The Press offers you a weekly testimony that aims to illustrate what really happens behind the bedroom door, in privacy, far, far from statistics and standards. Today: David*, 60 years old.
For lack of sex at home, David regularly frequents massage parlors, and has done so for 30 years now. No, he’s not exactly proud of it. It is even rather shameful. Confidences loaded with a man who has never revealed himself.
The man with the gray hair and good-natured profile gave us an appointment recently in the large food court of the Complexe Desjardins, in a remote corner sheltered from indiscreet ears. He is “nervous”, he says straight away, and we would be less so. “I never divulged it. Never, never, never. To no one. Even his shrink doesn’t know anything about it, that is to say. “And for 24 hours, I said to myself several times: do I cancel? […] But it’s time to say it, he convinces himself. Maybe I see something therapeutic in it? Maybe I need to indulge after all these years? »
If he is stressed, it is primarily because he is married, we guessed it. “And in general, I am happily married,” says the man with a hint of a foreign accent, sometimes a bit clumsy, but in French no less sustained. “There may be a question of shame, quite honestly. I wouldn’t want people to know that side of me. Besides, no one could suspect it, he believes. “I have good friends, but they see me as a guy straight. It’s really too close to the person they perceive…”
His adolescence is by his own admission rather “dull”, he begins. “I had very little self-confidence…” It was also only in his “young twenties” that he had his first sexual experience. Verdict? “It was like going to heaven! The adventure lasts a few months, then David spends five years with a second woman, met on the benches of the university, with whom he never has, hold on tight, a complete sexual relationship. “We liked each other, he said, but sexually it didn’t work. We won’t really know why, but the fact remains that to “let off steam”, David doesn’t go elsewhere, but goes to a massage parlor for the very first time.
He still remembers it. He had seen, at the time, an ad in THE Montreal Journal. “I was nervous and excited at the same time! “, he says, describing the typical course of said “massage”, which has more or less not changed in 30 years. If he is happy leaving? He thinks, then replies, “I’d say I’m relaxed, of course, but happy? No. A bit ashamed…”
David then saw a flirt or two at work, before meeting, at the turn of his thirties, his partner, his wife, the mother of his children. ” I fell in love ! And I still am! he said smiling. He is a person whom I consider to be extraordinary. »
They get married fairly quickly, and in their early days, their sexuality is rather “super pleasant”, at the rate of two or three times a week, “sometimes less, rarely more”. “It’s nice, he just says, I don’t know what to say apart from that. »
And then ? And then came the children, and somewhat “unbeknownst to them,” “and that’s completely normal,” he says, their “sexual energy” waned. “The more children there are, the less energy there is. Until “slowly but surely” they had no sexual intimacy at all.
“And when the last one was born, I went back to the living room…”, he drops.
I wanted sex, and I wanted sex easily. […] Maybe it was an easy door that I had already cracked open? So I went back.
David
And it hasn’t stopped since.
“My relationship with my wife remains,” he says. There is a hole, but the rest of my relationship is amazing! »
Have they ever addressed the issue? “No, answers our man. Sometimes there are things left unsaid in a couple…” As the children grew up, they certainly “recovered” a little, as he says. But so little. “Very sporadically,” he says. We are talking about a few times a year. ” The last time ? Somewhere in September. “That gives you an idea…”
The questions jostle in our head, and David answers them frankly, without the slightest detour. How often ? ” Twice a month. But it can be twice a week,” he says. According to what? “It depends a lot on the stress. I find that when I have a stressful event at the office, it’s a way of letting off steam. Madame doesn’t really suspect anything? “I don’t think she suspects anything. I’m working. I manage my schedule…”
Does that fill it up? “It’s a sexual and physical relief,” he adds. With a moral guilt that is not overwhelming either. » As proof: « I’m going back! “And it’s a bit pathetic: either I carry this guilt, or I renounce sexuality.” Not being ready to give up, I opt for guilt. »
Even if it is a one-way relationship, it must be remembered. Besides, has he developed links with certain masseuses over time? “Links, that’s a big word,” he replies. I think I’m a decent customer, but there’s not a lot of dialogue. »
How much does it cost, exactly? “A hundred dollars at a time. We do a quick calculation in our head, and we guess a rather astronomical total over all these years. “I deliberately didn’t make that calculation, and I don’t want to…”
We allow ourselves to insist: but why has he never broached the subject with his wife? “Hearing you, I wonder. Should I address the issue openly? I fear a major marital crisis. »
We dare one last question: does he have the feeling of having missed out on his sex life? “It’s one of the great failures of my life,” confirms David. But his life in itself is not a failure, he says. “Despite everything, I am a fundamentally happy guy. I have a wife that I adore. Children that I adore. A job that I love. I travel ! Despite this failure that I carry, I am not a depressive guy, ”he says, running away in a gale.
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity