30 years of bad sex, bad advice, bad counselling, and not even learning to masturbate. The problem is not just about the husband.

Maybe, if both are willing to work things out, a new start could be made. It doesn't seem as though people actually manage that very often.

Wow, Dan got the time machine working!

Husband is not fulfilling his duties. Sex with the vibrator is awesome and better. Thus: completely cut off sex with husband unless he gets his shit together / allows outside play. A sex divorce. Alternatively, you can threaten a legal divorce, or you can plead / beg / bargain with this guy. If he won't spend half an hour pleasuring you on your terms because he loves you, well, give me his email address and I'll berate him for you.

TUT: If 15-year-old you had sex with a 25-year-old woman, would he have considered it rape or fucking awesome? Would you have changed your mind at any point in the last 20 years, or would you continue to look back at that encounter with some fondness?

Why should your wife be any different?

BIBFAULT sounds very angry. Either he accused her of being “lousy in bed” because she didn't have orgasms, or else she created that idea herself, telling herself for years that she was defective.

If he has been belittling her for years, and criticizing her in bed, then she should just leave. But if it was mostly her own self-criticism at work, then I think she should talk out her emotions with a therapist.

If he has been supportive but clueless (“we read books, we went to counseling”), then they could invest some time in getting to know each other (while she fantasizes to whatever she wants privately) and seeing if they can build a sexual connection, this time using the vibrator and her new knowledge of what gets her off. He may, over time, become better able to consider exploring kink with her.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Savag…
>> Disclose, downplay, and drop isn't a foolproof strategy—there's no guarantee that a partner will come around if you go the DDD route—but it's more likely to be successful than, say, the "present, pressure, and pout" strategy that too many kinksters employ.>>

TLDR: don't throw out a good partner (“funny, loyal, faithful, great dad”) for some Domly Dom you meet on the internet who will give you intense thrills for six months and then dump you. But if your husband is not only funny and loyal but also cruel and belittling, then go see a lawyer.

BIBFAULT - you're not the only one out there. By far. Here's what most of the rest of us do:

1) buy vibrators, toys, etc, both for yourself and for you as a couple

2) Enjoy having sex with your husband as a loving, bonding activity, even if you rarely or never orgasm from the things he likes.

3) Watch porn, read erotica, get into fanfiction. Have a discussion with your husband in which you're both open about the other being allowed to masturbate, allowed to watch porn (within whatever parameters you're comfortable setting, e.g. no webcam chats), and neither of you feels like they have to hide it or be guilty.

4) Sometimes when you have sex together, if you're close but not quite there, pull out your vibrator and finish yourself off. Or direct HIM in how to finish you off. Or kick him out, go read dirty smutty fanfiction, and THEN get yourself off.

5) Don't let anyone tell you your sex life isn't "right" - if it's something that makes you happy, even if it's not perfect simultaneous multiple orgasms every time, it's FINE and you're doing it right.

Good luck.

@CMDwannabe: some posts for you over at "Coming Clean."

Oh BIBFAULT, my heart aches for you. Your situation isn't my situation--but there are some similarities.
Does your husband object to your incorporating the vibrator into your shared sex life? If not, try doing a lot more of that.
Do you find written erotica arousing? Porn? Do you have a scenario or characters that turn you on? If so, share them with him: read your erotica aloud, or have him read it; tell him what fantasies run in your mind when you masturbate with the vibrator.

Having an affair is a powder keg of an action.

LW#1 - Oh, how my heart aches for you. Although I was't raised the same, the sex I had before and after marriage was very unsatisfactory and I also went for decades thinking things were wrong with me since I couldn't orgasm under any circumstances.

At age 45 I decided it had to change: I could not live my life without having the fabulous sex I knew others were having.

Vibrators, reading Betty Dodson... and having an affair with an old boyfriend - were all key, and all worked. That affair ended and I tried to make sex work with my husband.

I'm now 51 and realized my husband and I totally sexually incompatible. So I started an affair with someone new. And the sex got even MORE amazing.

So... can't tell YOU what to do, but yes, there is an entire world out there of people who LOVE sex and would happily get involved in a NSA situation!!

Am I the only one who read BIBFAULT's letter and thought "DUH! Include the vibrator during sex!" She's complaining that "even with what I now know about my sexuality, we have been unable to figure out how to get me to orgasm when we are together." If you use a vibrator while you are together then you are together! Find some fun ways to incorporate the vibrator into your play and voila! No need for an extramarital affair.

@10: No kidding. Why did she go straight from "I can't figure out how to come" to "I know, let's try kink!" when she knows perfectly well that a vibrator works wonders.

Unless she thinks the vibrator itself constitutes kink? (Hint to bibfault: it doesn't. Not even close.)

Yes to Kayta and Avast in 10 and 11. Add my voice to what I hope becomes a big pile of use the vibrator together.

Here's another false idea about sex and sexuality to add to the list BIBFAULT gave us: Great sex is right around the corner if you just find the right guy to give it to you. BIBFAULT seems to subscribe to the idea that if she hadn't had all those other wrong ideas about waiting for marriage and blaming herself for not coming, if she had tried a lot of men until she found the one she clicked with, then she'd have been enjoying great sex all these years. Wrong! There's a very reasonable chance that she's just someone who needs a vibrator to get off.

Even if the use the vibrator together idea doesn't work, there's a lot going for the use the vibrator alone one. Someone who describes using a vibrator in OH MY GOD terms is not having boring sex. The trick now is to:

1. Use the vibrator alone as much as you want.

2. Let your husband watch you use the vibrator.

3. Let your husband hold the vibrator some of the time while you still control when you want to take over with it.

4. Both of you use the vibrator first. Then you have sex with your husband in the old boring way that he likes. In time, you incorporate vibrator use into something for both of you.

From what BIBFAULT has described, having sex with someone else, whether with her husband's knowledge or not, whether with his approval or not, whether she gets the blame or he does, is going to wreck this marriage and make her miserable in the long run-- AND in the short run.

And now a personal aside that I hope can help BIBFAULT feel better. She and I are roughly the same age. I didn't hold any of the wait-for-marriage beliefs, but I did begin my sex life with some of the wrong beliefs that she did. My first time was disappointing in some ways because I thought it was going to be magic and that I'd experience that magic orgasm I'd heard about and was curious about, and I was so puzzled that I hadn't, and I thought there had to be something wrong with me. I blamed myself for years between now and then blaming my partner. I thought that I was supposed to be attracted to every funny, kind, loyal, smart, thoughtful man that came along, and I felt guilty when I wasn't. I felt guiltier when I realized that we weren't right for each other after we'd slept together. (At the time I often put it in terms of his being terrible in bed. It took some years and maturity to start thinking of it in terms of not clicking.)

A note about counseling-- This wasn't a Christian counselor by any chance, was it? I'm putting that together with the whole wait for marriage thing and a knowledge that Christian counselors tend to start from a blame-the-woman, his-pleasure-matters-most stance from the get go. It's possible that you don't need to find a different man but that you need to find a different counselor. The same goes for books. And porn/erotic material. You don't need something that's going to be even more preachy/blamey. You need fun ideas for things to try that you'll enjoy. (Hint: Place to start is oral sex. Has your husband ever licked your clitoris? If not, tell him he's doing that tonight.)

