I think it's unnecessary to beat up SPAM about considering calling the police. It sounds like she's already dismissed the possiblity. "I don't have any moral objections so sex work" reads to me as "I don't want to cause a hassle to this woman who's not doing anything wrong."

It's sort of weird that it didn't occur to her to call the escort, though.

Also, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand how it's possible that so many people are making this particular misdialing, since neither Boston area code has any digits in common with the Seattle area code. Did she keep her Boston area code when she moved? Can you do that?

SPAM never said anything about siccing the police on the sex worker. Reading comprehension, please.

'He Can't Come' needs to take a long view and relax a bit. Her fella isn't coming...yet, at her instigation.

Dan's advice about his procreating can be applied to his orgasmic circumstances in general. SHE can take over from his hands once he's in the home stretch. Lots of room to expand his horizons, if they are expandable--and I'm betting they are.

Yes, you can keep your whole number when you move.

@4: From the letter: "I suppose I could report the whole thing to the Boston police,"

@1 I can see how someone who hasn't known sex workers like Dan wouldn't think to call her - if you called any other business or businessperson asking them to change their number you'd probably get told to politely get fucked.

"WHEN he gets married and wants to start a family" rather than IF? Bad Cougar!

Dan you seem grumpy today... but I still love you.

Spam, you need to change your phone number. It's going to be OK, you & your contacts will be able to handle the change. This happened to my land line, only it was a large HMO & I was given the previous number for payroll. It was so-o-o-o annoying! I gave up after 2 months, I had your same fear. The damage is done, that number is associated, & too many people are using it and your need to move on.

Ooh ooh! Wait, I got this. A few years ago, due to a major error by the Yellow Pages, my cell phone got listed as an escort service.

I ended up changing my phone number -- and thanks to the amusing back-story, the folks at Tmobile gave me a really, really great number. (You know how cell numbers are always awful. Mine is awesome!)

Now I use a blacklist app for my phone. I have an android app, so I use one called "Blacklist Pro," but there are others. Basically: if you're not in my address book, your call or text is sent to voicemail. Super easy, super awesome.

Regardless of moral objections, it's okay to be ticked off about getting repeated sexually explicit phone calls from strangers trying to hook up. "It's none of my business what other people do with their bodies" doesn't apply when that business is clogging up her voicemail. Calling the prostitute is more likely to bring about a result than calling the police, but at least asking about calling the police is valid. They get called for smaller deals than this all the time, like noise complaints.

As noted @12, men can have their own issues with anal. If he's worried about going soft, then it's good to take the pressure off him by letting him use toys the way he suggests, slipping in his cock when ANAL is already relaxed & open for him, and going back to a toy if his erection wilts while inside.

@3 Sea otter: Regarding SPAM's letter and about misused phone number(s), I was going to ask Dan the same thing.
@6 clashfan: ...provided it's a cell phone or mobile phone and not a land line, right? and @14 12345678: Thanks for the clarifications.
@15 jesgal: I agree. Getting a commonly misused number can be a nightmare.

How about if SPAM just changed the prefix on her cell phone to Seattle's area code 206, unless someone else already has THAT number?
Problem solved (I don't own a cell phone / mobile phone, so I'm just asking)?

ANAL, if nothing else, be grateful your husband cares so much about NOT hurting you.
Holy penis-shaped SHIT (cheeky comment intended)!

Excellent advice, Dan! Thanks again for continued good reads!

Re: SPAM - different people have different levels of comfort with calling vs. texting vs. e-mail, etc. If I were in SPAM's shoes (or holding her phone), I could see not wanting to just call up or text the sex worker for privacy reasons in both directions. But I'd easily send an e-mail. I suppose sex workers are unlikely to have e-mail accounts, though - too slow and clunky in this modern day & age.

Seems like Dan got up on the wrong side of bed today.

SPAM: Calling unnecessary roughness on you, Dan. If she were really a nose-holding narc in progressive's clothing she wouldn't be writing in to your column at all, let alone asking you what the most expedient but empathetic way to handle this situation is.

ANAL: Your boyfriend sounds genuinely thoughtful and concerned for you and Dan's advice is sound. However, given the rarity of such an individual, whatever you do, do not let him read this column. I know you were only being demonstrative, but pretty much no man will be able hear 'I literally shit bigger than your dick' from their partner without experiencing major psychosexual trauma. Seriously.

To the gang: Good to be back!

Damn Dan chill the fuck out. I wouldn't like getting propositioned by strangers at 4AM either and sorry but being a sex worker (and a trans sex worker to boot!) doesn't exactly qualify someone for sainthood. There are shady sex workers just like there are shady sales reps, chefs, doctors, whatever-the-fuck-else. Being tolerant doesn't mean you have to tip toe about. That being said, yes, her first call should be to the lady herself. *But* if she doesn't offer to help and things don't improve in a reasonable amount of time (3 weeks maybe?) then I don't think she has any obligation to keep the cops out of it. Free agency applies to all of us.

HCC assumes her FWB (and everyone) wants kids some day.

