Raspberry Waffles and Saving Sex For Date Night

Let pleasure contaminate the dreadfully ordinary moments of your life instead of the other way around.

On a recent episode of Shankar Vedantam's Hidden Brain podcast, researcher Jaqueline Rifkin was interviewed about delayed pleasure and "how to find the proper balance between indulgence and restraint." According to her research, every time we put off using something, its "specialness" grows in our imaginations, making us even less likely to use it next time, even if it’s actual usefulness is decreasing over time. Among many things, this explains why I hang onto raspberries like they're an asset that will increase in value even when the truth is just the reverse. This might also explain why so many of us in mature relationships are saving sex for date night. 

Once a year during raspberry season my mom would walk through the door with a cardboard "flat" of raspberries, usually purchased at a roadside stand. The rest of the year they were too expensive, but high season you could snag a bulk deal. We weren’t allowed to touch those tempting mounds of deep red clusters until the weekend for brunch. Not just any brunch; raspberry waffle brunch.

 

Raspberry waffle brunch was an unusually unrestrained feast at my house. No holds barred. We even skipped church one Sunday for raspberry waffle brunch. Homemade whipped cream and fresh Washington raspberries mounded in layers on a belgian waffle. The smell! The beautiful tiny druplets bursting with tangy nectar! 

Now I’m a grown up and I can have raspberries any time I want. And I buy them all the time. But they’re so special to me that I save them- I save them for optimal conditions when I can savor every drop and eat them mindfully. I conserve them so severely that they regularly go moldy and rotten because I was waiting for the perfect time to eat them. Few things bring me greater pain of regret than throwing away a pint of moldy raspberries. What do moldy raspberries have to do with sex?

Sex is an essential bonding ritual for partnerships. It was at the least a daily occurance early in all my relationships. It was an assumed cascade of events between two people that happened without effort or forethought. But a few years in, the passion wanes and the relationship assumes its proper place among the many priorities in a balanced life. And this is where the raspberry trap can set in. 

Young couple on date night

“Not tonight”, a declination previously reserved for hospitalizations or deaths in the family, becomes justified anytime conditions aren’t optimal; and “suboptimal” undergoes scope creep. Suboptimal begins to include: I’m tired; I’m stressed; I haven’t shaved; I don’t feel attractive; I’m watching TV; it’s too early; it’s too late; the house is a mess; I just got home; we haven’t connected lately; let’s wait till date night and then I’ll be prepared. Spontaneity is discouraged to the point of extinction. Sex becomes rare. The coals of desire and pleasure are spread so thin that the raspberries go moldy in the back of the fridge.

What if we reimagine sex into something that doesn’t require optimal conditions? What if we viewed sex simply as an invitation to pleasure, like being offered/offering a foot rub? You don’t have to feel sexy to get started. You don’t have to have a clean house, shaved legs, or be ‘in the mood’. You can decide to interrupt your current stream of thought for sex the same way you would if someone offered you a cookie while you were working. Mastery of un-delayed gratification when it comes to sex just might keep the spark alive, both internally and with your partners.

Eat the raspberries on a Tuesday afternoon between meetings. Have sex in the morning before you’ve brushed your teeth. Let pleasure contaminate the dreadfully ordinary moments of your life instead of the other way around.