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How long does intercourse usually last for you? How long is the whole session including foreplay? Are you satisfied with how long it lasts or do you wish it was shorter/longer?
This is the sort of Formspring submission that we wish we could answer succinctly along the following lines:
Two hours; three and a half hours; yes, we are satisfied with how long it lasts.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to succinctly answer this three-part question. Nothing about the sex that we have is standard; we could have sex on ten occasions, and have it last ten very different lengths of time. There are many reasons for this, and many factors that conspire to determine the length. Most of them involve our baby girl.
Is she asleep for the night? If so, we are likely to have a couple hours, although by the time she has been put to bed and we’ve accomplished all the non-sexual things that need accomplishing, it’s usually quite late and we’ll make do with anywhere from half an hour to an hour. When we prioritize correctly, i.e. we have sex first and then do all the non-sexual things, we sometimes manage a couple hours.
Is she just napping? If so, the length of the session depends on timing. If Jill happens to be home when the baby falls asleep, or more likely if she happens to get home from work soon after the baby falls asleep, we’ve usually got around two hours to enjoy each other. This often translates into several orgasms for Jill, and anywhere between one and three for Jack; plus a shower, post-coital cleanup, and perhaps even a conversation about each other’s day, all before she wakes up.
However, timing the baby’s naps to coincide with Jill’s arrival from work isn’t always possible. Sometimes she falls asleep much earlier, and by the time Jill gets home there’s a half hour left on the clock. Or less; we have no way of knowing, obviously. We make an honorable attempt at sex, though it is sometimes curtailed by a little girl who wakes suddenly, disoriented and in need of milk or attention.
Is the baby with a babysitter? (Yes, we’ll sometimes leave her with a babysitter solely so that we can fuck with reckless abandon, never once worrying that a careless scream of pleasure is going to wake her.) If so, we’ve probably got a couple hours. When this happens it’s typically in the late afternoon or evening, so there’s virtually no chance that we’re going to be too tired for sex, or that it will get too late and we’ll decide to skip it.
Are Jack’s parents staying over, and keeping the baby occupied while we “nap”? If so, we can probably get away with an hour or so, though two hours is not unheard of under these circumstances. The problem is that when they’re actually staying in our home, we’d much rather have sex quickly, just for the release of it. After all, it’s not like we can be as loud as we want when they’re around.
Is the baby awake and sitting on the couch or otherwise unrestrained? Or for that matter, awake and in her playpen? In either situation we’ll probably settle for a quickie, as she tends to notice if we’re not around, and if it’s the former, there’s nothing keeping her from getting down from the couch and walking into our room, or at least right up to the door. If it’s the latter, after a relatively short period of time she is likely to very vocally express her displeasure at being cooped up. Since we don’t live in a particularly large house, her voice carries, and one can only hear, “I’m ready to get out” so many times before it starts to fuck with one’s arousal.
The adorable face of a tiny cockblocker
Another factor in determining how much time we have for sex is how horny we are. If it’s a typical weekday, chances are that we’ve spent much of it talking on the phone, tweeting, emailing, or texting back and forth about sex. The anticipation at this point becomes tangible, and as soon as Jill walks in the door it needs to happen immediately. Sometimes this results in a relatively quick session, especially if the baby has been sleeping for awhile beforehand and there’s a chance she’ll wake soon.
In short, the amount of time we spend on sex depends on how much time we have. Sex can last anywhere from half an hour to a few hours depending on the above factors. There have been times when the baby has interrupted us, especially if she wakes from a nap while we’re in the middle of it; but we can usually wait until she’s down for the night and pick up where we left off. Luckily, when we’re starting off, it’s not very difficult to estimate how much time we might have.
As for how long intercourse itself lasts, we generally spend more time on foreplay than we do on intercourse. Sometimes intercourse makes up about 25% of a sex session while foreplay makes up 75%. We enjoy intercourse greatly, but to us it’s just another item at the sexual buffet. A very tasty item, sure, but nonetheless just an item. Once again, a number of factors influence the exact length, but if we have sex for two hours, we might spend anywhere between forty minutes and an hour having intercourse.
Because of the baby’s precarious sleep schedule, we don’t always have orgasms, though we always try to. It’s difficult, however, when you have a baby who tends to make her own schedule and come and go as she pleases. Therefore while we are usually satisfied at the end of a session, we aren’t always. Actually, even when we both climax excessively and are for all intents and purposes completely satisfied physically and emotionally, we still wish it could have lasted longer. We enjoy sex so much that it’s almost like no matter how much we have, it’s never enough..
Neither of us have ever wished that it was shorter.
UPDATE: Thanks to Liza Bennet for bringing this post to the attention of none other than world-renowned sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer!
Dr. Ruth says this post “makes a lot of sense”. Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod…
If you want to ask us anything, drop us a line on Formspring, or use the handy Formspring widget on the right-hand side of our blog. We like sexy questions!
What a well thought out, well explained answer. It gives us a really good look into your lives.
This is a great answer, and I think it will be especially useful to parents of young kids who want to keep their sex lives active. You’ve explained quite well how you balance your mom/dad roles with your husband/wife/lover roles, and that’s something I think many couples have trouble doing.
Wow! Very detailed response. However, I still feel you’re leaving something out. Just joking. 😀
It’s great that you’ve made time for each other. It can be so challenging with kids. I’m impressed with how much sex you have. When my kids were small we literally went for months and months without sex. Kudos on the shout out by Dr. Ruth!