I wish I hadn’t said anything about it.
How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
My husband and I had a very rare work-free, kids-at-daycare day home together today. We had some of the most connected and amazing sex this morning that we have had since our youngest was born almost 10 months ago. This afternoon, though, we were going for round two, and we were getting into it and I wanted to slow things down a bit so I was teasing him and not letting him enter me. We were playfully doing this and sort of teasing each other, and I put my knees around his hips to keep him from entering me, and he said, “You think you can stop me from getting in?” as a joke, but it was like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over me. He would never, ever do anything without my consent, and I know that, but the comment, while said jokingly, took my mind to a very dark place (I have a generalized anxiety disorder).
I stopped him and told him I needed a minute, and we laid side by side and I told him that I didn’t like what he said and it made me uncomfortable. We laid there not talking or touching for a few minutes and I asked him if he wanted to talk about this, and he said not yet. I told him I knew he would never do anything without my permission, it was just the comment itself that took me out of the moment and I didn’t like. He said I am entitled to feel however I feel but that I made him feel like a rapist and that he was still processing. I feel terrible as I would never want him to think I feel that way about him, but I also think it’s important for us both to be able to speak up about things in and out of the bedroom. How do we recover from this?
—Should I Have Just Not Said Anything?
Dear Should I Have Just Not Said Anything?,
Give it some time. It’s fresh. Let him process. People often have a hard time when the perception of their words doesn’t align with their intentions. It can be humbling in the most basic sense of the word to know that you did harm (or something close to it) by accident.
My interpretation of this experience is that you were both playing around and he went a little too far. That’s something that happens when you play around! It’s completely human to misjudge, and it’s completely human to react to that error. Perhaps you could discuss it with him using a detached approach along these lines—these things happen! It doesn’t make him a bad person or anything close to a rapist. It just makes him someone who said something that triggered you. A boundary that previously wasn’t visible now is.
It’s great that you said something. Now he knows where not to go. It is important for you both to be able to speak up. You could perhaps help bring him back to equilibrium by asking him if he has any boundaries he would like for you to respect. Or even if there’s anything he’d like to add to your sex life. If you invite him in explicitly, he may see that what happened was a blip, something you can both get over with minimal effort.
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Dear How to Do It,
I am a married woman of three years. My husband and I have a great relationship and he spoils me like crazy. I really love him but there is one problem: He has erectile dysfunction and we have tried everything and nothing works (literally). We have tried prescription pills and over-the-counter even gas station pills and nothing happens. I have an extremely high sex drive and it is driving me crazy. What should I do??
—Sexless Marriage
Dear Sexless Marriage,
If your husband hasn’t been examined by a doctor (including getting bloodwork done), you should encourage him to do so. Erectile dysfunction can be caused by serious health conditions like diabetes and heart disease. It’s worth knowing whether there’s something at the root of this issue.
This is driving you crazy, but how does your husband feel about it? Is he frustrated? Does he feel like his dick is betraying his sex drive? Or is he less worried about sex? Understanding where his head is at will be crucial to your progress. If he doesn’t want to have sex in the first place, that’s a much more complicated issue, in many ways beyond what you’re capable of willing a resolution for. That he’s tried meds implies at least some degree of desire—whether he wants to have sex, wants to want to have sex, wants to please you, or something else is unclear from your letter. However, PDE5 inhibitors are vasodilators, not libido boosters. They work on his dick not his mind, so if his head isn’t in it, you’re not going to see much movement.
If he is sexually engaged, you have other options—cock rings and penis pumps. For more severe cases, there are surgical implants that are available. There’s more to sex than intercourse—oral, manual, kink/BDSM, and more can all be performed without a hard penis. He could use toys on you (and/or himself). He could wear a strap-on with a dildo. There’s a big sexual world out there.
But again, all of this matters little if he’s not into it. So you should talk about that and ask him what he wants to do about this. If he’s not making any real effort, suggest a sex therapist/coach that you visit together. You could also look into opening the relationship or even ending it, but there is much that could be done (at least theoretically) before exploring those options.
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Dear How to Do It,
I was inspired to write in by a recent question about aftercare. I am pretty vanilla, but I relate to the previous question asker’s distaste for cuddling, especially after sex. It is always so awkward and boring! I have felt this way hooking up in the past, which makes some sense because being alone with a stranger is probably inherently awkward, but even with my spouse, whom I love deeply, I can’t seem to feel relaxed. I have no trauma that might be the root of this feeling, and I am generally very comfortable with my spouse. After sex, I just want some space and air, which doesn’t seem like it should be too much to ask, but if I try to extricate myself, my spouse gets upset. I have tried explaining that I need some peace and space in the very same way that they need snuggling and the like, to wind down and recenter myself, but I never seem to get through.
