I am 50 and a lesbian. I have had a pretty active sex life for the last 30 years. For the last three years, I’ve been with a woman I love very much. We have amazing sexual chemistry—by far the best I have experienced.

For the last two years, I have noticed that my clitoris is getting bigger. Not trans-man-takes-testosterone big, but substantially bigger than it has ever been. I thought it was due to a big increase in sexual excitement, but it soon became clear that the enlargement was a permanent thing. It gets much more erect than it used to and often throbs or twitches after I come.

No one’s complaining. I am enjoying the heightened sexual arousal, and my GGG girlfriend is thrilled. But why/how is this happening? Could it get even bigger? And why now? I hit menopause seven years ago, so it’s not some weird hormone surge. Could our sexual connection have caused this all by itself? I don’t really want to ask my gynecologist, though I did notice her checking out my equipment with wide eyes at my last checkup.

Stiffie Needs A Zipcode

“I always like to hear from people who are satisfied with their sex lives and relationships,” says author, sex researcher, vulva-puppeteer, and archrival sex-advice columnist Debby Herbenick, and I have to agree. Most of our mail comes from people who are unhappy with their sex lives and/or dissatisfied with their relationships. It’s always nice to hear from folks who are having fun. What’s not so nice is that we sometimes have to tell happy-and-satisfied folks that something may be seriously wrong.

“I would strongly encourage her to ask her gynecologist about her enlarged clitoris,” says Herbenick. “She should be very clear about when she first noticed this and roughly how much she thinks it’s increased in size. She needs her doctor to examine her clit and rule out various medical conditions that could cause hormonal problems. Sometimes these are benign health conditions; unfortunately, sometimes they include vulvar cancers, ovarian cancers, and adrenal cancers that, for example, may present with symptoms including an enlarged clitoris.”

Some women believe their clitorises “grew” after menopause, but that’s not usually the case. When estrogen levels drop during menopause, other parts of the vulva—such as the labia—can become flatter or less prominent, which can in turn make the clitoris appear bigger. “However, she’s been in menopause for a long time,” says Herbenick, “and it sounds like the clitoral change happened well into menopause.” And amazing sex does not supersize clits: “High levels of arousal usually result in only a temporary swelling of the clitoris,” says Herbenick.

So make another appointment to see your doctor, SNAZ, “and keep asking questions until she’s sure that medical conditions, such as cancers, have been ruled out,” urges Herbenick. And if your gynecologist doesn’t want to discuss your megaclit or was too stupid to spot what could be a symptom of common lady-parts cancers (!), time to get a new gynecologist.

My husband is beautiful, awesome, etc. Unfortunately, his dick is small. It wasn’t so bad our first few years together; he knows how to work what he’s got. But then I had a baby, and I tore. A few days later, my stitches tore. At my six-week checkup, I asked why I couldn’t get restitched and the doctor told me, “Vaginas are very forgiving.” But a year later, Kegels aren’t helping and both of us are having trouble getting off.

I want to get a vaginoplasty to fit him, but I’ll have to wait till we’ve saved up enough money to pay for it. Please, Dan, tell me how to have hotter sex with a small dick and a shredded kitty.

Unforgiving

“Many women who have had multiple or traumatic births—and it sounds like she had a good deal of tearing—have some degree of prolapse,” says Herbenick. (A uterine prolapse, says the Wiki, “occurs when the female pelvic organs fall from their normal position, into or through the vagina.”) “If she did have prolapse,” says Herbenick, “she may be a candidate for anterior or posterior vaginal wall repair, which is quite similar to vaginal ‘rejuvenation’ surgeries, and then insurance may cover the surgery.

“Some people will wildly disagree with me and say that women shouldn’t have surgery ‘to please their man,’ but I don’t see that here,” Herbenick adds. “I see two people who are married and want better sex, and she may have experienced some physical changes that have affected that. And there are ways to fix it.”

Debby Herbenick is the associate director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and the author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction, a book that I strongly recommend even though Debby once attacked me with a vulva puppet in a room full of people.