A few reasons against breeding, SLOGers: carbon footprints, overpopulation, having watched Soylent Green at an early age, a desire to never change diapers again after having briefly tried infant care, a middle class income in an urban area with shitty public schools where doing one's best for one's kid requires private schools K-12, and parents paying college and law school tuition and a wish to spend that million dollars on yourself and your partner for vacations over 24 years (or donations to charity) -- there lots of reasons why not everyone wants a kid!

More power to people who do want kids, all that love and affection etc and hope for the future, but it's not for everyone. :-)

@22 you are saying the inconvenience of changing a phone number vs. indirectly having a high probability of causing severe physical harm to another person (even if that person is not nice) entails no obligation?

If one's ethics value human life, one does indeed have a moral obligation to keep the cops out of it.

@21 well I'm on a roll disagreeing with you today... only a very insecure man would experience psychosexual trauma at hearing the comparison regarding penile size and excrement. Any human who has ever looked into the toilet bowl before flushing realizes this.

Dan often attributes a man's inability to come inside a vagina to death grip masturbation techniques, but I have to wonder if it's more likely the other way around. Perhaps the man (teen) was unable to come with a softer hand and began using the death grip in response to that.

@25: It was supposed to be funny. Lighten up.

@21: Hey, you're back! There was talk of sending out a search 'n' rescue party.

@22: ...then I don't think she has any obligation to keep the cops out of it.

If the cops are likely to kill or imprison you just for existing and/or doing something that shouldn't be illegal, then everyone has an obligation not to sic the cops on you.

I wonder why SPAM felt the need to include the detail that the sex worker in question is trans. I kept waiting for it to play out in some relevant detail but it never did.

Re ANAL: 20 minutes? Seriously!?

Re HCC: I could have written your letter -- even the ages almost match. Can he come when YOU use YOUR hand? I greatly enjoyed getting him off manually after he'd fucked me to satiation point. No coming too early -- fantastic! God I miss him.

@18, @23: Maybe the toyboy has TOLD HER he wants to get married and have kids someday. Maybe?

@11/23: Or he could have said that he someday wants to marry and have kids. As people do in casual conversation, including with people they don't see as a prospective spouse but do see as a friend. Planning to someday have kids is not exactly a shocking position, or one that people keep deeply closeted and only reveal to their spouse several years into the marriage.

My phone number is similar to the senior center's AND the person with that extension has my same first name, which has led to many confusing conversations. I would feel far weirder about receiving lost calls trying to set up sex work, which would fall under the unwanted sexual overture/oversharing umbrella even if accidental.

Because freelance work--and business in general--often involves referrals from years back, it is almost unheard of to deliberately change the e-mail or phone number. It would not have occurred to me that freelance sex workers have the opposite issue and might be planning to change their number anyhow, so that part of the advice was novel and useful. For private lines, changing the number is a shrug if you only use it for a few people who know you very well (and thus care enough to immediately update their address book) and a huge pain if you use it for everything.

Ms Delta - Thank you for the long version @23.

Mr Rhone - You forgot to factor in Mr Savage's Up Sex Workers element, which seems to be trending into an actual bias. It would not surprise me (sorry if I was saying this before you went missing) if he added Must Have Patronized/Been A Sex Worker to his list of Requirements for the US Presidency along with Must Have Smoked Pot. Put that into the mix and one gets natural umbrage that LW didn't Go the Extra (Tenth of a) Mile when it just required treating the (poor, embattled) trans sex worker like a human being. It calls to mind the Ustinov Evil Under the Sun and Sylvia Miles telling James Mason, "If it had been up to you, the Good Samaritan would have passed by on the other side." If one's natural empathy were with the PETSW, it would be understandable that one would snark at someone presenting a First World Problem.

I'm more or less in the camp with Ms Thinking. Having had various unpleasant/threatening experiences by telephone, I can get stomach cramps having to return telephone messages to strangers. I'd probably have changed my number at once without ever finding out about the area code problem.

#13: Is this your first time reading Dan's column? He's always grumpy! (in writing at least; I met him once, & he's surprisingly warm in person)

Here he cites yet another of his demented statistics: "75% of women can't come from vaginal intercourse" -- uh-huh, and where exactly do we find backup data for this claim? This is similar to his absurd assertion that gay people make up 3-5% of the population.

"...unless you've taken shits that have jumped out of the toilet and jammed themselves back into your ass, and then proceeded to pound away at you for 20 minutes, you really don't know what it's like to get buttfucked."

Retire now, Dan. You will NEVER write a sentence that makes me laugh harder than that one did. FTW!

@28: If the cops are likely to kill or imprison you just for existing Perhaps you're being a bit hyperbolic? Or maybe you know something about the Boston police force I don't. Still, calling the police is a completely inappropriate response. If the other number didn't belong to an escort would SPAM think of calling the police because she was getting wrong numbers?

But, Dan, a couple of wrong numbers every week is a pain; sexually explicit messages can be more irritating; calls coming in (and presumably waking you up) at 2:00 am--well, I'd be feeling pretty annoyed at that point.

