Hot and bothered

Just when I thought I was safe, wrapped up in winter thermals, deeply unattractive socks and a thick layer of stay-at-home-housewifery, desire has managed to poke through again, like a tenacious weed through a carefully laid garden bed. (You see? I didn't have to choose those words did I?)

I thought I was truly okay with the absence of sex in my life (yes, we're back to that) but for some reason that I can't fathom, suddenly I am not. Suddenly people are sparkling with that electric possibility again. Words are laced with flirtation. And I want to come home and jump someone's bones. I really do.

But I hit a wall. How did I forget that wall? Gosh it hurts. Goodness gracious it's annoying. Maybe this is the impetus I need to take up running again.

I was half listening to an interview last week with the Archbishop of Melbourne and he was talking about celibacy. He doesn't think that physical intimacy is a "basic human need" as suggested by the interviewer.

"What I think is the important point that both of us would agree on is that we all need friendship, companionship, support," he said.


I throw myself into friendships, work, parenting. All these things benefit from a passionate aproach and are very rewarding.

But there is no equivalence for me. They are different things. I am a physical creature as much as an emotional one. And much as I find the combination of love and sex a wonderful thing, I also have no problem with the separation of the two.

So this is one big sacrifice for me, giving up sex. It's like Lent all the god damned time. Challenging enough in a relationship which does involve sex - pretty excruciating in one that does not.

And it's the middle of winter so no cold showers.

There endeth the bloody great enormous whinge.

Flo.