I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Grange, a local restaurant, has a cocktail called “GGGinger.” Is it possible for a cocktail to be GGG? And how does it feel to have inspired one?

Curious Cocktail Connection

A cocktail can’t be GGG, CCC, but a couple of cocktails—enough to take the edge off inhibitions, not so much to make consent unpossible—can induce GGG. And, I’m saddened to report, the GGGinger’s Gs refer to three of the gin-based cocktail’s ingredients—ginger beer, candied ginger, and ginger syrup—and not to the Savage Love meme “good, giving, and game.” Still, Grange co-owner Brandon Johns is confident that his GGGingers have inspired GGG behavior all over Ann Arbor. “It’s been our most popular drink since we opened,” says Johns, “so it must be doing something right.We also do pitchers of them, and when a couple shares one of those—let’s just say that something good is bound to come of that.”

And in other, more successful Savage Love memes… Former US senator and current presidential candidolt Rick Santorum “opened up” to Roll Call last week about his “longtime Google problem,” aka “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex” and always the
number-one search result when you Google the former senator’s last name.

“It’s one guy,” Santorum told Roll Call. “You know who it is… It’s unfortunate that we have someone who obviously has some issues.”

I do have issues—I have lots of issues—but I take particular issue with politicians who compare loving, stable same-sex relationships to “man on dog” sex, as Santorum has done, or who would ban same-sex marriage and adoptions by same-sex couples, as Santorum has promised to do if he gets elected president. But the lowercase s santorum campaign wasn’t “one guy.” A lot of people were involved—from the Savage Love reader who first suggested that we redefine his name to all the folks who’ve written about it over the years (thanks, Roll Call!)—just like a lot of people were involved in turning Rick Santorum out of office in 2006, an election he lost by an 18-point santorumslide.

The website that’s still giving Rick Santorum fits—www.spreadingsantorum.com—hasn’t been updated since 2004. But we will be relaunching the site in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.

mail@savagelove.net

217 replies on “Savage Love”

  2. Hunter78:

    The gender war is never over, it’s the curse of our species. The sexes don’t LIKE each other they NEED each other out of biological necessity. People notice this more now because women are liberated and life spans have increased.

    Marraige is dead. Men are now neuteres housepets. Who cares anyway? It wasn’t that great of a deal to begin with. Stay Crafty. Men lie with words, and women lie with their affections. The French have known this forever.

  3. My aussie friend journalist recommend me to read your column, he said that i could get inspiration what to write on my blog http://thechrom.blogspot.com . and he also said that we have very similar philosophy.. i believe him cos he’s good friend of mine (sometimes :p ) so.. i subscribe to ur RSS… wanna read posts =)

    ***Saucy Li’l Minx***

  4. Okay, I skipped the second half of the comments, because some of what I read above compelled me to put this out there:

    Ladies, stop calling it being sex-positive when you’re being slutty. No, random sex with strangers is NOT OKAY. I’m not religious, and I don’t think you should wait until you’re married or any of that hogwash. But letting a man you don’t even KNOW stick his dick in you is dirty and trashy, not ‘open-minded’.

    I know men have been trying to convince you for years that you shouldn’t be held back by some ‘double standard’, that you should feel free to have sex with anyone you find even mildly entertaining as soon as you meet them. But like so many other things men tell women to get them into bed, it’s a lie.

    Promiscuity spreads disease, it spreads drama, and it increases the likelihood of getting knocked up by some loser. Have a little respect for yourselves and your bodies. Would you put on a strangers shoe, use their used tissue, or hug them when they’re dripping with sweat? Please don’t act like a dirty skank and then excuse it with talk of being sex-positive.

    Closer to HPV-positive, truth be told…

  6. Aside from whether or not this is the place for someone in need of attention/therapy to get it on an ongoing basis… (months, really?)

    There is a big difference between blaming the victim of any kind of assault and understanding that there are things you can do to avoid assault or make it less likely.

