A month after my girlfriend and I moved in together, her bathroom jokes had become something I was trying to decipher. She had made them before. Now they were more frequent, more pointed, and sometimes came up while we were in bed. I couldn't tell whether living alone together had made her less inhibited about being silly, or whether she was trying to tell me something about sex.
She's 27 and I'm 29. We've been together a long time, and things between us have always been good. Our sex life has been fairly vanilla. Moving out of our parents' homes and getting a place together felt like a wonderful step. We finally had some peace and quiet, with just the two of us around. I'm enjoying that part of our lives. This question hasn't canceled it out.
For years, she was unusually open in her jokes about bodily functions. I had assumed that might have something to do with her shyness about using the bathroom. That was my explanation, not one she'd given me. The jokes were familiar enough that I didn't initially think of them as hints about what she might enjoy sexually.
Since the move, though, she has repeatedly joked about not getting out of bed to use the bathroom and about involving me in bodily-function humor. One remark in bed went further, imagining directing it at me and asking how I would react. I won't pretend I know what she meant. But the question about my reaction is part of why I keep wondering whether this is still only a joke.
When I bring it up, she brushes it aside. The message is that it's nothing and we should forget about it. There hasn't been an admission of a fetish, a clear request, or a conversation that settles anything. I'm left with the difference between how specific the jokes have become and how quickly the subject disappears when I take it seriously.
Maybe she's simply comfortable enough at home to make jokes she wouldn't make around anyone else. Maybe humor feels easier than openly mentioning an unusual sexual interest. Those possibilities would mean very different things, and I don't want to turn my suspicion into a description of her. Repetition has made me curious; it hasn't made me certain.
I love her, and I don't want a clumsy response from me to make her feel ashamed or unsafe. If there is a sexual preference behind this, I'd rather she could name it without feeling that I've already judged her. Hearing about a desire and agreeing to take part in it would be different conversations. At the moment, we haven't even established whether there is a desire to discuss.
What I'm trying to find is a way to ask that leaves her room to give an ordinary answer. I don't want to insist that she reveal a secret she may not have, or laugh off something she's finding difficult to say. So far, whenever I've raised it, the jokes have been dismissed and the question has stayed with me.
