On One Condition: When Sex Isn't Hot
by Audrey Ference
Dear Audrey,
My girlfriend and I moved to New York this winter from the Bay Area. We are ladies who try to live ethically, so doing all we can to reduce our carbon footprint is important to us. However, S., my girlfriend, refuses to invest in an air conditioner because "if we didn't need one in California, we won't need one here" and "they're a terrible waste of energy" and, of course, "they weren't even invented 100 years ago and people survived." I am miserable in this heat (and I know she is too) and I fear it will only get worse. But the part that concerns you is that I am just completely not feeling it in terms of getting it on in this weather. S. is mad because she thinks I'm trying to force her into getting a/c by denying her sex. I swear I'm not! Is there anything I can do to get over how unsexy this nasty weather makes me feel?
Wow, no air conditioning AT ALL? Poor pumpkin. I know some people are all like oh, hot and sweaty, how sexual, but for me the last thing I want when I am sweating my tits off is a meat blanket rubbing up on me.
Granted, I am the world's biggest baby about being too hot. Though my south Texas provenance would make you think I'm used to it, you would be wrong. People who live in 100+ degree weather have the sense to build central air into EVERYTHING. The only time we go outside in the summer is to scuttle wincing between two climate-controlled terreria or to go to the pool. Through some kind of Yankee propaganda, I thought it would be cooler up here. Ha! You people and your shitty window a/c units, I swear. Anyway.
Hot-weather fucking is a challenge for the non-heat-loving among us. Because I can't afford to cool the whole house, I just run the air at night in the bedroom and that at least makes for a window of comfortable sleeping/sexing temperature. Surely you can just leave the lights off or something to offset that carbon use? Or like, not take a cab home the next time you go out to the bar? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it gets worse: August is going to be brutal at your place. But for those of you who are air-conditionerless by choice or because of financial reasons, here's what I'd suggest.
Stay hydrated. Just in general, you know, important safety tip, but being dehydrated will also make you feel more sluggish and headachy and generally not receptive to amorous advances.
Consider showering before and after. Cold or lukewarm shower. I know some of y'all out there get off on stanky sweat crotch, and vaya con dios with that, but for the rest of us, pre-showering washes off any unpleasant sweaty/swampyness and kind of cools down your skin so that the thought of touching another 98-degree body isn't so repellent.
Or maybe just fuck in the shower. Or the bath. Or the pool, if you are lucky enough to have private access to a pool. Or the ocean? But not at Coney. Trust me on this.
Find some place air conditioned to do it. Hotel lobby? Bar bathroom? I don't want to know. Surely this can be accomplished with some stealth.
Suck it up and get sweaty.
For questions and comments, The Natural Redhead can be reached at sex@thelmagazine.com