Lately I’ve given in and decided to grin and bear it for their sake, but it does add an unpleasant note to our otherwise satisfying sex life, and admittedly does make me want to have sex less. I have to ask myself if it is really worth it if the digestif is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth. And it usually is! I love my partner and I love the intimacy of our sex. I just wish it didn’t have to end with me twiddling my thumbs and feeling icky and constrained—constrained mentally and physically! So I guess my question is, is this common after all? Is it really that unusual to want some alone time to rejuvenate and chill? And, is it really indeed too much to ask my partner to compromise on this?
—A Maybe-Not-Anomalous Guy
Dear A Maybe-Not-Anomalous Guy,
The past question that you reference was specifically regarding BDSM, which often is practiced with written/verbal agreements detailed beforehand. Aftercare is generally part of the protocol. Perhaps the same should be so for other forms of sex, including the vanilla variety, but it isn’t as widely practiced there. So there’s a bit of nuance, I think, that makes comparing that scenario with yours at least slightly less straightforward.
I think the goal of any partnership should be to practice generosity as much as possible. It’s the foundation of Dan Savage’s standard of GGG (good, giving, and game). Doing something for the sake of your partner is putting GGG into practice (if, of course, it still feels consensual). In your letter you wonder aloud whether it’s worth the aftercare that comes with the sex, and you answer that it usually is. Well, there you go. If it gets to the point where the revulsion runs so deep that you simply cannot enjoy sex, you should definitely restructure. However, if this sustains as a minor annoyance, I would say keep with it. It’s not unreasonable for you to ask your partner to compromise. Perhaps that would entail you remaining in bed, but not touching them. Or only holding hands. Or whatever you need to share that postcoital experience without being completely put off. I’ll remind you what I told the writer of the previous letter you referenced: You’re allowed to have boundaries and you don’t have to engage in any behavior that you don’t want. Just understand what your partner needs and if it’s beyond your means, well, you should definitely consider how actually compatible you are.
How common is this? Common enough to yield pieces in outlets like Men’s Health (“People Are Defending Why They Hate Cuddling After Sex”), Essence (“Sex Talk: Reasons Why Your Partner Isn’t Affectionate After Sex”), and VICE (“Some Of Us Hate Being Touched After Sex. Why?”). There are extensive Reddit threads on the subject like this one. You’re not alone, for sure. It will probably be useful to interrogate why you’re not into cuddling after sex, if only because it will make it easier to verbalize to your spouse (and if you articulate this well, there’s less of a chance that they’ll take it personally). You also have the option of strategically selecting venues or contexts that would make cuddling after sex less of an option (like a sex club or a mid-afternoon quickie). A situation in which you might get caught could also increase the urgency and offer less opportunity for cuddling. Of course, in all likelihood, this would be something you could do only on occasion–it’s more a way of spicing things up and yielding an outcome that is compatible with your desires than it is a long-term solution.
For a bigger-picture fix, I think you should accept your differing approaches to and needs for contact after sex as data. Is it such a big gulf between what you’re comfortable with and what you feel obligated to do that it may be worth pursuing other relationship options? Either answer is fine! It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that you decided to hang in there, perhaps with some minor alterations.
Dear How to Do It,
I’ve been with my boyfriend “Todd” for five years. Things are pretty good. But we live in an apartment that’s really too small for the two of us and our pet rabbits Binky and Winky. We let them roam around the place pretty freely, because like I said, there isn’t a lot of space even if we don’t restrict it any. But that means the rabbits have occasionally been in the bedroom when we’ve had sex.
That in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem, but lately, when we have sex, Binky will mount Winky, usually at the foot of the bed. They’re both fixed, so sexual behavior of any sort is uncommon but not unheard of, but it’s really weird in how predictable it is and it’s making us both a bit uncomfortable. We’ve finally started shutting the bedroom door when we’re about to go at it, but then they scratch at it incessantly. Is there any way around this that I’m not seeing?
—Bunny See, Bunny Do?
Dear Bunny See, Bunny Do?
Bunnies shouldn’t be running your life. You can lock them in the bathroom when you start to get down. I assume that you are a responsible pet owner and have a carrier (or carriers) that you use to transport your furry counterparts to and from the vet. You can put them in there, too. You can also look into white noise or music to drown out the scratching.
Reading your letter, I thought that “Binky and Winky” was perfect. A little too perfect. Makes me wonder if your letter is even real. But then, I spend a lot of time these days wondering if things I see on the internet are real. No matter, really—what’s important is that it could be real. This one goes out to all to the human-sex-mimicking bunny owners out there who haven’t found it within themselves to speak up.
—Rich
More Advice From Slate
Is it normal to have fantasies that I would absolutely never want to indulge in in real life, even ones that I am morally disgusted by? I’ve always been horrified by the possibility of pregnancy and even mildly dubious consent in sexual situations, but I find myself thinking of those kinds of scenarios when I want to get off. Is this something I should be concerned about? I’m a nonbinary person who’s decidedly feminist and is personally opposed to having kids, but my fetishes seem to directly contradict those aspects of my personality. What’s up with this?
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