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”

  2. POOTER’s going to have to do some serious neck-stretching to see the four fingers (of his nine) that are on the same hand as the finger that’s in her butt….

  3. I’m really just boggled by women that say their men watching porn “hurts them” and “feels like betrayal.” I mean, sure, be pissed if he’s kicking you out to yank it over having sex with you, but otherwise, masturbation is part of a healthy, normal adult’s life. And saying that porn is cheating is like accusing someone of cheating with the TV remote.

  4. I have the same problem as Fitness Freaking – except not with arm exercises: with hamstring curls and leg raises. It’s actually a serious problem, fun though it sounds. You try having an orgasm while holding heavy weights! If you use free weights instead of a machine, you drop them on yourself. And apart from that, orgasms at the gym leave me wobbly and incapable of lifting much else for the rest of the session. Plus I’m embarrassed about the possibility of someone noticing. In my case, the exercises are minor enough that I just don’t do them usually, and when I do, I do them last. But if it were all the arm exercises, it would be a bigger issue, since that rules out basically half the muscles you want to target.

  6. Could Fitness Freaking just save the arms for home? You know, invest in some decent free weights and a box of really high quality cigarettes and just do her thing in private (if privacy is a serious concern).

    I’m kind of fascinated that it’s her arms and not, say, her thighs that cause this reaction – and that it didn’t manifest itself until the age of 30! PS: Whatever position she’s using, I want to know about it.

  7. Men like porn. Men like porn. Men like porn. How many times must Dan explain this? Pathetic. As long as a guy isn’t watching it 10 hours a day and he’s considerate enough to exercise discretion; what is it to you? Go get a cat, Nope.

  9. For any women jealous of FF: as part of our fitness routine on my college sports team, we did an exercise called “Hanging crunches”, where you dangle from straps supporting your upper arms, with your arms at right angles, hands gripping the straps. Then you bring your knees up to your chest.

    Something like 2/3 of my team got orgasms, or at least exquisite stimulation from this exercise. (Sadly, I was not one of them – I just got a 6-pack) So go for it, ladies. Hope it works for you.

  10. A LOT of men like to watch porn, and some women get offended by this. On the other hand, A LOT of women like to use vibrators and some men get offended by that. If your partner does either and you are offended by it, you basically have two choices. Get the fuck over it or move on! Enough said..

  11. Savage, I’m torn. Half of me wants to smack you upside the head for pissing all over ICC and her dyslexia – or whatever the hell it is that mars her written communication. Alas, the better half of me must applaud you.

  12. @11 applaud away. She may not be responsible for her shit-poor education, but in “collage” she’ll be expected to be able to “spel”

  14. Pooter may want to ask her boyfriend to try spankings rather than rimming – see what he’s comfortable doing. But a nice long warm-up is a big help. Another help is for the boyfriend to put his finger at the entrance to the hole, with lots of lube all over, and then let her back up onto his finger when she’s ready.

  15. @11, dyslexia doesn’t prevent ICC from noticing the little squiggly lines under half the words in her email. Any real dyslexic would be well acquainted with spellcheck by age 18. Applause it is.

  16. God Damn! And I say God Damn! Dan is BACK!

    It’s columns like this that made me fall in love with Dan Savage in the first place!

    Simple questions. Simple answers. Snark delivered free of charge.

    Thanks Dan… complicated shit and political shit are fine now and then (and even really cool now and then) and it’s your column and you should do what you want, but please, I humbly request that you don’t keep stuff like this TOO far apart.

  17. Another technique POOTER could try is having her boyfriend grab one of her ass cheeks and “jiggle” or shake it a bit during sex or foreplay. I’ve found that this motion sends some very nice, subtle vibrations through the rest of the area! I can’t say for sure that it would be a good way to work up to ass fingering, but it might be worth a try either way.

    And, minor detail, but did WWDD say she was married?

  18. Another 20 reps – brilliant!!!

    Hell another 300!!

    damn, wish I could have an orgasm from lifting weights… I’d be able to enter body contests…

    I suggest weights at home and entering body building competitions….

  25. First, I can totally relate to POOTER. Same thing happened to me. Now we’re trying to work up to other things. But the orgasm is leagues better with slight anal penetration.

    Secondly, I can also relate to NOPE and was surprised by my own reaction. I love porn myself. I have a large old school collection of it since the days of VHS. I used to watch porn with my guy friends in college, etc. No big deal. And I don’t have a problem if my bf watches porn when he’s alone or talks about porn with me. But in my presence, him watching porn gives me a full-on nervous breakdown sort of response–crying, shaking, horrible. I have no idea why. Oh, and the best part is that this only happens if the porn has women in it (and I’m a lady, obvs)–gay male porn, no prob. My best guess is that there’s some sort of subconscious insecurity like “oh-I’m-never-going-to-look-like-a-porn-star-why-am-I-not-enough-for-you” sort of thing that isn’t logical or rational or something I experience in daily life. Sometimes, emotional responses are just not within our control, and so I think we should sympathize with her instead of painting her as unrealistic, prudish, or frigid, especially when we don’t really know her deal.

  26. @25 Your situation is different. You don’t try to prevent you SO from using porn ever, EVER — you just don’t want to see it together. What prevents me from empathizing with NOPE is that she is enforcing a thought-police — she actually, honestly, believes that it is not okay for her SO to masturbate to the thought of someone else. Which makes her a huge douche, in my opinion.

    And it is also related to Dan’s advice to WWDD. What Dan should have mentioned (and didn’t, because he said it many times before) is that the whole mind-cheating thing is total bullshit! A person should never feel guilty about *wanting* someone else — such a desire is both good and natural. As long as you don’t act on these feelings, they are nobody’s buisness…

  28. The advice to ICC sounds good on paper, but in my experience there are a whole load of physical problems with it in real life. For a start, everything down there tightens up a bit when a penis is hammering in and out of my vagina; I’m used to lazily rolling my clit around by myself, and that’s difficult to do during penetration because the loose folds of skin around the clitoral hood seem to get stretched out and disapear. Everything then is just way too taut for me to touch myself without discomfort.

    And there’s also the problem of getting your clit pinched between your fingers and his thrusts. Ouch. I’ve not yet found any position that completely avoids that risk.

  29. Also, NOPE might find porn a bit less disgusting if she tried watching gay porn – it worked wonders for me. Turns out the thing I really found disgusting in mainstream porn was the relentless focus on wailing chicks.

    I think it’s true that once you have a relationship with porn yourself, you are more likely to understand how your partner relates to porn and so stop being bothered by it so much. That’s why the more mainstream advice that couples should try watching the man’s favourite porn together is so off base. Making even their partnered sex revolve around the male participant’s private fantasy life? Yeah, that doesn’t really sound equitable or mutually fulfilling.

  30. Sorry but a woman who thinks porn is cheating is just as insane as the guy who thinks his girlfriend just talking to a guy constitutes flirting. Neither of these things are rational, and demands that they be accomodated are simply unreasonable. You know how many men use porn SO? ALL of them. That’s not an exageration. A study was once attempted to see how men’s use of porn affected their views on sex. They wanted a control group of men who didn’t watch any porn. They couldn’t find any such men.

    Your dad watches porn, so does your brother, your boss (if they are male), your uncles, your grandad, the nice guy at the grocery store, the sweet elderly widower next door. You have a choice to make. Either they are all disgusting or your view of porn is untenable.

    Dan often says that people need to get themselves to a place where they are capable of being date material. If you find watching porn to be equivalent to cheating, you are not in a place where you can be with men. The only kind of guy who you can be with is the kind who can lie effectively. I disagree with Dan on this; he should not be unleashing someone onto the dating pool who will go into full meltdown, freak-out at something this trivial.

    Otherwise you need to relax and find a guy who you can sit down and explain that porn repulses you. Then you DO NOT demand they not consume it but DO demand that a very strict Don’t ask Don’t tell be enforced and they will keep any consumption private and discreet. That’s as good as you’re going to get.

  31. Re: WWDD… why not just tell the significant other and use this attraction within the current relationship? My SO and I do this. If one of us is attracted enough to another person outside the relationship, we talk it through and bring it into our sex life as role play/fantasy, or just dirty talk. Works wonders! The outside attraction still exists sometimes, but the obsessive bent is gone. Good Luck!

  32. I have the same issue as Fitness Freaking, only with lower abs (which physiologically makes more sense to me, but I guess bodies are just weird). I thought I was the only one, and then I read the comment about the woman whose team did hanging crunches (which is exactly the sort of thing that would trigger that for me!)

    Bodies sure are weird.

  33. HOT – Can you get your boyfriend off with handjobs or oral (or a combination), or anything else for that matter? If you don’t feel like getting ‘jackhammered’, when he gets close get him to pull out and jerk him off, or suck him off or use both your hands and mouth to finish him. Or let him finish on your breasts, or your face. Hell, do whatever works.

  34. My advise to WWDD is to get to know the guy better. For me, nothing deflates an infatuation as much as getting better acquainted with my crush’s personality. The real person gradually replaces the fantasy person in my mind, and the real person is virtually always less attractive than the fantasy.

    Your mileage my vary.

  35. In terms of NOPE — I also felt like vomiting, at age 18, when I noticed my first serious boyfriend’s porn collection. How could this awesome, feminist, gay-friendly, totally-into-me guy be interested in cheezy, demeaning shit like that?

    Ten years down the road, I’ve got my own porn collection and realize that such things have nothing to do with respect or politics but that it’s just FUN. Porn is fun. Getting off is fun. I would wager (and hope) that NOPE is in her teens, and that given a few years she’ll mellow out.

