Bringing back the pillow talk

Like most married couples who’ve passed their sell by date, the spouse and I have reached a comfortable bed time routine where we both pray that we fall off to sleep before the other does, so we aren’t inflicted with a sleepless night thanks to the other’s snoring.

Pillow talk, as you might guess, has long been dead and buried. Resuscitating it would need more than the kiss of life. Were we the only ones? Were other couples our age getting giggly and talking x-rated stuff with their long time spouses and partners while the dirtiest our pillow talk ever went was when we discussed bills and EMIs?

Do you talk dirty with your husband, I asked a friend, also in a marriage which recently crossed the two decade mark. She looked at me kindly. “The last dirty talk we had was when the kitchen drain clogged up on a weekend and there was no plumber. That was one hell of a filthy conversation.”

“We don’t actually talk dirty face-to-face. But there’s sexting,” another friend said, helpfully. She added, “But that ended when I forwarded a picture to the family WhatsApp group by mistake.”

Sexting might just work, but there are other demons that being middle-aged brings. Fishing out the reading glasses, for example, squinting at the screen, trying to figure what the hieroglyphics on the screen are.

Long-term relationships have their peaks and troughs. In regular times, the peaks and troughs follow in quick succession. At others, the troughs seem to take up permanent residency.

One of the ways to bring that interest back, say experts, is through regular pillow talk. “Talk to your partner about sex,” they say. “Bring the mojo back into your life.” Well, considering most marriages closer to the silver jubilee match would need to send out the entire police force to find said mojo and frogmarch it back home, that’s easier said than done.

“Sometimes I want to talk with him about my fantasies and things that turn me on,” said another friend. “And then...” I ask, ears agog for prurient details. “Then I realise I would rather go to sleep.”

It is quite difficult to talk sexy stuff with someone you are regularly intimate with. This is actually contrary to popular perception that it should be a piece of cake, and you should be able to have conversations that put down body maps, erogenous zones, and costume details, down to latex thickness and texture specifications. Strangely enough, they say the bedroom isn’t the best place for pillow talk—there’s too much, errm, performance pressure.

But then there are always post-its. And smiley faces. And gentle non-sexual touching, all of which can make talking about sex easier. Bringing back pillow talk is definitely helpful if your sex life is stuck in a rut. And more important, is acknowledging the need for a conversation if things aren’t quite what you want in the bedroom.

(Kiran Manral is the author of six published books across genres. She is also a recovering Nutella addict.)

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