Have we forgotten the power of a good quickie?

“Quickies get a bad wrap and personally, I don’t think they deserve it.”

Laura Roscioli is a sex writer based in Melbourne. Her monthly column on Fashion Journal is here to make sex (and the conversations around it) more accessible and open-minded. She believes that the best learnings come from lived experience, and she’s here to share hers — and other people’s — with you. You can follow Laura on Instagram at @lauraroscioli.

The other morning, I could tell my boyfriend wanted to have sex. My mind immediately went to all the reasons we couldn’t: I’d slept in and therefore was already probably late for work, I needed to brush my teeth, we’d run out of lube… the list goes on. And then I stopped myself. Why was my instinct to think of all the reasons why now would be a bad time? And then it hit me: I just wanted a quickie.

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I’d say I’m horny almost every day but if I’m alone, I’ll usually get my vibrator to work and it’ll be an efficient ten minutes of pleasure until orgasm. Sometimes I’ll take my time and romance myself, but I don’t always feel the need to do that. Often, I just want to cum. But I didn’t want to tell my boyfriend that. I was afraid that he’d be offended, that he’d insist on taking his time, that he’d want the whole production, that he’d want to connect and make love. And that I’d be an asshole, for not wanting that.

Based on my observations of my boyfriend in our sex life, I’d gone ahead and assumed his favourite kind of sex was a passionate 40-minute session. When we first started dating, I remember him feeling concerned that he wouldn’t be able to stay hard for super long. He hadn’t had much sex in years, he told me, and he was nervous because he liked me. He asked me to be patient with him. 

Once we got really comfortable with each other, he was thrilled by his ability to ‘keep going’. I was thrilled, too. Thrilled that he felt comfortable, that he was reclaiming his sexual confidence, that we could keep up with each other’s sex drives during that period of honeymoon gooeyness.

But it’s been over two years now and a lot has changed. We live together, we have more joint commitments and we have sex less often. But the other morning, when my instinct was to find reasons not to have sex, I wondered if the reason we’re having less sex actually has nothing to do with my sex drive and everything to do with the timeframe of the sex itself?

So I took a deep breath, turned to face him and said: “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure!” he replied.

“I want to have sex with you. But I have to get up in ten minutes. Can we have a quickie?”

He laughed at my seriousness. “Fuck yes! I love a good quickie.” He said. And off we went.

Then, a few days later, I asked him how he’d feel if we integrated quickies into our sex lives a little more. To my surprise, he was thrilled at the idea. And also to my surprise, I felt an immense sense of relief. 

I didn’t realise I’d been holding onto this pressure to always have such lengthy, intense sex with him. It was as though I’d decided that sex wasn’t special or meaningful enough unless we had it for a long time, switched positions multiple times throughout and both achieved orgasm. I was surprised by my own limitations, because as someone who writes (and thinks!) about sex constantly, I know that sex can look super different for different people and in different moments. The idea that we always need to have long, passionate and ‘interesting’ sex was not an ideal I thought I was wrestling with. But I was wrong.

There’s a fear that simmers underneath long-term, monogamous relationships, I think, which is that someone always wants sex more than the other, and that a mismatched libido always comes between couples. The curse of having sex only once a week feels like something to be avoided like the plague, but as busy working adults, the reality is that life gets in the way. I know it’s an unsexy thing to say but it’s true.

Our libido relies on so many things to line up perfectly for us to be in the mood, especially as women. Emotional connection, where we’re at in our cycle, our mental state, feelings about our own bodies… it all adds up to either feeling horny, or not. So then, if you pile a specific kind of sex that needs to happen in order for it to ‘count’ on top of all of that, you’re left with a looming pressure that definitely doesn’t feel like a turn on. 

I’d been feeling guilty about avoiding my boyfriend’s invitations for intimacy. I assumed there was either something wrong with me, or that I just fell neatly into the stereotype of a woman in a long-term relationship, whose sex drive is less than her partner’s. But as it turns out, neither of those things were true.

Quickies get a bad wrap and personally, I don’t think they deserve it. To be totally honest, I think there was a part of me that felt a bit slutty for wanting a quickie. Like I just want to get down and dirty immediately, which is somehow wrong? Despite all the learning and unlearning I’ve done, it still amazes me how many misogynistic ideas linger in my subconscious. I’m someone who publicly talks and likes sex, but I was afraid that my partner would think less of me for wanting a quickie? It’s wild that even now, I can still feel that shame. But it just shows how much we’re all still unlearning when it comes to embracing and accepting our desires enough to simply voice them.

So now, my boyfriend and I are officially a couple that have regular quickies. Our sex has gone up from twice to four times a week and while numbers truly don’t matter, I was surprised to learn how easy it was to change things with a small conversation. Plus, I feel way more sexually satisfied and far less emotionally strained by the idea of having sex. Sometimes, sex can just be fun and fast. Other times it can be passionate and slow. Or even a combination of both?

Generally, we’re working with so many assumptions in the world of sex and relationships (without any hard evidence) when really, we should just be talking to each other. It’s so important that we create relationships where it’s okay to ask questions, no matter how stupid they feel to you or how worried you are about how they’ll be received. We need to be able to talk about sex, so we can dispel all manner of unhelpful myths that actually stop us from having the kind of sex we want.

Keep up with Laura on Instagram at @lauraroscioli.