  36. I agree with @28, the advice to ICC sounds good on paper, but it can be quite difficult for some folks to do the same things during PIV sex that one does by oneself. Also, giving direction can be difficult if you really can’t accurately describe the subtleties of what you do.
    I suggest ICC get comfortable enough to show her partner by actually going solo in front the partner. And I’m willing to bet some of her partners, if not most, will REALLY love it when she does.

  37. In terms of NOPE — I also felt like vomiting, at age 18, when I noticed my first serious boyfriend’s porn collection. How could this awesome, feminist, gay-friendly, totally-into-me guy be interested in cheezy, demeaning shit like that?

    Ten years down the road, I’ve got my own porn collection and realize that such things have nothing to do with respect or politics but that it’s just FUN. Porn is fun. Getting off is fun. I would wager (and hope) that NOPE is in her teens, and that given a few years she’ll mellow out.

  39. Dan wasn’t that snarky with ICC it was appropriately chastising, that girl, collage attendee cannot spell. Vagional Lol! If european women put out more the demand for porn would be a trickle compared to what it is now. As it is now, monogomous, white women masturbate to porn also, and their partner probably does too! Get together people! Or is it just easier to come to orgasm alone sometimes?

  40. I know “all guys” watch porn, but keep in mind that there are exceptions to every rule. Also remember that before porn was widely available most men managed to subsist just fine without it.

  41. Ha — when I was reading the fourth letter a utilities worker was literally jackhammering the sidewalk across the street. It was a nice, rough touch.

  44. …I think it has to do with the fact that he masturbated all the time to porn without having sex for years before he met me, and now that he has a partner, porn feels like a gip … I need my girl on girl and boy on boy action tho … so he’ll tag along for the ride, however begrudgingly … or sometimes, I will blow him will he looks at it.

    I used to feel threatened by porn when I was younger but then I started watching/reading it myself and also, when I had this relationship with a man who wanted so much more than sex from me…porn wasn’t threatening my entire sense of worth…

  45. @40: “Also remember that before porn was widely available most men managed to subsist just fine without it.”

    Before? There was such a time?

    I snark. But I can’t really think of a time when “most” men subsisted without some kind of pornography (except perhaps before the invention of the printing press). Keep in mind that the definition of “porn” differs from period to period and culture to culture. What we find tame now and here could be pretty pornographic or at least served a pornographic *purpose* at some other time and in some other place.

    And I think we’re all pretty aware there are exceptions, but the *point* of aggressively asserting that guys look at porn is to accept that it’s common and natural and plenty of relationships are completely healthy and fulfilling in its presence.

    If a guy really doesn’t look at porn, good for him. Really. I totally believe such men exist. But such a guy is rare enough that it’s unproductive to obsess about his type unless your partner watching pornography just completely DESTROYS you (*even* on his own time, even if he’s satisfying you completely).

  46. Some more advice for ICC from an old hag. Don’t feel bad, the older you get, the easier it will become. I didn’t think I’d ever orgasm during sex, although I continued to enjoy it a great deal! Finally had my first orgasm with another person (orally) at 24. Still had to wait another 3 years to have one during vaginal sex, on my knees and 6 months pregnant. But by the time I was 35, I could get one every time, so just remember, some things really do improve with age!

  47. i’m a straight female with a boyfriend who doesn’t watch porn. he regularly masturbates to a variety of fantasies (generally vanilla but sometimes kinky) and has an average libido– but he does not enjoy porn, has never sought it out, and when i convinced him to watch a little with me, in a nice situation with lots of other stimulation, he still found it distasteful.

    his (estranged, crazy) father showed him some porn movies at an early age in a misguided attempt at male bonding. he has a horrible association as a result, and never goes near the stuff.

    so yeah, there some guys out there who don’t like porn but it probably doesn’t have much to do with an all-consuming monogamous bond with their significant other.

  48. I totally agree that almost all men look at porn, that it’s good and healthy to do so, and that it’s quite obviously NOT cheating. Still, it took me a while to get to that point. When my husband and I were 15 and I first discovered that he looked at porn I was horrified and offended. Really, I was heart broken. It took a while before I figured out that he meant it when he said that it was just fun and didn’t mean that I wasn’t “enough.”

    Now here I am, a disgusting number of years later, and I watch porn on my own sometimes, I know he does too, and we’ve passed a number of lovely evenings watching porn in bed together. That said, I still sometimes get a twinge of discomfort when we watch porn together or he mentions something he saw. Truth be told, I have actually become incredibly nauseous when watching porn with him on occasion, usually when watching a fetish video (fisting, pegging with incredibly large toys) even though the videos depict things we incorporate into our sex life!

    When it happens I just focus on a spot above the screen, and pretend to watch, or go down on him as a means of escape. I’m trying to be GGG here, and I would never ever ask him not to watch porn (not since I was a 15 year old idiot anyway)but my point is, even with the best of intentions, it’s not always as easy as “just get over it, men watch porn.” I wish it was!

    Now I’m gonna go find some porn I think is hot for tonight.

  49. Do none of these porn hating women read romance novels??? men are simply more visual and prefer a visual media. get the hell over it!

  50. @40, porn has pretty much always been around, from crude drawings in a cave to Pompeii and Rome, to now. It’s a lot like prostitution that way. We are just highly sexual beings. It’s one of the reasons that many religions like to repress it, it’s a good way to control the populace. Remember, Roman culture was extravagantly sexual, then christianity came along and made us feel guilty about it.

  51. I completely agree that it’s extremely silly to feel threatened by a partner’s porn. But I also think it’s extremely silly to say that absolutely ALL men like porn.

    I am in a relationship with a man who doesn’t really like porn. I believe him when he says this for a number of reasons: 1) He knows I wouldn’t care if he did. 2.)We’re not monogamous anyway. Just as I fuck other men sometimes, he fucks other women sometimes. It would be a very strange man indeed he feels the need to conceal his partiality to watching videos of other people fucking but not his partiality to actually fucking other people from his partner, for fear of her feeling threatened or jealous. Particularly when she’s got similar inclinations.

    But his feelings about porn or really pretty similar to mine. We’re both visually stimulated, we’ve both watched porn ON OCCASION, we both would be totally open to porn if porn weren’t so ridiculous. But watching bored-looking women screaming unrealistically and then sit there waiting for the money shot with their mouths wide open like they’re at the dentist (and looking like they’re enjoying themselves about as much as if they actually were) is just not very sexy. Waste of a great concept.

    So yes, Dan. There are men who don’t like porn. And not all of them are under the the thumb of some controlling shrew who has them so thoroughly brainwashed that they feel the need to anonymously report their lack of interest in porn to strangers. You’ve got some seriously problematic assumptions here, about women as well as men.

  53. Fitness freaking… if only the rest of America had your problem, we wouldn’t be the fattest nation on Earth!

    Bout porn…here’s a crazy nugget for you. I’m a porn-loving woman in love with a porn hating man. He doesn’t know about my habit, because we’re in a long-distance thing. I think he believes it’s demeaning to women, and therefore to him if he watches it. Plus, he has a daughter. I do think that factors in.

    Mostly, I look at things I’d probably never do, like threesomes, DP, that sort of thing. But with all the searchable things and urban dictionary definitions for sex acts, there’s one thing I can’t find, and I crave. I love to see a woman having her pussy licked while she’s getting fucked. It’s a rare find, especially to see it with two men performing it on her. Anyone know where I can A. Find more of this, and B. find the name of this act?

  55. @26

    You’re right and it makes me want to puke. The culture says that lesbians are just in need of a “deep dicking” all the damn time, but in a relationship between two lesbians, it’s pretty easily laughed off. In a situation like this though… it’s kind of true. Which, like I said, PUKE.

    When you hear messages all the time that as a woman, you could never really meet a female partner’s needs, and all that crap is confirmed in your relationship, it can cut you way more deeply than if sexual orientation weren’t a factor. It doesn’t make the bisexual women involved bad people or anything like that, but it sucks that lesbians are labeled biphobic if they admit that their partner’s leaving them for a man, or cheating on them with a man, hurts more. In our Almighty Cock enshrining culture, experiencing something like this is castrating. Or the female version thereof… I’ll let you ponder why there’s no common word for that.

  57. The other thing that might help us understand NOPE’s distress is getting a clearer idea on the kind of porn her guy is watching. It’s not all the same.

    I’m totally into squirt porn and anything where the women involved seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves. But there’s plenty of porn out there that makes women’s pleasure not simply irrelevant but positively anathema to the guy’s satisfaction. Now, let’s be clear – I often get off on being tied up and choked until I orgasm. I’m not talking about images of BDSM. I’m talking about porn that represents a pervasive, normalized attitude of casual violence towards women. I’m talking about porn that effaces the subjectivity, the personhood, of the woman being fucked.

    Surely we can discriminate here? After thoughtful conversation I’d be likely to break off a relationship with a guy who wanted to watch aggressive ass-to-mouth action for example, but I’ll happily enjoy some pre-fucking mutual masturbation while watching porn in which all participants seem to be getting their needs met. But, if women have only seen their lovers watching the porn that renders women’s active desires unnecessary and distracting, is it any wonder that they have reactions of visceral distress?

    OK – all that, simply to point out it might help NOPE to get some advice that’s less judgmental. No need to react to her with the kind of reflex criticism she’s currently dishing out to her lover.

  59. Wow #58. It must really, really suck to not have any internal fantasies, no sex drive, and no mental images that you call up to get aroused.

