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"1. Get Comfortable with Your Desires

Before you even start a conversation with your partner, you need to have a level of comfort with the desire you have.

Otherwise, you may go into the conversation needing their approval or affirmation that it’s okay for you to want this.

That’s an unfair burden to put on somebody who may not even have thought about this until you bring it up! And you need to know that your feelings are valid, regardless of how your partner reacts.

So find some sources of affirmation for yourself first. BDSM and polyamory have large online communities where you can read stories by people whose relationships and sense of self saw wonderful improvement.

For any particular sex act or toy, you can definitely find articles online by people who love it (you will also probably find articles by people who hate it – nothing is for everybody!).

Looking inside yourself is important too. Do you believe this will be good for you? Does thinking about it make you happy? Those feelings are valid!

You have a right to pursue a sexual life that satisfies you, even if others don’t understand it.

Go ahead and tape that to your mirror, if you want. In a world that tries to shame us for every deviation from sexual “norms” (even when many of those sexual norms are pretty harmful and consent-negative), it bears repeating.

You have a right to pursue a sexual life that satisfies you.

2. Get Comfortable with Their Right to Have Different Desires

Here’s the flip side of the affirmation I just gave: Your partner doesn’t owe it to you to satisfy your desires. They also have a right to a sexual life that is healthy and satisfying to them, and sometimes their desires are going to be very different from yours.

Sometimes, when we find something that really fulfills us, we become downright evangelical about it. If only more people knew! we think. If more people saw how great this is, they’d be so much happier!

It’s very natural to move from, “This is bad, nobody should do it” to “This is awesome, everybody should do it!”

It’s a lot harder to stay with our own experience, to say, “This is awesome for me. I don’t know how other people will feel about it.”

This is even true for things that are considered “normal.” Some people don’t enjoy receiving oral sex. Some people discover that marriage and settling down isn’t right for them. Nothing is for everybody.

You don’t need to figure out how your partner will feel about this desire, or whether it will be good for them. That’s their job, and they might not know until they’ve thought about it.

Your only job is to give them the space and the information they need to figure it out for themselves."

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