Btw, I'm treating the letter as if it is legit, though I have my doubts. The likelihood of someone getting a wrong number because of area code is one thing--but the fact that both those area codes are for the same city is suspicious. The only way this makes sense is if the lw has the older, more commonly-used-and-thought-of area code, while the sex worker has a newer, less-automatically-thought of area code. So the choices are:

1) Call the woman whom the calls are meant for. See if she is already making a point of emphasizing her area code (she may not be including it at all, if she is only looking for local business). Perhaps that is all that she needs to do. You can also give her the phone numbers of the people who've been calling you, assuming there aren't too many different ones, and she can call those potential clients directly and tell them the correct way to get ahold of her. You may want to suggest she go through her address book and tell all clients about the problem and make sure they have the correct area code.

2) Make an arrangement with your cellphone carrier to send all messages from numbers not in your address book to voicemail and change your outgoing message to say something like: "You've reached Shelly ______. I'm not available to take your call, but please leave a message. If you're looking for Lucy, you've got the wrong number. Her number is in the ____ area code. Please try that and please make a note of it. Thank you." This won't stop you from getting the occasional sexual message from a potential client, and it won't stop the phone ringing at all hours, so you may have to silence it when you go to bed or what have you. But, especially if you do it in conjunction with #1, that should help. If the escort is making a point of emphasizing her area code and your calls have been coming from the same few people, the problem should go away in a few months. If anyone who's really calling for you gets that message, they don't know who "Lucy" is, or what she does; they just know that you're getting a lot of calls for her. I used to get a lot of calls for "Stephanie" when I first got this number, but after a year or two they stopped. (I never bothered to try and figure out who she was, because the calls weren't weird. I just assumed that someone named Stephanie had had the number before me.)

Lastly, I have some questions for the lw herself. What was the point of mentioning that she's trans? It had no bearing on anything? Why mention that she (the lw) is a cis het female? Who wants to keep her "tolerance badge?" What has that got to do with anything? If you were going to call SPAM out about anything, Dan, that would have been where I would have started.

@35 he said 75 percent of women can't come from vaginal intercourse alone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/scienc…

http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/advi…

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stre…

EricaP: I knew you'd come through with research and statistics. I almost did that same thing, but then I thought "I don't have the time, and besides, I'm sure EricaP will do it!" Thanks.

@35 "his absurd assertion that gay people make up 3-5% of the population."

http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/pr…

"Drawing on information from four recent national and two state-level population-based surveys, the analyses suggest that there are more than 8 million adults in the US who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual, comprising 3.5% of the adult population."

"Nearly 25.6 million Americans (11%) acknowledge at least some same-sex sexual attraction."

@39 :-)

@37: The only way this makes sense is if the lw has the older, more commonly-used-and-thought-of area code, while the sex worker has a newer, less-automatically-thought of area code.
Since the former has had her number for almost a decade, and the latter likely got the number a few months ago (given the calls started a few months ago, and per Dan about losing stalkers regularly) that seems extremely likely.

Re 2, never answering a number you don't know is often impractical, especially if you have young children, elderly parents, or both. The odds that they have borrowed a phone to call you for something you actually want to know, now, are a little too high. (A friend ignored yet another unknown out of state number on her cell while doing errands; turned out that one was her son's preschool teacher on a cell calling to say he was throwing up. Now she answers, just in case.) Not even getting into how ignoring one's voice mail as too too bothersome is now A Thing, to which people respond by not leaving a voicemail. I'm unlikely to leave VM unless I know the person well enough to believe they will check it.

A decade or so back there was an e-mail provider that did the equivalent: if you weren't in the address book you received back a form to fill out so the addressee could decide whether to add you. It was WAY more effort than I wanted to go to to let someone know the time for practice had changed. Spam is annoying; so is hitting a you-must-be-spam filter when you are calling or e-mailing someone who has indicated that they want you to contact them in this way.

Also, thanks Erica for the statistics.

IPJ: I agree that never answering a number you don't know is impractical, but the lw has a problem, and I was trying to address it. I think if she tries that and contacts the woman whom the calls are meant for, she shouldn't need to do this for a long time. Or she could answer the calls and say "you've got the wrong area code. Try using ____." I wasn't suggesting that everybody do this all the time. SPAM is having a fairly unique problem and it would seem to call for a solution which is a bit inconvenient. That's still less inconvenient than changing her own phone number.

I certainly don't see how going to the police would be a better solution. Even if they shut down the escort's business, those people who have been calling are likely to continue calling, if they already have the number.

@37: Perhaps you're being a bit hyperbolic? Or maybe you know something about the Boston police force I don't.

A bit, yes, but it's my general rule--if someone is in a population that's more-likely-than-average to be on the receiving end of police misconduct, there's an obligation to be correspondingly more careful about involving the police if you don't need to.

Trans people and sex workers both fall into the "aren't likely to get a fair shake" bucket, so the option of involving the police should receive an elevated level of skepticism.

FWIW, I assume this is why the "trans" part was mentioned in the letter. All else being equal, I'd be less likely to call the cops on someone who was trans than someone who wasn't--I think it does have a bearing.

