INTIMACY IS MY KINK?! & More Wild Sex Revelations Of My Late 30s'

I still don't believe I'm in my late thirties

*Prefer to listen? I *got* you. Click the audio below for a full narration by me—no creepy AI robot voice!

From the time I was in my late twenties up until my mid-thirties, I was a full-time Sex and Dating writer in New York.

I know, I know. “Sex and Dating Writer” sounds like a fake job that a trust funder with a “blog” might title herself—but I swear to Lana—in my case, it was real. (A little *too* real sometimes). I had a salary with a 401k, went to an office every day, and almost cracked under the immense pressure to exploit my heartbreaks for an uptick in clicks.

If only I’d been a rich bitch funneling ~daddy’s money~ into a sex and dating blog—I would’ve slayed. But, my darlings, the Universe (and my strict Jewish dad—who is many things, but a “daddy” isn’t one of them) had other plans for me.

Even though the gig came with its challenges, it was a dream job, and I took it super seriously. I worked my ass off in my seven-year tenure moonlighting as Manhattan’s lesbian Carrie Bradshaw.

I didn’t just write for the dykes, either. I became a scholar on the sex and dating trends of a multitude (and there are multitudes) of genders, orientations, and identities. I interviewed hundreds of experts, wrote raw confessionals about my own haphazard experiences, spoke on endless panels, attended workshops (sometimes centered around “niche” subjects like how to use a dildo that ejaculates), led focus groups, and could recite the latest statistics on human sexuality from memory.

Cut to the present. I’m thirty-eight, and in the last two years, I’ve stepped away from being a full-time sex and dating writer because it was time to expand and evolve in art and life. Thus, I am no longer an academic lecturing the masses on every micro-trend in the sex and love landscape—but *damn* have I continued to learn. Less from experts. More from hands-on experience.

What I learned in my professional career was dense and lived very much in the head. It was so all-consuming that I didn’t have the bandwidth to take real inventory of what was happening in my body. Let’s just say my studies of sexuality in this season of life have been a far more “intimate” experience, so to speak. But for better or for worse; vulnerability is my kink, so here we are. I’m going to candidly share with you, darlings, the greatest (and most deeply personal) SEX LESSONS I’ve unearthed in my late 30s’.

Also: How am I in my late thirties? Last time I checked, I was twenty-eight, living in a six-story walkup with a roommate on 92nd Street. Whatever. I’m hotter now. We all are.

Stop Pretending To Be ~A Top~ You Cute Bottom

I’d say a good half of my readers, if not more, are straight (heteros, I see you and love you)—and alienating is *not* my kink. So I’m going to quickly inform anyone who might not know that, yes, some of us queer girlies subscribe to the top/bottom rhetoric famously adopted by gay men.

Top and bottom might mean something different to us than it does to the boys, we are working with different parts, after all, but the spirit is the same. A top, in essence, is the spear-header of the penetrative arts. I’ll leave you with that. Message me with further questions if you require more clarity, I’m one of those oddball dykes who doesn’t offend easily, we’re rare but do exist.

Now that’s that out of the way—I’ve learned something jarring in the last two years: I’m a bottom. If any of my exes are reading this, I’m sure they’re howling, laughing to themselves, Bitch, what kind of delusion were you under? You’re the definition of a bottom.

I get it. I’m chuckling, too. In what world did I ever have the audacity to categorize myself otherwise? But yes, drunk on youthful delusion, I—Zara Barrie—at her worst identified as a “top,” and at her best identified as a “switch.” And everyone on the planet, except for me until recently, knows I’m a bottom; for I’m a glaringly obvious case.

I’m just going to say it bluntly: I like being penetrated; I hate wearing the strap-on, and I always have. I never admitted to this because I was teeming with bottom shame, I now realize.

I was a self-hating bottom because I didn’t identify with the reductive bottom stereotypes: we’re pillow princesses, we’re submissive, we don’t do bad bitch things like lift heavy weights in the gym or haul our suitcases up the stairs.

