Sex Lives: A Guy Who Is Really Trying to Give Monogamy a Shot

Sophia Benoit
·13 min read

Michael Houtz

Sex Lives chronicles the evolution of one person's sexual history. This week: Rafael, 39, in San Francisco.

I mean, I remember being turned on by women as young as four. I feel like I felt attracted to women my whole life, like an insatiable desire to go be by the pretty girl. From an older perspective, now I look back and I'm like, what kind of socialization was happening late ‘80s and early ‘90s? There was a lot of objectification of women. Like, hair metal and MTV. But I feel like since I was four or five, I wanted it. I didn't know what it was, but I wanted it.

I know exactly how I came across jerking off. It was because of a local radio show, a radio show from the Bay Area called Dog House. It was funny and they’d do bits; it was pretty popular here. My parents didn’t really put restrictions on what I could listen to. So I listened to them talk about jerking off and I kind of put two and two together. I knew what intercourse was; I understood from a pretty early age, like seven or eight, that you could simulate it by yourself. And I would try to masturbate and I would get sexual feelings, but I couldn’t ejaculate. So I remember listening to this morning program and the guy was talking about technique—I was probably 11 or 12. So I kept trying. And then one day something came out of there! I feel like I didn't have the sort of same experience as some other boys in that, I knew that there was something more, there's something better [than masturbating]. But I also didn't feel guilty or ashamed about it. I mean, I knew to keep it private, but I didn’t feel any sort of tension about it. I just was like, I’ll do this until I get to fuck.

Losing my virginity was super underwhelming; it fucking sucked. I don't think that that's pretty unique to me. It was sophomore year of high school, and hormones are flying, and she was a friend. Well, she was the sister of a close friend. I’d known her my whole life, but I was never attracted to her. And then suddenly, 10th grade: We started passing notes in class and she was like, “My mom’s never really home these days.” And in the note passing I think we ended up talking about what we’d done so far. Even in the note passing, it was clear she’d done a lot more than I had in her sexual career. So I lied. She was like, “Have you done it it yet?” I had fingered some girls, I think maybe I had tried to do some version of oral sex. But I lied and said, “Of course, just the once though.” Because I could tell her vibe was, “Well, I'll do it with you, but only if you've done it before.” So we went to her house after school. I remember she had to take a dump. And she was super embarrassed about it. And then we went upstairs and it felt super ceremonial, there was no foreplay. We had never kissed before. We’d never done anything! I remember her trying to guide me in and I remember feeling like, “This is it?” It was awkward as fuck. I don’t think I enjoyed it. But I felt like I got it out of the way. But we never did it again. It didn’t dissuade me from girls or vagina or anything. I was still girl crazy.

After that, I just felt like I was the fucking man. At that point I was taking my cues about sex from listening to Loveline, with Dr. Drew. I felt like I was educated about sex and I knew what to do and I knew it was a big deal to make sure a girl came before me. So between 16 through 18 I was trying to give head to every girl I could get into a sexual situation with. That was my goal. My senior year of high school, my parents moved to a completely different setting, like the exurbs. I was the new boy, and from the city. That year it was just unbelievable how much attention I got from girls. I dated this girl who was like the “it” girl at the school; she immediately took to me, and I could believe my luck. She used to pick me up in her dad’s Suburban and we’d go out to these new housing developments and we’d park somewhere that was kind of a road that wasn’t done being built and we’d fuck in the car. One day she was dropping me off at my house and she had on these cream colored pants and my mom was like, “Who is the grown ass woman who was just with you right now? I know she doesn’t go to your school, she doesn’t have any panties on!”

College just turned it up to the next level. I cannot believe how much pussy I got. I couldn’t believe it. I had sex with almost every single girl on the floor of my dorm. I didn’t have a girlfriend freshman year so there was no real drama. It was like let’s sneak it in. So if you’re not in class at this time and I’m not in class and I know most of the hall’s gone, no one will have to know that you’re in my room or I was in your room. We were having some raunchy-ass adult sex. There was this girl on my floor who was known for wearing rollerblades a lot, and she was really flirty and she would sort of try to arrange sex dates with me when everyone was in class. I would go and make that happen and then later that night, I’d be having sex with some girl in a different dorm on the other side of campus, who is like the hottest girl in the world. I just felt like I was the man.

Around that age is when I saw my first clit piercing. This girl had a boyfriend on campus who was older than us. And she’d come around and be like, “We’re in a fight.” And I wouldn’t ask any questions. We’d drunk at a party and she’d come back to my room. I realized the red flag, because it happened constantly, and I’d see her other places on campus with her boyfriend, so I was like, “I don’t know if they’re actually in a fight.” But she was trying to get some from me and I was happy with this. So remember, I’m the great pussy explorer, trying to eat every girl out because I thought that was the move. I see her clit piercing and I was like, wow, I can’t wait to go tell all my boys about this. We hook up and we’re in my little single dorm bed and we’re both pretty tall. You know how it goes, you have to sleep like a hot dog. I couldn’t sleep, we were both really cramped. She gets up at five in the morning and my dorm was one of those suites with a bathroom in it. And she gets up—she was Pooh Bearing it; t-shirt but no underwear on—and she gets up and squats down right on my carpet, ride beside my bed and just pees on the floor. She just peed a whole full pee. I was like, is this really happening to me? I’m in flight, fight, or freeze and I froze. She was facing away from me and it’s another maybe seven steps to the bathroom! And then she just casually gets back in bed like she didn’t just pee on the floor! I’m pretending I’m asleep and she just falls right back asleep.

