is there such a thing as “too much sex” in a relationship?

[fruityrumpus]

my partner and i have been in a romantic relationship for a few months, and close friends for a few years. we’re incredibly happy together, and we work really hard to make sure our relationship stays happy and healthy in as many ways as we can.
we started doing sexual things almost immediately after becoming romantic partners, to the dismay and embarrassment of my mother (who’s actually just fine with it, as long as we are safe and we don’t do things while she’s home...back to that later). we both have our kinks and we are both comfortable and even excited to explore those things with each other, and despite us being reckless teenagers who got sub-par school sex ed, we try our best to be as safe and as healthy as possible with our sexual relationship (i just got a birth control implant the other week!)
overall, we’re really happy together and we’re in a healthy relationship, and we work hard to keep it that way for as long as we can!
the issue arises with the frequency of our sexual encounters.
to keep things short, we do sexual things a LOT. there’s a very high chance we’ll end up doing something sexual if we see each other, even if we didn’t plan for it and even if PEOPLE ARE AT MY HOUSE :/
we’ve discussed maybe planning for a movie date or a hiking outing or something, as a distraction, which works.
i’ve always had a very high sex drive for various reasons, and now that i’m on testosterone HRT it has only increased. i know there’s not much i can do about that, and that’s okay! there’s nothing wrong with it.
but...is there an issue with doing sexual things ALL THE TIME? we do other things in the relationship of course, and it’s definitely not a case of having sex because we’re bored or anything. we both just... get Bothered and then end up doing sexy stuff for however long. there’s DEFINITELY an issue with doing sexual stuff while my mom or other people are over, that’s for sure.
should we decrease how often we do sexual things? is this an issue, or a non-issue i’m worrying too much about? if it’s not an issue, how can we at least discipline ourselves to be a little bit safer with sex, and be more respectful when people are over?
this may seem like an overly anxious rant but i wanna make sure our relationship is as healthy as it can be!

[Sam W]

Hi fruityrumpus,

To answer your main question: Nope! There's nothing wrong with having a lot of sex in a relationship, as long as everyone is consenting and enjoying themselves (and it's not getting in the way of important life stuff, but that doesn't sound like that's happening here).

As far as having sex while other people are in the house, does that feel like a problem because you think or know you can be overheard or might be making them uncomfortable? Or does it make you two feel uncomfortable? Or something else entirely?

[fruityrumpus]

i know it makes them uncomfortable, even if we “stay quiet”. it feels disrespectful, and for some reason we can’t stop ourselves once we get it going. sometimes they hear, sometimes they don’t, but it all feels disrespectful to me. especially when my mother is home, because she explicitly said Don’t Do That When I’m Here (she specified intercourse, which should be easy to avoid because there’s so many other things to do, but we STILL end up doing that too!).
I usually don’t feel bad about my crazy sex drive because that’s just how i am, but this specific aspect of stuff makes me :/ because i’m not entirely sure how to stay disciplined about it (i barely know how to discipline myself with other things too- thanks, adhd).

[Heather]

I think that it’s important to be respectful of other people’s boundaries. That’s part of things being consensual for everyone involved. Involving others in our scene in any way they don’t want to be — and IMO, that includes when we’re in their space and their house rules — isn’t consensual.

Do you earnestly have a problem limiting your sexual activity within those boundaries, or is it just that you’d rather not? In other words, when you both try to respect those limits, can you? Or do one or both of you feel you may have a compulsivity/impulsivity issue where you earnestly don’t feel in control of your actions?

[fruityrumpus]

it may be a compulsivity issue...before i had the implant, we used protection (and still do ofc!), but i’d often find myself just doing things without it and we’d both have an issue speaking up about it for some reason. it’s not that we didn’t wanna use protection, because we both get anxious abt that kinda stuff, it’s just ...we didn’t sometimes?
being sexually active with another person is very new to me and i didn’t realize that i would do Less Than Optimally Safe things without being able to stop.
i definitely don’t WANT to be disrespectful to my mother or anyone else, i’m just not sure why i find it so hard to keep my sex drive under control.

[Heather]

Okay. So, even if there wasn't the issue of your mother, I'd be concerned because it also sounds like this has been something that has put you in some risky spots all by yourself, you know? And feeling unable to speak up or stop also isn't a safe thing for either of you, obviously.

Now, if this is mutual, then it may be part of your relationship dynamic, too -- or that entirely, if this is something that has only been the case with this partner, in particular. Has this felt like an issue for you before with masturbation or other partners? I know the T is new to the mix, and that can bring its own complications, obviously, but it also sounds like this all isn't new with that, right?

