didn’t. And I had about 30 seconds to figure out why.

I thought back to the hour we had just spent making out. Miguel had been constantly trying to undo the top button of my black jeans. Again and again. I kept batting his hand away. It was like he had the memory of a goldfish swimming around and coming across the same single leaf in its fishbowl. After last week’s casual sex, I was looking for more than just a one-night stand. I wanted to have sex with somebody I loved. I wanted to make love to somebody, literally. I wanted to be able to look them in the eye.

Was I withholding sex from him because I was a prude? Because I was ashamed of what we were doing? Out of fear or the feeling that my sanctity, somehow, as a woman was going to be slightly more shattered into a million pieces than it already was? I had to delineate this in my mind, because I had been raised with the idea that sex was bad and that the more I could claw back of my virginity, the purer, the more desirable and ultimately the more lovable I would be.

But this situation with Miguel was about something else. This had nothing to do with the shame and angst of my body. This was about his intentions. Why did Miguel want to have sex with me? Did he love me? Did he care about me? Did he want to hold me through the emotional rollercoaster of these last days of my period? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. I was left in doubt.

When it came down to it (no pun intended), I decided to not have sex with Miguel because I liked him. I wanted to give him a second chance. I wanted to see if he’d take me out for another date. If he’d message me the next day and ask how my day was going. If he’d help transport us to some unknown date in the near future, when he would be a little less sex crazy and a little more willing to ask me questions about how I saw the world these days. It's a paradox, I guess. I live in a world where I can swipe on apps and find people to hop in bed with all the time. But somehow, that has manifested in me choosing not to have sex with someone, if I think there might be something more.

So I returned to the living room. Miguel was waiting for me on the couch.

“Hey,” I said to him, “I do really want to have sex with you. But I only really enjoy having sex with people that I know. I feel like I don’t really know you yet, so I’d rather wait and see. I’m looking for someone whose more of a lover right now.” Obviously, I wasn’t going to reveal that I thought we might have a future together. But I told him I wanted something at least a bit more serious, an amante or a noviocito.

These days I’ve been trying to listen to men more. In the past, I’ve been tempted to only hear what I wanted to hear, and not grapple with the reality of our situation. I’ve clung to men who told me they didn’t want a relationship with me, only to finally get the message some months later. That often left me with a painful hole in my heart. With so much societal bullshit and pressure about finding “the one”, I’ve found it hard to tear off my own pair of rosy-glow sunglasses. I can get so swept up in seeing what I want to see.

With Miguel, I was determined not to do that. When he spoke, it ultimately brought up some red flags. He told me he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. That the maximum he was looking for was an open relationship. He wasn’t considering commitment at all. And he was probably going to be moving to Brazil. His words proved to me that we had entered into this situation with different intentions. Still, I couldn’t process all my emotions in the moment that night. It just felt incredibly jarring. Like we were two tectonic plates shifting over each other, jamming together, rather than moving in delicate unison. Him, trying to have sex, and me trying to push him into other, more intimate activities, like cuddling or being present. Seeing each other vulnerably, so that one day, we might be able to make love.

Sometime later, after I had resisted a great deal, Miguel finally convinced me to get naked with him. We moved to his bedroom. He was able to make me orgasm and squirt, but then he was really into tit-fucking me. That made me feel degraded, as did the fact that he insisted that I give him a blowjob.

Overall, I enjoyed having all kinds of sex that isn’t penetrative with him. And I wasn’t afraid to cuddle him. I did my best, in my witchy, womanly way, to show him that I could be more than just a sex buddy. I could be a lover. I tried to give him a hint of what it might mean to be loved by me. But that dark cloud of doubt lingered over my head. We ate sushi in his kitchen until about midnight. That’s when he told me had wouldn’t have time to hang out with me before he left on a trip to Europe. He’d be gone for three weeks, essentially. That made me feel, well, in tech product language, deprioritized.

It's been a couple of days since then, and I’m not holding my breath about Miguel. He messaged me, but he hasn’t asked if I want to hang out with him again, at least not before he leaves. Who knows if I will even hear from him again after he sets off. My guess is, probably not. I thought that sexual liberation was about getting to fuck whoever you wanted all the time. But I’ve found that for me, this attitude is not very fulfilling. With Miguel, at least, it was nice to find someone who I could see a future with. Such men do exist, even if they come commitment-phobic, incredibly horny and a little emotionally distant. Even if they are wrong for me, I am glad to know that they are out there.