>

Brad, my first gentile (and thus taboo) bedmate, was also virile and buff; he'd hold me down in bed, talk dirty, and take what he wanted. I assumed all girls went mad for he-men. After all, every bodice-ripping R-rated movie, soap opera and Harlequin romance showed a John Wayne action hero taming the shrew. I saw myself as a tough-talking, chain-smoking femme fatale, albeit from a tony Detroit suburb.

Eventually, I wound up in Manhattan in grad school, where I hung out with a crowd of left-wing, liberal, independent career women. I feared that confessing my craving for being dominated by macho men in bed would mean I'd have to revoke my credentials as a serious, intellectual feminist, so I simply decided to keep quiet about my sexual predilections.

I'd broken off with macho David and Brad because of their insensitivity and infidelity, and I was starting to worry that the Lotharios who stimulated me most in the sack were bound to make me sick when we put our clothes back on. By my thirties, I seriously suspected that there were only two types of men to choose from: bullies who'd bewitch my body, then try to seduce my best gal pals when I wasn't looking, or sensitive souls who'd take me on nice dinner dates but put me to sleep under the sheets.

Then I met Tommy, a kind, good-looking lawyer who treated me well but was also up for a little deviant dance in the dark. Once, after my roommate Emily, a radical documentary filmmaker, overheard some minor smacking and tickling in the bedroom, she asked if Tommy was abusing me. Of course, not. We were just having fun, I reassured her. She eyed me skeptically, as if I was exhibiting signs of battered woman syndrome. But as a big-boned, 5-foot-7-inch gutter-mouthed girl with a decent right hook, I knew for certain that if any guy ever really tried to hit or touch me against my will, I would have beat the hell out of him.

Still, as more years passed, I felt increasingly ready to make a trade-off: rambunctious lovers into lying, head games and cheating for an honest, caring spouse I respected. So, at thirty-five, I wound up with a mensch who walked me down the aisle and swore he'd be faithful. That he also happened to be a big, hot, hairy, sardonic sports-obsessed man's man who easily returned my father's and brothers' male-punch hellos made the decision fairly easy.

Yet only a few years into our blessed union, my spouse seemed to find me too warm-blooded. On Saturday nights he preferred work to body wrestling me to the floor and taking me where I wanted to go. If I tried to bring it up, he'd get defensive, as if I was insulting him. But I felt too young and frisky to forfeit my physical fervor. I wasn't self-conscious about pleasing myself, but it felt sad not to be sharing my pleasure with the partner I adored.

"You have to insist that your husband fulfill your sexual fantasies," instructed my therapist, who happened to be tall, dashing and happily married himself. "Try asking him again."

"I tried, and he can't act them out," I said. "It makes him uncomfortable. Which makes me uncomfortable."

"What's wrong with a little discomfort? Fight through it," he advised.

"It's too weird and awkward," I admitted.