Most of my relationships haven’t had safe-words. Now, I know about “green, yellow, red”.  Or: “Yes”, “give me a breather”, “stop now”.

The first time I had anal sex, it was a decision made in the moment. He suggested, and I wanted to prove that I was open minded and adventurous in bed. And really, I wanted to do it do it for him. I gave a nodded consent. As I gripped a pillow, the words “most painful sex I’ve ever had” ran through my mind. .

What if I had safewords? As I did the whole “grin and bear it” thing, I wonder if I would have even used them. In my experience, there can be a pressure not to safeword. Aafewords get used only in urgent situations, and that can mask honest communication.

Another thing, is that during sex is sorta taboo. There is an idea that talking would be sort of embarrassing, breaking the mood or ruining the flow. So, we stay in our heads, mostly guessing what our partner is thinking/feeling.  To many of us sex is this non-verbal, animal-dance– but does it have to be?

There is dirty talk of course, which can also make it hard to address wavering lines of consent. Talking dirty is all about upping your sexual prowess; it is peacocking one’s sexual bravado, not talking about your emotions.

Sex-talk outside of the bedroom can also fall prey to a similar pattern. When talking about sex in a social situation (not theoretical stuff, but like juicy stories) I too often lend an image of sexual sophistication: my own desires and past adventures. I self-censor my fears, doubts and areas where I am unsure, self conscious or just closed off. And this makes sense, because that stuff isn’t hot. But the problem is, that stuff is part of sex, and comes up during sex. And shooing it away in the bedroom (or wherever)  just because it is not hot, is not helpful.

It can be easy to start a dialogue about things you have thought about and are fairly comfortable with, yet much less easy in the heat of the moment, mid-anxiety and mid-sex, to say what is going on inside. This takes a whole different set of skills. It begins with honesty, with being in-the-moment with yourself and learning to identifying your own emotions.

Dr. Laura Bergman had an exercise on her sex-therapy show that I like. One partner lays down, while the other stimulates. The receiving partner shares where they are on an arousal scale (from 1-10.) This helps shake you out of your own head during sex, giving your partner an idea what is going on for you emotionally and psychologically.

But also, socially there is a problem I see with communication about sex.  It is scary if you are a sex positive person to appear sexually naive or worse, closed minded. This maintains a ridiculous idea that the only people who have sexual questions, doubts or problems are ones who are simply not as evolved and have more growing to do. This also robs us of great conversations.