//------------------------------// // Performance (Rainbow Dash) // Story: Adventures in the Psychology of Sexuality (with Ponies) // by Kodiologist //------------------------------// One day, some hijinks involving the Mirror Pool and a baggie of high-grade poison joke led to the appearance of a new rainbow-maned pony. He was a male duplicate of Rainbow Dash, identical to the original in almost every way, who called himself Rainbow Blitz. Nopony was surprised to see the two Rainbows dating. In fact, Twilight Sparkle had barely introduced herself to Rainbow Blitz before she launched into a stern lecture about the perilous genetics of inbreeding. The meeting ended on a sour note when Rainbow Dash, tiring of Punnet squares, said something crude to Twilight about time travel, and Rainbow Blitz added something about Shining Armor. Other than that, the first few days they were together were pure bliss for Rainbow Dash. She loved him, and he loved her, just as much as she loved herself. Occasionally they cuddled or had romantic dinners, but a lot of the time they spent together was trying to outdo each with other with feats of speed and aerial acrobatics. They pushed each other, and Rainbow Dash found herself faster and more graceful than ever before. The Rainbows eagerly awaited sex with each other, and so they soon had it… or tried to. Their seeming perfect coordination disappeared. Blitz was unable to get a full erection and felt humiliated. Dash tried to urge on his penis as she had urged on his wings, to no effect. Blitz found Dash's attempt at fellatio halfhearted, and Dash found Blitz's attempts to fondle her clitoris clumsy. Dispirited and dissatisfied, the Rainbows turned to a local sex therapist, a yellow unicorn mare named Body Work. Body Work listened carefully to the couple's tale of woe, and asked questions about their feelings towards each other and their everyday activities. "There's good news." she said with a smile. "You have a very common problem, even if it's an especially pronounced case. You're trying too hard and you're being too serious." "What?" Dash and Blitz cried with an identically indignant tone. "I know." Body Work chuckled. "Listen, this is going to be hard for athletes like you two. But some things aren't about competition and winning and performance, and sex is just one of those things. Sex is about communication, cooperation, trust, patience. It's not a way we show how strong we are but a way we make ourselves vulnerable. When you stop fretting so much about how well you're having sex, then it can become natural and easy. Relax, be spontaneous, and don't beat yourselves up so much for making mistakes." The Rainbows found this advice counterintuitive at best. Dash asked several friends how it sounded to them and was surprised to find a lot of agreement with Body Work. "Well, duh!" said Pinkie Pie, striding on giant cat-shaped stilts ("It's a long story.") beside the flying Rainbow Dash. "How are you supposed to have fun if you're trying so hard to win all the time?" "Winning is fun!" Rainbow Dash protested. "You can't even win sex." said Pinkie. ("Not with that attitude." Rainbow Dash muttered.) "Trust me, if you could, I would've won the grand prize last Hearth's Warming easy! Just try being a little less serious, Dashie." Seeing as they weren't winning in any case, Dash and Blitz figured they had nothing to lose. And so they took it easy. They told themselves that Blitz wouldn't always be able to get an erection, Dash wouldn't always be able to get an orgasm, and not every move they'd seen in porn was anatomically feasible. They only had sex when they felt like it, not because they felt like they had to. Nothing improved. Actually, they were pretty sure sex got worse. It was not less, but more stressful than before. The more Dash and Blitz tried to relax, the less relaxed they felt. The more they tried not to think about something other than the possibility of messing up, the more it consumed their thoughts. Soon, they found nothing less sexually arousing than trying to have sex. Eventually, Rainbow Dash snapped. "Just forget it!" she said to Blitz. "I can clop better by myself anyway." Desperate times called for desperate measures. Rainbow Blitz flew deep into the Everfree Forest, and then shouted "Yo, Discord!" Discord appeared in a puff of pink smoke, lounging on a velvet fainting-couch in a red bikini while twiddling a cigarette holder in his talons. "Hello, sailor." he crooned. "I guess you know what this is about." said Blitz in a resigned tone. "Call it a woman's intuition." said Discord, batting elongated eyelashes. Suddenly, he was in a fancy waiter's getup and Rainbow Blitz was sitting at a café table, holding some kind of hybrid of a menu and a swimsuit magazine. "What can I get for you? An alicorn princess? A dragoness? Two mares at the same time?" "I'm not looking for whores, Discord." said Blitz, throwing the menu aside. "I just want great sex with the mare I love." "Well? What's stopping you?" "That's the thing! I don't even know! It's like, we tried too much, so we stopped trying so much… or we tried to stop trying so much… but that was even harder! I just can't make myself into some smooth stallion who gets rock-hard without even trying to get hard!" He struck his hooves on the table. "I don't get it!" Discord fingered his long, curly mustache. "It's a tough role to play, isn't it? I know Rainbow Splash or whatever her name is always had a bit of stage fright. Truly, theater is among the most challenging of the arts." "But that's the thing. I'm—we're trying not to perform anything. We're just trying to…" "…Play the role of somepony who isn't playing a role, which is all the more difficult. It takes a true master to make an act look natural." "This is so stupid! Can't I just stop performing?" Discord laughed. "What a quaint idea! 'Stop performing'! Do you think there's anything anypony ever does that isn't some kind of performance? All the world's a stage, little pony!" Discord's outfit became Shakespearean, the trees around them turned into cardboard cutouts, and rows of theater seats appeared, filled with Discords eating popcorn. "Just be glad you get to choose your part." "Knock it off!" said Rainbow Blitz, flying up to Discord's face. "Listen, buddy; you can do anything, can't you? Then just make it stop! Make me stop performing!" Discord scratched his chin thoughtfully, hemmed and hawed, and then said "Very well." He added gleefully "You asked for it!" Blitz had barely a moment to realize what was happening before Discord had snapped the pads of his lion's paw, and with a loud whooshing noise, Rainbow Blitz was sent flying through the air and back into the Mirror Pool from whence he came. "Just one of those obnoxious blue ponies" Discord said to the other Discords "is really more than enough."