I don’t think Dan was being over ally harsh with SPAM. He is simply being very clear in spelling out the reasons to SPAM and anyone reading this column that calling the cops on a trans woman and sex worker is more trouble that it’s worth. It is rather odd that she would even float this option without even expressing the idea to contact the trans woman herself, since this is a low level annoyance that does not require police involvement.

Dan, what the hell is up with your response to SPAM? She asked a reasonable question about an unusual situation made even more delicate since it involves a trans-female sex worker. In other words, this is exactly the kind of situation where your advice is extremely helpful.

Then you not only ascribe malicious intent, you write her off since it was "only" a couple of explicit calls/texts per week at unusual hours (and as someone who disabled their email notification on their smartphone precisely because getting woken up by beeps in the middle of the night is a serious headache, I can vouch for the frustration).

Write an apology to SPAM and then post it to SLOG.

Re: ANAL, no one seems to have considered the possibility that her boyfriend's hesitancy to "jump right in" may be due to a hang-up about putting his penis in a "dirty place." Yes, I realize he's already put his finger(s) in there, but his penis is longer and thus more likely to encounter some of those scary-sounding turds LW mentioned!

Re: ANAL, I meant husband, not boyfriend. Sorry.

I just thought some more about SPAM and why she would bring up the police or the point about the sex worker being trans and that she herself is a "het cis chick anxious not to lose her tolerance badge." It all puts SPAM in a different light. Here goes:

Once SPAM figured out that the calls were meant for a sex worker, whose phone number she now knew, SPAM figured she has a moral dilemma. Should she call the police and report the escort--because sex work is illegal and because SPAM herself disapproves of sex work and sex workers.
That's the only reason for any mention of the police. You don't involve police in wrong number annoyances.

The reason SPAM tells us the escort is trans and that she, SPAM is a cis het chick who wants to keep her tolerance badge is that she is afraid that turning in this escort might be because of some sort of transphobia that she, SPAM, as a cis het chick has. In other words, would she be less likely to do this to a cisgendered female sex worker, and is her impulse to report this woman grounded in any anti-trans bias she has in addition to the anti-sex worker attitudes she has.

If this is what the letter was really about, then Dan wasn't too harsh on her, but rather not harsh enough on her at all!

In regard to "He Can't Come". I have had a similar problem all of my adult life, but I think the issue might be as much one of focus as the death grip causation.

Back when I began masturbating there wasn't an internet to go to learn about the need for lube, varying techniques or the like. By the time I was 19 and had my first sex partner willing to give me head or "go all the way", I had been jerking off about 5 times a day for 6 years.

To make matters worse, pre-mature ejaculators were the foil to be humiliated in most of the drive-in movies we then teenagers watched. Not to be the brunt of that type of humiliation, I even jerked off in advance of going on dates, or just going out at all, to avoid a situation where I might get lucky, but wind up finishing before I started. So by the time I had my first real sex, I'd habituated myself into coming in only one way.

"Retarded" or "Delayed Ejaculation Syndrome" became just as embarrassing as what I feared about being a pre-mature ejaculator. Chicks can fake an orgasm, guys can't. There have been a few times over the years, less than a dozen, where I'd be so aroused or unconcerned about not being able to come, that I'd be able to finish. Eventually, I did learn that if I was in a certain position (on bottom) I could come about half the time. On bottom would be my position when masturbating, which might have something to do with it.

I really think it might be as much a focus issue as an issue of death grip, at least for me. I've tried hypnosis therapy, which didn't work, abstaining from coming for as long as 3 or 4 months, which also didn't work. I've tried changing my technique when masturbating, which also didn't work. I even met a woman who said she could make any guy come with her mouth, even sort of guaranteed it. That didn't work either. But those 10 or 12 times when it did work gave me hope.

Whatever the cause, I'm glad to hear Dan's comment about the guy's dick not being broken, it just works differently.

Thanks for that, Dan.

@52: I wish we could all learn to be more understanding and tolerant of our own bodies' individual quirks.
As for your situation, I would love to be with you. Not only would it mean you could last, but I would have less worries about STIs and pregnancy scares. I love--absolutely love--seeing a man's face as he comes, and that's far easier to do if he's finishing himself by hand (often, depending on the position). Your dick works perfectly fine.

Ms I and others - of course he could have expressed such a wishand it's not uncommon, but it's bad form (granted, in a minor way) to present specific information if one has it as a general assumption, especially when that general assumption has been used to harass a great many people. And here, it seems more plausible that he hasn't made such a comment, or she'd have been all over him about how on earth would he ever get anyone pregnant given his PROBLEM?

I'll admit I don't like LW here (eternal caveat - as presented; there could be an unedited version of the letter showing LW in a better light) because she's being Priscilla Pushy. She doesn't ask Mr Savage to help FWB, she asks Mr Savage to help her to help him when she's already been riding this for some time. I can easily picture her in ten years' time swanning around giving herself credit for having "fixed" FWB and his owing his children all to her. Having been in her position, I commend her for caring about FWB's future, but centring herself in the solution is making her come across as too heavily invested.

