6 FEBRUARY 2025 | Gigi Galasso
Sex and expectations, two lovers that can’t seem to quit each other. As human beings, we attach one to the other like instinct, as if the act itself is incomplete without the fantasy wrapped tightly around it. But how many times can you count on one hand the moments where the dream was sweeter than the reality? The times you imagined it, sculpted it, made it something cinematic, only to find yourself blinking in the dim light, trying to reconcile the difference between thought and touch?
Photo credit to Wesley Lewis
Of course, you’re just human. And sometimes, that’s the way we liketo dream. That’s the way we like to excite ourselves, by thinking. But here’s a ‘hot take,’ as the new generation calls it, what if we strip away the fantasy, leave the expectations at the door, and step into something messier, something real?
Let’s talk about the cringer things. The way they laugh, too loud, too sharp, too unexpected. The way they hold their cigarette, awkwardly poised between fingers, fumbling with a lighter, exhaling too quickly. The unsexy moments. The human moments. The things we roll our eyes at, cringe at, swear we could never tolerate, until, somehow, they’re the very things we find ourselves missing in their absence. The way their nose scrunches when they’re deep in thought. The offbeat way they dance when they think no one’s watching. The small, imperfect details that carve their shape into our memory. Funny, isn’t it? How the things we swore would turn us off are the ones that keep us hooked. But let’s be real, we’re not here to talk about love. Let’s call it what it is, a personal favorite. Hot, dark, sweaty, grabbing water on the side table because you’re parched, hand clasping the pillow screaming into it, eyes peering into your soul, dirty sex.
Get out of your head to get into your body. Yes, it’s as weird as it sounds. And as I write this, listening to a playlist entitled Smooth Jazz for Sex, a collection of sax-heavy tracks that sound suspiciously like the music played in hotel lobbies, I picture all the ways one person makes me feel in a non-sexual way. Wild, I know. But maybe that’s the key to lowering sexpectations. Because telling the mind to shut off is like asking a volcano not to erupt, the tide not to kiss the shore, the sun not to rise, or a heart not to beat. Unnatural, impossible, and frankly, rude.
So what else can pull us from our swirling fantasies and root us in the moment? Maybe it’s the way their fingertips drum absentmindedly on their knee, syncing with a song they didn’t know they remembered. Maybe it’s how they overuse a word they’ve just learned, like they’re auditioning for a TED Talk they weren’t invited to.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the realization that love, real love, the kind that exists outside of fever dreams and dimly lit bars, isn’t about perfection. As Voltaire once wrote, “Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.” But let’s be real, sometimes that embroidery job is uneven, some threads are loose, and a few questionable choices were made along the way. And yet, that’s what makes it real.
And speaking of real, can we talk about the art of giving head without losing your own in the process? A delicate balance between focus, confidence, and not overthinking it like you're defusing a bomb. The goal is connection, not a performance review. So maybe the trick is exactly that, stop performing. Stop curating. Stop treating intimacy like a highlight reel when the best parts are usually unscripted. Maybe then, we’ll stop chasing perfection and finally feel something better. Something real.
Here’s to the foreplay, yes, that lost art, that underrated symphony, that slow, torturous build we seem so desperate to fast-forward through. In an era where attention spans are shorter than a voice memo, where swiping right feels like commitment, and where instant gratification is the reigning deity, we’ve forgotten the simple, carnal joy of anticipation. The teasing, the waiting, the maddening in-between. The brush of lips that never quite lands, the whisper that doesn’t finish the sentence, the deliberate inching closer just to pull away again. It’s the tension, the unbearable, toe-curling, heart-racing tension that turns a moment into a masterpiece. And yet, we rush it, fumble through it, treat it like a buffering screen instead of the main event. But here’s the secret: if you really take your time, if you lean in, slow down, and let your body hum with want instead of demand, you’ll find that sometimes, the best part of sex isn’t the climax. It’s the edge of it.
We strive for perfection, of course, because we are nothing if not hopeless romantics with control issues. We curate, we edit, we sculpt reality like it’s a lump of clay that just needs a little more shaping, a little more effort, a little more something before it becomes worthy of the pedestal we’re desperate to put it on. And yet, no matter how many times we rehearse the script in our heads, reality always manages to ad-lib. The lighting isn’t perfect, the dialogue is off, and somehow, there’s always an inexplicable sock in the bed.
But reality is stronger than us, crueler than us, funnier than us. It takes our picture-perfect daydreams and shreds them like a love letter that was never meant to be sent. And yet, in the wreckage of our fantasies, in the mess we swore we never wanted, something honest emerges. The things we didn’t plan. The moments that shouldn’t have worked but did. The joke that landed wrong but made them laugh anyway. The way they looked at you like you were the most fascinating person in the world—right after you spilled wine all over yourself.
So let’s toast to that, to the missteps and the mishaps, to the offbeat and the unplanned, to the things that were never supposed to be but ended up being everything. Love is rarely perfect, sex even less so, and fantasy was never meant to survive the weight of the real world. But sometimes, when we’re lucky, when we let go of the script and stop trying to direct every scene, reality does something shocking.
It gets it right.
Here’s to the unexpected.
Here’s to the beautifully flawed.
Here’s to hoping.
