Photo: IKO-studio / Shutterstock
I'm all for women expressing their desires, but I'm also all for respecting everyone's boundaries.
By Suzannah Weiss — Written on Jul 07, 2021
My first sexual experiences were with jacuzzi jets. My family got a new hot tub when I was five, and it became my new best friend. I didn’t quite understand what I was doing, but I somehow understood I was supposed to hide it. Ever since then, leaning against jets has been a secret favorite pastime of mine.
So, when my partner and I started discussing what sex fantasies we’d like to enact during our vacation at the clothing-optional resort Desire Riviera Maya in Mexico, I immediately thought about the hot tub at the sex resort, a popular public sex destination for guests.
I’m more sexually adventurous than my partner (who I’ll call Lukas for the purpose of this piece), so for help devising a plan that would satisfy my exhibitionist side while staying within his comfort zone, we arranged a call with sex coach Lia Holmgren. That’s where the hot tub idea came up: I could pleasure myself using the jets while he sat on the edge of the tub and kissed me or stood behind me and caressed me.
Since being watched was part of the appeal for me, Holmgren suggested Lukas stand back a little — close enough that people knew he was mine, but far enough that they felt invited to observe.
Photo: Desire Riviera Maya
Once we got there, I realized that this entailed more logistical considerations than I’d anticipated. The jacuzzi’s jets were positioned in such a way that I had to either lie on my side or squat on the seat so that it hit me from behind. I decided to go for the latter option with Lukas standing in the water in front of me one evening, while everyone was drinking in the hot tub and I’d already witnessed oral sex.
I kissed Lukas as I started to feel the jet stream in the right place. I moaned, getting really into it.
“I am feeling so uncomfortable right now,” he said. I froze.
“Does that mean you want me to stop?”
“I’d prefer it.”
The shame that led me to hide my masturbation habits as a kid washed back over me. “I must look ridiculous,” I thought. “What’s wrong with me, anyway, that I want to be watched while I masturbate?”
I was also angry at Lukas for squelching the playful spirit that was starting to come out of me. It’s something I rarely get to express. I’d come to Desire to let go of all the restrictions normally placed on my sexuality, but it seemed they’d followed me there.
He leaned in to kiss me. “I’m not interested,” I told him as I turned my head to the side.
“OK,” he replied, then got up and left the hot tub.
I thought about following him, but chatting with other free-spirited people in a hot tub seemed more appealing than arguing with my partner. I got into a conversation about relationships with the man next to me, and I told him what had just gone down.
Photo: Desire Riviera Maya
“Should I apologize?” I asked him.
“Oh, hell no,” his partner chimed in. “I am so done with apologizing for my desires.”
“Not for doing it,” I clarified. “For telling him I wasn’t interested in kissing him after he stopped me.”
"But you weren’t interested,” she said. She had a point.
A few minutes later, I ran into another couple I’d become friendly with and told them what had happened. “That happens a lot, that one person’s more adventurous than the other,” the woman said. “You have to respect that and let them go at their own pace.”
Two of my ideals seemed to come into conflict: I’m all for women expressing their desires unapologetically, but I’m also all for respecting everyone’s boundaries.
With a few drinks in me, I walked back to my hotel room, where Lukas and I got ready for dinner. We didn’t mention the hot tub incident until we were eating shrimp and sipping tequila in a gazebo by the beach.
“Don’t do things that make me uncomfortable,” he said.
I thought about it. “I want you to be comfortable. But I want me to be sexually satisfied.”
“Me too.”
“And I guess when you stopped me, it made me feel like I was bad for doing it.”
“I can see that.”
“So what if we found a compromise? Like we only did it when people aren’t around?”
“I think I’d be OK with that.”
“OK, tell me if that changes. Don’t do anything just because I want it.”
After dessert, we snuck back up to the hot tub, where he held me so I could get the perfect angle at the jet. The sensation was super-intense, and I yelled loudly as I orgasmed, aroused by the possibility that someone was in earshot. Then we swam around and laughed for a while, and then we did it again.
“I loved watching your face,” he told me afterward. “You looked like the happiest person on the planet.”
So, I may not have gotten the sex fantasy I’d pictured in my mind. But I got something even better: I learned how to honor both my own desires and my partner’s boundaries — and that we don’t have to sacrifice either.
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Suzannah Weiss is a writer whose work has also been published in The Washington Post, Salon, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, Seventeen, Paper Magazine, Bustle, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, and more.