I agree with Mr.Ven. HCC says that it's not really "a big issue," but she's sure making it one. Either she should be honest and say that she would like him to be able to come inside her, or she should back off and let his body work the way it works without trying to impose changes on him--the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" routine. Does it bother him? No? Then stop trying to get him to see a urologist!
And please, don't pretend to be a social worker just trying to make sure that someday he'll be able to have the children you assume he wants.

Let the way he fathers his children be between him and the woman he wants to have them with.

HCC: 1) Are you using condoms for vaginal/anal sex? Even in my younger days, condoms + alcohol made ejaculation very difficult.

2) There is no mention of oral sex. Can he come from that? Perhaps your vagina/ass aren't tight enough for what he needs to come (as crude as that sounds).

@54/5: Does anyone else see this kind of letter in advice columns a lot?
"Dear columnist, here is a person who is not entirely the way I want them. How do I 'fix' them? By 'fix' I mean turn them into the person I want them to be."

Ms Cute - You are approaching your posts this week with order and method. After the hostilities directed at you last week, for which you might have deserved a Crump Award, good for you.

Mr. Ven, What's a Crump Award? I don't understand the reference.

If he's figured out what the sex worker's correct number, how hard is it (even hours later) to text back "Wrong number. Try (XXX) XXX-XXXX"?

"Crump award"?
Mr Ven delights in referencing obscure literary bullshit in his long- winded annoying comments.
I've since learned to jump to the next comment.

@52: I really think it might be as much a focus issue as an issue of death grip

I'm sure his state of mind is at least partly involved. I know that there's no better way to delay my orgasm then to start me worrying that I'm taking too long.

As for death grip, I'm not convinced it's a real thing. It seems likely that penile sensitivity in human males would vary in a normally distributed fashion across the population (just like height, IQ, shoe size, etc). So, some guys are going to be less sensitive than others, and some will need the death grip to come, that's just the "hand they were dealt".

Throw in a bit of anxiety, shame, and guilt, however, and you could certain exacerbate the condition.

Ms Cute - I thought this had arisen before; perhaps it hadn't. A Crump Award is bestowed upon someone who owns and works a characteristic generally considered socially undesirable. It is named for Wendy Crump, a character in a story where everybody tiptoes around for most of the story not telling her that someone called her fat. When the Terrible Truth is Revealed, Wendy laughs and says of course she's fat, she's always been known for it - that and always getting better grades than the anorexic dolls in her classes.

@64: Thanks, SPAM for writing in. I apologize for my alternate interpretation @51. Kevin BGFH @61 has a good suggestion. And I still think that at least for the time being, not answering calls from unfamiliar numbers, changing your outgoing voicemail message to include the correct number, and turning your ringer off when you don't want to be bothered might be the way to go.

You say that the escort gave you a brief response but that you hadn't gotten a firm commitment, which makes it sound as though you were asking her to change her number. I hope you weren't suggesting that she do that, but rather that she emphasize her correct area code in her ads.

Good luck and I hope the calls stop coming to you soon.

ANAL, I'm a straight woman who loves anal sex and doesn't need to take things as slowly as usually recommended, provided I'm already aroused--better if I've already had at least one orgasm--and the guy isn't too large.
But if you haven't tried it yet, what is your objection to going slow?

I think you should be grateful that your husband is considerate of you and you might want to be considerate of him and his desires. After all, you'll get there eventually; what's the rush? I say this from the perspective of a person who's generally not known for her patience.

As for the gross comparison of anal sex with pooping, and Dan's even more disgusting response, pooping has ZERO in common with anal sex. It resembles anal sex in the same way that removing a tampon resembles vaginal sex. As for Dan's "20 minutes:" much as I enjoy anal, I'm relieved to say that I've never had a session go anywhere near 20 minutes of thrusting--which I consider to be a good thing. All I can say to Dan is: "sir, I take my hat off to you, or whoever is on the receiving end."

@14, @15, @16 There are purely technical solutions for the problem that wouldn't involve losing the old number. At least one of the solutions is more or less free, too.

Take your old number and transfer it to a "Voice over IP" service that has some screening capability. I think you can do this with Google Voice for free. After you do this you can get a new number for your phone. You'll now have two numbers, the Boston one and a local one. You'll use the Boston one from Google Voice's web page. There, you can set the numbers you wish to be relayed to your phone normally, and set everything else to be sent to Google's voicemail, where you can even leave a message asking them to make sure they dialed the right area code.

If you need to make a call from the Boston number, you can enter it on the web page and Google will call your phone and then complete the call for you.

Meanwhile, you get a local number you can start giving out to local friends and associates.

I'm not in love with Google Voice (I use two other services as well), but the price is right and it's within the capability of a new user. There are a zillion other VoIP services, but you're going to have to pay something to use them and some of them are only for hardened phone nerds.