    That is not to say it was anyone’s fault. I teach martial arts. There are ways to minimize your perceived vulnerability. However, if your persona in sleeping with strangers is as a sub, you may not want to use them because they involve seeming in control. I applaud the decision to meet men in a context that keeps them accountable. Erica should also realize that many men on the internet can’t get sex with a real woman any other way because they are clueless about any number of things. Such as that not all women do anal, the way it seems in porn. Many men actually believe that what they see in porn is real and they can act it out with whomever they are with.

    This accounts for some at least being “shitty” in bed. I have been with somewhere between 40-50 men, several long-term, and only 10% were great in bed. Including that 10%, about one-third to 40% were good to good enough, half were utterly useless and a few (if you are following percentages, that would be around 10%) were so-so, involving an unusual amount of work on my part to make anything worthwhile happen. Sad but true.

  7. Back from fun vacation. Caralain & femmeavecchian, I regret that you find my year of marital crisis increasingly tiresome. I haven’t found any other venue where experienced, intelligent people will listen to my anxieties around being trained as a hot wife by my loving husband/dom and provide helpful suggestions beyond just telling me to leave my marriage.

    To those of you wondering why I don’t just insist on coming first — it’s not really about my orgasms. I’m one of those tiresome women who don’t come easily in new situations. Luckily, there are many other ways of pleasing me. I love flirting over drinks with new guys, making out in the parking lot or under a bridge, heading to their place hand-in-hand, going down on them, choking and drooling from having cock in my throat and a firm hand on my hair. I love massages, having my back scratched, light caresses, heavy floggings and any other form of physical contact that acknowledges my living soul. But I hate when the intercourse comes to a point where he’s trying to get off, and I’m trying to get him off, and I’m just making these increasingly faked noises to try to get him to the edge. And we change position, but nothing works, he’s no closer to orgasm, and I’m fed up. Eventually, he comes or he doesn’t, and I leave.

    I could refuse my husband what he asks of me, but the first half of these evenings is such fun. So I will be continuing to explore with new guys, seeing if there’s a way for me to redirect the action before I get frustrated. Maybe if I abandon responsibility for his orgasm, I’ll have a better time. If I think of the whole evening as an extended make-out session, with rubbing, and caressing, and licking and sucking… (NOT as an endurance event that failed unless it ended in explosion)… then I think maybe the guys and I will be better able to remember that we are people at play and not industrial machines at work.

    And finally, to those calling for a return to the week’s letters: I had a lot more that I could share about shredded kitties, and I bet other mothers do too. But — @10 “Maybe we can imagine you with a prolapsed vag.” Right there he ended any chance we had to open up the discussion to new voices. Actions have consequences.

  8. Actually, I see that other women weren’t silenced from talking about their vaginal issues. So much the better. If any of you are still reading – do you have recommendations from among the kegel exercisers out there? (GyneFlex, Kegelmaster, Verseo, Kegel Pro, others?) It does seem as if kegels would be more effective with something to push against, and the ability to increase the resistance over time.

  10. Erica- Welcome back! Don’t let anyone discourage you from this free and open forum. Especially not trolls. The Stranger doesn’t seem to particularly care all that much about the comments section. People are free to ignore your comments if they want to anyway. I leave unregistered comments off and ignore certain commenters altogether.

    To address where you might find a better forum for ongoing discussion of your personal issue you might consider alt.com. They have a variety of groups that have ongoing discussions about pretty much anything to do with BDSM. I wouldn’t bother trying to hook up with anyone through the site directly though. You might find a munch in your area where you can get to know people in a safe environment.

    SL is not a chat room and is not set up for people to establish personal connections. I certainly have my own issues that I would go into more detail with you privately but as far as I know there isn’t a way to do that without broadcasting my email address to the world.

  11. Unforgiving, if you’re still reading these comments, do yourself a favor and go straight to a urogynecological surgeon. I just recovered from surgery to repair rectal, vaginal, bladder, and perineal prolapses. I spent years suffering because 3 gynos in a row told me either that my problems were all in my head or that there was nothing that could be done to help me!! And I have great health insurance too – these guys were leaving money on the table by not knowing enough or caring enough to help fix the problem.

