I’ve been married for about twelve years. My wife, Kate, has always been a little shy about her sexuality. We have great sex, pretty often, but fairly vanilla. But she isn’t comfortable being sexual in any way in public. No kissing more than a quick peck, and she never wears anything revealing or sexy when we are out, even on a date. We live in a small town in northern Ohio, and everybody knows everybody, so I get it. Plus she grew up in a conservative, religious household where sex was treated as something shameful.
When we go to the beach at Lake Erie, she always insists on wearing a one-piece swimsuit with a high neck and as little leg showing as possible. I’ve tried to get her to wear bikinis, but she just won’t do it. The idea of seeing someone she knows while wearing so little mortifies her.
I have learned, though, that when we’re on vacation, away from the risk of being seen by anybody we know, her level of inhibitions lowers quite a bit. Four Summers ago, we took a week long trip to the Outer Banks of NC, and I was hoping she’d loosen up a bit. The beach we were staying at actually allowed women to be topless, and according to my research online, had a reputation as an “unofficial” nude beach.