@11: If someone is THAT vanilla that they have only ever had sex with one person in their entire life and intend to keep it that way, incorporating toys COULD be seen as a "milder form of kink." (My very-vanilla ex insisted I get rid of my sex toys.)

What would BiDanFan do, if BiDanFan were BIBFAULT?

BiDanFan would bring the vibrator to bed. BiDanFan would put the absolute kibbosh on her husband penetrating her until he had made her orgasm at least once with the vibrator and/or his fingers and/or tongue. BiDanFan would masturbate a lot and fuck hardly ever. Until Mr BIBFAULT got so frustrated he either agreed to attempt to please his wife, open up the marriage, or both. In the meantime, BiDanFan would continue with the counseling until they found a therapist who actually helped.

Good luck, BIBFAULT!

Jeebuz, TUT.

Why is it any claim of "trauma," no matter how absurd, is considered legitimate... (Ms. Call-the-Cops because a 14-year-old jizzed his pants comes to mind, pun intended)

...but if someone DOESN'T feel traumatized by something, people will circle that person and insist "You ARE a victim, you SHOULD feel traumatized"???

Sheesh, either we have a right to our feelings or we don't.

@17: I couldn't agree more. I also think the minimum age for marriage should be 25. Watch the divorce rate plummet.

LW1 says "good sex" in her penultimate sentence - does she really mean that she's never had sex that rises to the not-extremely high level of "good", or is she bar-raising by really meaning "great" and calling it "good"? Unless the incompatibility is extreme, such a good husband ought to be able to reach a level of competence that could be rounded up to good with a bit of training, although how he was suddenly supposed to be almost instantly up to speed after decades of contrary training O'd not like to say. I suspect she wanted to be pushed into cheating, but can understand why she might want whatever happens to be without her having exercised any agency.

LW2 should do Wife Swap with the husband whose wife was triggered by their wedding over traumatic abuse as a child, cut off their sex life, and three years later had for some time been making (vague) progress in therapy. Granted, that was a Prudie letter, but the two couples seem so well-suited to swapping.

L3 - alas, I haven't the time to unpack "merrily".

By the way, the commments over at this week's (still)/last week's column, "Coming Clean" are still going strong.

LW 1 should make sure every time she has sex with her husband she makes him stop before he orgasms. It's only fair.

I'd also take blowjobs off the table. Really, you have to be enthusiastic about sex with a person to really be good at them, and I can't see how that's possible for her at this point.

Also might help to tell him she's really really afraid she's going to cheat if he doesn't put in some goddamn effort (oh, sorry, "care about her sexual needs"). He seems like a clueless git. Stop dancing around and catering to his tender male emotional fragility. And at the very very least she should be using the vibe during sex, every time.

She might also consider teaching her kids that there's no penetrative sex until they can get their partner off (or at least deeply and thoroughly satisfied) first. By hand and by mouth and possibly by mere sultry glance (teenage boys are easy). At least her kids will have a better sex life than she has, and behave in a more mature fashion than the husband.

And you aren't lousy in bed. It's amazing that thought ever crossed your mind. He was getting off, no? What was he doing, implying it was your fault? Given your enthusiasm I promise you you'd be fantastic in the sack if you had half the chance. It's ridiculous to me that he's too much of a baby to admit that he's been fucking you wrong your entire life, and too much of a baby to even begin to attempt to remedy it. That is the crux of your sexual incompatibility - he is absolute shit in bed, both in technique and far more importantly in an seemingly absolute disinterest in making sure you are having fun/are enthusiastic. He'd better cling to you because he would not cut it worth shit on the dating scene. You can bet he'd put in more effort for a new lover. If it were me I'd bring up open marriage (or swinging, (christianswingers.com anyone?) at least then he can see in person how it's done), if only to scare him straight. And if he continues to get an F in fucking, walk for God's sake. He clearly doesn't care enough to even try. Your kids might be too young to understand now, but I promise by the end of college they'll be on your side.

@22 I'd also try faking falling asleep during sex. Might be educational for him.

I was born only a few years after BIBFAULT and, quite frankly, I find it funny (as in strange) that she should justify her no-sex-before-marriage stance with her age - "We were raised to wait for sex till we got married—this was back in the early '80s—and we did."

The sexual revolution, free love and all that happened in the SIXTIES, you know? When she and her husband were CHILDREN, not of marrying age.

By the time I came of age, in the early 80's, absolutely no one waited until marriage. Indeed, no one I knew even thought of marriage as an option.

My guess is that the problem, as Crinoline stated, is that BIBFAULT has had a deeply christian upbringing and has adopted a christian approach to resolving her issues (including christian counselors), and that she and her husband have so far refused to acknowledge that this is the fundamental source of a) their difficulties, traumas, mental blocks or whatever other impediments to her sexual satisfaction, and b) her husband's unwillingness to explore sexuality further.

Being in BIBFAULT's position was my nightmare when I was a kid. Yes squeaky wheel gets the grease, if it's not working move on, everyone can orgasm, and sex should feel satisfying or you're doing it wrong.

you wouldn't have written if you weren't okay with cheating on some level and/or seeking permission to cheat

Not true. BIBFAULT might be writing because she thinks Mr. Savage has another solution that she hadn't thought of, something she could say to her husband or do for her husband to make him better in bed. Or maybe mention a sex aid or technique that she could use to get herself to orgasm. People don't only write in here because they want permission to cheat. Sometimes there are other answers, and we've all seen Mr. Savage provide them.

@ 27 - Yes, true.

"Even though I'm intrigued by the idea, I don't think I could pull off the lying and deceit required to do it behind his back. We also live in a small town where it would be nearly impossible to have a discreet affair" more than hints that she is okay with cheating on some level, but that practical considerations prevent her from doing it. Her objections in now way appear to be of the moral, can't-stand-the-thought-of-it type.

You two need counseling alright, but not the kind you've been getting. You need to learn how to be with each other, in the sense of sexual response, in terms of fantasies, in terms of what YOU like. Has he used the vibrator on you? Any other toys? How about different positions, different clothing, lubes, etc.? I suspect y'all (or just each of you, separately) still have certain hangups which you must get over. You seem to have gotten over some already. His turn, now.

@ 13, just because someone's only had sex with one person doesn't mean they are THAT vanilla. My husband of 21 years has only had sex with me and he's pretty kinky. Maybe before the internets it was different but I think these days people can really explore their kinks and have a very non-vanilla time with a GGG partner, even if it's only the one partner. I guess the problem is having a partner who's not that interested in sex in the first place?

I don't know why they haven't taken the vibrator to bed together either, as other people have said. We used to do that before having kids (after having kids it got a lot easier to orgasm for some reason - stuff must have shifted for the better, or something like that).

If I was her I probably would be considering cheating but like her, I live in a small city (in a small country) and everyone knows each other's business, which is usually lovely but sometimes a little stifling.

