TICKED OFF
TURNED ON
When the Gloves
Come Off, Look Out!
By Irene Ricasio
 
Right now my relationship is hanging by a thread, and that thread is called make-up sex. Don't get me wrong: I love my boyfriend as much as ever. But ever since our recent move cross-country, we've been performing the emotional equivalent of a circus high-wire act...setting up house, starting two new jobs...and instead of bringing us closer, the stress of launching into a brand-new life is taking its toll. Things between us aren't hunky-dory...in fact, they're downright crappy. Not a single day goes by without some kind of cinematic showdown. I've even taken to wearing waterproof mascara and tucking a few spare Kleenex in my back pocket.

Still, we've got one thing going for us: When the gloves come off, when the insults begin to fly, when we both think things couldn't possibly get any worse, that certain sneaky ember of sexual tension starts to smolder...and before you know it, we're on top of each other like drowning men on a liferaft.

It's not such a stretch, really. Anger and desire are two sides of the same coin. All that overwrought energy has to go someplace, right? And there's nothing like an honest-to-goodness, below-the-belt, down-and-dirty scrap to really get the juices flowing. My friend Mitch would certainly agree. He was once on the phone with American Express, disputing a couple of charges on his card, and things quickly escalated into an vicious confrontation with the female customer representative on the other end of the line. "After I hung up, I felt this huge adrenaline rush," he says. "I wanted to ask this woman out. And I'm pretty sure she felt the same way. I heard the attraction in her voice. It was the biggest turn-on I had all month."

My friend Jenny has practically declared herself the poster girl for make-up sex. "I live for it," she croons. "Sometimes your relationship gets so vanilla, and you just want to spice things up. A good fight allows you to really let loose in bed. When Dave is mad, he lets it fly. Spanks me, you know, talks real dirty. And I'm banging my head against the wall and begging for more."

Indeed, for me, much of the charm of make-up sex comes from this rough-and-tumble quality. There's nothing feel-good about it; none of this hearts-and-flowers stuff, no soft focus on the lens. It's as hardcore as it gets. For other couples, of course, a fight has the opposite effect. Take Allie and her boyfriend, for example. "When we're arguing, doing it is the furthest thing from Ryan's mind," she says. "He just shrivels up. His penis retreats into itself like a mechanical pencil. He's very sensitive; things need to be all smoothed over before he can even think of touching me."

Gina prides herself on holding out: "No way am I letting him into my pants if I'm pissed off," she says. "Sex is such an intimate thing; you're letting down all your barriers in front of another person. You're just making yourself more vulnerable, more open to getting hurt."

Admittedly, having sex to end an argument may not be the healthiest thing in the world. It may even be a little perverse. But sooner or later in any long-term relationship, the scenario is bound to rear its ugly little head. So for anyone and everyone who's ever taken the plunge, I present the three cardinal rules of successful make-up sex:

1) It has to be consensual. There's a very real distinction between "No, no, stop it, I don't want it," and "No, no-ooh, n-ohhh, ahhh." Mistake one for the other, and you've got bigger problems than this column can handle.

2) Both parties have to get off. Equal rights, baby. If you go down on him for 20 minutes, he'd better return the favor. Now is not the time to be selfish.

3) Enjoy it while it lasts, but know that the real test of your relationship comes afterward. Because you'll be lying in the dark, right back where you started. Do you reach over and cuddle? Do you sucker-punch him while he's down? Sometimes it's all too tempting to pick up exactly where you left off, to put up your defenses and launch back into battle. As the postcoital haze recedes, you suddenly remember all the reasons you started fighting in the first place. In which case, make-up sex becomes a kind of self-betrayal, a testament to your weakness, a traitorous blip on the radar that you immediately resolve to never, ever let happen again.

That's when other factors come into play. You know, things like love and commitment and determination to stick it out. All the mushy stuff that gets shoved aside when you're rolling around in the sheets. In the case of me and my boyfriend, make-up sex goes far beyond the physical satisfaction of the moment...it's the last resort when all verbal communication breaks down. Sometimes we express ourselves better with our bodies than with words.

So when things get really, really bad, my advice is to head for the bedroom. It's been working for me so far. Think of make-up sex as a pleasurable, if temporary, glue. It's there to hold you guys together until a real solution comes around.