  60. Perhaps women will become more comfortable with porn once the same guys watching it stop harassing women on the street (the assuming they should be flattered), calling older women over the hill (assuming women’s looks are all that matters), stop assuming attractive women have all fucked their way to the top, that all women with rich men are golddiggers, that women who put out are whores, that women who make themselves up are at least partly asking to get harassed or assaulted, that porn stars and other sex workers are subhumans and ‘unrapeable,’ stop going to find whores and child brides in foreign countries because American women are all ‘spoiled’…

    I am generalizing, of course. But it’s not as if porn is made or viewed in vacuum (insert fleshlight joke here).

  61. “Wow #58. It must really, really suck to not have any internal fantasies, no sex drive, and no mental images that you call up to get aroused.”

    Wow, #59. It must really suck to lack the basic imagination necessary to picture hot things inside your mind instead of getting them spoon-fed to you by a magazine or computer screen.

    I’ve had several partners who weren’t especially into porn; they preferred their own fantasies, which unlike porn are custom-made and can be called up anywhere, anytime, at a moments’ notice.

    When guys say that every guy watches porn, that strikes me as self-justification. All guys do not watch porn. Most do, probably, but not all.

  62. #61 Can you read at beyond the elementary school level? If he states that he doesn’t utilize porn, and I then point out that it must suck to not have any internal fantasies, I am simply pointing out that his internal fantasies _are_ porn.

    I wonder why you don’t supply the same hatred towards the non-erotic literary and multimedia industries. After all, they also supply things so that your imagination does not have to do all the work itself. It, of course, couldn’t be because you are sex-negative.

    Since any erotic imagery of any kind, whether produced purely inside your brain or seen through your eyes, is porn, then yes, any human with a basic, functional sex drive utilizes porn.

    @60 Your argument assumes that there are men who do not utilize any kind of erotica/porn/internal mental imagery. Since this is nonsense, your argument is also nonsense.

  63. I hope the girl with pounding boyfriend reads this: You do NOT want this idiot to damage your Bartholin’s gland ducts (Google it!). If you start getting Bartholin’s gland abscess, you WILL wish you were dead! They are more excrutiating than anything on Earth. I had a boyfriend who would just rudely cram it in there, and I have had trouble ever since. Make him jerk off. Don’t permanently damage yourself!

  64. On the advice to NOPE: Actually, most major internet browsers now support “private browsing sessions”, which keep bookmarks, histories, etc. keyed to specific, password-protected user profiles, the idea being that if multiple people use the same user-account on the same computer, you can still make sure the kids (or wife or girlfriend or whoever) aren’t finding those problematic link/bookmarks/history entries. You should also set your browser to automatically delete the browser cache on close if you have privacy concerns.

    As for ICC, “vagional” is an understandable typo, as o is right next to i on QWERTY keyboards. The other ones, not so much, particularly when most major browsers (and mobile devices) support inline spell-check. Additionally, most people in this country do not know “standard” prescriptive American written English. In fact, many of my college PROFESSORS regularly confused ‘who’ and ‘whom’ (this is a REALLY simple rule – ‘who’ is a subject and ‘whom’ is an object, always, no exceptions), and ‘which’ and ‘that’ (and ‘that which’), among many other errors. Hell, Dan switches ‘me’ and ‘I’ all the time on the podcast (not in his writing; he has an editor, I presume), so he’s hardly one to talk. Still, that was a notable number of spelking errors, but all of that is going to have more to do with the abysmal state of education in this country than individual ability.

    So take heart ICC: maybe you can improve your spelling skills AND sex skills as college progresses. The masturbating-with-the-other-person-in-the-room thing is great idea: it will help you figure out whether you can’t cum because of nerves or some other psychological block, or whether it’s a matter of figuring out and effectively communicating the mechanics of the types of partnered sex that will get you off.

  65. #62: Yep, I can read just fine, thank you. In fact, I just read Mirriam-Webster’s definition of pornography:

    1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
    2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
    3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction

    Do one’s internal fantasies amount to the same thing as pornography? Pretty much, at least from the “both of these things constitute getting off to people other than one’s partner” standpoint. But the word pornography specifically refers to pictures, films, writing, etc.

    The poster who said he’s not into pornography is therefore stating that he’s not into pictures, films, writing, etc. that graphically portray sex. When you accused him of not having any kind of sex drive, etc., I naturally assumed you were asserting that anyone with a sex drive must need to look at sexual photographs, movies, or writing in order to get off. If you were trying to make the point that fantasies and pornography are basically the same thing, you could have said “fantasies and pornography are basically the same thing”. You know, in your outside voice.

    “I wonder why you don’t supply the same hatred towards the non-erotic literary and multimedia industries. After all, they also supply things so that your imagination does not have to do all the work itself. It, of course, couldn’t be because you are sex-negative.”

    Please show me where I said that I hate pornography. It seems you’re the one with the reading difficulties…

  66. @62: “Since any erotic imagery of any kind, whether produced purely inside your brain or seen through your eyes, is porn, then yes, any human with a basic, functional sex drive utilizes porn.”

    You are really stretching the definition of porn here. I think it is pretty clear that when most people talk about being anti-porn, they are referring to something which has actually been produced – video, photos, writings, etc. – and not something which was simply imagined as part of a fantasy. And I doubt that most people who say “I don’t use porn” or “I don’t enjoy porn” are saying “I don’t use (or enjoy) sexual fantasy.”

  67. Wow: another pornography-related barrage. Didn’t we just have one of these?
    Maybe not *all* men watch porn. Maybe porn is constructed in your very own head. Dan’s very valid point is that she can’t be the thought police. Either she gets the fuck over it, she leaves in search of the rare man that doesn’t like porn, or her partner (whether current or future) learns to hide his porn from her and she doesn’t go looking for it.

    She doesn’t say that her bf asks her to watch the porn with her and it doesn’t sound like she objects to the specific kind of porn, DomnaNico, it sounds like she regards any consumption of porn on her bf’s part EVEN IF HE DOES IT IN PRIVATE to be an act of infidelity. (Does anyone else remember Jimmy Carter’s confession of “adultery” as having “lust in his heart” for women other than his wife?!)

    She talks about “the pain caused by our partners’ use of porn” and decides her choice is to be in a relationship and continue to feel as hurt and betrayed as if her bf were cheating if he watches porn, or not “meet [her] emotional and sexual needs if [she] decide[s] to opt out of relationships with men entirely.”

    I don’t like porn. It makes me a bit nauseous. But as long as my partner doesn’t want me to watch it with him, and as long as his porn-and-masturbation routine doesn’t take away from what he gives me, I could not care less how much or what kind of porn he watches. Everyone’s entitled to “lust in his heart.”

    NOPE has got some serious issues to work through.

  68. OMG the PORN thing, AGAIN?!? WTF ladies, we don’t complain when you read romance novels (PROVEN to be the same in terms of brain chemistry as actually having a new relationship….cheating) by the box (pun intended)! Most women are not so visually stimulated, men are period. Please just give us a break. or at LEAST don’t bust out the oh so tired ‘You don’t love me!’
    No I am not a woman hater, just frustrated with the same old thing, like 20 years worth. Pa-lease.

    And just one more word, spellcheck.

  70. @60: I’m not sure how sincere your post is, but the key problem with your equation is that it’s not “the same guys watching it” who are doing those things. If you hold all men accountable for the actions of some, you’re actually working AGAINST feminist causes…because like it or not, if you want to make any further progress towards women’s rights, you need men to be on board. Phrasing things the way you did in your post leaves them no reason to do that, or even to particularly care about women’s rights or well-being, since it’s basically typical “As far as I’m concerned you’re a piece of shit until we get feminist utopia and abolish the patriarchy, then we’ll talk” rad fem rhetoric that accomplishes nothing and goes nowhere.

  71. POOTER could try investing in a small buttplug. Take all the time that’s needed getting comfortable wearing it, and only then proceed to vaginal penetration. I’m willing to bet this would be even better than a finger. Sodomy is best!!!

  72. @64 Yes, there were a number of “spelking” errors.

    As a college PROFESSOR, I have occasionally relaxed the rules of grammar when corresponding with certain students. (We all know that sometimes using “whom,” avoiding a split infinitive, or shirking a dangling participle makes a sentence awkward, and thereby confusing to some).

    Maybe your professors were idiots, or maybe they didn’t respect your intelligence enough to correspond in the manner they would with their colleagues. Or maybe they were human. Just a thought.

    Even so, “who/whom” and “which/that” errors are in an entirely different class than not being able to spell words at a 2nd grade vocabulary level.

  73. HOT, there “may not be anything wrong with your boyfriend’s dick” as Dan says, but on the other hand, there most likely IS something wrong with it – the fact that half of it was cut off when he was a baby! When he was circumcised (and by your description of his “jackhammering,” not to mention the fact that few American men now in their thirties escaped the knife, it’s a no-brainer that he WAS circumcised), he lost about 20,00 specialized nerve endings, lost the protective covering for his glans which would have kept his glans smooth, moist, and sensitive instead of dry and keratinized (which is only going to get worse as he gets older), and he lost the gliding action which also would have prevented the drawing out of lubrication during intercourse.
    You cannot alter form without also altering function. A circumcised penis works differently from and intact penis, and most circumcised men have to hammer away; more so the older they get.
    You also cannot remove such a large amount of nerve endings (and build up a callus over those that are left) without losing sensitivity.
    “Is there a way to bring his dick back?” Yes, it is called “foreskin restoration.” It is a long, slow process but thousands of men have had incredible results and are now enjoying “slow, sappy,” MUTUALLY SATISFYING sex with their wives and girlfriends. Good luck to you and your boyfriend!
    (The good news is, these days about 2 out of 3 boys in the U.S.A. are actually allowed to keep all their genitals, so in 20 or 30 years far fewer women will have to hold onto the headboard, grit their teeth, and endure the jackhammer, and far fewer men will have to go around with tension devices on their dicks for a few years to try to recover what was taken from them without their consent.)