Dan's advice to BIBFAULT is fantastic; agree that having options, even in theory, feels less suffocating. I generally treat adhering to monogamy much like quitting smoking. When I smoked, the thought of never having another cigarette was too overwhelming. Instead, I would focus on not having a cigarette for the next hour. I would have the option of having a cigarette later if it became to much to handle.

Much the same with affairs. Once you are open to the concept in theory, you get a sense of who your actual affair partners would be. I have no idea if BIBFAULT has the qualities to attract the affair partners that would make cheating worth it. If she gives off a vibe that she is open to invitations she may well find that her potential suitors are not worth the trouble given the risk/benefit. Ironically, she may feel better about remaining monogamous if she is actively choosing to remain so rather than feeling trapped as she does now.

And yes to bringing the vibrator to bed.

Awful advice for BIBFAULT. It's implied that she keep having sex she doesn't like (and why should she stay again?). Yes insisting on a vibrator in bed and coming first is reasonable, while she's deciding whether his cock can ever sexually satisfy her. If she cheats and has awesome sex it's going to oddly shatter her even more to be confronted with that reality. Ack. Don't let rejection and resentments powder keg, people get killed like that. DTMFA. If I couldn't leave for some reason, and couldn't cheat... I'd probably cut off sex until he agreed to an open relationship? Or until he started making my masturbation sessions better instead of demanding sex that is less stimulating than masturbation.
Ven - Good or bad is often a reference to masturbation, not to other lovers or fantasy of "good sex".

TUT - Pretty asswipe behavior to try to convince her that her feelings about her experiences are wrong. Nope, she's the expert on her feelings and if you think she's really fucked up then don't fuck her asshole. Oh you want to keep fucking her? Then discuss each others views on statutory rape, sex education, and parenting teens to see if there's a dealbreaker for you in her views. If not, stop causing problems.

MMSL - You have to trust him that he is making good decisions for himself. If he is responsive, don't question it.. especially when he initiates. Although I think it's wise to only initiate low key positions for a while. It's almost complimentary in a certain light, a man who would kill himself initiating crazy sex with you! But I'm sure he's not suicidal and knows his own body, and once you trust that, it'll be fine.

I believe TUT is messing with us. I believe TUT has had enough of the everyone's-a-victim brand of feminists and is trying to turn the idea on its head in order to make a point. I believe he's giggling to himself and thinking he's going to stir up a lot of trouble. But let's say I'm too cynical and the question is for real. If that's the case, I recommend he go to his wife and explain that he knows she's female and therefore knows she can't possibly be the judge of her own feelings, explain that he's trying to get through to her for her own good because she can't possibly know what's good for her. Be really up front and insistent. Wait. She may dump you. That's what you want, isn't it?

Oh dear. I promised to be serious, and my sarcasm got the better of me anyway. I should be asking TUT what evidence he has of the trauma. Maybe there's something he's not telling us. Maybe he knows she's been traumatized because she's telling him that he's not pleasing her sexually and she wants him to go down on her or use vibrator on her. Oh rats! I went and got sarcastic again. It's been a rough day.

TUT really chose the worst possible topic to prove his mansplaining skills to his wife, and he's so thick he even had to write to a gay advice columnist for pointers.

Stick to mansplaining football, TUT, that's probably the only thing in the world you understand better than your wife. And I'm not even sure of that.

@20: I read it as she does not have orgasms.

@28: I read it more as she had considered it as an option, and rejected it for those reasons. Along with rejecting divorce, so she was hoping Dan might have a third option. Or some magic words she could say to her husband.

@33: I suspect some part of him may be jealous that she was obviously quite sexually mature at 15 and he was still a spotty kid who'd have to wait six more years before he got laid. ;)

What kind of '80s did this woman grow up in?

Dan, I think some of your other go-to advice would have been warranted for BIBFAULT, given the limited amount of info. We know that they haven't been able to figure out how to get her off together, and that he vetoed he suggestion of "mild kinks." Unless his reluctance toward mild kink is shorthand for a general unwillingness to discuss sex and work toward a better sexual connection, (which it very well could be,) I think that there's some possibilities.

If she's dead-set on monogamy and in keeping this marriage together, I would start out with him using the vibrator on her. Maybe once he sees how sexy a mutually fulfilling sexual encounter is (and the sight of a "fulfilled" partner) he might be more open to branching out and focusing on her. He's been a lousy lay (for her) for decades because sex has never explicitly been a priority, and we don't really know if she's actually pushed him to prioritize it other than "suggesting" a few things (not to blame the "victim here, but I can't see someone who waited for marriage and trudged through decades of mediocre sex being a strong personal advocate for her own sexual needs).

As for MMSL, Dan's advice is great and a good way to conceptualize it, but I can think of some more practical advice if you have trouble getting out of your head. Next time you guys have sex, have him tie your hands or tie you to the bed. If neither of you are kinkily inclined, have the "normal"/gentle/lovemaking-type sex that typified your "thriving sex life," only with you partially mobilized. This will give you confidence that you won't be able to get caught up and accidentally hurt him. It will also be difficult to feel like a caretaker when he's explicitly in control and you're "at his mercy." Hell, being able to top you might help him build a little confidence if he's also still feeling a little broken, hopefully setting of a positive feedback loop between you two.

@ 35 - I agree, but she seems to have seriously considered it before rejecting it. She says "Neither of us has ever been unfaithful, and neither of us is okay with being unfaithful—I know he isn't," then proceeds to give her own reasons, which are all purely practical. This, to me, reveals that she is indeed okay with it "on some level"; she was sufficiently okay with it to think it through thoroughly (otherwise, she would have said something brief along the lines of "I would never cheat on my husband" and leave it at that).

Since I was commenting on DRF's assertion that Dan's assertion of her being "okay with it on some level" was false, my attention was merely to point out that it wasn't. Whether she was hoping to get permission to cheat or truly looking for another option, we'll never know (I also assume the latter, for the record).

@ 32 - Why do you advise TUT not to fuck her asshole? If she states a preference for anal, I don't think it's up to him to decide whether she likes it and should do it or not. This seems to go against the gist of your comment (and everyone else's).

Or was your comma key temporarily out of order?

Oops! I of course meant "my intention", not "my attention" @ 35.

Sorry for all the typos and silly mistakes today (and my arrogance in highlighting other people's), I haven't been smoking weed lately.

As for TUT: I had sex with a 42-year-old when I was 16. It was consensual, it was fun. It was illegal, yeah. Lots of us do fun things that are mildly illegal when it suits us.

I can appreciate that an older person can take sexual advantage of a younger person, and we want to avoid that, as a society. But I'm not sure we benefit by pretending that everyone under 18 is a naive little lamb who can't possibly have meant to have any sex. And a 16-year-old girl who really wants to get laid...she'll have no problem. To decide it's rape because she chooses someone older? Nonsense.

Laws have to be one-size-fits-all...I guess. But situations certainly aren't.

Sean@23. A little drastic. Then again..