[fruityrumpus]

i’ve never had any other partners, and never masturbated before testosterone. my sex drive had already increased, which is what caused me to start being active with myself anyways.
i find myself making bad impulsive decisions with many different things, but this is an aspect of my life that’s important and i should be respecting both my body and other peoples consent. i’ve brought it up with my partner before (“if we do things without protection and i don’t bring it up, say so for me”) and they said that they had the same compulsive issue. we both have probable ADHD, so our stuff lines up in that way. we speak up about other things (“ouch! don’t do that just yet” or “my mood changed, is that okay?”, etc etc), so this is the outlier here and it’s REALLY strange.
our relationship is pretty good and safe and healthy in most aspects except for this tiny, tiny thing, and it frustrates me a lot.
why couldn’t i just lean over and grab a condom, which was only under my bed? why can’t i just save it for another day if there’s people over?
i don’t wanna feel ashamed of being so sexual, and i’m the most sex positive person i know, but sometimes this specific thing gets to me and i just don’t know how to deal with it.
i suspect my high sex drive, on top of it already being high as a child and being on testosterone as a teenager, has something to do with past trauma as well. i’m not sure how much that would affect it, but i find it really frustrating to just get this stuff under control.

[Heather]

Thanks for trusting me to share all of that. That helps fill in more of the picture for me.

By all means, I agree that T may be part of this picture, especially as you're still getting used to it. But it also sounds like you're saying impulsivity has been an issue for you in general, not just around sex. I'm with you that feeling shame about sex and sexuality isn't a good thing and is something that you'll want to see what you can do to start changing. More on that in a second.

Have you ever seen a mental healthcare professional about the impulsivity, or been evaluated for ADHD (which yep, you're right, could also be an issue)? It doesn't sound like you have: if not, is that something you can access? If you can. I think that would be good for you, and probably the one of the best next steps here.

I can think of some other next steps, too, though, including things you can do if there's a waiting period for those evaluations. Can you and your partner make some very hard-limit agreements? And maybe set up some environments around them to help yourselves? For instance, how about when your Mom is home, you agree not to be sexual, period, but to engage in/explore other parts of your relationship instead, and put yourself in places in the house where being sexual isn't an option? How about sitting down and making a list of all the limits like this you want/need and then coming to the table with them and making some agreements and figuring out what adjustments you might need to make to make holding yourselves to them more attainable for y'all?

In terms of the shame, I want to say a few things that I hope might help you get a start on letting some of that go. Having a lot of or frequent desire for sex (what some people call a high sex drive) isn't anything to be ashamed of. That also doesn't control us or make us do things we don't want to. I don't think that that is likely much of the picture here save that when you are doing sexual things that you don't feel right about, it feels less awful to you because of that desire, that's all. Do you know what I mean?

Even if you are having a hard time learning to deal with sexuality and impulsivity, that *still* isn't anything to be ashamed of, just like it wouldn't be anything to be ashamed of if you were on the other side of this particular spectrum with low desire and low responsiveness to sexual opportunities, you know? It's so easy to forget what bullshit the messaging we all have inherited that the desire for more sex (or more food, or more rest, or more anything else our culture had very selectively deemed bad) is automatically more shameful is, and how much it can really get us twisted.

Learning what you're learning and adjusting to the things you're adjusting to isn't a shameful process, it's just a human one. I think if you can start to make some changes, that should help with the shame, but my hope is that you can recognize that even before you can do that, or while you are, you STILL do not have anything to feel ashamed of, and can start letting some of that shame go. <3

[fruityrumpus]

my therapist and i have briefly talked about a possibly ADHD diagnosis, and i’ve been meaning to bring it up again. i think talking to her about it more could be really insightful for me.

i think making agreements is manageable. we have a movie list we can finally start ticking off, or we can leave the door to my room open so we can both let my cat come in and hang out AND make sure nothing sexual can happen. they’ve been trying to teach me music, so we could make sure we finally do that. or play a game on my consoles, etc etc. i’m sure i could come up with all sorts of “distractions” pretty quickly.
sometimes what i’ll do before my partner comes over is state that i’m already bothered, and that i can deal with it before they get here if they’re not in the mood. i suppose we could both do that more to prevent us from getting uncomfortably bothered when with each other without having an outlet.
smaller sexual things may not be an issue to my mom because she specified “no intercourse” (she’ll make fun of me for having hickeys when i leave my room, and then move on), so if one of us gets SUPER bothered i’m sure we could deal with it AND use a distraction at the same time so we don’t go too far with it, to the point of being disrespectful, because i’m aware that for AMAB people, just leaving it can be physically uncomfortable.
perhaps i’ll bring up feelings of shame with my therapist as well, because it makes me sad that i feel like this sometimes, especially being as sex positive as i am. overall, i know i’ll be okay.
thank you so much for the help! coming to this forum is always a nice experience when i feel strange about anything and it’s always wonderful to have such a positive and productive conversation about these sorts of things.

[Heather]

Just FYI, it's no more physically uncomfortable to just leave it for AMAB folks (for people with testes) than for everyone else. The same things that can happen there can physiologically to everyone. And for everyone, that discomfort can subside by waiting it out, or taking an analgesic (like an Advil). It's one of those things that has been made into a bigger deal culturally than it actually is because: patriarchy.

I think your plans sound like good ones! It's also good to hear that it sounds like your Mom is generally pretty accepting, she just -- as people do! -- has some limits and boundaries she wants, probably for everyone's comfort.

I'm glad to be of help. Please feel free to pop in as much as you like, I'm happy to keep talking or to talk more about any of this as you need to. I want you to feel better about all this, too.