My Girlfriend and I Are Long Distance. I Don’t Get Why I Have to Tell Her About My Late Night “Friend.”

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Dear How To Do It,

My girlfriend and I have been doing long distance for a few months now. We have been together for three years and previously lived in the same city, but now live apart for work reasons. Lately, I’ve been having a female friend stay at my place until 2 or 3 a.m. We’re not having sex, we just talk and cuddle in my bed until the early hours of the morning and then she goes home. Someone recently told me I should tell my girlfriend about this but I don’t want to because she might get mad at me. Am I obligated to tell her about everything I do just because we’re in a relationship?

—All Mixed Up

Dear All Mixed Up,

You’ve presented your behavior as if it is inevitable and your task is to navigate your girlfriend’s reaction. You’ve got it backwards. Her potentially negative reaction would be in response to actions that deviate from reasonable expectations. In the U.S., and much of Western culture, monogamy is the norm, and diverting from it must be discussed amongst partners to be ethical. You aren’t having sex with your 2 a.m. boo, but what you’re doing falls on the cheating spectrum (some might call it “emotional cheating”). You say you don’t want to tell your girlfriend because she might get mad, but that framing puts the onus on her. Her response is not the problem here. The reason she might get mad is because you are talking and cuddling in bed with some woman that isn’t her and you haven’t discussed it ahead of time or already set up an open arrangement that would make this ethical canoodling. You don’t want to tell your girlfriend because you know you’re doing something that she could reasonably interpret as wrong and in violation of your agreement.

Monogamy can be hard, and long-distance monogamy can be a grueling endurance test. Your body and/or mind may be telling you something: Perhaps for you, it’s not tenable for you to be committed to only your girlfriend while you live far apart. I think more than confessing your cuddling, this is the important conversation to have. You may want to float the idea of opening up, just to see what your girlfriend thinks. If you come away from that conversation understanding that she wants to be strictly monogamous, you should respect that if you want to stay in this relationship. I don’t know that you need to confess your cheating-adjacent behavior (it would serve to upset your girlfriend, for one thing), but you should certainly discontinue it if and when you receive the clarity you need. Or admit to yourself that long distance isn’t working for you, and walk away entirely.

Dear How to Do It,

I (20, genderqueer) had sex for the first time with my closest friend (22, genderqueer) this summer. Though it wasn’t without hiccups, it was a really great experience overall, and our relationship is stronger than ever. We’ve talked about it a bit and are both happy for this to be a continuing part of our dynamic, and it has been when we see each other in person (our whole queer/platonic deal is long distance, for the time being).

What we’ve done so far is mostly in the realm of “outercourse”: grinding with underwear or clothes on, making out, torso-touching, my fingers in their mouth, mutual masturbation, and that sort of thing (this counts as sex to me, though I understand these things are not universal). Neither of us is in a rush to “progress” things, though I think the idea of sex as a progression of acts leading up to vaginal penetration is a deeply unhelpful and heteronormative framework. The thing that I’m writing in for advice on is navigating gender dysphoria surrounding sex. This has gone… OK-ish so far. They know not to touch my chest, and since I’ve told them it takes me out of the moment if my shirt starts riding up too much, they’ll even gently tug it down if they notice. But I’m not sure how to navigate this going forward as we do different things, which I would like to do, or even just communicate better about what feels good without triggering their gender dysphoria or mine.

I’ve had a hard time finding good resources online for this; honestly, erotica written by trans people has helped more than anything else. It’s hard to get to the point of trying new things when I don’t know what to say that won’t make them, or even me, dysphoric. Unfortunately, for me, it’s not as simple as what is fair game when masturbating on my own (I occasionally enjoy nipple stimulation solo, but my friend interacting with my chest at all makes me feel like crawling out of my skin). There’s somewhat of an added layer of complexity in that although we’re both trans, we have different sets of genitals and dysphoria triggers, though I suspect that the nuances of trans identity mean that no two individuals are alike even when this isn’t the case. We have an IRL visit coming up and I can’t wait to be able to touch them again, sexually and otherwise, and I want to be better prepared to communicate about this stuff. How do I figure out what language and activities make for fun, gender-affirming sex for me and my sexual partner?

—Navigating Dysphoria Roadblocks in Bed

Dear Navigating Dysphoria Roadblocks in Bed,

It is understandable that you want to avoid dysphoria or any kind of unpleasant experience, particularly in a context that should be about pleasure. But the risk of dysphoria is real and it’s going to be present, especially when you’re in exploratory mode, as you are with this new partner. That’s according to friend of the column, Lucie Fielding, a therapist and the author of the 2021 book Trans Sex. “There’s always going to be that chance that it crops up and so, what do you do when that happens?” is how Fielding put it during a recent Zoom discussion we had about your question.

Fielding’s guidance on what to do is multi-pronged. First, to get ahead of dysphoria, Fielding suggests a shift in emphasis. Instead of thinking about sex like, “I want to do this while avoiding dysphoria,” Fielding encourages you to reorient your conception of sex around pleasure, specifically the kind of affirming and satisfying experiences that Fielding refers to in her work as “gender pleasure.” “What are the kinds of experiences that you want to have? Orienting around pleasure is a very different way to enter into the play,” said Fielding. Thinking about sex in terms of what you want to do (because you know or strongly suspect it won’t trigger your dysphoria, for one thing) instead of what you want to avoid has the added benefit of framing your thinking in the positive instead of negative.