But all of that is trope-y bullshit, or so I’ve come to learn. I very much like to be penetrated, but I’m grittier than any top I’ve ever dated. I can be submissive in the sheets, but I’m mouthy and demanding in the streets. I won’t wear the strap-on, but I’m an active and “hands-on” lover. I’m no Princess of the Pillows; I’m a Jewish American Princess of Love and expect to be treated as such.

Realizing over the last two years that I’m a bottom, at first, wreaked havoc on my identity. After all, I’d written dozens of articles claiming to be otherwise. A crystal clear case of Thou Doth Protest Too Much, but you know what? As you get older, the identity crises are less harrowing and drawn out.

It’s true what they say: with age, you stop giving a shit about what anyone thinks and just relax into who you actually are.

And who I am is a bottom, and now that I’ve embraced it, my sex life is far better because I can actually ~communicate~ what I like and attract aligned lovers (aka tops).

Toxic Sex Is Vanilla

I remember once, in my early thirties, whilst scrolling through the Insta, I stumbled across a meme that read: “I Want a Healthy Relationship With Toxic Relationship Sex.”

You better believe your girl screen-shot that bullshit so fast, and sent it to all her friends. I might’ve even posted it on the socials of the digital media company I was overseeing with the caption, “too real.”

Oops. My bad. What a sorely misguided soul I was. But now that I’m enlightened I’m going to candidly share the truth with you: Toxic Relationship Sex isn’t what it looks like on TV. It’s not thrashing, hot soul-fucking teeming with sultry fire and orgasmic lightning.

The only reason you think toxic relationship sex is mind-blowing is because it’s blowing up the soundness of your mind, not to mention your dignity and self-worth.

When someone treats you like garbage all the time but then, during sex, touches your body and gives you their full attention, that sex is going to feel amazing, understandably.

But it doesn’t mean that the sex is amazing.

Think of it like this: if you’re stuffing your feet into shoes two sizes too small all of the time, taking them off after a long day is heavenly.

But do you want to move through the world in extreme pain just to experience a blissful moment of reprieve? What about wearing shoes that fit so your baseline isn’t misery?

Yes, kicking off the shoes at the end of the day might not give you the same hit of orgasmic relief, but isn’t that a good thing? I don’t know about you, but I want higher standards for my life. I don’t want the most orgasmic part of my day to be the moment my feet can stretch and breathe. I want better. I want the most orgasmic part of my day to be a beautiful dinner, or basking in the view of the sprawling ocean, or a fulfilling conversation with an inspiring human, or an actual orgasm that’s wildly intense because my lover is crazy talented in bed, not because they’re toxic sludge.

After reaching a toxic relationship rock bottom last year, I did a good old-fashioned inventory of my sexual experiences. I was shocked to learn that if I were to separate the psychological mind-fuckery from the sex and just look at what went down in the bedroom through a cold and objective lens—the toxic relationship sex wasn’t all that exciting.

In fact, It was pretty damn bland.

It just ~seemed~ exciting because if someone withholds love and affection from you—when you finally get it during sex—you place it on a pedestal in your mind. If you’ve ever rubbed elbows with another demon from my past, Extreme Dieting, you get it.

Bottom line: I don’t want to live in a state of excruciating hunger. I don’t want to live in a state of incessant deprivation. I want to be loved by an amazing, kind person—because I want to have earth-shatteringly GOOD sex that feels ORGASMIC in authenticity, not just because I’ve been starved of my basic human need for physical touch and connection, and thus anything that isn’t mental warfare will do.

I don’t want sex to be a salve for my misery; I want it to be the best, sparkliest, kinkiest, most connected, and most exciting part of my already very exciting, love-rich life.

There’s No Need To Perform, Little Z

In my twenties, I treated dates like auditions. I didn’t think so much about whether or not I wanted the role of “girlfriend.” Like a desperate actress living in scarcity, I just wanted a callback. And once I nailed the callback, I wanted a producer session. After that, I just had to get the part.