@63 (seandr): Thanks for this. I've always thought that the whole "death grip" thing did more harm as advice than good, since it shifts some sort of blame onto a man for his body working the way it works. It's kind of like the male equivalent of the "clitoral vs. vaginal orgasm" stuff directed at women, in which a woman who can "only" have the "clitoral" orgasm is somehow inferior or less mature than the one who has the "vaginal" orgasm. (Leaving aside the debate about whether or not "vaginal" orgasms even exist.) Or the fact that some women are dependent on a vibrator to have an orgasm. People are always trying to tell them to wean themselves off of it, as if having to use a vibrator to come renders them "less than." While I would sure like the versatility of being able to come without a vibrator (especially good for impromptu sessions that take place away from wherever it is I keep my vibrator stored), I take the view that that is what my body needs, and to be grateful that I live in the era of electricity and battery power.

Also some men can't maintain an erection when they bring condoms into the mix. They just can't. Some men have great difficulty reaching orgasm while wearing a condom. I've been with both such men. Dan's telling them that men can't tell the difference doesn't help. That's how their bodies work. So now should I tell them that the fact that they can't get or stay hard or that they can't come is all their "fault" or all in their heads (big, not little heads)? Or that I think they're just saying that/faking so they don't have to use a condom? I don't think that's going to get the desired result. Unfortunately, that is a bigger problem than the need to finish manually.

Anything that makes someone anxious about his/her sexual performance is practically a sure-fire recipe for that becoming an even bigger problem. Plus there seems to be a bit of sexism here, in that culturally we tell women "that's just how your body works" a lot more often than we impart that message to men. With masculinity already so frequently so narrowly defined, I find it pretty oppressive to get the constant message that "real men" should be able to produce a rock-hard boner at the merest thought of sex, that the process should be a zero-to-30-second affair, that unless he's a lying, selfish bastard he should be able to orgasm with a condom on, and that if he can't come in a vagina it's his fault for having masturbated "wrong" when he was 13. Maybe our culture in general and Dan in particular could approach men more the way we approach women when it comes to "that's how your body does sex."

@70: I don't have anything to add other than, thank you.

@68 Read it again.

"[Without] stimulation of the clitoris, just a quarter of the women studied experienced orgasms often or very often during intercourse"

So 75% rarely achieve orgasm during intercourse without external clitoral stimulation.

nocutename @67
pooping : anal sex :: removing a tampon : vaginal sex.

lol (yes, exactly).

nocutename @70, if men-who-hate-condoms plan to have intercourse with multiple partners, I think it's worthwhile to ask them if they've tried the new ultra thin condoms. Also, I recommend exploring these new condoms with a familiar, fluid-bonded partner rather than relying on using them with new partners. (High pressure situation = less likely to go smoothly and build confidence.)

But other than that quibble, I agree with your call to appreciate male sexual variation without judging it.

@74: EricaP: Yes, that's what I meant about the ability to not tolerate condoms being a bigger problem than the need to finish manually. I'm also middle aged, as are most of my partners, and I suspect that the "have a difficult time with condoms" condition affects more middle-aged than younger men, for a variety of reasons, not limited to the fact that erections in general just seem to be more quixotic as men age. I also think that if you came of age pre-HIV worries, and married or were in a monogamous relationship for a long time, you may have had little experience with condoms. So if you're back on the dating market after a very long hiatus now, this might be the first time you've really had to deal with them, and that, coupled with some other issues and perhaps insecurities, makes using them kind of daunting to not a few men in their early-mid fifties.

I have a fair amount of casual sex, so there's no way I'm not going to insist on condoms for disease protection. I keep Kimonos on hand, and in various sizes, but if someone has a better suggestion for ultra thin (yet not ultra-expensive) condoms, or a preference, I'd be interested in knowing.

@73 (Ibentrudaropes): If I'm ever in Missouri, I'll be sure to check out your superpowers!

@67, what makes you so sure that ANAL will get there eventually? With the wife being gung-ho, I strongly suspect the husband's reluctance is more than a concern for wife's safety, but that he's freaked out about putting his dick in his wife's dumper. Perhaps he's afraid of the fabled "poop noodle," or just the possibility of getting some oil on his dipstick, so to speak.

Whether I'm right or wrong about this, here's some advice that might help ANAL move things along more quickly:

Purchase a high-quality, realistic dildo about the size of your husband's penis. When you have some time to yourself, get yourself nice and clean back there, then try it out. For safety's sake, start (any anal session) with smaller objects (finger, butt plug), then work up to the dildo, using plenty of lube. When you've convinced yourself that you can take the whole thing without pain/discomfort (and hopefully with some pleasure!), even with thrusting in/out, then break out the dildo during foreplay with your husband (again, making sure you're totally clean back there). After working up to it as before, show him that the dildo doesn't hurt you; show him how clean it is when you remove it (it better be!). If he's still reluctant, ask him if the issue has to do with his discomfort putting his dick in a "dirty" place. If yes, then have him wear a condom! If all this doesn't work, I'm stumped.

@68/75: I am fully with Erica: the opposite of "often" is "not often," for which "rarely" is a reasonable synonym. And while you may associate the idea of vaginal orgasms not being the True Feminine Norm with the dark oppression of evil second wavers, that doesn't make it so.