Besides that, Fielding suggests: “Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.” Talk to your partner ahead of time regarding what you do and don’t want to do. Discuss the ways and places you want to be touched, the words you want them to use, and what kind of energy and intentions you want brought into your play. Nos hard and soft should also be established ahead of sex, but there should also be space for nos during sex, should you happen to discover something that’s making you feel dysphoric. You should have assurance that your partner isn’t going to push past one of your boundaries for the sake of pleasing you.

The no during sex can be a bit tricky—it will require mindfulness so that you can feel your way through what is working and what isn’t, as well as the confidence to speak up. “If something’s not working, if you start feeling the telltale signs of dysphoria in your body, just do something else,”  Fielding said. A compassionate partner that you want to keep in your life/bed should be understanding of all of this and willing to work with you. In this respect, it’s great that your partner is also trans, as they may have experienced dysphoria, too, and will have greater empathy for it than your average cisgender partner.

“Just like any risk during sex or play, there are going to be risks that you can anticipate, and then there’s going to be a whole host of risks you can’t anticipate,” Fielding said. The idea is to orient yourself toward the positive/pleasurable and to be aware enough to know when to change courage. Incidentally, Fielding is teaching a class on gender-pleasurable play next month that you may want to check out, as it speaks to your question and will go way deeper than this space allows. Good luck!

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Dear How to Do It,

My husband (40M) and I (37F) have a great sex life. We have had our dry spells (mostly when our kids were young) but for the last few years, we probably have sex or mess around four to five times a week. Over the past year, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable telling him what turns me on and he’s been amazing at incorporating these things into our sex life (he’s even done research!).

Every so often, I have asked him what turns him on because (a) knowing what turns him on turns me on and (b) he’s done so many things for me that I would love to try new things for him and he usually just says “you do” or “I like everything we do.” However, the other morning we were fooling around in bed, and he dropped his phone on me. My back was to him when this happened, so I had no clue he was on his phone. I asked him why he was on his phone and he told me he was just looking at some Reddit NSFW stuff. I asked him to share it with me, so we could look at it together and keep going and he said something like, “I don’t even know what it was, it was just random stuff.”

I didn’t push him at the time, but now I can’t get it out of my head. I don’t care that he looks at porn, but I’m hurt he won’t share it with me. I’ve started a downward spiral overthinking all of this and I don’t know how to bring it up to him again. I’m afraid he’ll just give me the brush-off. Any suggestions?

—Hungry for Honesty

Dear Hungry for Honesty,

Why do you need to know? You said it yourself, you have a great sex life with your husband (not to mention, the frequency of your encounters is way higher than the typically reported average of about once a week). Whatever’s going on, it’s working. I would be a bit more sympathetic to your inquiring nature if you suspected he was looking at something unethical, if he exhibited uncharacteristic behavior that made you wonder about a source of inspiration, or if your sex life wasn’t in the shape that it is. However, you report no reason to suspect that anything is afoul; it could very well be that you have a guy who has a personal relationship with porn and any number of socially imposed forces (like shame) might be interfering with his ability to share that with you. Perhaps he’s been judged for his porn habits in the past. Maybe he likes viewing fetish material that he doesn’t actually want to act upon and is worried you’ll get the wrong idea. By and large, men aren’t really socialized to talk about their feelings so merely asking him about this may have felt like a confrontation in the moment. I can relate to your idealism—there is something lovely about the idea of sharing everything with your partner—but it’s not practical.

Fundamentally, he doesn’t have to share this with you. Some distance, even when it comes to desire and sex, can be useful in a relationship. I think if you actually want to bring this up again, you should focus on his deciding to view porn while you were fooling around. That is definitely worth saying something about if it bothers you. You can request that if he wants to view something during sex, he share it with you. Otherwise, the phone stays off.

The best you can do here is remind him that you’d love to know more about his fantasies and sexual interests and the door is always open if he wants to talk about it. Pushing this topic could have consequences for your rewarding and active sex life. It’s simply not worth it!

Dear How to Do It,

I have a low-stakes, sexual etiquette question. I shoot quite a big load. After a one night stand the guy will invariably say: “Wow, that’s a lot! Is that usual?” Usually, I answer honestly: Yes, it’s normal. But I was wondering if I should take the opportunity to tell a white lie to stroke their egos: “No honey, that was your sexual prowess.” What do you think?

—A Load of Lies

Dear A Load of Lies,

I think, “No honey, that was your sexual prowess,” would sound canned enough to immediately read as a lie, so if you are going to go that route you should at least tinker with your word choice. But why lie here? Isn’t the fact that you came, irrespective of seminal volume, complimentary enough? What purpose would the ego stroking serve other than making someone you just made feel good feel five percent better?

Sometimes we come harder depending on stimulation (and how pent up we were going into the act), sure, but for the most part, semen production isn’t culturally associated with sexual achievement the way, say, an erection or a quick orgasm is (even if that’s shortsighted, as chronic premature ejaculation isn’t a compliment). So it’s not even guaranteed that someone would derive flattery from your big load, anyway. And you know it’s not true, so to make this claim would be to perpetuate the myth that somehow your output is commensurate with the pleasure received and work put in. So no, don’t do this.

—Rich

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