I used to trade back rubs for blow jobs. Not with strangers, of course. With my boyfriend at the time. And not half-assed, sitting in front of him on couch with the TV on back rubs either; no, I’m talking lights off, candles burning, soothing background music, scented oil back massages for at least 20 minutes. When he was done, I would sit up, he would lie down, and I would return the favor with oral sex. I wasn’t half-assed about it either; it was often to fruition, although about 40 percent of the time—unless I was on my period—the back massage would get me revved up and we would end up humping. Either way, it was always a successful exchange of services that left both of us satisfied.
This is what Kelly Oxford, writing in GQ, calls “sex bartering,” and she suggests couples everywhere “put sexual favors on the table and start negotiating.”
Oxford—who is one of Twitter’s biggest success stories, with nearly 128,000 people following the Canadian mom of three’s every hilariously biting tweet—has been successfully sexually negotiating with her husband for years. The most important aspect of sexual bartering is that both parties get a thrill out of the negotiation itself, not just the terms that are eventually decided. “With a single gesture, an arousing new world has busted open,” she writes. “You are—let’s face it—whoring, but with a safe, committed partner. In no time, you’re trading tricks for trips to the dry cleaner. You’re making dinner for the kids, and later that night you’re coming twice.”
While the services exchanged—doggystyle for dishes, for example—may be the obvious goal of sexual bartering, genuinely spicing things up in your relationship is the real prize. As Oxford writes, most relationships start off with not being able to get enough of each other sexually.
New sex partner = new sex, and new sex = lots of sex. That’s sex math. You’re in the kitchen making pasta sauce—bam!—you’re having sex on the floor. You’re parking the car in the garage—bam—you’re having sex in the car.
But that eventually wears off, at least to some degree, replaced by money woes, work stress, taking care of the kids, etc. Remaining sexually satisfied is one of the keys to a successful relationship, but a few years in, having sex can, at least until you in the midst of getting busy, feel like another chore. Perhaps, as Oxford suggests, sexual bartering is a way to make that necessary maintenance as—or at least close to—as thrilling as when you first got together.
What do you think? Is sexual bartering something you do in your relationship? Would you? Let us know in the comments!
[GQ]Original by Amelia McDonell-Parry