    Keep searching until you find a doc competent to help you, get the repair done while you’re still young, and get back to having a great sex life. Oh, and Kegels are not going to solve the problem, they’ll just keep it from getting worse.

  12. @172 – I’m on Alt & fetlife but find the sex advice here more useful. If you’re on Alt yourself, you can contact me at the username EricaPSavage.

  13. @174 That’s nice of you. I’ll think about it. Up until now I haven’t wanted a paying account there for reasons you may already understand. Anyway without paying alt there is no way for me to email you on that site.

  14. EricaP, ignore the hate-filled comments.
    I think the journey you’ve been on this last year represents an admirable willingness to change and I appreciate your sharing your questions and difficulties.

    As far as the bad sex you’ve had, I have to agree with femmeavecchien that many men are lousy lovers. I’ve slept with a lot and only a handful were any good. And sometimes there’s not a lot that can be done to improve things, especially in a short-term relationship of NSA encounters. People who are motivated (either out of a genuine affection for their partners or just out of a sense of wanting to achieve proficiency) can learn what pleases their partners, but a one-time hookup rarely provides enough motivation.

  16. “Don’t let anyone discourage you from this free and open forum.”

    EricaP, please let me discourage you. This is NOT a ‘free and open forum’. It is the comments section for the Savage Love column, and it is intended for people who want to comment on THE ARTICLE, not for you to air your anxieties about not being enough for your husband. That’s too bad and all, but this ain’t the Dr. Phil show. Please SHUT UP already, so we can comment on Dan’s writing, not yours.

    Please, please stop hijacking this thread with your personal issues. No one gives a fuck but Hunter, and he’s just messing with you anyway. If your story were at all interesting, it would have its own column.

    Perhaps I should spend the next hundred posts boring you with the details of my last dental check-up, or my latest recipe for brioche? Um, no, THIS ISN’T THE PLACE FOR THAT. GO AWAY ALREADY.

  17. @178 lol. Can’t wait to see your fascinating comments on the column. I hope you will continue to use that lovely alias so you get credit for all your brilliant insights. Also, you might try one of the kegel exercisers (see @170), in your continued efforts to get your head unstuck from its current location.

  18. @ EricaP: And I couldn’t wait to see other people’s fascinating comments ON THE COLUMN. Maybe reply to some of their insights, have a conversation ABOUT THE COLUMN. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to wade through your pity party to pick them out.

    THIS IS NOT YOUR PERSONAL THERAPY SESSION. Please go find somewhere more appropriate to dish about all the lousy sex you’re having. I’m sure you’ve written to Dan about your problems, but there’s a reason he hasn’t published your letters: YOU’RE BORING. As endlessly fascinating as you find yourself, WE DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. We come to this corner of the internet to discuss this advice column, not listen to you whine about how hard it is to find decent NSA sex. Like Hunter says, it’s probably you. If you’re this egotistical on the internet, that you will hijack these comments to be your personal blog, then you are probably just as self-absorbed in bed.

    If you want to share your personal life with the internet, create YOUR OWN PAGE for it. This one already has a purpose, one which you are thwarting with your ‘me-me-me’ comments.

  19. @180 Don’t you and your ilk understand yet that the way to deal with trolls like me is to stop engaging us in conversation? If you ignore me, I fade away, if you engage with me, I win. It’s Troll Management 101, and you’re flunking.

  20. Erica, you’re not a troll. You’re just another desperate, pathetic woman who will do anything to hang onto the man in her life.

    You and your husband vowed to be monogamous, once upon a time. And while you are content with that (as most women are), your husband still wants to bang other women (as most of them do). So you let him emotionally blackmail you into an ‘open relationship’. But what you have isn’t an open relationship. You have an asshole husband who wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Real poly guys don’t promise monogamy and then change their mind later and threaten to leave you if you don’t let them bang other women.