Not having vaginal orgasms every time, or most of the time, doesn't mean a woman has no use for penetrative sex. It means that it's not enough to reliably (or perhaps ever) get her off, just like the long list of other things people do in bed that are a huge turn on and they want to include them in a satisfying evening of sex, even though each is not enough on its own to induce orgasm.

I started having vaginal orgasms, very rarely, when I was over 35 and had had two full-term pregnancies. (I suspect the first was the relevant factor, but who knows? It was not that my husband started doing something different at that point.) They are different from clitoral. Also, in my case, pretty damn boring. Mild, no sense of release, and I completely get the comparison to sneezing as an automatic bodily reaction you can't control but also don't find all that thrilling. Had I built my sex life around one day experiencing one, I would have been pretty damn disappointed. (And I could not for the life of me explain what is different the one time in twenty or so that it happens, so someone insisting that we figure it out so we could try to get them to happen the way they do in romance novels, which is The Correct Way, would be a considerable turn-off.)

@75: The point is that only 25% are going to reliably get to orgasm from PIV alone. Some of the others will, some of the time, sure. But they shouldn't feel like freaks if they want a helping hand. And their male partners should encourage them to mix in some clitoral stimulation, rather than feeling inadequate if their cock alone doesn't do the trick.

Many women get to adulthood feeling like failures for relying on vibrators or fingers to get them over the top. So Dan's 75% number is meant to reassure them that they're in the majority. Most women need clitoral stimulation at least some of the time, and that should not make them feel abnormal.

nocutename @76, my husband likes durex extra sensitive. I also recommend putting it on the guy yourself. If they don't have to think about it, because they're lying back and you're still stimulating them as you get it on them (I've seen a woman put one on a guy with her mouth), then it's a lot more likely they'll stay hard.

I think SPAM was more interested in calling the cops on the people calling the sex worker, not the actual sex worker, or maybe I misread that? She didn't specify she was pissed at the actual sex worker. Just the whole situation, and frankly, that would piss me off too.

Don't beat up on SPAM, I think she's been cool about something that is a real pain in the ass when you're woken repeatedly at stupid hours!!

I think SPAM was more interested in calling the cops on the people calling the sex worker, not the actual sex worker, or maybe I misread that? She didn't specify she was pissed at the actual sex worker. Just the whole situation, and frankly, that would piss me off too.

Don't beat up on SPAM, I think she's been cool about something that is a real pain in the ass when you're woken repeatedly at stupid hours!!

Good advice though, about actually calling the number herself first.. :)

Also too,

There is a big difference between someone not having an orgasm during an evening of sex because their partner doesn't want to put any effort into it, and someone not having an orgasm because they are miles away from it for mysterious reasons and don't want to engage in a grim hour of joyless rubbing trying to get it to happen anyhow.

To flip the sexes, consider a man with a spinal injury who is not going to be having any more orgasms. It's perfectly normal for him and his wife to continue to have sex, for him to get mentally and emotionally aroused by that, and for him to enjoy sex even though there's no orgasm for him in it. So when a woman says she can enjoy sex even if she doesn't climax, she should be believed.

I think it was here I read a bit by a woman who had a very difficult time climaxing: she enjoyed sex but frequently worried that the very rare orgasms meant she was doing something wrong. She read a scientific article proposing that the female orgasm was an evolutionary bonus. For a baby to result the man needed to have an orgasm, and the woman did not. Which was a much more useful frame for her, that she could enjoy sex and view the orgasm as an occasional side bonus, rather than the sole purpose of the exercise.

And time changing if, or how easily, a woman climaxes is quite common. Sometimes with a clear correlation to more skilled and considerate partners, or feeling more at ease with herself. Sometimes correlated to it just needing some more time for her body to hit that point.

The confusing part about the SPAM letter: why bother mentioning her move from Boston to Seattle when it has no bearing on the situation and makes understanding of the area code mixup more confusing?

Given the move, though, it seems even more obvious that getting a new Seattle phone number is the right answer (keeping the other as a Google-Voice redirect if you absolutely must have that too) OR having a pre-canned message to text back with the correct number AND ignoring unrecognized calls AND having a voicemail that made it clear that you were not that person - but calling the sex worker also seems like a no-brainer too.

For people who don't read unregistered comments, comment #64 is from SPAM.

@EricaP: it's worthwhile to ask them if they've tried the new ultra thin condoms

I personally haven't found that ultra thins make any difference. Things that do make a difference for me:

1) The material, in particular how it feels on my dick. I find that Trojans feel relatively softer compared to Durex, and lamb skin condoms even more so (although they are expensive and weird looking). In the end, the condom is what you're fucking (regardless of how thin it is), so it should feel good.

2) The shape. Trojan has (had?) a model designed to massage that special sensitive spot on your dick during intercourse, and I could definitely feel it working. If your guy has trouble coming with a condom, maybe give these a shot.

3) The fit. If a condom is stretched too tight, it becomes less supple and blocks sensation. Took me a number of suboptimal fucks to figure that one out.

lolo @21, smooches and tip o' the chapeau rose to you for supporting your fam. I hope y'all are well.

