The other day, I casually mentioned to another woman that my husband and I sometimes enjoy role-play and mutual masturbation. She looked at me as though I’d proposed sacrificing a goat. I had apparently misjudged the conversational temperature.
To me, I was describing something we occasionally do together. Nothing in the announcement seemed to require an emergency expression. Yet there it was.
It’s a peculiar experience, finding out that something you consider fairly ordinary may sound startling to somebody else. You begin with a passing comment about your marriage and finish wondering whether you’ve accidentally revealed membership in a secret society.
I hadn’t meant it as a boast, a challenge, or a recommendation. My husband and I sometimes play around that way. That was the entire disclosure. There was no presentation to follow.
But her reaction left me curious. Do other couples do this and simply avoid mentioning it? Is role-play more unusual than I assumed? Does putting two private activities into one casual sentence make the whole thing sound more dramatic?
Of course, one woman’s expression doesn’t tell me what everyone else does. I don’t even know precisely which part surprised her. I have a look to work with, and looks are notoriously poor at supplying footnotes.
I’m not looking for everyone to have the same preferences. If someone has no interest in either activity, that seems straightforward enough. What caught me off guard was the distance between my casual mention and her apparent astonishment.
So I’m curious about other couples. Is this familiar territory, something you occasionally enjoy together? Or have I been using the word ordinary with rather more confidence than the available evidence supports?