  75. There’s this one killer gym exercise where you “sit” against the wall as long as you can. One minute is a really long time. Total thigh killer. First time I tried this I damn near had an orgasm after I stood up because of all that blood flow to the exhausted muscles. Didn’t quite achieve one. It’s interesting that others have noticed the same thing. I never quite had the discipline to hold this pose on my own for that long while masturbating furiously…

  76. For WWDD,
    I was in the same situation and ended up having an affair with the guy last month, which I admit was a betrayal and incredibly hurtful. My life’s essentially chaos now, so I am getting what I deserve in many ways. But there is a small part of me that isn’t sorry it happened because I discovered that I need to have more sex with men. That said, if you really want to preserve your relationship, you need to stop spending time with this guy. Your feelings will likely just get more intense if you continue to see him.

  77. I think that a lot of the problem with ladies who get jealous/freaked out at their guy watching porn (and I used to be one) is plain old insecurity. Maybe they’re worried that they aren’t as skinny or good-looking as the girls in the vids. Or that their boyfriend will expect them to act like porn stars. Or that his watching it means that he is gearing up to cheat.

    Sometimes these fears are justified. Most of the time, they are about YOU and YOUR FEARS and are totally irrational.

    And I’m not putting the blame on the woman in the relationship totally either. I mean, society tells us gals that men cheat because we don’t give them enough sex or because we gained weight. It’s fucked up. It’s also untrue.

    Ultimately, we as women need to get into a better headspace, become more secure in the relationship and in ourselves. And we need to translate that security into a demand that media outlets stop perpetuating these destructive social messages.

  78. There’s something that gets conveniently overlooked in this rush to declare porn as completely “normal” and ok to consume. Many of the people (especially the women) involved in making porn aren’t doing it out of their own free will. There are degrees, of course – not everyone is trafficked or forced to perform with a gun to their head. But the number of people who have drug problems, a history of abuse, and/or fucked-up family situations is astounding. And then there are those who see it as the only way out of sheer financial hardship in a world where a women gets “valued” more for her cunt than for anything else she could offer.

    If you think these women are all self-empowered sex-positive entrepreneurs you are seriously deluding yourself.

    If you don’t and would rather not think about it you’re a scumbag who has forfeited any right to ever buy free-range eggs again. Go fuck a responsibly farmed salmon.

    If the very real-life degrading of women is part of what you enjoy about porn (even secretly), the word asshole is too good for you.

  79. @78: “There’s something that gets conveniently overlooked in this rush to declare porn as completely ‘normal’ and ok to consume.”

    The issue here isn’t whether the porn industry is ethically run, but the very concept of using visual stimulae for sexual gratification. Nobody’s “overlooking” this issue because it isn’t really relevant. We’re arguing about whether a woman should feel betrayed by her partner’s porn consumption — unless you feel that “you’re supporting an exploitative industry!” is a way to justify hurt feelings.

    As you yourself point out, this isn’t an *inherent* problem of porn. Lots and lots of industries suffer from some degree of exploitation — coffee, bananas, clothing, pets (yay, puppy mills) cleaning services, whatever.

    I’m not going to tag my enjoyment of everything — be it coffee or a clean toilet at work or porn — with a “oh by the way I acknowledge that some people are forced into/exploited by this.”

    It isn’t “convenient” or a delusion to not mention these problems every single fucking time. It’s having some common sense.

    “If the very real-life degrading of women is part of what you enjoy about porn (even secretly), the word asshole is too good for you.”

    And seriously? I have a difficult time thinking there are enough assholes out there getting off on poor employment standards to get outraged.

    “If you don’t and would rather not think about it you’re a scumbag who has forfeited any right to ever buy free-range eggs again. Go fuck a responsibly farmed salmon.”

    Please froth at the mouth elsewhere.

  80. What NOPE should do is get a decent camera or find a decent photographer that does glamour shots and get some really good nudes done. Then she can give these to her potential beaus and BE the porn!

  81. @40 Back then, everybody just watched each other do it in real life.

    @42 I’m jealous. It’s not that I have the opposite problem–it’s not that my bf watches porn instead of effing me. He just likes to eff about 3 times a week and views softcore porn stills about once every 15 days. Sigh.

    @80 I hate to say it, but that doesn’t actually work. He’ll look at the pics of her, enjoy them–then look at the pics of the other girls, too. Most likely. Personal experience.

    As for WWDD, a friend and I were discussing this last night. Once we both accepted that having crushes on other people didn’t mean we didn’t love our partners, we didn’t feel so much of a charge about them. Because your crush is male and you’re in a lesbian relationship, your crush might have extra charge because it’s got you questioning your sexuality, which is a part of our very identity. Feeling this gets you emotionally riled up, so it’s hard to let go. Allow yourself to have a crush, take away the guilt and understand that straight, bi, transgendered, gay, lesbian people have all kinds of crushes for all kinds of reasons on all kinds of people and it possibly says absolutely nothing about your sexuality or your current relationship, and see if you still feel so overwhelmed by it. Also, when you’re in an LTR, it doesn’t feel so charged after a while, so crushes can feel a lot stronger in comparison. They’re often like mirages, though. Beautiful and glittering from a distance, but there’s nothing there when you get there.

  82. @79 Let me clarify: I have no problem with pornographic paintings, drawings, literature, anime, computer games, whatever. I don’t mind “real people” porn if it’s done by amateurs and/or people genuinely enjoying themselves. However, I’d be surprised if that represented the majority of porn consumed and produced today. I have no statistics for this, only anecdotal evidence from a friend who was involved in the “industry” for quite some time.

    The issue of women feeling threatened by their partners’ use of porn is indeed something different, which a lot of people have addressed here already, so I didn’t bother going into it. If you care to know, I have absolutely no problem with my partner getting off to the sight and thought of other people. I do too.

    What I do have a problem with is the cavalier attitude that many pro-porn people seem to have about those “poor employment standards” you mention. Is there a “euphemism of the year” competition?

    My point is – yes, life sucks for other people too, but at least there is some consumer awareness, there are fair trade products, free range chicken, responsibly farmed salmon.

    I don’t see (enough of) a similar movement in porn. Why is that?

    Now, “fair trade” porn, there’s a thought…

  83. @ 82

    I agree. The “sex positive” movement is great in a lot of ways but, in it’s attempt to counter sexual repression, it often seems to ignore that the facts of the sex industry, and the porn industry in particular, are actually pretty nasty. To hear some sex-positive activists talk, you’d think that every female porn star is a Smith graduate with a BA in women’s studies who just wants to spend some time reveling in her empowered sexuality before she enters a Ph.D program. It ain’t so.

    However, at least the sex-positive movement has basically good goals, including the goal to make women’s sexuality and women’s consumption of sexually explicit material more acceptable. Whereas the primary concern of many of the pro-porn posters here seems to be to liberate poor, oppressed men from their ball-busting harridans of wives or girlfriends, with nary an acknowledgment of the fact that plenty of women also like to get off on depictions of others having sex. Oh wait, there has been “Ladies, you have romance novels!” Really, these are are Dan Savage readers here, I’d expect a little less patronizing stereotyping of women as less sexual beings who only want to read about being taken into the manly arms of Fabio and made love to.

    Many, I’d say most (whether they feel comfortable admitting it or not) women do get aroused by sexually explicit images. It’s human nature. However, many women have other considerations that prevent them from being into most porn, such as the fact that a lot of it is produced under disgusting conditions and that that shows all too well in the fact that the women rarely look like they’re having a good time. And, yes, many men also share those considerations. Completely aside from the rights issues involved, it’s just not that hot to watch bored, exhausted looking people have highly stylized, unrealistic, passionless sex.

    When I can find some porn that is actually hot (read: the people look like they’re enjoying themselves, which means it probably wasn’t produced under sleazy conditions) than that is just awesome and my partner agrees.

    But there are plenty of men that are just turned off by most porn as it exists today, and plenty of women for whom “it’s a corrupt industry” is not just a cover for jealousy.

  84. Lady Tenar, I don’t think you should speak for “many” women and their attitudes or objections to porn any more than people who say that women’s porn is romance novels.

    My objections to porn have nothing to do with the conditions under which it is made or the lack of real fun the women are having.

    I get repulsed at extreme closeups of genital penetration. To me, it reduces all the sensations and passion of sex to pieces of meat colliding. Maybe if the camera was always positioned in a long shot so I could get a sense of the body parts belonging to actual people, I would like it more, but even then, since it seems so joyless and boring, I don’t think I could ever find it arousing.

    It’s like eating: wonderful to do, but not so much necessarily to see others doing, and, depending on their style, potentially disgusting.

    But that’s *my* opinion and reaction. I don’t pretend to speak for all, most, many, or even some women–just me.

    Confidential to Schmooze: Aha! I knew there was a reason for my crush: we’re both college professors–and apparently, both English professors. Now I gotta go write some syllabi.

  85. @4 “I have the same problem as Fitness Freaking – except with hamstring curls and leg raises … orgasms at the gym leave me wobbly and incapable of lifting much else for the rest of the session.”

    Do the leg curls last…?

