Excerpts From ‘The Sex Diaries Project’: The Secret Sex Lives Of Parents To Young Children

New York Magazine‘s “sex diaries” once provided New Yorkers with a little window into the sex lives of complete strangers. They were weekly notes of people encompassing all sorts of lifestyles and relationship choices. Writer Arianne Cohen started the editing diaries at New York Magazine and expanded the project into a book: The Sex Diaries Project: What We’re Saying About What We’re Doing.

Reading the intricate details of a person’s sex life is fascinating on many levels. It’s a method of voyeurism that requires little work on the part of the reader, while allowing a window into habits and activities that may be mundane to some and outrageous to others. It’s also always tinted by the writer’s self-perception and allows the reader validate his or her own choices or take the temperature of a current relationship.

That’s part of why New York Magazine’s “sex diaries” went from a one time assignment for writer Arianne Cohen to a project encompassing over 2000 diaries, a packed website and the new book, out this month.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Arianne has allowed Mommyish to publish a few short excerpts from The Sex Diaries Project: What We’re Saying About What We’re Doing.

We’ve chosen three days in the lives of parents to young children, to demonstrate exactly how often a few parents are bypassing small children to get some alone time and what they have to say about it. Are these outrageous or similar to your own lives? Let us know in the comments.

The Upstanding Schoolteacher Who Would Like Some Triple-X Time

32, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana

FRIDAY
8:00 a.m.: First morning of summer break, and my wife continues our tradition of a good morning blowjob and breakfast. With a start like this, the stack of grading is hardly daunting at all.

1:15 p.m.: Damn the French and their cinema. Watching a movie, and the last scene has me missing my wife’s bottom, giving it a squeeze, but she’s off shopping.
4:18 p.m.: In passing I touched her ass while she cooks. Such a lovely thing, a woman’s ass. I reflect over the fine memories I have of my wife’s ass.
6:00 p.m.: I doubt that I masturbate more than five times a year. Since January, however, that number has increased and I’d bet I’ve masturbated more in the last five months than in seven years of mar- riage. A couple times I’ve done it in front of her. She masturbates fairly frequently herself and has throughout the marriage. It’s helped me be more attentive to her when we do have sex. With three young kids and a newly pregnant wife, we’ve remarkably been able to give each other some enjoyment twice or thrice a week.

9:02 p.m.: An endless graduation ceremony has drained my libido. I rehash the horror to my wife as she bathes.
10:06 p.m.: Conflict. My wife volunteered me to babysit the diffi- cult nephew, along with my kids, tomorrow while she and her sister attend a lingerie party. So no sex.

The Stepmom in a Hot Long-Term Relationship

42, New York City

TUESDAY
2:00a.m.: I awake to a hard-on jabbing the back of my thighs and Jack has his hands up my tank top. I’m very tired, but also excited because this is the second night in a row that I’ve been woken up this way. I’m hoping it’s a trend.
2:15 a.m.: After receiving a very intense manually-administrated orgasm, I take his penis into my mouth. It’s not long before he tugs on my hair and I’m on my back with my knees by my ears . . . then I am flipped over. I love being taken from behind, I have the best orgasms that way.
2:17 a.m.: I have to stuff my face into the mattress because I am making too much noise. Even though our door is closed, Jack’s sons’ room is right next to ours and I worry they will hear.
2:45 a.m.: We’re spent and cuddling, and disagreeing over who’s going to go get water for the both of us, when we hear the toilet flush. Oh shit.
9:30 a.m.: At my corporate job, having erotic flashbacks. I am still really into Jack after seven years.
12:00 p.m.: Flipping through a feminist magazine, and I see a review for a ”natural” lube. I find a link on Drugstore.com, and email it to Jack with the subject line, ”Buy this for us!” I used to never need it, but my body no longer reacts like it used to: I find I can be horny as hell and dry as a bone. This disturbs me. I worry Jack will think I’m not sexually aroused when I am.
11:30 p.m.: Posting photos on my Facebook page, when a guy I fooled around with in high school pops up on my chat. I am super friendly and ”don’t get” any of his innuendos. Not flattered, because he’s obviously taking the machine-gun approach, and trying every broad he knows to find a free sex chat.
11:45 p.m.: Kids are both still up. I have a hard time having the sex life I desire with kids in the house. It’s difficult to let go while on full alert to any evidence that the boys might hear or interrupt us. Though I suspect the boys know what we’re up to.
1:30 a.m.: Jack’s hands are up my nightgown again. I am so tired. I press against him, so he knows I’m not rejecting him, per se. I fall back asleep.

The Editor Considering Walking out on Her Husband on Easter Weekend
40, Gloucester County, New Jersey

SUNDAY
6:00 a.m.: Got about five hours of sleep before the kids woke up and wanted to check out their Easter baskets. Adorable.
12:54 p.m.: At my brother’s house. They did a great job with brunch and the Easter egg hunt, and they have a nice big house to hang out in””though every time we see them they are looking for a larger newer house. They are very into appearances. I feel like my mom passed that trait along to both of us. I try to fight it but I find myself feeling like what I have is inadequate.
1:58 p.m.: Find myself thinking about Duane. Maybe he’s just someone that will stay in my mind for years and pop up when I least expect it. I know deep down that we won’t be together unless one of us takes our children away from our spouse and moves, which I’m not willing to do and I know he’s not either.
10:15 p.m.: Just nicely turned Rich down for sex again. I need to have my emotional needs met before I can consider sex. It’s frustrating that there are things we need to work on, but his focus always seems to be sex. Why does that have to be such a big part of married life? Even when it’s really good, I still could do without it.
10:20 p.m.: I should say that I’ve explored plenty. I can say that being fairly attractive has given me more choices””I had boyfriends when my friends did not get asked out, so that might have helped my self-esteem. Though I recently found out that a guy I dated came out. Which was really surprising. Not that the sex was great””it was actu- ally not that good at all. I went back and looked at a bunch of roman- tic letters he wrote me, and a few were written on pink paper. In one he mentions the movie Beaches.