painting

Photo: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

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The Beautiful Not-Perfect-Sex Moment
You had sex and it wasn't fantastic. It wasn't even okay. It was too fast and punctuated by fears that your visiting father-in-law was going to wander in on his way to the fridge for a midnight glass of milk. Once again, your partner forgot that you like being kissed on the back of your neck, not your earlobe. Once again, you wanted to do that one dirty thing he likes, but you were just too tired and still too shy to do it. And yet, you had sex—not wild sex, fancy sex, perfect sex or movie sex—just the old-fashioned love-and-tenderness kind that people all over the world long for.