Just went and checked the box -- I was wrong, my husband's brand is Trojan Supra Microsheer Polyurethane (ultra-thin lubricated)

Wow: two endorsements for Trojan. I had heard nothing but smack talked about them for years. I'll have to rethink this . . .

nocutename @89: I read that Trojans had the highest fail rate of any major brand of condom sold in the U.S., but this was well over ten years ago. It could have turned around entirely at this point, but, for me personally, that statistic is always in the back of my head so I continue to avoid them.

Ophian @87: Thank you and smooches right back atcha, cutie-pie. All is well, if somewhat sleep-deprived- which probably explains the 'cutie-pie' thing as opposed to something clever and French. Forgive me. :)

Many years ago I had a phone number which was a close permutation of a phone owned by a sex worker named 'Lucille'. How's that for a kinky relationship? I got some very interesting phone calls as a result -- maybe two or three a week. While some were pretty creepy, others were quite amusing, especially those who for some reason refused to believe they had called the wrong number, in spite of my gruff voice. (These I would sometimes play along with for a while, and perhaps some of them were playing along with my playing along.) I began to have fantasies about Lucille, not necessarily erotic ones, which were quite entertaining for me, and possibly for some of her mistaken clients, to whom I would relate such stories as 'Lucille's curious trip to LA and the odd things she did there with important people' or 'Lucille's Tasmainian great-grandmother who may have been a cannibal.' Of course I never called Lucille herself, because this would almost certainly have damaged the fantasies with the poison of reality. And of course Lucille never called me. I liked to think of her hearing about the other Lucille from her clients, though, and fantasizing about her, him, or it, whatever, out there in the darkness of telephone-land (for this was the old days when telephones were big black things that didn't light up, and the calls came at night, and we were way out in the eternal gloom of the burbs. Even there we were not alone.

Sic transit. One moves on, or away. Bon voyage, Lucille, wherever you are.

@49: A water douche and subsequent soap and water (outside only, please) goes a long way for that. My husband and I always rinse ourselves out before engaging in anal play.

@76: These are my new favorite condoms. They don't stink and the lube doesn't stick to everything it touches like napalm. http://thisisl.com/shop/

@59 and 65: If you really want to see me get attacked, go on over to the fat people/skinny people thread now, and read the message @114.

I suppose by rising to a bit of the bait, I could be said to have brought it on myself.

@nocutename: Oh Jesus. That fat/skinny thread was such obvious troll-bait, I didn't click. Having read @114, not clicking was the right call. This is one area where (unfortunately) Dan Savage uses his platform to hurt people with his ignorance and his bullshit attitude. Dan, you listening? Knock it the fuck off.

As for @114, that dude is a fucking idiot. Show me a skinny douchebag who can beat me in a 10k race, and I'll show you an skinny douchebag who I could kill with my bare hands in 30 seconds.

@21 lolorhone!! We're glad to HAVE you back! Eudaemonic (@28) is right---there was indeed some talk about organizing a search and rescue party for you! I'm glad that all is well.
By the way, I couldn't resist being a little cheeky to ANAL, either (see @19).

@64: Thank you for writing in, SPAM. Good luck--I hope your phone situation works out. Although your having to contact the sex worker in person must gave been awkward for you, it sounds like your problem's solved if she's willing to change her business number and does.

@94 nocutename & @95 seandr: Okaaaaayyy.. you both lost me @114.
Maybe I didn't really miss much (in regards to @114). Was this from Dan's column last week, or a different blog altogether in The Stranger?

Continued, re @94 & @95: Hmmmm....@114 was not in last week's Savage Love (Big Issues)...was this on Podcast? YouTube?
Forgive me. My curiosity got the better of me tonight.

Griz will try again later in the thread.
XO and a good night to all.
:)
griz

@lolorhone

So good to read you again ! I was getting very worried.

@nocutename

I would say the ability to tolerate condoms should logically be higher in older men, who have had scores of practice of condomed sex with women who were confident enough to put the foot down on uncondomed sex, than in younger men, who have mostly the experience of uncondomed jerking off and easily manipulated young women ("why condoms, since I love you ?").

Auntie Griz @96 and sissoucat @98: Great to read you again as well! I wrote an explanatory post in the Justin Bond blog a few days ago and I'm sorry to have worried you. As for @97: Pretty sure the comment @114 was for the Living Near Skinny People Makes Overweight People Unhappy blog, now in the Slog archives.

P.S.

@117 is for you nocutename.

@lolorhone I haven't been much online lately, so I missed your note. Don't strain you too much to keep us reassured, though ; sleep all you need. Big fraternal kisses ! and dream about Ophian by all means.

Ms Cute - The posts you were receiving over there inspired the thought. There was a great deal I nearly said about Rumpole and the issue of weight, but, as you didn't respond to the offer of such assistance, it seemed pushy to insert him unasked. I am glad Mr Rhone made a contribution to the thread on your behalf.

Ms Sissou - As you do not care for tennis, I shall hope it has not intruded on your consciousness. If I were ever to go to France, it would almost surely include the event, but, as travel has become so ugly, you are probably safe from my presence in the same country.