Another woman who won't take charge of her own sexuality and blames it on the guy. How about bringing the vibrator to bed letter lady #1? How about touching yourself during sex? I had an ex wife who never touched herself during sex and never let me touch "it" as she was taught it was dirty. Too many women blame the man but how is a man supposed to navigate the minefield that is a woman's hangups?

@17 Hunter & @19 BiDanFan: Agreed, but I'll see your 25, BiDanFan, and raise it to 40. I'd like to think I've learned from my mistakes.

Awwwwwww, shit---don't get me started!When it comes to the 80s, I'd prefer to remember Cyndi Lauper, the Go-Gos, the Brat Packers, Marty McFly & Ferris Bueller.

@25 Ricardo: Bingo. You beat me to it.

I'm shocked Dan, that you didn't suggest that BIBFAULT use the vibrator while having sex with her husband. It seems pretty obvious to me, and you've made that suggestion before.

Maybe you got tripped up with the way she ended her letter.

@13: Or, instead of laying down the law, practicing punitive withholding, and angling towards opening the marriage -- I would have to assume you _want_ the divorce that is impending, should you take that approach right off the bat -- BiDanFan could start by showing Reluctant Hubby just how good the vibrator feels, by using it on _him_ a little bit.

Note I said "on." "In" comes much later, if it interests him. Start off easy already. But hey, the buzzy little things make pretty much any body part they come into contact with (short of teeth enamel) feel very nice indeed. That might be enough to let the little "idea" light bulb go on above his head.

Another anachronistic detail in letter no.1:

"I don't really want a divorce, because it means losing the entire life we've built together, which is no small thing. But when I think about never having good sex in my entire life, I can hardly stand it."

When I was in my early teens, in the late '70s, my mom and my older sisters would give me feminist stuff to read so I wouldn't grow up to be a "male chauvinist pig" - the favoured expression at the time - and I will be eternally grateful to them for that. Some of it was serious high-brow stuff (The Female Eunuch, Ainsi soit-elle - a classic for those who read French), but a lot of it was in a popular, self-empowerment vain.

The LW's sentences I quoted above were typical of the testimonies published in the latter type of books. In the '70s (which is why I say "anachronistic"). The testimonies of middle-aged women who had had enough of their unsatisfying sex life with a husband who didn't care.

Where was BIBFAULT in those days? What books did she and her husband read in the meantime? And, more importantly, why the fuck are there still so many women who need to be told that their pleasure matters, 40 years later? In the Western World, for fuck's sake!

And I mean every awful implication of the phrase "need to be told". Not only is it not obvious to them, as it plainly should be, but they still aren't even ready to contemplate the idea unless someone, often a man, gives them permission to. It appears we really haven't made any progress in the way we educate and socialize our children.

Sorry about the rant. I hope it's not construed as blaming BIBFAULT or any other woman, since it's really meant as a condemnation of our failure to evolve as a society. But there's one thing I would really like to know: In today's world, with all the advances we have made on so many levels, what kind of heartless, degenerate parents still raise their kids to not be sexually fulfilled and happy?

Granted, you use it on him, and then, right then and there, before he comes from using it, stop, hand it to him, and say, "Now...your turn. I like it right here."

If he balks then, he deserves all the scorn people have been heaping so far in the comments.

Just to interrupt for a second.
Tim, whenever you jump on thread- I rack my brain, how to help this man.
You really do seem like such a honey, I don't know why your wife is still
Unresponsive. Unless, she has become responsive and you're just setting up women in a line for extra mind activity.
First off, I thought sex worker- then.
The thought that jumped at me. Was Burning Man. Take this woman there. Something's gotta get her mojo going again. Make her go. Or tell her you'll go alone!
Kids babysat. Plan it well.

Burning Man, Tim- may be too far off. Though, I still think you should take her there.
So. Some other get together/ festival .. Someplace where she is really out of her comfort zone, though not too far out. Just a little shake up, to start.
If you married her, Tim, unless you've become a totally different man- just gotta trust that wonton hussy, is either still in there- or she's ready to be born.

Mr Ricardo - I suppose it's too much to hope that they in turn accepted with gratitude literature from you that kept them from turning into Proposition 8 supporters. If you are turning the seventh cheek, at least you do so with some flair.

"How do I turn off caregiver mode and get back to being a sexual partner?"

Why turn off the caregiver mode MMSL? How about a sexy nurse's uniform and a game of "I take care of *all* my patient's needs"?

MMSL - as someone who is recovering from major surgery but with the OK to resume sex, I understand what your husband is going through and can imagine what you might be feeling. Go back to when you were discovering each other's likes and dislikes and then ask - "how does this feel? what about this position? are you interested in this? up for trying that?" And he may feel like driving thngs a bit more. I had to ask my nurse whether it was OK to start and then my doc more recently if I could resume a certain position. The medical advisors have heard all the questions so you can ask so you can feel comfortable - and it is pretty thriilling to get an email from the nurse that says, "let her drive for a while" (well, it was for us).

Don't hold back - make the conversation sexy and know that your intimacy is a big part of his recovery and your recovery as a couple. Good luck!

BIBFAULT's husband needs to cheat too. They should go to nevada and get some professional help -- he with the prostitutes and she with the gigolos. Swinging would be unfair to all the other swingers, unless they were upfront about their "predicament". But she can't go out there and learn something new and bring it back to their bed and *not* get caught, so he needs to learn too. Because you know what? IT'S NOT HER FUCKING FAULT! Neither of them have any experience except the other. They BOTH need to learn.

LW1 needs to masturbate in front of her husband and then hand him the vibrator.

@LavaGirl: It was a grumpy joke.

Also, Burning Man is probably the last place you want to go to address relationship issues.

BIBFAULT, as the others said, use the vibrator during sex with your husband. If he isn't willing to do that, then don't have sex with him. It's unreasonable to deny your partner such a simple thing for their pleasure during sex. But if he is being supportive and not blaming you for the sexual issues and he's okay with incorporating the vibrator into your sex lives, you may be able to create some good sex together. Worth a try.

TUT, stop trying to traumatize your girlfriend. Telling someone that they should be traumatized can create trauma where none exists. This is part of why when actual sexual exploitation happens it should be handled by trained professionals and not random people, even with good intentions. The reason we don't have sex with children is that you cannot tell until they grow up whether or not they truly were able to give informed consent. Different people gain that ability at different times, and it's better to err on the side of not letting a child be raped or assaulted. However, some 15 year olds are able to give true informed consent. So, if an adult says they had truly consensual sex when they were a child, the most likely explanation is that they matured on the fast end and had truly consensual sex when they were 15. I know people who could have done so and their consent would be real and people who it absolutely would have been rape if someone had sex with them at that age, because maturation is highly variable. Just as some people reach their full height at age 13 and other people don't reach it until age 20. But if somebody says they stopped growing taller at age 13, we do not assume they must be lying and not really have finished growing.

When it comes to actual trauma, you have to look at the individual case. It's just good to support statutory rape laws, because otherwise you allow the children on the slow end of the sexual maturation curve to be raped, and that's a high price to pay for allowing the faster developers to get some legal, consensual sex a little bit sooner.

MIMSL, trust your husband to be able to judge what he is feeling up to. And this should get easier with time.

Sean; grumpy Eh?
I don't really want to address Tim's stuff anymore. So I'll respond to you in a universal way.
I believe, some women's sex goes into hiding. Gets a bit contorted,by the rearing of little people. Running a home. Dealing with a husband. Stuff- family stuff.
This can be rekindled in a different place, or at least tried to be kindled.
Maybe, Burning Man a little ambitious, to start.
A woman needs to go dancing, be around sexy men playing music, to help get her juices going.

"How do I turn off caregiver mode and get back to being a sexual partner?"

Why not be a sexual caregiver MMSL? Put on a nurse's uniform and play a game of "I take care of *all* my patient's needs". Or a lab coat and stethoscope and play "doctor's orders".

I'm sure after a thorough rehabilitation program you'll know when he's ready for discharge.

@61; what a great idea. That should shake things up a bit.

@48: Interesting idea, though with the exception of one, men I've been with have had no interest in or reaction to vibrators. If they did, there would be a far bigger market for vibrating sex toys for men, which I just don't see. So I don't think we can assume that will be a magic revelation for Mr BIBFAULT.

@54: Perfect :)

Dr Sean - You're walking it back? I think you were on to something.

@49

But there's one thing I would really like to know: In today's world, with all the advances we have made on so many levels, what kind of heartless, degenerate parents still raise their kids to not be sexually fulfilled and happy?

Ricardo, that's an easy one. Who? Religious fundies, that's who. I still remember seeing a video clip here years ago of one of those "abstinence-only" harpies, telling girls that they were the chaste gate-keepers whose primary function prior to marriage was to keep the hormonally-crazed teen boys out until they had a ring on their finger. Because girls, on their own, had no sex drive to speak of. Also you may remember Michelle Duggar's cringe-worthy statement a couple weeks ago, that Duggar women didn't get headaches (so were available for sex any time their men-folk wanted it).

Considering how little BIBFAULT still knows about sex and her own sexuality in particular, I'm not surprised that she thinks that orgasming on her own is like turning the switch from OFF to ON and that, now, she'll have automatic orgasms from intercourse alone. That the definite impression I got from her letter. Sigh.

What she's done for herself is only Step 1 of the process and it's sad in a not-so-funny way that she thinks she needs either kink or an affair to make her body respond.

She needs some FACTUAL (and not religious) reading material on HOW bodies work and there's lots of it out there. She can do a broad search first, then focus on a few possibilities. I hope she gets out of her small town occasionally because it would be helpful for her to visit a bricks-and-mortar bookstore to flip through the books she's previewed online. Even if she's blushing furiously and looking over her shoulder.

I'd also recommend my old fave, http://www.sexinfo101.com to show her a variety of positions (and that's not only for PIV).

I'm really surprised you didn't trot out that response to a teenage boy, Dan, where you kept repeating, "It's her CLIT," until – you hope – he really got it. You could have done the same thing here, to validate the fact that BIBFAULT is NOT broken, that her body works just fine (or should with practice).

Beyond introducing her husband to the materials I've suggested, I think she should make a sex tape for her husband. I don't think he knows about her using a vibrator. What about filming herself using that vibrator, but NOT showing anything below the neck ... so that only the look and sounds of absolute abandon and gorgeous pleasure are evidence when she comes. If she wants to say anything, then it might be along these lines: Hon, I think by now you know we weren't given adequate tools before we began our marriage and the advice or counselling after has not been biologically correct. Take my word for it, my body is reacting positively to the right stimulus. That buzz you heard was my vibrator. But I'm sure we can find other ways to make me come when we're together. I hope you'd want that for me. For us. Because I love you and know you love me. Just imagine how much fun we can have exploring."

If he's such a neophyte to seeing his wife have sexual pleasure, I would NOT suggest bringing the vibrator to bed (because of the intimidation factor). However, there is a good substitute in a hand-held showerhead that can be used while they're having PIV. If they use a really sturdy shower bench, she can straddle him, face forward or reverse and stimulate her clit. Imagine his face when her muscles flutter and clench around his cock when she comes for the first time with him! Then he might be motivated for reasons of self-interest as well. In any case, she's gone without for so long, she really has nothing to lose by trying to improve the sex life at home first.

@ 53 - I must admit your compliment, although gratefully accepted, is unnecessary.

Apart from my father who had a bit of a tougher time coming to terms with my homosexuality (for very understandable reasons which I don't think it is my prerogative to discuss publicly), since I came out to them 30 years ago, my family has not shown any inclination to reject me, gays in general or gay rights. The first time I said "I'm bringing my BF home for Christmas," the answer was "Cool!"

We were raised to be autonomous and strong-willed (and to use our brains), and we all respect one another's life decisions*, as all families should. I think we all fundamentally agree with the notion that people are who they are, and it's just plain stupid to want them to be something else.

That doesn't mean that we get along perfectly, by the way - we're as dysfunctional as any other family. It's just that we're not so stupid as to think we can impose our views on anyone else in the world.

One last thing: Not everyone here is an American. Proposition 8 means absolutely nothing to us (other than as yet another example of the sheer childishness of US conservatives). Please keep using more international-minded metaphors, you're usually good at that.

*Lest SeattleBlues or anyone of his ilk misinterpret this, as he is wont to do (or, more accurately, intellectually incapable not to), I'd like to clarify that by "life decisions", I do not mean something like "the decision to be gay", but rather "the decision to accept who you are and to live your life according to your own wishes in the pursuit of happiness".

@TUT - the time to police your SO's sexual history - that would be, the experiences she had before you came into her life - was when you were first dating. That time is past. You don't get to decide for her how she feels about those experiences...you don't get to tell her it was no big deal if she decides it was a big deal. You get to decide for yourself if you think her feelings are too whacked for you, and leave her, but the time for deciding that was years and years ago.

Like Dan, I'm someone who can't quite reconcile myself to the idea of having a consenting relationship with someone under the age of consent, and yet was active with older people at 15 (just like the wife), and definitely eagerly and enthusiastically consented.

Like @TUT, @BIBFAULT's husband would ever so much prefer less experience - clearly the whole problem here is that she was unfaithful - with a vibrator!!!. How's he supposed to compete? Every race is easier to run if there are no other runners...especially not battery-assisted Duracell Bunnies.

The theme here is men policing women's sexual agency, to assuage their own insecurities.

BIBFAULT, I highly suggest a vibrator that doesn't look so much like a huge penis. Lelo (lelo.com) makes amazingly powerful yet quiet, almost egg-shaped vibrators that are very easy to use during sex.

@ 65 - I know that religious fundies are part of the problem, but I think it is mistaken to say that they are the only part of the problem.

I'll give you a somewhat-related example. Since you're a Canuck, you must remember the lead-up to gay marriage in the early aughts. I was living in Montréal at the time. Québec is a rather open, lay society - having unshackled itself from the yoke of the catholic church in the '60s and '70s - and, in my opinion, a lot more so than the rest of Canada (apart from BC). Yet I heard the most backwards, intolerant and ridiculous arguments against gay marriage, and that from so-called feminists and intellectuals (such as Denise Bombardier, who rejected it on the grounds that it could not lead to reproduction, at the same time as she herself was getting married long after her menopause), from non-believers of all kinds who "didn't want their taxes to pay for gay people's privileges" (as if it hadn't clearly always been the other way around), etc.

My point is that you can be an atheist/agnostic, an intellectual, a feminist, a leftist or a member of any other "progressive" category and still be a repressed asshole who wants everyone else to be as miserable as s/he is and who will use any mean to attain that goal. Religion undoubtedly is the root of an awful lot of evil in this world, but not all of it.

As for the Duggar women, I believe it was in no way necessary for their "matriarch" (the most erroneous use of the term ever) to inform us that they don't get headaches. Anyone who has ever seen or heard them (or just heard about them) knows that they lack the required equipment for that.

Mr Finch - There's no evidence the TUTs have known each other for years and years; are you merging the first two letters?

As for Mr BIBFAULT, I'm not sure you can make preponderance of the evidence on that, especially as this is all recent. How much of a grace period does he get to be on the same rocket when, after decades of a pattern that seemed to be the best they could do together, suddenly she launches into space?

"Recently, I got my hands on a vibrator. OH. MY. GOD. There's nothing wrong with me! Now I think my libido might actually be stronger than his. But even with what I now know about my sexuality, we have been unable to figure out how to get me to orgasm when we are together."

This is where the Imaginary Dan Savage in my head started screaming "Have your husband use the vibrator! HAVE YOUR HUSBAND USE THE VIBRATOR! Jesus christ what's wrong with you people!"

I was a little disappointed that Real Dan Savage didn't say that. Maybe there was an edited-out line in the letter saying the husband refused?

@35: "Along with rejecting divorce, so she was hoping Dan might have a third option. Or some magic words she could say to her husband."

I know, right? LW, the magic words are "This is a vibrator. This is how you use it. Watch."

I've been MMSL's husband! My girlfriend concurs that time is the main factor here, and powering through is all you can really do.

@61: If the dude spent a significant amount of time in the hospital, "sexy nurse" may not be a concept he readily has access to.

@71
Even though religion may not be the overwhelmingly obvious reason, in this case I believe it is (compounded by life in a small town, no doubt following some strict moral code en masse). After all, can you imagine a leftist or feminist or intellectual trying to shut down the concept of a woman's sexual pleasure and shaming her should she require more than the presence of her husband's (magic) penis. Today, not 200 years ago.

So the analogy to what happened in Québec around SSM may not fully translate here. IIRC, one of the major reasons why gay people objected to SSM was because it was aping heteronormativity, something they wanted nothing of because it diminished the unique nature of gay culture (at the time).

@ven: Walking it back? No, irony is serious business for me.

Do you suppose a gay man would cease to see his partner as a man after having to nurse him through a major health issue?

Mr Ricardo - At that hour, P8 was the only thing that sprang to mind that felt as if it had approximately the same heft; the only international things I could conjure were too heavy or too light to match MCP.

Now I don't know whether to congratulate you on having had a mother and sisters who have never given you a #YesAllQueers moment or to think that you may be in the habit of turning the seventeenth cheek. I can see some leeway here, as you said they were your older sisters, and we can probably all agree that Older forms Younger's mind more than the other way about. But one-way policing makes me so nervous. To try to look for something positive, I shall hope that they request instruction from you on non-straight issues and accept your authority when you have the standing in the same way you accept theirs when they do.

seandr @76,

Yep. I think that when you’ve taken on a caregiver role — a little like a parenting role — it can be hard to get into sexual partner mode. I don’t think that’s sex- or gender-specific.

You sound like your provider role is burning you out.

Dr Sean - I was putting a lot on "merrily".

Wow Dan, WTF is up with your advice for BIBFAULT? Yes, cheating should be an option for her, but it should be a last one, and based on her description of events (the vibrator opening up her sex life was a RECENT development after 30 years of sex negativity and ignorance), there are a number of steps that should be taken before she has an affair. Furthermore, all of the steps they should take are ones that you have proposed in other situations
1) Educate him: He needs to learn more about female orgasms, specifically that most women cannot orgasm from just penis in vagina. Therefore, he needs to work clitoral stimulation into their lovemaking.
2) Seek a sex positive counselor: They have sought counseling before but as you have noted, many counselors hold sex negative beliefs. Maybe a sex positive counselor would warm him up to the idea of kink.

On one final note, BIBFAULT says her husband is uninterested in kink, but what do they define as kink? Is he demanding 100% missionary position and nothing else? When she says kink does she mean simply having him use a vibrator on her or is she wanting to explore BDSM? Is his refusal of kink tied to the sex negative notion that you can do kinky stuff with your girlfriends but not your wife/mother of your children? If so, can that sex negativity be overcome?

Bottom line - See if counseling and sex-pleasure education can lead him to becoming the sexual partner you want BEFORE you start having affairs.

Is it possible that BIBFAULT thinks she's having "the wrong kind of orgasm?" Now that she has switched on her orgasm ability, maybe she thinks PIV thrusting should suddenly start working for her. That might explain why the vibrator hasn't been used by her husband. She may think that him using it on her still indicates a problem.

Slartibartfast is right on, and a much better answer than Dan's in this particular case (sorry, Dan!). The truth that only a woman will tell you is that for the vast majority of us, no penetrative sex is ever going to be as good as our vibrators (unless you're talking about the emotional arena, or the first heady weeks of a new romance when everything works on serotonin alone), so don't measure your husband against that. And definitely, don't alienate his feelings about the vibrator, because there's no reason the two of you can't incorporate it into your sex...before and after...but if he decides it's his rival, you're going to have trouble convincing him. There's no reason to pin a "lousy in bed" label on either of you; Dan has reported before in this column that most women need more than penetration to get off; something has to involve the clit directly. That is the job of vibrators (and hands and mouths: how does your husband do there? Maybe a little tip-off in that direction? Even so, vibrator may still come out the winner, lol). If you cheated, you'd probably only find the same problem in a different man.

@Alison: I don’t think that’s sex- or gender-specific.

We've seen at least a couple of other letters like this one come through, all written by women if I recall. We've also covered ad nauseum gender differences in willingness to provide. I don't think being dependent on a man strips a woman of her womanhood in the same way that being dependent on a woman strips a man of his manhood.

I suppose you could say I'm burnt out, but it's not on the provider role per se.

@65 - Re: the Duggar girls never having a headache - you ever see Clan of the Cave Bear with Darryl Hannah? That's what I envision - grunting and that hand gesture. Darryl Hannah was too evolved for that though, she got out. Perhaps we should send a VHS copy to the Duggars. Those are marriages they can admire.

Whoa whoa whoa! BIBFAULT, no need to start cheating, lying, or otherwise feeding any resentments or anger when you have acknowledged that to do any of those things would wreck what's working in your life! It's not useful to blame anyone for not knowing what they don't know! Dan, I love you but disagree with you on this one.

Being raised in a time and place where these views on sex - that it should be easy to feel insane pleasure, that women really don't ever - jumps out at me as the biggest issue. It's not too late to change those beliefs.

It sounds like it's time for more learning - and there are so many resources to improve sex. Most likely there's going to be a painful process of unlearning things too - unraveling assumptions, anxiety, resentments and expectations that both you and your husband have used to protect yourselves with through the decades. It's not always just a matter of technique and learning how to do the right things, but learning to love each other and feel each other. I haven't seen in your letter where that's really been attempted.

Likely in your small town there aren't a lot of good marriage and/or sex therapists. But there are lots of books out there. I'd recommend David Schnarch's books - Passionate Marriage is a good one.

@83 "I don't think being dependent on a man strips a woman of her womanhood in the same way that being dependent on a woman strips a man of his manhood. "

Why not?

BIFAULT -- Dan is missing the bloody obvious. If you can orgasm with a vibrator when you're alone, and you want to orgasm with your husband, then you can orgasm with your husband WITH THE VIBRATOR.

Use it yourself, use it together, have him use it with / on you. Whatever gets you off. If you like mild kink and he doesn't but you prefer monogamy with him to an open marriage, then you can play the kink "in your head" while using the vibrator while having vanilla sex w/ him.

If he won't do this (incorporate use of a vibrator), then he is really not quite the loving dude you think. Masturbating yourself to orgasm with your loved one IS PARTNERED SEX. Go see a sex positive AASECT certified sex therapist together. If you get off with your partner present, it's sex, no matter how it happens. Also lots of wearable vibrators / different shapes that are easier to use while having penis-in-vagina type sex!!

TUT - my guess is that if she wasn't friends with him on facebook it wouldn't bother you, because you sound really insecure. Why on earth do you WANT your wife to have been raped and traumatized? She had sex. She enjoyed it. Get over it.

BIBFAULT - If your husband isn't interested in trying anything new to help you orgasm but has been enjoying orgasms for decades, then he's being a selfish asshole and you should inform of this fact. If he's not willing to make an effort to please his partner sexually, you should fuck other people.

@ 77 - "To try to look for something positive, I shall hope that they request instruction from you on non-straight issues and accept your authority when you have the standing in the same way you accept theirs when they do."

I'm sorry but... what are you going on about? You seem to be projecting your own family dynamics unto mine, because the concept of any one of us having authority over the others on any subject goes directly against ours.

"But one-way policing makes me so nervous" indicates YOUR unease with this type of behaviour, which YOU imagine is going on in my family. It is not, and it never really was - see "We were raised to be autonomous and strong-willed (and to use our brains)" @68. If my mom and sisters steered me towards feminist writings (which they never forced me to read, but saw that I was receptive to), it's because feminism was the zeitgeist in those days. And that brings me back to my initial point, which was about the anachronistic world BIBFAULT grew up in.

As for my family, do not be worried: we do not need "instruction" from one another to get to the most logical conclusion on social issues. We all get there on our own. We are all intelligent, independent and mature people, and for that reason, we're all pretty much on the same page. The period I spoke about, the '70s, is 35 years behind us. If we still needed instructions from our siblings in order to arrive at our viewpoints, I think it would be fair to say that we had failed pathetically at becoming adults. We didn't.



And I don't know where you might have gotten the idea that I "turn the seventeenth cheek". I suffer absolutely no fools whatsoever, as I would think my comments here more than amply demonstrate.

@seandr 83: Is there a flip-side? I am trying to imagine what it would be: the situation where for whatever reason the woman becomes the primary or sole provider, and that becomes a turn-off for the man? (Not that I think all or even most men would react that way.) Or maybe it's more accurate to try to match the physical aspects, since a prolonged loss of health is often (primarily) a physical change: a situation where a woman somehow becomes less "traditionally" female, e.g. a mastectomy, and the man can't get over it?

@ 75 - "Even though religion may not be the overwhelmingly obvious reason, in this case I believe it is".

I so totally agree that I basically said the same thing @ 25.

In this case, though, I was just saying that religious fundies may very well be evil (as I believe they are), but they are not the only evil people in this world. So no, I would not imagine a feminist shaming a woman for wanting pleasure, but yes, I can very well imagine a so-called intellectual or leftist do it with some sort of bad-faith argument like those that were used against SSM. Those who take up the cause of men who have been "emasculated" by feminism are not all officially conservatives, you know? They are not all men either.

"one of the major reasons why gay people objected to SSM was because it was aping heteronormativity"

Please explain in what way this refers to my comment. I was talking about those who in theory should have been allies, supposedly being progressives and all. I also said it was a "somewhat-related example".

Furthermore - although this has nothing to do with my point - I do recall correctly that gays against SSM were an extremely small group, albeit more willing to talk to the media than the others. Nearly all Québec gays I've ever met are extremely heteronormative - they just weren't very vocal about their desire for equal rights, including the right to marry. Remember, the Québec emblematic animal is a sheep...

Why can't she incorporate the vibrator in the sex with her husband?? I do, and it awesome. Why is cheating the answer?

Dan comes off very scummy telling this woman to cheat. Very disgusting.

I'm a little surprised Dan didn't recommend adding toys to BIFAULT's couples sex. If she comes from a vibe then she should bring the vibe in when she fucks her hubby. They can make it part of their play.

If he's unwilling then he's not only bad in bed he's also an inconsiderate person and she should go elsewhere for her sex. All of it. Let him figure out how to get himself off.

MMSL -

(Apologies if someone else has already suggested this. I don't have the time to read all the comments :))

You might consider getting a little intoxicated next time you're getting intimate with your husband. Perhaps a bottle of wine or a joint, or whatever other substances you enjoy (safely, responsibly. there's no need to get black-out drunk) will let you get out of your head a little bit and let you rekindle the spark between you and your husband.

@86 gnot- in my experience, when a woman achieves exponentially greater status (professional, financial) than her man, it is almost always a death sentence for the relationship. Those relationships that survive on paper often have the sexual dynamic eroding away. Relating back to my earlier post, I can tell you that when one looks to see what their options are for extra-marital affairs, you will find the willing among women married to men who are under-employed or financially dependent.

The evo-psychs call it hypergamy. Whaever it's cause, the phenomenon exists (appears near universal to me, but that would be anecdote). I am not female, so I would ask you why that would be, but the tone of your question seems rhetorical that you don't see it.

Relating this to MMSL, she needs to find the assertive side of her husband and pursue sex with him when he is in that role. Perhaps they could explore light BDSM (bondage, etc) or something where there is a power exchange from her to him before and during sex. MMSL's view that she doesn't have a sex drive for a dependent male is to be expected, and she should look for solutions to transfer power back to him in the bedroom.

The third one should also just ask the doctor of course.

LW1: I'm guessing your children are older, so no co parenting of little ones .
So really, you can do what ever you want; not cheat though. And yes, dumb dumb rule, not to have sex before marriage.
I didn't find my way to orgasm till a bit into my sex life.
Just don't like cheating. A problem then. Surely the two of you need to do a bit of something tog. Or seperate. Someone up thread suggested it, I think.
A sex worker for both of you.
Break this weird taboo you got going , being each other's only sex partner.
And put a bit of money down for this, so both of you get high quality experience.
Take yourselves off to a big city- You want better sex, you maybe have to take some risks to get it. Your man may just have to jump on board, and see if he can up his game, or you might need to do it alone.
So. I'd give my husband a bit of an ultimatum. I'd say I want some different sex than what we're having. And I want it now.
Of course, you're not gonna get it now- those words though, may help your husband see you
Like, really want this.
I don't know Dan, just feel cheating is a mug's game.
Really, LW. Think you gotta take this by the balls, your balls not his- and fight for a bit of action for yourself. If he won't budge. Won't take any risks to get you what you want.
Then, there's your answer.
He's not gonna bother. So maybe this marriage might be what you need to get out of. Or just continue doing what women have done forever, sacrifice yourself ...
If it was me. Early 50's( just after 40's remember), and my man didn't want to bother helping me get a deeper satisfaction during love making. I'd be outta there.. Not an easy call, of course. Not in a nasty way, you guys have got a family you share. Always ways to co family from different places.
And older kids find ways to adapt. And really, kids can't be the first consideration all the bloody time.
That way. Lots of change. Risk etc. lot to give up, a life of 30 yrs tog.
ESP. If most of that life is a good life together.
Just kick his arse to a sex worker. Run like hell to your sex worker.
See if a little change happens for the two of you. Try real hard to get this loafer moving. No, demand he get moving.

I had sexual experiences with older men as a young closeted teenage boy. I've always considered them totally consensual, I was the initiator. In my 20's I had a female therapists tell me that this was rape or molestation, and she stated that it had caused my emotional maturity to freeze. This sounded like such complete BS to me that it undermined confidence in her competency and I stopped going after another session or 2. When I've gone to therapy in the years since, it's always been with a gay man.

Re: vibrator during sex

It's great, and also transformed my sex life. I can get there with fingers, but it takes longer and is less reliable with a partner.

What took some getting used to: taking control of the position and pace required to get me there. I would be afraid that he would get bored if I was still for too long, or frustrated if I wanted to move opposite of the way he was trying to move. You can't come and be too concerned about what your partner thinks of you in that moment. I was able to come solo easily for years before partnered sex for this reason. If this is holding LW up as well, new guy won't solve that, in fact it might make her feel even more self conscious

It took awhile to accept that there is no script, or if there is you rewrite it every time you attemt to come. The vibe is just a tool, there's no magic

Oh Tim. You have some classic attitudes. Strips a man of his manhood.
Yes, money has gotta come in to feed the mob. If a man gets less than a woman, so what? His manhood isn't in his wallet. And it's not just between his legs, either.
Rich man 's land, Tim. I often wonder what that's like.

LavaGirl @101, I don't believe a man's worth is measured by his wallet. I do believe that when a woman takes the role of caregiver/provider over her husband it pours ice on her lady-boner. Whether that role is financial (as in the breadwinner), or physical (as in MMSL in the caregiver role). Note that MMSL's complaint: she wants to be intimate but she can't get that elusive erotic spark for him.

That is why I think Savage's response to MMSL is incomplete. Powering through sex will get them to have sex again, but it isn't going to spark her desire to have sex with him which is what she is looking to re-capture.

Mr Ricardo - Okay; the impression I got from your original post was that your mother and sisters policed your gender thoughts and required you to read things rather than simply guided you on a path you'd already begun. Major difference. Good for you.

I was setting up a hypothetical #YesAllQueers as a parallel to #YesAllWomen. Perhaps you have never had a YAQ Moment initiated by one of your sisters; there are women who claim not to have experienced a YAW Moment. The particulars are different, but what I've read of YAW suggests that they play out along very parallel lines. Being fine with someone's orientation and its standard expressions, I'll contend, makes a baseline for not having heterosexist attitudes while not serving as proof of their absence, much as being pro-choice does for not having sexist attitudes. (I don't like the analogy much, but I'm short on time and rushing; substitute something more accurate if you think of it; as you have cited anti-gay sentiments issued by feminists, I think we're near enough to agreeing.)

There is a gay/non-gay dynamic in which the gay person is so grateful to be treated decently that he accepts behaviour from the non-gay person that one would rarely see being allowed to fly in the case of other prejudices. I think we're inclined to turn the seventh cheek more than most in part because of sheer numbers. Sometimes we get used to deferring we're terrible at being in the majority; I've been in groups of 6-8 people in which the one or two straight people in the group have just assumed the role of arbiter of all group activities and the non-straight majority have automatically deferred (think of Shirley Valentine about to leave for Greece when her daughter returns home and in five minutes has her trotting up and down stairs getting the right amount of sugar in her cocoa). The seventeenth cheek, which I am basically inventing on the fly, would constitute something like accepting someone else's dogmatism about one's own group when that dogmatism contradicts one's lived experience.

I did say that I didn't know which to think; I now stand informed. Thank you.

Yeah right, Tim. I believe you..
How to get an erotic spark re lit? That the question?
Depends . If his body is really unattractive, it would be hard. For me. Though, different parts of a man's body might be the focus point. I always loved looking at my husbands neck. And his hands, he had strong woodworker/ artist's hands.
So I guess, LW. Focus on parts of his body, that still give you a tingle.
Maybe read some dirty writing. Good dirty writing, hard to come by. Just have to find the best of.. Take yourself out around other men. Nice strong young bodies. They'll get your juices going. Then take that, home to your husband.
I mean. Men do that all the time, and are perfectly fine with it. Get aroused by the women around( I get aroused by some of the women around- little temptresses), then take that charge home to their women. You do it. Other men, looking not touching-
watch Magic Mike. Yeah, some erotic well made movies. Pity 50 shades isn't out yet. That looks hot. Those two in it do clean/ dirty well, what I see from the trailer.
Your erotic energy will help heal this dear man of yours. Then he'll get stronger, and you'll find him sexy again.

Poor BIBFAULT. Just one of millions of victims of religion-motivated sexual repression. You know what, I think it may just be time we got rid of all this religion nonsense. Look at all the damage it does to people's quality of life.

BIBFAULT and her husband need to see a sex-positive counselor. She needs to let him watch her orgasm with her vibrator. Then she needs to tell him that if he isn't interested in learning how to make her respond like that when they're together, then their sex life is over. Tell him that real men enjoy making women wake the neighbors with their orgasms.

He thinks it's so sweet that neither of us has ever had sex with someone else.

Sweet? I see it a little differently. That sentiment is one of the evil tactics religion uses to keep people from learning how to fully enjoy sex.

Somebody punch TUT in the nuts please. It doesn't matter what she says, Jay-zus says.... He's assuming that it's literally impossible for a 15-year-old to have a positive sexual experience with anyone over 18. Ignorant, backward, arrogant, fatuous, brainwashed, sex-negative, self-hating fuck-wad. (Hey, Allen, tell us what you really think.)