  86. For FF my wife has this reaction to a machine at our gym called the Roman Chair, She says that the key thing is keeping her thighs tightly together while she lifts her bent legs upward. Of course this postion cannot be duplicated in our bed, but, just the same hmmm
    tw

  87. @81 Great advice for WWDD! I can apply it for myself too, so thanks a ton!
    @76 I learn something from your situation also. Thanks!

    A bit about my own situation:

    I’m a married bisexual woman, and I have crushes on different women that I met in life every once in a while. It’s like what they call “fluid sexuality” – there are times I feel very “straight”, completely satisfied with my husband, not thinking of women at all; then followed by a period of craving for intimacy with women to the point that I feel very “gay”, that I could have multiple crushes on women in a short period of time. In between are the fluid times, sometimes more “straight”, sometimes more towards the “gay”.

    My husband does not know about this. He is a sensitive and kind guy, but sometimes he does express his homophobia mildly. Every time that happens, I try to confront, explain, and educate him about homosexuality. He came from a close-minded small town, so it’s not surprising. Over time he has less and less homophobia expressions, and I’m glad about that, but deep down I have no idea how he feels if I tell him I’m bi! So I haven’t told him that yet.

    As for myself, I have only come to completely accept myself as a bisexual woman recently, although I had questioned my sexuality for years, since I was a teenager. Also the knowledge about “fluid sexuality” has helped me greatly with my confusion – you know, the “straight” and “gay” periods!

    All the awareness above help me deal with my periodically crushes on women. I don’t have crushes on men, as my husband is all I need in men, and I love him!

    I used to be very shaking and overwhelmed with emotions during my crushes on women. As @81 said in his/her post, I was questioning my sexuality and my very identity during those periods. It could lead to depression for days or weeks, and husband felt my sadness but didn’t understand why.

    Now that I accept that it is the way I was created, that I will just have to welcome those crushes when they come, as a very part of me, enjoy the emotions that they bring to me when they are here, but not to let them take me over. And wait for them to subside.

    This is my choice at the moment: I don’t deny the “gay” part of me, but I try to keep it under control, and give priority to the “straight” part, because I love my husband, and value our marriage.

    Again, it’s for the present, and I have no idea what will happen to me in the future. I may come to a point where I, like @76, feel no regrets for realizing that my “gay” part wants to take over. Or not!

  89. Dude – for WWDD – seriously awful advice. You’re essentially telling this woman to suppress her feelings and desires, which (per all your previous advice columns up till now) usually ends in tears and a worse situation. She shouldn’t suppress it… she should be upfront and honest with her girlfriend – as you said you would be in your in your relationship. Honesty isn’t just for gay men when it comes to sex – we should encourage a healthy dialogue, even if it’s horribly uncomfortable; the alternative is so much worse.

  90. @82: “I don’t see (enough of) a similar movement in porn. Why is that?”

    Probably because porn itself is something you don’t buy or use as openly as eggs or coffee or chicken, so people don’t — as commonly — share their stories, sources about it, so it’s harder to get a picture of what exactly goes behind the scenes.

    Because porn is a fairly private product, so it’s difficult to be open about its facets. I mean, the “ethical labour and environmentally-friendly materials for sex toys!” cry is minimally there, but nowhere near the scale of, say, “fair trade coffee!”

    Because porn IS stigmatized, so some people just think, “Oh whatever, you shouldn’t be looking at porn anyway and it isn’t a real job and only whores do it.” Not so with earnest poor Third World farmers, adorable animals, and adorabler (yes) children labourers, etc.

    I think you’re right — it should be regulated and protected. Part of the way there is to accept it socially too — tying into “hey porn is normal and enjoyable.” Maybe if more and more people enjoyed porn, they’d eventually care about where it came from too. If people already see it as a social evil, the fact it comes from a socially evil source probably isn’t high on their minds. It’s like an ethical drug dealer. (Ok, I know a lot of people care how they get their drugs, but give me some leeway here.)

    If more women liked porn, maybe more of them would get involved in the industry as more than underpaid, exploited workers — directors, producers, financiers. That could be a step towards a healthier, more ethical industry.

    “What I do have a problem with is the cavalier attitude that many pro-porn people seem to have about those ‘poor employment standards’ you mention. Is there a ‘euphemism of the year’ competition?”

    That was supposed to be flippant sarcasm. Also, I work for a labour organization with lots of bureaucratic jargon, so that was a very “in” in-joke. Not anyone’s fault but mine!

    I guess my overall point is that I understand now that you’re saying that many pro-porn people don’t care, but I was taking offence at an implication that just because you were pro-porn mean you didn’t care (*even if the issues were explained to you*, which I found difficult to believe, much less a significant minority of people who get off on the idea of human trafficking and co-ercion). Your remark just seemed out of blue, so I read you as tying it a lot more closely to the discussion at hand than warranted.

  91. @87 Glad I could help.

    @82 and @90

    I love 90’s point. I was thinking about this yesterday in regards to prostitution, which is not currently legal in this country. I was thinking about how a lot of the “progressive” men I know who advocate for making prostitution legal would NEVER want their own wives/girlfriends working as prostitutes. Some men don’t mind when their partner is a porn star/prostitute, but a lot of men who claim it should be treated as “just a job” would change their minds if it entered their private sphere. To me, this speaks to a double standard. We say in one breath that sex work should be destigmatized (which could be said of both prostitution and porn), legalized, regulated, and treated like any other job. In the next breath, we essentially admit that it ISN’T like any other job. Sure, some people want to be firefighters and some don’t, but the reasoning behind not wanting to do almost any other job compared to the reasons for not wanting to be in porn/work as prostitutes are wildly different for most people. Those reasons aren’t just about legality and regulation. They’re about the way this society views sex. It’s something we don’t want to talk about or be honest about. People are taught to be ashamed of it unless it’s performed within certain contexts. But even people with progressive views on these issues would never engage in porn/prostitution because that’s not what “upstanding” members of the community do. I’ll admit it–I LOVE SEX. I LOVE IT. Really, a career counselor would be remiss not to recommend porn as a good career for me (because I love sex, not because I’m hot or anything). But would I be in porn? Nope. Honestly, partially because of what that could do for my future prospects in other career industries should I want to change jobs as well as to relationship prospects. So, honestly, what’s to be done?

  93. Fitness Freakin’s delightful problem reminds me of the old joke:
    Woman seated on airplane can’t stop sneezing. Passenger next to her asks if she’s coming down with a cold. “No,” she replies, “it’s just that every time I sneeze I have this huge orgasm.”
    “Are you taking anything for it?”
    “Yeah, black pepper.”

  94. {snip}Also remember that before porn was widely available most men managed to subsist just fine without it.
    ——
    @#40: Huh? When, pray tell, was that? Porn, in one form or another, from dirty vase etching to shunga to Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems to Viv Thomas (google it), has been “widely available,” as you put it, for THOUSANDS of years. And when it wasn’t “widely available,” people created their own—artistic or literary. that’s why it cracks me up when douchebags like Judith Reisman try to crusade to eradicate pornography. Good luck with that, bitch.

    For the record, I’m a middle-age woman who LOVES porn. Not all of it, just the stuff that pushes my buttons. And that’s the thing: Everyone has buttons that are going to be pushed by some kind of erotica out there. One just has to find the right stuff, or create it if you can’t. I was writing erotica for myself at age 14. Perhaps NOPE would prefer a site like http://www.forthegirls.com/.

  95. I’m with 47. I’m married to a man who doesn’t like porn. I sometimes enjoy erotica (mostly written, not pictures – hey, I’m female) and I wouldn’t object to his using porn, but he leaves the room if I watch something too racy. He just doesn’t like it. When he masturbates he just fantasizes, he doesn’t look at pictures.

    So there are men who don’t use porn out there. Maybe NOPE could even find one. But it’s probably more practical to look for a man who is willing to be discrete about it, and not use porn where she has to be aware of his use.

  97. @82. If the facts are so obvious, then you’ll be able to provide links to properly constructed, non push-poll, peer reviewed studies that demonstrate these facts. If you can’t do so, then the facts really aren’t so obvious, are they. In fact, if you can’t do so, then to claim that you know anything about the conditions in which porn is produced is an outright lie.

  99. @26: there’s… one scenario where I’d be at least kind of OK with someone asking their SO to never masturbate–and that’s one where, well, they agree to give at least a hand job *whenever* their SO wants some.

    It’s still a little weird and controlling, but at least it’s not a case where you’re forcing a partner to engage in sexual activity only and entirely on your schedule…

  100. About POOTER’s anal dilemma:
    Why try to take it slow with more lube? Why not just get your rocks off on what gets your rocks off? My gf comes real hard when I push my finger against (not into) her butthole while she masturbates (the muscle tissue to be precise) – so that it hurts. I say: if it ain’t torn, don’t add extra-lube.

  101. Easy solution for women like NOPE: If porn feels
    like cheating because it involves other women: MAKE HIM SOME PORN OF YOU. After just finishing two years of a long distance relationship, I
    credit the homemade porn I made with keeping our sexual connection alive when we were thousands of miles apart. (Now that we live together, I still surprise him with additions to his collection sometimes.) Sure, it was awkward to make at first at first, but I got more comfortable with it over time. I loved the idea of him watching me when he was horny, he loved having a large and continually updated stash of personalized porn, it was super hot and made our sex life even better, and if I had felt like watching other women was “cheating”, well, he wasn’t watching anyone else most of the time. Wouldn’t this be a win-win for women who are insecure/uncomfortable/upset about their boyfriends’ porn watching? Seems like a no-brainer to me. Although I have no problem with my
    boyfriend watching as much porn as he likes, as long has he still wants me, so maybe I just don’t get it.