Oh, you had a blonde in mind—no problem, babe, I’ll call my hairdresser, I make a fabulous blonde, you’ll see.

Oh, you want more of a chill girl vibe? Honey, don’t you worry—I’ll gladly dim my light if it’s too intense for you.

Oh, you prefer rocks to diamonds—totally okay. I’ll kill my fucking sparkle to appease your terrible, generic taste.

By the time I hit thirty, I realized that I’m a writer, not an actress, I don’t mean that in just the literal sense but in the metaphorical too. I get to craft this script, and if I don’t like the plot, I ditch it and write a better scene.

By which, I mean I began to call the shots and stopped putting myself up for (unpaid) parts I didn’t even want.

However—(and this is a very recent revelation)—I was still treating my sex life like it was the greatest casting session of my life.

Meaning that I felt like just being in my body, letting myself get lost in ~feeling bliss~ wasn’t enough. I had to perform sexy sultry starlet if I wanted to win. Win what? I don’t know.

I guess, like a lot of girls, at some point, life taught me that my sexuality was my greatest currency and if I didn’t lead with it, I had nothing of value to bring to the table and thus would be rejected and abandoned.

I did this in my relationships and in other areas of my life, too. My writing had to be laden with sex because if it wasn’t, no one would read it. If I didn’t make a big show of batting my lashes and giving incessant bedroom eyes, no one would ask me out. If I wasn’t dressed provocatively, I wouldn’t get the job. The more I write this, the more apparent it’s becoming that a lot of these limiting beliefs are rooted in the trauma of trying to make it as an actress at a super young, vulnerable age. I quit acting professionally in my mid-twenties, but the insecurities served to me by the industry at large bled into every aspect of my life. I’d been performing so long I didn’t know I’d been performing.

Until a wise woman called me out. We were getting hot and heavy on her couch, when she said, “Slow, down. Just kiss me, be present with me.”

My knee-jerk impulse was to retort, “What are you talking about, I AM FUCKING PRESENT,”—but something about the unadulterated honesty in her voice overpowered my defense mechanisms (which is no easy feat, these guard rails are high). So I took a breath and began to kiss her and also let her kiss me. And slowly, I was gently pulled off the rhetorical stage and back into my body. I forgot to perform; I was too lost in the moment.

“This is so much hotter,” she whispered.

At first, I was confused; she didn’t care for my bells and whistles. How dare her.

But then I remembered the most powerful performance of all—whether it’s in the theatre, the writing, or the bedroom—is when the artist stops performing and is completely authentic. That’s when an audience is rendered riveted and viscerally moved.

And it’s an equally electrifying experience for the artist—being in a flow state where you trust your creative instincts—there’s *nothing* like it. It’s the most free and alive you’ll ever be.

Not performing has been an epic awakening for me, and it hasn’t been easy to embody. I still catch myself defaulting back into performance mode. But at least now I’m able to catch myself.

The day after I was present for the first time during sex, I fled to my friend Holly’s house and melted down to her and her girlfriend, lamenting for hours about how jarring it was to truly be raw and vulnerable, to trust that just I was enough, without “the accoutrements.” Like the loving lesbians Holly and Rebecca are, they held space for me but also assured me this was a GOOD thing—even if it was new and scary.

Now that I’ve stopped performing, for the most part, I’m experiencing true intimacy. Which is terrifying. And oh-so-hot. You think handcuffs are a rush? Try allowing yourself to be truly seen.

But before you do anything: break up with your toxic partner, kick off those too-tight shoes, elevate your standards, and when you’re ready to receive it—find yourself a loving partner who makes it safe to be seen.

---

Currently taking on select one-on-one clients! Email me at Zara@zarabarrie.com for more info. Certified and trained by Dr. Martha Beck’s ICF accredited Wayfinder Life Coach Training.