The visions keep flashing through my mind.
How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
My husband and I have been married for almost one month. A week ago, he went to a bachelor party for his sister’s fiancé. He only went for one night. On his way home, we were talking on the phone and he mentioned that they had gone to a strip club. I was so upset when I found out. We have only been married for two weeks and it broke my heart to think of him at a strip club. He said nothing happened there, but they stayed until 2 a.m. I just hate the idea of strip clubs and women being sexual objects. I can’t get the vision out of my head. Am I crazy for being upset?
—Newly Wed
Dear Newly Wed,
You’re not crazy for being upset. The virtues of monogamy could only be more seeded in Western culture if they were pumped directly into the water. It’s understandable when even a minor potential breach of these virtues feels so upsetting for it represents a threat to this societal foundation.
But I think you could also take this moment to learn how to distinguish between the ideal and reality. The sacredness with which you hold sex (at least, I’m inferring via your letter) is not shared by everyone. There are people who enjoy sex with people they love and sex with people they don’t know for entirely different reasons. Objectification isn’t always a bad thing (there’s a place for it in the shared bed of respectful relationships, even). Strip clubs can be liberating for people on both sides of the pole. For the spectator, they can be a vicarious way of experiencing something like sex without crossing the line.
Of course, you may accept all of this and yet still be bugged by the very fact that your husband went to a strip club. It sounds like he was upfront about the experience, which is a good thing. Did he break an explicit rule? Perhaps you didn’t get around or feel the need to make your disdain for strip clubs known. Well, here’s your chance. Let him know how it made you feel and why. Ask as many questions as you want the answers to, but keep in mind that you already can’t get the vision of him going there out of your head, so be careful you aren’t inviting in more indelible images. In the future, would you rather he didn’t go to strip clubs? Have that conversation. While I think that a relaxation about the pleasures our partners pursue is often the best way of dealing with certain inevitabilities, if you don’t feel that way that’s OK, too. You shouldn’t have to go through anguish, and if you feel that him visiting a strip club violates any kind of agreement you have or should have, say that and hash out a mutually satisfying conduct guideline.
How to Get Advice From How to Do It
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Dear How to Do It,
I was having a conversation recently with a friend (both 30s, F) and we came to the conclusion that the men in our lives just don’t really talk about their sex lives. Not our partners, not their friends, nothing! They don’t really divulge details the way we and our girlfriends do. We talk about novel experiences we have, or problems we’re having with sex in our relationships. It’s weird because straight men seem to have this reputation for “locker room talk” but what we’ve found is they’re seemingly hush-hush about it all. Which, in turn, made me a bit self-conscious about how much I do talk about my own sex life. Is it disrespectful to a long-term partner to have these kinds of conversations with your friends (even if said partner doesn’t seem to care)?
—The Women’s Locker Room Is Loud
Dear the Women’s Locker Room,
Your theory is based on an assumption, not strict observation. I think more precisely true is this: The men in your lives just don’t really talk about their sex lives within earshot of the women in their lives. They may be talking about sex, just not with you. It is also quite possible that they don’t talk about sex at all, of course. Either way, those socialized as male are encouraged to be less than expressive in order to conform to masculine ideals of stoicism. This can result in them being more tight-lipped about matters of the emotional and sensual realms. Multiple stereotypes exist: Dudes that brag endlessly about their exploits to anyone within earshot and those who are virtually silent on all manner of biographical elements.
So maybe your guy is talking to someone about his sex life, but maybe not. I don’t think it’s inherently disrespectful to talk about your life with your friends. You can’t be expected to bottle it all up. I would stop short of sharing anything about your partner that they might be sensitive about or ashamed of (violations of respect, ethics, or consent don’t apply—you don’t have to keep someone’s shitty treatment of you a secret ever). You have very intimate information about him by virtue of your relationship status, so you should at least aim to be respectful. But otherwise, this is your life and you should be allowed to share it, to seek advice, and to commiserate. Those things can help people cope, laugh, or just blow off steam, which I think, as long as it’s done with a generous and non-vindictive spirit, is a net positive.
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Dear How to Do It,
I am a cis woman in a loving, monogamous marriage. My husband and I both came to the relationship with little sexual experience but we have had a great time exploring together and finding ways to pleasure both ourselves and each other. However, neither one of us orgasms easily. Until now this has not been a problem. We still enjoy the excitement and intimacy of sex with or without orgasm. The problem now is that we are trying to get pregnant and his timely, on-demand orgasm is kind of important for that project.