  102. Holding on tight,
    Of course there is something wrong with your boyfriend’s dick–it is circumcised. He has lost the majority of his penile nerves.
    The O’Hara study showed that cut men have to thrust and pound away to get off.

    The only remedy for this, and it is only a partial remedy for his damaged penis, is to restore–Google foreskin restoration.

  103. I rley cna’t beeilve the wnie on slleping form a 18 yaer old it coems dwon to clel pnohe key braods LOL. Super job as alwyss Dan.

  104. @103: Bullshit.

    I’ve heard two simultaneously contradictory things from rabid anti-circumcisionists: that circumsized men lose sensation and have difficulty ejaculating; and that circumsized men are more prone to premature ejaculation. It all seems to boil down to “if you are cut, your sexuality has been permanently damaged.”

    I call bullshit on that. My experience, and I bet it is the experience of the vast majority of circumcized men, is that I have a healthy and satisfying sex life, as does my partner.

    Does this mean I support routine circumcision? Not at all. Times have changed, medical knowledge has advanced, and the supposed benefits that were touted to support routine circumcision have, I believe, been debunked. That is why I chose not to have my son circumcized. So before you get all huffy, remember that as far as doing away with routine circumcision goes, I am on your side.

    Where I am not on your side is with your contention that I – and every other circumcized male – must have been terribly damaged by my own circumcision.

    Remember that a common justification for circumcision today is people wanting their son to “be like his father.” I believe that it is important to persuade these parents – all those circumcized fathers out there – that this isn’t important, that circumcision is an unnecessary medical procedure. Calling people who you need on your side damaged and dysfunctional is a pretty poor way to persuade them.

  105. You upped your game this week, Dan.

    When I don’t have a lover, I watch porn. There was quite a stretch there for a while, so when I met a hot man interested in getting naked with me I gasped gleefully while he fucked me, “This is so much better than watching porn!”

    “Fuck porn,” he grumbled softly but very distinctly, pulling harder. Sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.

  106. Hey Backyard Bombardier,
    Glad your sexual experience is satisfying. And kudos to you for not circumcising your son! It takes a big, big man to keep his son intact when he himself has been circumcised. However, circumcision does indeed damage and cause varying degrees of dysfunction. (Note: I said varying degrees. Not everyone is as affected as others. But every circumcised man has lost something, at least the self-lubricating gliding action and the 20,000 stretch and fine-touch receptors. See Adrian Colesberry for description of why even a mutilated cock can give unimaginable pleasure.) Sorry if it makes you feel bad, but I call a spade a spade. Sexual dysfunction, especially of the type HOT describes, is an incredibly common side effect of circumcision. What good would it do to pretend it is not?
    Hey, people have lost legs and gone on to win marathons. Do we say that because they are such amazing athletes, losing a leg is actually not damaging at all? No, we admit that losing a leg is damage. Many people can do amazing things in spite of that, but that doesn’t make it okay to go around cutting people’s legs off.

  107. Porn makes me uncomfortable. I understand where this person is coming from… why should she have to conform herself to something that innately makes her so upset? Porn can be very discriminatory. I wish her the best in trying to deal with her problem. I think some comments here are really insensitive.

  108. Zelda @107: Thanks, but… sigh. “Mutilated cock?” Sorry, I reject that characterization of my anatomy. And I dispute the “incredibly common side effect” claim.

    Interesting and pertinent analogy regarding athletes with physical disabilities. That is something I have thought of myself around this, as I do a lot of volunteer work in that area, particularly with people who have had spinal cord injuries.

    While none of them would consider themselves physically “whole”, none of them would take kindly to it if I called them “mutilated”, or “crippled”, or any of the other loaded terms that people sling around in circumcision debates. And this is a group of people who have lost a lot more, physically, than any man who has merely been circumcized.

    Seriously; I know lots of guys without legs, and lots of guys without foreskins (and even a few with neither). And I am pretty sure there is a big difference.

  109. ” why should she have to conform herself to something that innately makes her so upset?”

    Because the alternative is that she makes SOMEBODY ELSE conform to something so she won’t be so upset — when the real answer is, mind your own damned business. It’s not like her boyfriends are making her look at their porn.

    Either that, or she gets to find somebody who already feels the same way she does about it. But, given the topic, good luck with that. Maybe she should start her search for that guy (or, as she suggests, that girl – but it’s not like girls don’t like porn too) in a monastery.

  110. @108: “Porn makes me uncomfortable. I understand where this person is coming from… why should she have to conform herself to something that innately makes her so upset?”

    She doesn’t have to be comfortable with porn, or enjoy it, or view it. But that isn’t what she wants: she insists that any man in her life also not enjoy it, or view it.

    Liver makes me uncomfortable. So do canned peas. I don’t enjoy them, I don’t use them. But my wife does. I occasionally have to leave the kitchen if she’s cooking them. But I would never insist she not enjoy something she enjoys.

    My preference: my problem.

  111. Okay, circumcision does no harm and there are no sexual problems or loss of function or sensitivity whatsoever. So then what the heck is wrong with fathers wanting to cut their sons to “look like them”? After all, it is harmless. Doesn’t really matter one way or the other, so why not?

    Sure, “mutilated” is a loaded word, but accurate. Especially accurate given that it doesn’t happen by accident, it is INFLICTED on the non-consenting person. There is a a person wielding the tools, pre-meditated and systematically clamping, crushing, and cutting at the baby’s penis. If you’ve ever got reason to be in a hospital nursery, watch a circumcision (they do them right out in the open at the hospital where I had my daughter.)Or watch a video. Watch what they are doing, look at the penis when they are done, then tell me it is not mutilation. It certainly doesn’t feel flattering, but they aren’t just “doing a little snip” on babies. They are mutilating them. Pretending it is hunky-dory means allowing to continue.

  112. P.S. Please understand that I mean no disrespect or insult to circumcised men. It is more that I want to highlight the harm that is done and put that on those who DO the harm. I mean no disrespect toward those who were harmed.
    For instance, if a U.S. soldier were captured by Taliban operatives, and was held down while body parts were cut off him, the media would report that he had been “mutilated” by his attackers. If a woman was walking down the street and attackers hit her knees with a tire-iron such that she couldn’t walk again, we would say that her attackers “crippled” her. Now, no one wants to call themselves “crippled” or “mutilated,” but is indeed an accurate description of what their attackers did to them. Also, while they will no doubt go on to overcome their injuries and have a full and satisfying life, there is no denying that something was taken from them and that the way they function afterward will be different.
    http://www.adriancolesberry.com/life/?55…

  113. I’m in the same boat as HOT, dating a man who can’t get off unless he pounds my pussy, but luckily my man does what Dan suggests: he lets me have my moments of sweet sex, he lets me on top and ride and ride until I’m sopping wet, and I in return have learned to LOVE the two minutes he spends jackhammering. I say, HOT, learn to love and treasure the experience. Do your Kiegles (or however you fucking spell it). I’ve found that if I’ve come first, I’m usually more loose and it hurts less. Good luck!

  116. #111: your wife enjoys liver and canned peas?
    Oh boy. I applaud your tolerance, but couldn’t she at least switch to fresh produce?

  118. Hey Bombadier!

    Your comment in #115 is way off target. Fundamentalists don’t deal with facts, they deal with belief, and pretend it is is a fact.

    Intactivists deal in facts, and the facts are on our side. We don’t have to get all wiggy about it. Typical American circumcision does remove 15 sq inches of sexual tissue from an adult male. That tissue is has highly concentrated amounts of touch and stretch receptors. (For touch receptors compare the fingertips and pads with the back of the hand for an idea of what a difference this can make. – Stroke each of them slowly and lightly.) For men, this sensitive nervous tissue is about 3/4 of the sexual nerve receptors, some 20,000 or more, about 2.5 times the number of nerves in the clitorus.
    Nearly all the stretch receptors are in the foreskin. The majority are Meissner’s corpuscles.

    Definition: Meissner’s corpuscles (or tactile corpuscles) are a type of mechanoreceptor. They are a type of nerve ending in the skin that is responsible for sensitivity to light touch. In particular, they have highest sensitivity (lowest threshold) when sensing vibrations lower than 50 Hertz. They are rapidly adaptive receptors.

    So, that is what they are medically and anatomically. It is not about our beliefs. YES there are people opposed to forced amputation of sexual organs, yes, this is properly called a mutilation. We are an informed, vocal group with the facts on our side and we have the high moral ground. We do think individuals should have the right do decide for -themselves- how they wish to have their body altered. Pretty Fundamental idea, -Human Rights for Everyone.

    We are fundamentalists, but in a “back to fundamentals” sort of way, based on the facts of the procedure, and the (lack of) ethics that usually surround it.

    Not many folks know the specific anatomy and structure and function of their genitals, it is quite impressive to discover. If you do take the time do research it, I think you’ll find it productive. And you can thank a “Fundamentalist” for pointing you in that direction.

    Lastly recognize that “medical knowledge” is fairly conservative and limited about our sexual organs. Examples? The anatomy of the male prepuce or foreskin was only described in ~1976 and again in ~1996. Similarly, the existence of the female G-spot is still debated by medical doctors. I have to laugh at this, -but I feel sorry for their female partners! That damn thing is real!

  119. @ B.B.
    Thanks for your feed back..it’s fair enough and made me laugh, although I wouldn’t necessarily compare liver and peas to porn! I just feel that there is room for everyone’s feelings..I know that if something were to be so upsetting to my partner, I’d have to look at what is more important to me.. my partner, or that something that makes them upset. If porn is just a casual part of your life, what’s wrong with giving it a miss or making a compromise? I don’t believe this is a black and white issue. Just sayin’.

