Must You Have Sex With Your Husband On His Birthday?
An uncomfortable question, perhaps, but one that underscores many other discussions.
Your life is ultimately a series of chapters (profound), and some people stick around for most of the book — ideally your parents and (once you meet them) children. Maybe some friends. Most are around for 1–2 chapters. That’s a hard lesson of adulthood, but eventually it gets easier.
Well, back in 2009 or so, I helped move my friend into her graduate school apartment in Philadelphia. She was living with some woman from Minneapolis. I think they eventually grew to hate each other, but on this move-in weekend, it seemed all fine. The Minneapolis girl’s dad was there, and all I did was talk to him about Tim Pawlenty and the Twins as I moved stuff into this apartment. It was pretty fun.
Well, later that night I went out with my friend and her friend, who was also my friend. To make things more complicated, both of them are good friends with my ex-wife, or were at one point. I started this post by discussing “chapters” because, in August 2009, I was close to best friends with these girls. The last time I talked to either was probably 2018. So, life happens.
Anyway.
We go out to this bar and my friend’s boyfriend is coming the next day. It’s my friend’s birthday the next day. So the other female friend starts playing the Jeremiah song “Birthday Sex” and we’re dancing around to it. My female friend says, “No, I don’t necessarily think the obligation goes male to female.” We cut the music and wanted to talk more. What do you mean? She basically says, “Well, I think a woman has to fuck on a guy’s birthday, but a guy doesn’t owe that to a woman.” Hmmm. We were stunned. We explored this for 30 minutes, but kept drinking in the process, so things got hazy.
Years later, that boyfriend became a fiancee. And then, to tie this story completely together, I ended up actually living in Minneapolis. While I was there, on a Friday afternoon I was sitting at a bar called The Bulldog in NE Minneapolis. I got an email from the “Birthday Sex” girl.
Wedding was off.
I highly doubt there’s any correlative fabric between her views on birthday sex and the wedding being off five years later, but hey, what do I know? I later heard through a deep grapevine that they went to therapy to talk about some stuff before marriage, and she says to the therapist: “We don’t have a lot in common; we don’t talk about a lot.” The therapist asks the guy, “Is that true? What do you think?” He says: “I just figured we’d have kids and talk about that.”
I have no idea if that story is true, but it’s so beautiful if it is true — because I do think a lot of guys think about relationships that way. “Yea I mean I dunno, I guess we can discuss the kids, right?”
Anyway. Back to birthday sex.
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