An Ode to the Vanilla Wife Life

The weirdest thing about social media is how good it makes me feel about my marriage.

I’m not sure if any of you remember this, but a couple of years ago, a cheeky meme poking fun at so-called Vanilla Wives started trending on TikTok. It operated as a kind of defense of a wilder variety of woman who isn’t exactly marriage material but has a certain adventurous edge to her that men crave. Women would post things like I may not be the woman you marry, but you’ll probably think of me when you f*ck your vanilla wife. Or, I might not be the girl you marry but I'll 100% be the girl you think of in ten years while you lay in bed next to your vanilla wife with the personality of a wet sock etc… Not all of the #vanillawife posts are explicitly about sex, but many gesture, directly or indirectly, at the idea that whatever sex this poor man will be having with his vanilla wife will leave something to be desired.

I don’t like talking publicly about my sex life, but I think it’s fair to say that I am Vanilla Wife. I’m 34, married, with two kids and another on the way. I don’t think of myself or my husband as particularly prudish, but if we’re using the fact that the majority of female college students have been choked during sex as a baseline, then yeah, color me beige.