  121. There are lots of straight men who agree with NOPE’s
    opinion about porn and we are not all religious
    fanatics who live in the Bible Belt. I’m a straight
    male who thinks looking at porn is cheating and I’m an
    agnostic who lives in California. It doesn’t bother
    me one bit that different people have different
    feelings about this issue.

    -Prudes Really Understand Dan’s Exaggerations

  122. I can get SO mad at women who say they feel cheated on if their guy watches porn. Everytime we chicks watch a romantic movie, and think of how great it would be to meet Prince Charming who will make our lives happily ever after, we do basically the same thing men do when they watch porn. We enjoy the fantasy, but realize it will never be like that in real life, because even Prince Charming always throws his smelly socks next to the laundry basket and expects us to pick it up. Men like to fantasize about being THA MAN all the ladies go for, having the biggest cock in the world and being adored for it. And after the movie ended, we all go back to our not so Charming or not so slutty partners, and not care any less for them. So suck it up, don’t feel threatened, it’s just a movie for fuck’s sake.

  124. To Fitness Freak: The Presidential Commission on Physical Fitness gave me my first orgasm – the Flex Arm Hang in 9th grade. You hold yourself with your chin above the bar for as many seconds as you can. I started coming at 17 seconds. Got an “A”. Later found push ups work. Re porn – just doesn’t do it for me, ok for my men to watch without me, I prefer to vibrate without them.

  125. NOPE – To say that porn is not okay is to say that you will fill that role in your man’s life. That means being available sexually 100% of the time and/or making porn for/with him for when you can’t. If you can’t do that, then you are asking begging for disappointment.

  126. two- short comments- One to the lady (73) that the “hammering problem” come from damage from circumcision – Come on! Millions of happily circed men have perfectly wonderful sex! We are not damaged goods! Also- (Totally different subject)
    No one has commented that some women and men (ny no means all, or even most) like to be “hammered” at least once in a while. Let’s just say aggressive sex instead of the loaded term “hammered”. Maybe the woman and her BF, are just somewhat sexually incompatible and may be better with off with more compatible partners. Just a small maybe, but the BF has been considered “bad” in most responses, MAYBE he’s not really so bad

  127. wow, FUCK the straight-woman romantic-comedy analogy that’s getting tossed around like a hot potato. i don’t know a single girl who reads pulpy romances “by the box” or even thinks romantic comedies are any good, with the exception of my mom. All these miserable dudes who cant get it up without fake tits and calling the girl an evil slut in their minds and wimpy ladies who fantasize about “Prince Charming” and which of their 700 fantasy wedding dresses theyll wear (who, by the way, sound totally celibate) can have eachother.

    I’m KIDDING, sort of, but in my opinion tastes in erotic/romantic/sexual material are kind of like music (which can of course be its own aphrodisiac). Yeah you can each put in your headdphones and secretly sit in seperate corners and pretend you dont listen to shit eachother loathes, and a lot of couples do that, but it’s probably a better sexual match if you feel good about what the other gets off to. This macho attitude of SHE DOESNT HAVE TO WATCH IT SHE CAN STICK TO HER LADYNOVELS HEUH HEUH HEUH is really fucking annoying. of course people fantasize about different things, but very mainstream porn, the facial of porn if you will, is sort of designed to be repugnant to the girly “subjects” in the same way that chick lit is designed to be repulsive to anybody with good taste. Femmey girls have to do a lot more mental somersaulting to feel comfortable with it than dudes do, fact, and that just doesn’t have to be the way it is.

    sure men like porn, eaaaasy statement, but it’s not so easy to make the flip side, women like romance novels, which are a very specific aesthetic and fantasy. the earlier definition of pornography is truer for both sexes. people are incredibly complex. your typical erotic story site online (geared towards the ladies amirite?) has shitloads of snuff, pedophilia, bestiality and incest on it, stuff that makes me feel like puking when i stumble across it, sorry. similarly, there’s a lot of men who like quite softcore porn that would probably be a lot easier to imagine yourself the subject of as the chicky counterpart ( i think that’s a lot of womens’ problem – do my partners all secretly want to viooooolate me? shitty feeling)

    i know women fantasize about being raped, objectified, treated like filthy sluts, “violated” as well etc to whatever degree (as men do), but the point is that a lot of porn denies women the agency in that fantasy, and that makes them feel weird about their partners regularly taking pleasure in it. there are ways to make those fantasies available to both parties while making them clearly fantasies. there are ways to be sexy where everybody can feel sexy about everyone’s sexuality. it isn’t necessary to polarize and compartmentalize, and women are as freakin visual as men, just as men could probably get off to a more “total experience” kind of deal.

    EVEN within a personal, private realm, people can be sensitive to the desires and feelings of the people theyre fucking (or even people they wish to fuck). that doesn’t mean sexual material has to be all wuvvvy-dovey, just that it could go a long way to be appealing rather than apalling to everybody. women and men are closer in sexual mindset than people believe. i regularly fantasize about violating as well as being violated, about making out, about watching people, about getting hurt, about sensuous threesomes, about fucking hard, about things where people aren’t even naked, about past experiences, about potential ones, while bearing in mind that the subjects are total fucking people and catering to their particular sexual aesthetics. ive gotten off to images, text, listening, feeling, smelling… fuck… people need to compromise and not have so much insistence about WHAT I LIKE IS MY OWN BUSINESS AND DOESNT AFFECT ANYBODY BUT ME. who thinks that about anything they consume? and who can be so nutso cavalier about something so emotionally crazy as sexuality. some women make up a character for men who watch porn, that theyre these unfeeling maniacs who want to nut all over the biggest tits and then spit on the girls’ face, and porn plays this up. but it’s equally unfair for men to make up this virginal girl who just wants a guy with a big wallet who will tell them nice things and ravish them. maybe these extreme characters exist, and like i said earlier, they deserve eachother.

    it’s not innate, and you can be sensitive about what you masturbate to. you can adapt your basic fantasies to be kinder, sexually. you can be sweet and tender even if your thing is hard nasty rape. you can analyze why youre into hard nasty rape, or even why youre into brunettes, for that matter, and it might be a worthwhile activity for everyone. just saying. deconstruct and try to be empathetic.

  128. The narrowness of the view that any man who says that he doesn’t look at pornography and/or doesn’t wish to MUST be parrotting the views of a woman, and that that woman must be controlling and insecure is astounding. It is on the order of saying that any woman who helps create pornography is either being coerced thereto or has been brainwashed into some man’s dogma.

    One of the few things to like about people is the sheer variety of their natures; neither the Tory’s nor the libertine’s assumption of a single, human, nature is accurate: name any combination of common traits and their absence, and I feel safe to say that there is at least one example of it walking (or rolling, or lying in a pitiful heap) around.

    To be otherwise is to be blinkered.

  129. Having test ridden, played with, tugged and titillated quite a few circumcised and uncircumcised penises in my life, I find that experience only backs up a few of the assertions of the “circumcision is mutilation” crowd. I say this even though I prefer a guy with an uncircumcised penis.

    It is true that a lot more uncircumcised guys get used to the masturbatory movement of skin vs. shaft, and the foreskin allows enough “play” in the skin to allow for that sort of movement. This means, among other things, that as I get a bit older and dryer, some gentle tucking allows a comfortable and stimulating level of “tug” between vagina and penile skin, and a comfortable and stimulating level of “rub” between skin and shaft. Having figured this out when there was no lube around, I now do this on purpose–it’s good fun. Without the extra skin, there’s less movement for the guy. To get reasonable equivalent stimulation for an uncircumcised guy, I’d probably have to do a fair amount of vaginal clamping and unclamping (think Kegels).

    But I’ve played with enough foreskins to know that they are not necessarily, in practical terms, strikingly stretch receptive (though the frenum often is). Nor does possession of an intact foreskin stop guys from getting extra stimulation from thrusting before orgasm. (Clamping your legs together and thrusting works on women too, BTW–try it sometime–or go do those gym exercises.)

    Nor could I find any strong correlation between foreskin status and overall sensitivity to stimulation. Both groups have some guys who are slow to arouse, and some who are in the “jizz in my pants” crowd. It’s easy to blame all your perceived sexual inadequacies on a few square centimeters of flesh. But really, for the time and effort and pain that goes into surgical foreskin restoration, you could do a lot of retraining on habits and technique, and probably come out ahead (pun intended).

    Best suggestions I have are a) tie him down with you on top, so that you can rise up as he thrusts. You should be able to get enough resistance on his pelvis that he gets that “exercise orgasm” effect, but you can rise up so he doesn’t hit too deep. Or b) practice your kegels and do it doggie style with him standing, but a bit precariously, so that he can’t thrust (WARNING: it REALLY hurts if he pounds at an angle that presses your ovaries) and instead “pull” him off with vaginal squeezing. Or c) get a leash on his balls, so that you have good control on his “out of control” movements. This may take practice, but it may actually enhance the overall experience.

    Oh, and “mind porn” isn’t porn because no people are involved except your own brain. Duh.

    Oh, and if someone has a hangup about porn, the LAST thing they should do is make porn, for anyone–especially someone whom they don’t trust to make his own decisions, and whose life they are trying to run. Because when he busts loose, if not sooner, that porn is going right to the internet.

