Talking about your sex life without your partners permission is wrong

[TheLimeQuail]

I don’t mean medical professionals, I mean with your friends. I feel like making jokes out of sex with your partner is degrading, or even mentioning that you had sex last night. It’s not shameful to have sex, but I don’t want other people to know about it. It’s intrusive. Especially for a man to talk about it with a female friend or vice versa. And also the mental image.

It's not OK to talk about your sex life in detail with anyone who knows your partner. Maybe even at all. I'm still haunted by a friend telling me her boyfriend - who was also my friend, and indeed had been my friend first - wasn't kinky enough in bed for her, shortly before they split up. I literally cut her short mid-sentence but have nonetheless been unable to scrub the information or the imagery from my brain 11 fucking years later (I am still friends with both of them, they're still friends with each other, they both have new partners, as far as I know no one except me has to carry this burden).

I genuinely can't imagine talking about my sex life with a long-term partner in any sort of detail beyond "very good" and a knowing smile (in the early days with DP, that's what my friends got).

In my one-night stand days, anyone who was interested could get a lot more detail if they asked - these were men neither they nor I intended to meet again.

It's also perfectly possible to talk about sexuality in the abstract without having to refer to your own sex life specifically, more people need to bear that in mind. You can talk about the things that worked for you while being deliberately vague over who did those things.

a show making fun and light of normal sex with normal people? I think more people should watch and realise they can unclench a bit.

wasn't kinky enough in bed for her, shortly before they split up. I literally cut her short mid-sentence but have nonetheless been unable to scrub the information or the imagery from my brain 11 fucking years later

you what now?

I find it way more weird for you to be that obsessed with them than for her to make the comments!

It's also perfectly possible to talk about sexuality in the abstract without having to refer to your own sex life specifically,
hate to break it to you, but if you are in a long-term relationship, people will either know you are talking about your partner, or think you are cheating with others 😂

"It's not shameful to have sex"

So why is it not ok to talk about it @TheLimeQuail ?

Agree! Surely if he HAD been kinky in some extreme way, that might be hard to scrub from your head, but what's so shocking that your friend likes vanilla sex? Pretty peculiar to be aghast and long-term scandalised about that.

I was with my oldest friend yesterday, we are both early 50’s been with partners for a long time, both perimenopausal. We were talking about the effects of perimenopause on our sex lives - not in detail but it made us both feel a bit better about things and that it wasn’t just us as individuals having a tough time.

OK, but let's turn it around. You see your husband texting his mate saying "I just got the most awesome bj from my wife last night"... or conversely, "yeah, I mean, my wife is good and all, but the things Julie did were out of this world!"... or imagine if the regular comments on MN were paralleled by men. We see here regularly "he's perfect, but he has a small dick" posts, which are often met with "life is too short for sh!t sex" replies. Imagine if his friends turned him off you with similar comments like "she's faking it with that push-up bra... life's too short."

If you end up with this person, do you really want all your friends knowing he has a princess Leia fetish, or would want his friends knowing you're extremely bushy (for example)?

I think most people who are saying they don't find sex talk damaging are the people who haven't had their own sex life leaked.

Sounds like you're sick of your partner discussing your sex life with his lady friends, and that he's not even being complimentary.
That would hugely p**s me off. How'd you find out?

I agree, it's inappropriate.

Confiding in a trusted friend with the aim of getting advice or sharing something that's bothering you? Fine imo.
gossiping and laughing with your mates? Wrong.

I find it way more weird for you to be that obsessed with them than for her to make the comments!

How did you get "obsessed" from "unable to forget an unwanted image of my friend having sex"?

hate to break it to you, but if you are in a long-term relationship, people will either know you are talking about your partner, or think you are cheating with others

Or I could be referring to the many partners I had before my relationship...

You’re vastly over-estimating how much people are going to care or remember about this stuff. I guarantee your friends are not taking notes and remembering who you’ve praised and who you haven’t, or attributing any significance to it.

For me, I think it completely depends on the situation. I think there are ways in which it’s absolutely fine to talk with your close mates about your sex life, and ways in which it isn’t. I wouldn’t, for example, tell my friends anything detailed about my partner’s body, repeat anything he’d said to me in bed, or tell anyone any fantasies he’d revealed etc. But there are certainly other things I might talk and laugh about.

I think that if women don’t talk to each other about their sexual experiences, there’s quite a risk that women end up having sex lives that are bad or even abusive because they don’t necessarily know what’s ‘normal’ (for want of a better word).

Quite often on Mumsnet you’ll see women saying things like “He said everyone does this so why don’t I like it” or “My husband thinks everyone has sex every night, am I frigid because I only want it twice a week’ or whatever. I’m pretty sure a chat with their mates would have fixed those misapprehensions straight away.

Funny about the bushy, no that wouldn't bother me, but honestly my DH might well chat with his mates about stuff I'll never know about and that's fine, he's not a dickhead and I trust his judgement, just like he trusts mine. Our friends are open and intelligent sorts and there's no scenario where 'sex lives being leaked' would be a thing. I think the more you're hung up about this stuff, it's inevitably more shameful or trauma-inducing to have people find your private things out. If you're already having those kind of chats then inevitably it's not such a big deal.

If you're close enough to someone for them to feel they can talk about it, then you should be able to just say plainly you don't like hearing or talking about yours or your mates sex lives. They surely wouldn't just force you to listen to it once you said that?

People aren't mind readers. If they are the type to chat in that way you just have to tell them to change the subject. But it's not done to make you feel awkward. Or to ridicule their lover. Well, it shouldn't be.

More just that people want to share their emotions or factual info about what's been going on in their lives/relationships.

I don't talk in depth about it personally as I know my partner wouldn't want me to, but I don't mind at all if my mates want to confide in me about it.

Gallows humour vital in roles where you see awful things and deal with suffering or death.
We social workers are terrible but doctors well - takes it to whole new level - would go around the twist without it x

Confiding in a trusted friend with the aim of getting advice or sharing something that's bothering you? Fine imo.
gossiping and laughing with your mates? Wrong.

As I say, each to their own and course you'd need the right friends and relationships, but gossiping (if you must judge it that) and laughing with mates has always and will always go on and it sounds way more fun to me than the helpline scenario where we can only confide if we're having a bad time.

I absolutely love a spreadsheet. Could get on board with this as an idea!

Me and my close friends talk about our sex lives sometimes, I wouldn't with other friends or in a big group, but I don't really see the issue with people you trust (I wouldn't be nasty about him though or say anything super personal). I definitely wouldn't with any mutual friends, his mates or any of my friends of the opposite sex either. I doubt DH does with his mates, but if he does have never had any of them mention it to me or make jokes etc.

How did you get "obsessed" from "unable to forget an unwanted image of my friend having sex"?

oh gosh no, you are right. Having images of your friend having sex 11 years after a random comment, where did I get obsessed from that? 😂

In my last relationship things were great, but I.made a point of telling my partner that I didn't want him to discuss our sex life with anyone apart from.me. I probably feel yhst it would be awkward I'd I then meet that person- would probably be male. It's private. I did talk to a couple of my female friends though- double standards. 🙄