At about 28, I was in a long term relationship. It was a sexless, very boring relationship. It didn’t work out, but we were in our late 20s so it was like Are we going to get married? We’re probably not going to get married, right? We didn’t. It didn’t work out. At that age, I thought my 20s was the last time to have fun, for whatever reason. So I got to be single again at this age and suddenly I don’t have to try anymore. A switch flipped and women who wanted me came after me, full stop. Wild shit started happening, like a married woman I worked with would proposition me. Someone who was in a long-term relationship called me drunk in the middle of the night to say, “Hey, I’m masturbating. I just wanted to hear your voice.” And I was like, “I’m playing video games…” and she was like, “No, just talk to me. Just keep talking.” A lot of these things are not things I’d tell my dude friends at the time because I was getting way more sex than most of my guy friends.

I feel like on average it was like four times a week for years into my 30s. There was always kind of a regular partner and then there would be super secret booty calls. People to this day don’t know about these women. I’ve never talked about it. In between all these times, I’d have a girlfriend for a year. Like a super tame monogamous relationship, very vanilla. Have some sex. Better sex when we go on vacation. I did become Scumbag Mode at some point. I’d use my sexuality for spite.

I had this girlfriend who would never say anything nice. She would never say anything nice to me. I felt like for some reason, I wanted my girlfriend to show that she liked me more. It was the same case in the bedroom; she was just uninterested. And I was vocal about it like, “Hey what can we do? What can I do to make this better for you?” So after a certain point—I literally remember thinking, I’m going to ask her this time, I’m going to have this talk one more time and if it doesn’t improve by the end of this month, I’m going to fuck this girl from grad school. The grad school girl was just oozing sex; she looks at me when she walks into a room and I know I can have it. And I did.

I did it in a scandalous-ass way. My partner at the time was a super, super, super deep sleeper. Like a fire alarm wouldn’t wake this person. I went to sleep with my partner, got into my car around 11:30 p.m. and drove to another part of the city, the other side of town, and would go hang out with this bohemian girl from class. We'd have the best, hottest, three-hour sex and I would drive home at 3:30, 4 in the morning and I’d get right back in bed like I was just there for a regular night’s sleep. It was the most stimulating feeling. I feel shitty saying this, but that was some of the best sex I had in my life. It felt so bad to do and so good to know I could get away with it. I felt justified, like you don’t want to have sex with me. I’ve told you that this is the thing that could end our relationship. And you still don’t want to have sex. So I’m gonna go get some sex where I can.

My partner found out. She didn’t find out about that particular person, but I kept it up, so she found out. A friend’s girlfriend was having a shitty break up, and to punish him she decided to tell my girlfriend about what I’d been up to. That got found out in the worst fucking way. My girlfriend and I flew to the Bahamas for her friend's destination wedding and we were going to be there for a week. We’d been there a day. I was in the hotel bar and we were going to go into Nassau, and I was waiting on my girlfriend. She comes downstairs with this look on her face like she’d just seen a ghost and she’s like, “Do you have something to tell me?” And I’m like, “What? What are you talking about?” And she kept asking and she has tears welling up and she’s angry. So she tells me that my friend's girlfriend messaged her on Facebook and told her some things, but she won’t tell me what she knows. She’s waiting for me to tell her and I’m trying to figure out how much my friend’s girlfriend knows. I guess it was kind of minor because I copped to more than I should have copped to—not even the incident in question. She’s hysterical. She’s devastated. But it’s a Monday and this wedding with all of her friends— I don’t know anyone—is not until Saturday. She was like, “The bride and groom don't know. So we're gonna keep it from them. Just make sure that you come to the wedding at the end of the week.” So I had to spend this week by myself.

I’m dating someone now monogamously. I have a pretty normal, vanilla life in that way. I’ve learned to treat my ability to attract women differently. I just focus my sexual desire and energy toward my partner. Well, I just made it sound a lot easier than it is, but I’m disciplined. It’s insanely difficult. But I got better at being a man. I don’t know how to explain it. Like I’m a decent-looking dude, but I got better at playing the game and understanding the type of people I want to attract. I still walk out of the house every day and contend with the fact that I could do all of these things. Like I’m in line at Trader Joe’s and I’m getting sized up. And cell phones have made it so that you can kind of always be in contact with people, some of whom you’ve had sex with before—lots and lots and lots of times. That temptation is there. I just don’t do it.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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