One Way Selfish Sex

I used to think wanting filthy, one-sided sex made me a traitor to the cause. Proper traitor. The kind who writes threads about equal pleasure and then goes home and fantasises about a man who does all the work while she just lies there and takes it. Hours of it. No reciprocity, no fair exchange, no careful checking in that he is also having a good time. Just pure greed. The sort of thing that used to make my stomach drop with shame the second the fantasy finished and the room went quiet again.

Feminism, the version I swallowed young, said sex should be equal. Both people giving. Both people receiving. Nobody treated like a body to be used. So when I realised what I actually wanted was the complete opposite, someone focusing entirely on me for as long as I could stand it while I gave nothing back, it felt like I had been caught. Not by a man. By myself. By the politics I had spent years defending in group chats and the odd Guardian piece when they let me.

That guilt sat heavy for years. Early twenties mostly. I would come home from a night out, still a bit pissed, and the thought would arrive uninvited. What if he just did it all? What if I did not have to perform? What if the point was only my pleasure and he was fine with that? Then the shame would follow straight after. Bad feminist. Internalised misogyny. Pick-me in the worst possible way. I would open Notes on my phone and type half a sentence about it, then delete the lot. Some things you do not even leave for future you to find.

The chore sex that made it worse

Most of the actual sex I was having did not help. Boyfriends who treated foreplay like a box to tick so they could get to the bit they wanted. Gentle when I wanted rough. Rough in the wrong places when I wanted something else entirely. One called me Buttonboo in a voice that made my skin crawl. Another lasted six minutes and then rolled over like the job was done. I would lie there afterwards staring at the ceiling and think, this cannot be what we were fighting for. Equality that still leaves me finishing myself off in the bathroom with the tap running so he does not hear.

Even the better ones fell short. They tried. They asked what I liked. They put the work in for ten minutes and then looked at me like they were waiting for the gold star. The moment I stopped matching their energy, the whole thing deflated. I started to wonder if men were just built that way. Genetically created to breed and then move on. The idea of a man who could stay focused on me, who got off on the fact that I was doing nothing, felt like science fiction. Or a very expensive fantasy I had no business wanting.

I researched Pleasure-Doms one night when I could not sleep. Some Reddit thread about men who exist purely to make women come, over and over, without expecting anything in return. One in eight thousand, the post claimed. I read the accounts and got wet. Proper wet. Then I hated myself for it. Sat on the edge of the bed with my phone in my hand and thought, this is exactly the thing you are not supposed to want if you have spent the last five years telling other women not to settle. The hypocrisy burned.

What changed when I stopped fighting it

The night it shifted was not dramatic. No journal entry. No big conversation with myself in the mirror. I was seeing someone who already knew what he was doing, and halfway through I just stopped trying to give anything back. Stopped reaching. Stopped asking if he was okay. Let my arms go heavy. He noticed. Did not stop. If anything he got more focused. The difference was immediate and almost embarrassing. Sharper. Louder. My body stopped bracing for the moment I would have to perform gratitude or return the favour. I came harder than I had in months and then again before the first one had properly finished. Afterwards he looked pleased with himself in a way that had nothing to do with his own orgasm. That was the part that stuck.

I did not announce anything. Did not update my politics. I just let it happen again the next time, and the time after that. The guilt still showed up, but it arrived later and left faster. One afternoon I caught myself thinking, yes I am being selfish, and it feels fucking incredible. The sentence did not come with the usual follow-up of shame. It just sat there. True.

What surprised me most was how much better the sex got once I stopped fighting myself. The orgasms came quicker and stacked. My head stayed in the room instead of floating off to check whether I was being a good enough participant. I stopped faking anything because there was nothing to fake. He already knew the only job was mine. The relief of that was physical. Shoulders dropped. Jaw unclenched. I could actually feel what was happening instead of managing the experience for two people.

Does it make me a bad feminist

I still believe women deserve respect. Communication. The right to stop at any point. I still think the orgasm gap is real and boring and mostly avoidable if men paid attention. None of that disappeared because I like being greedy in bed. The two things can live in the same person. Wanting one-sided focus for an hour does not mean I think men should get to treat every woman like an unpaid service. It means that, with the right person, I am allowed to take without performing. That is not a political position. It is a preference. Preferences do not cancel out the rest of the work.

The men who are good at this are not the ones looking for a relationship most of the time. They know what they are offering and they know it is not boyfriend material. That clarity helps. There is no soft launch. No blurred shoulder on the grid. No expectation that I will shrink my life to fit him. He shows up, does the job properly, and leaves. Or stays for another round. Either way the boundary is clean. I still get to keep my friends, my sleep, my work. He does not rearrange the furniture because he texted a heart.

Some nights I still feel the old flicker of guilt. Usually when I am tired or when some thread about equal pleasure lands in my mentions. Then I remember the difference between chore sex and the other kind. Chore sex leaves you calculating whether you have done enough. The other kind leaves you shaking and empty-headed and slightly smug. I know which one I would rather keep. The politics can handle it. They have handled worse.

What it looks like now

These days I am clearer about what I am asking for. Not every time. Not with everyone. But when the mood is right I say it outright. I want you to focus on me. I am not going to do much. If that does not work for you we can stop. Most men either light up or admit they cannot do it. The ones who can do it properly are rare, which is fine. I would rather have it occasionally and properly than every week and mediocre. Quality over quantity has never felt more accurate.

My body has stopped treating pleasure like something I have to earn. That shift alone was worth the years of awkward guilt. I still write the threads. Still call out the men who treat women like infrastructure. Still think decentering him is basic self-defence. None of that changed. I just stopped pretending that wanting to be worshipped for an hour made me less serious about any of it. The two things were never in competition. I only thought they were because I had been taught that good feminists do not take too much.

They do. Some of us take a lot. And then we get up, make the tea, and carry on with the rest of the day like nothing happened. Which, in the end, is exactly the point.