    I’m sorry your life is a mess and you married a douchebag, and I hope you wise up and leave your husband and find a man who actually wants the same thing as you. But in the meantime, could you post about your personal life somewhere elsewhere. This page actually had an INTERESTING topic before you hijacked it.

    Your sad, sad story is a dime a dozen. I come here to read comments about Dan’s column, not your pathetic angst.

  22. @182 – still feeding me, I see. Not sure why you’d throw out a marriage which has lasted 15 years, produced cute kids, and yields much laughter, love, conversation and hot sex.

    But you’ve piqued my interest. Which interesting topic did you look forward to discussing? The cross-dresser imagining that his small dick used to be a clit? The mom with the shredded kitty? The ginger cocktail? Or the santorum meme?

    Tell you what, you post your opinion about one or more of those topics, and I’ll stay on topic for the rest of the week. But sign it with your SoTired alias, so I know it’s you.

  27. Sure it’s tiresome, Erica. You have exhibitionistic needs that not everyone is into, and which show boundary issues that probably make you vulnerable in ways you don’t realize — but what is worse is that you are not getting here the real guidance that you need. Intelligent, experienced people, yes. But we not therapists. I’m not familiar with alt.com, as jenesasquatch mentioned, but you might check it out to see if there are resources there for you.

    In my experience teaching martial arts to women, e.g., I find some women are just not psychologically ready for self-defense. It’s hard to handle this. I try to keep them practicing, but they usually leave. It’s too challenging and they could probably use some therapy to deal with it. While I am not a therapist, I wish them and you well on your path.

  28. @189 What is the evidence that I need therapy? The fact that I have sex with strangers, or that I post about it here? I’m trying to improve my skills in my current hobby (NSA sex), and therefore sought out an internet site which has quite a few people who are more advanced than I am in this hobby. My posts apparently don’t flout any Stranger policies, since they haven’t been pulled.

    There are so many, many of you who want to discuss something else, not my life — go ahead. Who’s stopping you? Slog threads are perfectly capable of maintaining two conversations at the same time.

  30. @189 “some … are just not psychologically ready for self-defense”

    Yes, that’s an excellent observation. Learned helplessness is a serious problem for people who have experienced long-term abuse.

  31. @190: “There are so many, many of you who want to discuss something else, not my life — go ahead.”

    Oh no, EricaP, that’s not how it goes. Everyone has a God-given right not to be exposed to blog comments that do not directly and personally interest them. After all, everyone knows that failure to read every single comment on a blog post leads to a potentially fatal brain imbalance. Why, having loaded the page, poor @182 had to read every single word on it. How thoughtless of you to assume that he could simply skip over the stuff he didn’t want to read?

    And, of course, having been required by the simple facts of his brain chemistry to read your posts, he then had to restore his sanity’s delicate balance by posting at least three times about how uninteresting your posts were and how little he cared about them.

    Please, EricaP – think of the children.

  32. Bwahaha! Backyard Bombardier, I so heard Helen Lovejoy just then!

    Eh, Erica’s love life is way more interesting then the boring letters this week, as much as I love Dan. And since I am at work, all those fetish sites, the filter catches and blocks, and Savage Love comes right through (shhhh! don’t tell!).

    Perhaps if the next round of letters are a bit more scandelous, it will be easier to stay on topic for a dirty little slut like moi!! ;). Bring on the poo-eaters! A GGG drink, really? How the hell does one discuss anyway? zzzzzzzzzzzzz

  34. Erica, I didn’t have a specific comment about the letter. You see, by the time I usually read this column, the points I wanted to make have been made by someone else, frequently more eloquently. Generally, if I don’t have something to add to the conversation, I don’t say anything. And sometimes points are made that I disagree with, but they are well-stated, and they make me rethink my own position. That’s why I read these comments.

    There are always plenty of off-topic nonsense posts, but yours seem particularly self-serving, which is why I lashed out and was rude to you, and I apologize for that. Despite your making it public, I shouldn’t be commenting on your private life. It’s really none of my business. (BTW, this isn’t a Slog thread, this is the Savage Love column. You might have an easier time staying on-topic if you knew what the topic was supposed to be.)