  130. I consider porn to be cheating. I am a happily married straight male. I enjoyed porn when I was single and without a girlfriend. After I got married, I have never looked at porn and I have no desire to do so. My wife is wonderful. During our entire 16 year marriage, she has NEVER turned me down for sex, even when I wanted it every night. My wife is a bit overweight but her enthusiasm for sex puts any porn star to shame. Porn is just a poor substitute for sex with a real woman you are madly in love with. I feel sorry for the guys whose wives or girlfriends are turning them down for sex so they have to rely on porn to get some relief. People who treat their partner’s needs like a chore that they will get to when they feel like it end up with crappy relationships. If a woman makes sure her man’s sexual needs are met, the man isn’t going to have any interest in lusting for other women, either in real-life or with porn. NOPE just needs to find a normal guy and treat him well so porn will not be an issue. A small percentage of men (I’d guess under 10 percent) are incapable of being faithful to one partner. NOPE needs to learn to identify these men and avoid them.

  131. @91
    I’m one of the “progressive” guys you mention, who thinks that prostitution should be legal, but wouldn’t want a girlfriend who was in it, or in porn. It’s not about how society views sex for me, but about my own feelings about it.

    But I don’t think it’s a contradiction: I would like to be monogamous with the person I sleep with, but I wouldn’t suggest everyone has to be. In a similar way, I find the idea of threesomes or open relationships totally fine for others, but I probably wouldn’t want to be in one myself.

    In all of these cases, it’s up to the individual(s) to decide for themselves. But of course this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight exploitation – that’s quite a different thing.

  132. Wow, there are clearly some very wounded people out there, lashing out at the world because of feelings of inadequacy.

    On one hand, you have anti-circumcision activists insisting that every circumcised man is a mutilated, crippled freak. I don’t support routine circumcision, but good God, it’s hard to envision a more pathological reaction to the practice. Especially considering the considerable number of men who have been circumcised after puberty and claimed that the difference in sensation was either minimal or non-existent. (And while there are some who say it was significant, there aren’t very many claiming their sex life was ruined by it.)

    It certainly sounds to me like someone was made fun of in the locker room for his turtleneck, and is now trying to “get even” with every circumcised man on the planet.

    And then we have 131, who – if he isn’t a troll (the part about the overweight wife certainly makes it sound that way) – is apparently horrified at the prospect of being in the minority among men in his claim that watching porn does nothing for him, and somehow finds this emasculating. So now he’s now insisting that every man who watches porn must not be getting any from his significant other. Sad.

  133. Regarding Fitness Freaking’s letter (and Schmooze’s post) it seems best to manage the phenomenon so the gym is not a disaster but also integrate into the sex-life as well. Why give up a healthful orgasm trigger? Why not find ways to do the same thing with a partner? Not every time (like anything) but repeatedly lifting your partner small amounts for arm freaks, pushing ankle against ankle (like leg lifts is they resist the right amount.) Maybe elastic cords around the bed for pulling against…
    A fortune to be made here in the self-help book market with tasteful illustrations of the many positions and techniques which spring to mind. Even for those who don’t get off, many might find it arousing. “Sexometrics for increased pleasure and muscle tone at the same time!” Charles Atlas eat your heart out…

  134. if looking at porn as bad as cheating then
    cheating is only as bad cheating as looking at porn.

    Is that what you want your boyfriend to think?
    (“Might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb”)

  135. I will say one thing about 131’s comment: while I don’t agree that porn is cheating, and I’m a fan of porn, my man hardly looks at the stuff because, in his own words, “I’ve got my hands full with you.” I want to have sex so often, he just doesn’t have much energy or desire left for porn. Looks at it for about a minute every 2 or 3 weeks. I’d say that’s nothing to feel threatened by. A lot of the women who complain about porn are the same women who think that they can only have sex with their man once every two weeks, and he should be happy with that. I’m with Dan when he says that when you’re in a relationship with a man, you have a responsibility to make sure he’s milked–and if you’re not going to do it your damn self, he’s going to take care of business himself.

  136. NOT ALL PORN IS CREATED EQUAL

    I have to admit, the idea of watching some skinny, big-boobed bottle blond half-heartedly fake an orgasm while bouncing up and down on the cock of a man who has no respect for her is pretty repulsive to me. As a female, most porn really is a total turn-off. But GOOD porn… That’s another story.

    Dan, how about some suggestions for some good couple-porn? I think women are far more likely to enjoy a video if they feel some kind of connection between the performers, and if the women genuinely look like they’re enjoying themselves.

  138. Hey Dan and tech savvy youth. Awesome job as always! Below are the videos Dan mentioned in his podcast…the bigots getting taken to the carpet.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracy…

    As for porn…Simon Louis Lajeunesse is the professor who could not complete a study about men and porn because he could not find a control group of porn free men. He ran another porn study mentioned here.

    http://index.truman.edu/pdf/2009-2010/fe…

    It would be cool if Dan or his youth staff got an account for bookmarks. Dan mentions a lot of great stuff, but not all of it is easy to find with google.

    Networked bookmarks are anonymous, great for research, and great for finding porn.

    http://www.delicious.com/tag/porn+peggin…

  139. @131

    Oh, really? I heavily doubt this. My boyfriend and I are madly in love and screw whenever we get the chance, but we both watch porn. We both feel it caters to fantasies that we wouldn’t really care to act on in real life but are hot to watch, and we don’t consider it cheating in the slightest. And how does your significant other being overweight have any bearing on porn? Answer: it doesn’t.

    Are there men who don’t watch porn? Probably. It’s a big world out there, and there’s a bit of everything in it. Unfortunately for the parroting minority of all these “good” guys, most men watch porn. And these men aren’t wrong for it, as long as they aren’t neglecting their partner’s needs.

  140. @133 What is sad is thinking that any man with an opinion about porn different from yours must be wounded and emasculated. 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. People that use porn without their partner’s permission are junk food junkies and cheaters in my opinion.

    @135 There are different degrees of cheating. Having sex with someone who is not your spouse or significant other is obviously much worse than looking at porn, even though both are cheating in my opinion.

  141. @140 I just meant that my wife does not look like a porn star. I am happy for you and your boyfriend. It would be a very boring world if everyone had the same opinion about everything.

  142. As an uncut man, I can’t speak on the inadequacies that may or may not be caused by having a circumcised penis. On the whole, let’s say that the majority of men who are circumcised don’t have to “hammer” to get off. Great. Kudos. Backyard, as you state, you are not one of these men. But that doesn’t mean there AREN’T men whose circumcisions (I imagine those of the high and tight variety) have impaired their sex lives in some way. You can’t dismiss other people’s experiences simply because they don’t mirror your own.

    Just like it would be foolish of me to say that it’s impossible for a man’s foreskin to be so tight as to cause pain during sex, just because I’ve never experienced that.

    As an argument in and of itself, sexual deficiencies tied to circ are muddied because everything with sex is so personal and subjective. But that doesn’t mean you can poo-poo the whole thing away. It means EVERYONE’S stories count, even the ones you may not agree with.

  144. I love this column already and have only read the first page.
    You perform an important civil service here, helping the sexually clueless of the world!! And also: very entertaining, so win-win!

    Can we please talk cunnilingus at some point and how you do NOT use your tongue as if it were a blender all over that very, very sensitive bundle of nerves? Or use your fingers as if you were ringing a doorbell?

    Thanks and you rule!

  145. HOT’s boyfriend can ONLY get off with jackhammer sex? While not every person (male OR female) who has had parts of their genitals removed experienced that degree of sensation reduction, HOT’s boyfriend is definitely damaged goods.

    Restoration may help him achieve more sensitivity.

    And not circ’ing baby boys may help prevent this kind of damage for tomorrow’s boyfriends.

    (If you want your OWN dick to undergo surgical reduction, that’s fine. But there’s no justification for doing that to someone ELSE who can’t consent.)

  147. I think one of the problems we have when talking about circumcision is that we use one single word to describe the procedure when really how much that gets cut off can vary substantially. So not surprisingly, guys experiences with being circumcised can also vary substantially. I know there are plenty of cut guys out there who don’t have any difficulties with sensation, however in my own case I was cut really tightly with no frenulum left and with my scar line pretty much right below the head. Not only have I had problems with being able to get enough sensation to cum just like the guy in the original question, but I also have really awkwardly tight erections where my scrotum gets pulled far onto the shaft making a “turkey neck” like appearance.

    So that is great your circumcision didn’t detract anything from your own experience, but it isn’t accurate to conclude that no circumcised guy can have sexual problems stemming from the particular way they were cut.

  148. @148: “So that is great your circumcision didn’t detract anything from your own experience, but it isn’t accurate to conclude that no circumcised guy can have sexual problems stemming from the particular way they were cut.”

    And if I had claimed that, you’d have a point. But I am not the one claiming that every man who is circumsized has the same result – good or bad. That claim would be from those who describe all men who have been circumsized as “mutilated”, and those of us whose subjective experience is different as being “in denial”.

  149. @131: anecdote does not equal evidence. Being madly in love with someone does NOT make other people unattractive. I’ve had my sexual needs perfectly met by a partner and still fantasized about people I found on the street that day. Congratulations for finding someone you’re so happy with, but you are not the norm. I don’t need porn when I have a partner, but I do love it.

  150. Holding On Tight should advise her BF to hold his breath as long as he can. It can encourage orgasm, perhaps even when he’s not pounding away.

  151. 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.

  152. @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.

  153. 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.

  154. @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.

  156. 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.

  158. @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.

  159. 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.

  160. 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.

  161. 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.

  162. 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.

  163. @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.

  164. 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!

  165. 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.

  166. 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.

  167. 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.

  168. 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.

  169. 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.

  170. @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.

  171. 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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