My boyfriend and I are straight college students, and he’s always wanting to try new things. Recently, he asked to put a finger in my ass while we were having sex. Someone did that to me before, but it felt uncomfortable and it kinda hurt. I told my boyfriend that he could do it once and then I would decide whether to let it continue. So we tried it. It still felt uncomfortable and still kinda hurt. But I never came so hard in my life!

Now the question: If it’s uncomfortable, but it made me feel amazing and come really hard, what should I do? Continue with it? Or tell him to find some other way of getting me to that point again?

Presently Obsessing Over Totally Extreme Reaction

You could ask the boyfriend to stick a finger in one of your armpits—or in an eye, a nostril, your toaster—but unless your pit/eye/nostril/toaster is wired the way your butt appears to be, POOTER, no amount of pit/eye/nostril/toaster fingering is gonna jack up your orgasms quite the way that finger in your butt did.

So here’s what you’re gonna do, POOTER: You’re gonna breathe deep, you’re gonna take things slow, you’re gonna use more lube, and you’re gonna spend more time warming up the outside of your butt before anything goes in. (Tell the boyfriend he can finger your butt for 10 minutes after he rims it for 20.) Do it right, POOTER, and pretty soon you won’t be able to look at those 10 fingers of his without thinking about the kick-ass, anal-enhanced orgasms you’ll be having when you can only see nine.

I am a 30-year-old woman with a strange problem. I recently started lifting weights, and every time I use the arm machines, I have an orgasm. It is not obvious to anyone else (I think), and my sex life is great outside of the gym. I don’t know if I should stop using the machines, because it’s rude and kind of weird to have that happening, but it just seems to be a physical reaction to using those muscles. What should I do?

Fitness Freaking

Another 20 reps.

I’m a bi 18 year old female. I can’t cum during sex, I never have. Boys or girls it doesnt matter. I can get off by myself but with other people its just uncomfterable. Vagional penatration feels good but head or finger fucking is Not fun. I thought that it was just the people I was sleeping with. You know, age and a small town bla bla bla. I’m off to collage now and in a much biger city and nothing is better.

I Can’t Cum

Off to collage, are we?

Here’s something you may not know about vaginal penetration—besides how to spell “vaginal” and “penetration”—because it’s not something that’s typically covered in small-town high-school sex-ed classes: You can touch yourself during vaginal intercourse. Whatever you’re doing that’s getting you off when you’re alone, ICC, do that thing—touch yourself that way—whenever a sex partner is penistrating you vaginotionally.

And when you’re enjoying sex without penistration—when someone is eating your pussy or fingering your pussy—give that person direction, i.e., put your hand over his hand, place a hand on the back of her head, and show them just how to touch you and/or eat you to create the sensations that are intense or focused enough to get you off.

I am a 24-year-old straight girl. My boyfriend is 31. We have great sex—until the last two minutes. He can’t get off without jackhammering me, so I grab something and hold on for dear life until he comes. I’m happy to do it to satisfy him, but it also means he never gets off when I’m on top, and we can’t have slow, sappy sex every now and then, and it can be painful sometimes. I’ve brought it up a couple of times, but he doesn’t seem to be able to finish any other way. Has it just been too long with a bad habit, or is there a way to bring his dick back?

Holding On Tight

There may not be anything wrong with your boyfriend’s dick, HOT. Just as some women require intense, focused stimulation in order to get off (read: vibrators cranked up high), some guys gotta jackhammer to get off. If your boyfriend is one of those guys, HOT, then there’s no bad habit to break. It’s just something you’ll have to accommodate.

But he needs to accommodate your desire for some slow, sappy sex now and then. And here’s how he can do that: The boyfriend fucks you, long and hard, nice and slow, you get on top if you like, and after you’ve gotten off once or twice or three times… he pulls out… and doesn’t come, at least not inside you. If he’s aching to come, or you want to see him come, then let him finish himself off by jackhammering away at his own clenched fist.

I am a woman in a relationship with a woman. There’s someone else. I haven’t cheated. I’m not a cheater. But I cannot get them out of my head. They are directly in my life. And yes, by “they” I mean “him.” What the F, Dan! I dream about him, think about him. I try not to. I talk about my girlfriend and how much I love her in front of him. But inside I know the truth. It’s becoming hard to be in the same room with him.

So my question: What would Dan do? What would Dan do if he were mind-cheating constantly and experiencing intense feelings of attraction to someone else?!?

What Would Dan Do?

Dan would go to his boyfriend and say, “Hey, honey, it’s been ages since we’ve had a three-way…”

But that’s easy for Dan to say because Dan’s a man and so is his boyfriend, and anyone Dan couldn’t get out of his head would be a man, too. That makes any hypothetical mind- and/or body-cheating on my part less threatening to my boyfriend and less destabilizing to our relationship.

So you probably shouldn’t do what I would do, WWDD. Instead, you should masturbate furiously, avoid being alone with this man whenever possible, and don’t take the wife to see The Kids Are All Right.

Some women like porn and some women don’t mind it. For us women who are otherwise GGG but feel like vomiting at the thought of porn, telling us to use porn—or eat cupcakes—will neither relieve the pain caused by our partners’ use of porn nor meet our emotional and sexual needs if we decide to opt out of relationships with men entirely. I’ve tried my whole life to feel okay about porn. I don’t. I feel betrayed just the same as if the cheating were “real.”

Never Okaying Porn Ever

Porn isn’t cheating, NOPE—but let’s not argue about that.

Instead, let me just say this: You shouldn’t give up on men, NOPE, because I occasionally get letters from men who think a fag sex columnist is interested in hearing them repeat what the insecure, controlling women in their lives have trained them to say (“There are men out there who don’t use porn, and I am one of them!”). If you hang in there long enough, PORN, you’ll meet either a guy who honestly doesn’t watch porn or a guy who says all the right things (“There are men out there who don’t use porn, and I am one of them!”) and is conscientious about clearing his browser history.

mail@savagelove.net

172 replies on “Savage Love”

  1. Apparently there really ARE men who don’t watch porn. Not me, but I’ve met them, am friends with some of them. I know one guy who says, with a sneer, porn is “not real cool.” Hey, okay. Takes all kinds.

    So those guys are out there. I hope they find the women who feel the same way.

  2. @141: “I consider porn to be like junk food. It’s better than nothing but it’s not very satisfying. Sex with someone you love is gourmet food. I see no reason to eat junk food when I have a partner who is happy to give me gourmet food.”

    Am I to conclude that you never, ever, pop open a bag of chips, or a soda, or a Snickers bar? Never?

    “People that use porn without their partner’s permission are junk food junkies and cheaters in my opinion.

    The operative word being “opinion.” My opinion is there is no practical difference between using porn and using nothing but your own fingers and brain, or using a vibrator. In either case, there is nobody in the room but me.

    To continue your analogy, you need your partner’s permission to consume junk food? You’ve just described a total control freak.

  3. To Holding On Tight

    Most guys get off on the idea of ravaging (not raping)their SO. Have your BF try this. Have him pinion your arms above your head with your hands behind your head. Have him exert pressure on the inside of you elbows and then fuck you while staring at your face. I don’t know if it will have the same effect for you that it does for my wife and me, but we find it to be one “kick ass ride”. Even if he is pounding away, you may be to far gone in the throws to care.

  4. @147

    Sex is more a function of the brain and brain chemistry than physical stimulus. Having your head in the right place is more important than whether you are cut or uncut. I’m cut and my head gets so sensitive after ejaculation that I can barely stand the sensations.

  6. Savage is losing it. He’s only demonstrating his stupidity by continuing to harp on the reasonable women who write in about porn. Two assumptions don’t hold up under scrutiny: one, that all men watch porn. Not only is it not true, but it’s offensive to pigeonhole an entire group of people discriminating only on the basis of gender. Dan is not as evolved as he thinks he is. The second assumption, and this one is laughable, is to say that there is something wrong with women who feel this way, and that only legitimate advice to give a woman who can’t help feeling the way she feels is to insult her. In this case we have “controlling and insecure,” yet her letter is perfectly reasonable and demonstrates neither of these qualities. It is simply not the case that the common reaction that many “evolved” progressive women have to porn is per se “controlling and insecure.” Until Savage is willing to admit that he has a valid point he is no better than the misogynist readers making asshole comments on this forum. Don’t any of you wonder why it’s the anti-porn people who are making the reasonable arguments while the pro-porn people are relying on logical fallacies and ad hominem attacks? Why are you pro-porn people so insecure about your position that you can’t make reasonable arguments about it?

    Women have every right to demand that their partners not watch porn, just as their partners have the right to refuse to discontinue on pain of breakup. Guys who say they will, but don’t, are being dishonest. There may be virtue to that, but women have a right to ask for better behavior, deeper commitment, better intimacy.

    Lately Dan Savage reminds me of tech geeks who think they are complimenting women by saying they’re surprised a woman is smart at tech stuff. the kinda guy who thinks he’s too smart to be sexist. “why is it that women don’t understand these feminist issues that are so obvious from my male gaze?” I used to admire Dan Savage as a crusader against anti-sex attitudes and the harm caused by phobias, but his position on porn–which encourages the literal abuse of women, not only in comments, as well as a host of other bad male behavior that is simply not justifiable–is a huge disappointment.

  8. @155

    “Sex is more a function of the brain and brain chemistry than physical stimulus.” Hmm. Cutting on the girly parts of unconsenting minors is illegal in the US because it causes damage. Damage that “the brain and brain chemistry” sometimes can’t overcome. The same is true of boy parts. You may have been lucky and had relatively little taken from you, but others are not so fortunate.

    “my head gets so sensitive after ejaculation that I can barely stand the sensations.” So why don’t you cover the glans? Oh, wait. Your “cover” was taken from you, probably before you even knew you had one.

    If YOU want your OWN parts to be altered, that’s completely up to you, once you are of age to consent to surgery. But cutting on infant – boy or girl – is abhorrent.

  9. All the Folks commenting here about how MGM (male genital mutilation) doesn’t affect them? How would you know?

    There are 2 major difficulties with circumcision: One that it takes 40 years to show enough effect from the damage and loss that the “owner” pays attention. The second difficulty is that “circumcision as a topic” has little to do with the facts, and LOTS to do with how men FEEL about the facts. The facts are simple, but dealing with them emotionally… not so simple. We have been a penis mutilating culture for some time now!

    Yes, sex feels good enough to reach orgasm and ejaculate, but that is not all there is. And how logically can you evaluate sex with an intact, complete penis -if you have never had experience with one? This is a “Duh!” if there ever was one.

    It is like a color blind person, arguing they can “see”, sunsets and trees and faces, so they are not missing anything. Missing sensation, nerves and receptors, means only a partial experience of sight or sex. That is straightforward and simple.

    The cultures that mutilate little girl’s genitals apparently do so, to control female sexuality. At least that is the way the culture looks “from the outside”. Our culture actually started mutilating little boy’s genitals and little girl’s genitals to reduce sexual pleasure. Other cultures that do MGM have similar concerns, observations and results. -Despite official claims that “it does not matter”, the physiology is what it is.

    The 20,000+ severed nerves do apparently atrophy, some all the way back to the spine, this according to a Jewish neurologist, -one who admires circumcision. He can’t deny the physiology of amputation – he knows it professionally. (See “Cut” a documentary film by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon.)

    The greatest loss of sensation is immediate but other effects accrue. I knew something was wrong when I realized my fingers were substantially more sensitive than my penis, in making love. That was my early 40s. My penis had become keritinized, meaning calloused.

    Beginning foreskin restoration was an eye opener. 4 weeks after I began I had not grown any new skin, nor lost the callousing, but my shaft skin was now mobile. That little extra bit of mobility made me aware, – that nerves that had been dormant, were now functioning again. They had been overstimulated and numb. EVERY millimeter of intercourse motion was now exquisitely pleasurable. Little stretches and touches, now were very pleasurable. Before that those nerves were not functioning the same way. So I no longer had to thrust deep and faster, to feel something, anything. I am a considerate lover, certainly no jackhammer, but the difference between circumcised (at 40) and “4 weeks restored” was significant. Exquisite even.

    Now I can also enjoy sex much longer, -I can control my approach to orgasm better. There is much more pleasure in the “road to orgasm”, compared to before. Approaching orgasm, the “on-off” switch is now a “knob”. Orgasm is nice but the “path there” takes longer (by my choice) and is hugely interesting compared to before. Go Figure. And we don’t need lubricants anymore. Everything feels better and works better.

    A foreskin is man’s sexual birthright, plain and simple. Anybody that takes it from him is a thief, equally plain and simple.

  10. Circumcised men have lost THOUSANDS of penile nerves!

    ALL have lost the specialized nerves of the ridged band:

    http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/tayl…

    Those who have lost their frenulum have lost thousands more:

    http://www.norm.org/frenular.pdf

    The rest have lost more –depending on how much mucuosa was removed…

    Total loss, up to 3/4 of their sensation and sensitivity:

    http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/3/prw…

    “A new study in the British Journal of Urology International shows that men with normal, intact penises enjoy more sexual sensitivity — as much as four times more — than those who have been circumcised. Circumcising slices off more of a male’s sensitivity than is normally present in all ten fingertips. “

    This loss was objectively measured by the Sorrel’s study:

    http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/bju_668…

    So, regardless of any belief that being circumcised does not cause sensation and sensitivity loss, the reality is– there is loss, and the amount of that loss is determined by what and how much tissue is removed.

    And finally there is loss over time by the process of keratinization of the mucuosal tissue that covers the nerves by a “callous”.

    One cannot rationally and logically try to pretend that circumcision has no adverse effect.

  11. Suppose a man presented the following situation to this column: He met a woman who had moved here from a part of the Middle East (or Africa), where female circumcision is almost universal. During sex, she can’t orgasm without the sex being so rough that HE feels pain and wishes it were just done. He misses other styles of sex – “slow and sappy” or whatever. Anything other than “pound away until it hurts”.

    Would Dan tell the guy that there is probably nothing wrong with his girlfriend and to just work around it? Or might he suggest that they check out resources to see if there is anything that can be done to help correct the damage and give her some increased sensitivity back so that their sex is more mutually satisfying?

    Dan missed the boat on this one. And many of the posters here show ignorance of their own anatomy (well, the one they were born with, anyway). Denial does not decrease what they lost. It only continues the myth that male circumcision does no damage.

  12. I’m just gonna throw my two cents’ in on this “circumcised and pounding” matter. No, not EVERY circumcised man is so damaged and desensitized that he needs to fuck like a jackhammer. But in my experience, there are FAR more human jackhammers among the circumcised crowd than the uncut crowd. A lot of things come into play; just how “tight” the circumcision was (Google foreskin coverage index), whether the head was damaged/scarred during the circumcision (more common than you’d think), whether the frenulum remained intact, and other factors in addition to circumcision (such as masturbatory habits and genetics).

    I don’t think circumcision automatically means a gimped cock that can never please a woman perfectly, BUT it is true that circumcision can cause this problem in some cases, and that HOT’s boyfriend just may be one of those cases.

  13. @74: If men watching porn is cheating, women eating chocolate is cheating. Chocolate has similar effects on female brain chemistry as orgasm does, which is why it’s such a cliche that women are chocolate addicts.

  14. Pooter: MAKE SURE YOUR BOYFRIEND’S NAILS ARE CLIPPED EXTRA SHORT! The pain you may be feeling could be serious. Aside from that, have him use a vibrator instead of his finger and you’ll blast off all the way to the moon!

  15. For jackhammer guy, I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned (at least I think nobody has mentioned yet; I’m not going to read the whole thread again to check) the likelihood of this guy making Dan’s favorite mistake: Death Grip Masturbation. D-G-M is pretty much the same thing as jackhammering a partner, only the partner doesn’t have the benefit of being able to squeeze as hard as his hand can. Nor can hip thrusts move that penis in and out as quickly as a forearm can go back and forth.

    Tell him to work on slowing down his technique when he is by himself, so that he can train his body not to need it so intense in order to come when he is with you.

  16. I have to say, I have great respect for Dan Savage for his stance on equal rights for ALL people-including Gays, but I do think he needs to indulge in thinking outside of the box when it comes to our cultural obsession for circumcision.

    Removing the majority of penile nerves cannot have any effect other then detrimental–and he should consider this for HIMSELF and other males before trying to simply tell circumcised men to try different techniques to compensate for this loss.

  17. Robert, fat lot of good that does when the guy is already cut, eh? I’m with you on circing being entirely unnecessary but when cut men write in wanting help, telling them circing is evil isn’t going to help. They’ve already noticed.

  18. Wendy, On the contrary, in my first posting, I offered the advice that cut men restore their foreskin to ameliorate SOME of the damage from circumcision. This seems to be effective in restoring some of the sensitivity lost.

    A simple Google search provides TONS of sites and information on this procedure.

  19. Dan, you really need to call ‘bullshit’ on the porn-hating that goes on among the so-called ‘liberals’. I’ve noticed that many right-wingers have a more ‘laissez-faire’ attitude toward consensual debauchery than many lefties. Whay is this? Is the thought of a hetero man gratifying himself so un-pc that Seattlites need a protest march or study group? Gay porn? Great! Straight Porn? Bad! Huh? Wtf? Bit of a double standard.

  20. @57-

    No, we can’t really discriminate.

    What gets you off, gets you off, and the thoughts of a person in a high state of arousal are very different from the same person’s thoughts when they aren’t aroused. You CAN get off on hardcore ass to mouth and still be a loving man who respects his woman as a person. The thoughts you think when you are aroused are focused on no goal but getting off. They don’t represent what you truly believe.

  21. I have an idea for WWDD: have you thought about open/polyamorous relationships before? Not being a cheater is very different from being the kind of person who may have desires and needs for more than one partner, or perhaps someone who finds they have the capacity to love more than one person at a time (which, in my opinion, is a hell of a lot more people in monogamous relationships than currently realize it).

    You owe it to yourself to think about it, WWDD: has this happened to you before in relationships, to different degrees? Does the prospect of having more than one love relationship (or a relationship open in any other way to another sexual partner – as Dan suggested, a relationship open to threesomes, or where each partner holds friends-with-benefits relationships with others) sound like something you would like to access, but don’t see the feasibility or right? There are so many books to aid your personal inquiry into this possibility; the first that I read that helped me in this questioning was Redefining Our Relationships by Wendy O-Matik. (This list is another good resource: http://www.polyamorysociety.org/page17.h&hellip😉

    I’m not saying that everyone who finds themselves powerfully attracted to someone outside of their monogamous relationship actually prefers polyamory and hasn’t realized it, but I feel it’s important to mention as a very viable possibility – one that could make WWDD very happy. Of course, her partner would be equally involved with this possible new development, and that may be difficult, but whose life are we living, and with whom are we in relationships, if we’re not pursuing our own genuine happiness? The essential focus of polyamorous advice/scholarship/thought/whatever is how to communicate, how to ensure your partner’s safety and security, and others’ experiences in making open relationships work for them.

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