We have been working on this for a while now and he does climax more frequently than he used to but it is still very rare for him to come twice within 36 hours and sometimes twice in 48 hours fails. I’m tracking carefully so we can try to time the one orgasm for when I’m most fertile but it would be a lot easier if there were more wiggle room. He is understandably a bit nervous/shy about trying medication and I’m worried that bringing it up again might cause feelings of inadequacy that would undo the progress we have made. Do you have any suggestions other than medication we might try to encourage more frequent orgasms?
—Empty
Dear Empty,
If he hasn’t talked about his ejaculatory issues with a doctor, he should, as delayed ejaculation (which I think best describes the condition your husband is experiencing) may indicate a host of health issues including hormonal conditions, neurological diseases, and infections. You may also want to get checked out, as some of this applies to women too.
Treatment options (beyond medication) for your husband vary widely. There are psychotherapy techniques like working to reduce anxiety around sex and masturbation restraining/desensitization. There’s also the option of penile vibratory stimulation (PVS), which involves the stimulation of the glans of the penis via vibrator. The resulting ejaculation could then be collected for intrauterine insemination. This treatment is common for people with spinal cord injuries who are looking to conceive. There’s also the more invasive option of electroejaculation, which is typically performed under general anesthesia, and involves the attachment of a probe to deliver a low-level electrical current. Again, you’d need to consult with a clinician for assistance with these options.
I’m not sure that you get over this, uh, dry humping without further discussion. You can leave out the talking and hope that his comfort continues to build up to the point of more frequent ejaculations, but that’s a passive approach, and passive approaches don’t tend to work well when there are time restraints involved. I think it’s worth taking the risk to explore other options, including the medication that you allude to. You can respectfully restrain yourself indefinitely, but you may regret not being more proactive. Live so as not to regret.
Dear How to Do It,
My husband of almost 20 years and I are both frustrated and unhappy with the infrequency of sex lately. We’d both like to be having more sex. So why aren’t we? Well, our schedules are totally out of whack. He likes to stay up until all hours on the computer and I like to go to bed around 11 p.m. I invite him to bed with me, even being quite clear that I want him to come to bed so we can make love, but he prefers to spend his late-night time watching videos. In the morning, he sleeps in until late and I can’t stay in bed past 9 a.m. or so. With the kids not being in school, “morning” sex isn’t an option, even if I were willing to stay in bed until he wakes up around 10:30 a.m. I’m increasingly annoyed that he won’t make our sex life a priority, and that he apparently ranks me and my needs last, behind his third hour of Facebook. Yet, he gets annoyed with me if I don’t come to bed at 11 a.m. while the kids are in the kitchen doing homework on their tablets. Am I out of line for expecting him to make some changes to his schedule for the sake of our love life? What can I do? Nagging and begging haven’t worked.
—Empty Sheets
Dear Empty Sheets,
Are you sure he’s spending that time watching videos on Facebook? He very well could be. But your letter sounds like so many we receive minus an essential detail: People will write in that their husbands are so fixated on porn, they don’t have time for sex with the letter writer. Have you considered this possibility? Could your husband be spending his late nights jerking off and maintaining a ruse in which he deliberately “wants” to have sex when he knows you can’t so that you don’t suspect it?
You shouldn’t trick or trap him, but you might want to start asking more pointed questions. If that annoyance he’s expressing is real, why doesn’t he simply make the time for sex when it makes the most sense for your family’s schedule? It’s pretty simple stuff, which is why I suspect there’s an underlying issue here. If you can indeed hear the endless drone of Facebook videos emanating from the other room, I wonder if the excessive social media use might be a coping mechanism for something else. Has he been particularly stressed or depressed lately? You want to get to the bottom of why he’s finding it easier to turn to scrolling than to connecting with you.
You certainly aren’t out of line for wanting sex, but this kind of connection is difficult for couples to sustain, especially those who have been together as long as you and your husband. You should be willing to hear him out. If he is choosing porn over sex with you, he may be craving novelty, which is extremely common (and not something that your sexual routine, if you have one, will provide). It’s time to ask him if he’s satisfied with your sex life, and what can be done about it if not. A counselor could help, and books about sexual relationship longevity like Emily Nagoski’s Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections and Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity may also be useful.
—Rich
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