    BB, you’re right, I don’t *have* to read every single post. I don’t *have* to read any of them. But ignoring Erica’s personal drama isn’t as easy as skipping her posts, I have to read the others to know whether they’re on-topic or not. And I didn’t feel like wading through a lengthy conversation about some married slut’s sex life to find the comments that are actually about Dan Savage’s advice column.

    You see, Dan’s writing is why we come read this page, not Erica’s. This isn’t her personal blog. She’s hijacking this thread because it has an intelligent, experienced audience, one that she could never drum up on her own merits. Or maybe she IS that interesting- what the hell do I know? But if she is, she should have no trouble starting her own blog, or a thread on alt.com as others have suggested, and building an audience that cares about what she has to say. The rest of us are here to talk about Dan’s writing, not Erica’s sex life.

    Erica, let me make you a different deal. This thread’s already sunk, there’s no possibility of finding the wheat in the chaff of these comments. But I will promise to show up early next week and post my fascinating, insightful comments ABOUT THE COLUMN, and you can post yours, and we can leave your personal life elsewhere. You could even post a link to your new blog or thread, and if you like I will give you my thoughts there (since you seem so intent on me knowing about your sex life). And then anyone who actually finds you interesting enough to read about can do it somewhere that’s about YOU, and those who are interested in SAVAGE LOVE can talk about that here.

    Sound fair?

  35. @193 grin
    @194 why does everyone always think of the poo-eaters? Are they so damn fascinating? Ick.
    @195 as opposed to you? 🙂

    @196 Aw, you can’t even name which interesting topic it was that you were dying to read comments about? Criminy. But, sure, okay, if you post your on-topic comments within 48 hours of Dan posting the next SL column, I’ll stick to your deal. Remember to use the same alias, so I can recognize you. But if you’re AWOL and people are asking me questions about my marriage… I’m only human.

  36. Long time Dan reader here, common terminology from fans to just describe the general freaks. 😛

    Frankly, I read his column for pervy fun, rather then health issues or political activism, which he seems hell bent on pushing lately. Sure, I am a huge supporter of gay rights, and want everyone to engage in safe sex practices. BUT….not the reason I come here. “Poo-eaters” however, is just how many long time readers refer to the TRULY freaky (and in my mind, TRULY fascinating and bizarre) reading!

    BRING ON THE FREAKS!!! C’mon man, I want stories either I can relate to, or ones that will shock the shit/amuse/horrify outta me….poo-eating definitely qualifies for the latter catagory. Why I started reading Dan as opposed to Dear Prudence anyway. I will admit to having no life, at least here at work, and want a little amusement, heheh.

  37. EricaP: (cross-posted from last week) I don’t know about other guys, but I like intercourse for 45 minutes because I prefer 45 minutes of pleasure to 15 minutes of pleasure! The better the girl is in bed, or the more attractive she is, the longer I’d want it to go…

    From your earlier post it sounds like you need an “intermission” of fingers or tongue after 10 or 15 minutes of intercourse or it doesn’t work for you: do you make this clear to guys? Do you tell them you need to stop and they need to eat you for a while and then they can continue? Either there are a lot of guys who are bad in bed or you’re just not being clear enough about what you need.

    I’m not sure there will be a big difference if you torture yourself by making yourself wait longer for sex while you build up a friendship: if he’s bad in bed or doesn’t listen, that probably won’t change much.

  38. Erica, it’s not necessarily that I want to read (or make) comments about an interesting *topic*, I want to read interesting *comments* about the topics covered in the column. I never know what interesting point someone will make until I read it. But the topics here (the letters and Dan’s answers) are pre-selected (by Dan) for interesting-ness, which your sex life is not. Compared to Savage Love, your situation seems rather pedestrian.

    I just get tired of sorting through the off-topic comments- of which there are plenty that are not yours, yours were just a convenient target for my ire, as there are so many of them.

    48 hours is very generous, thank you. I will certainly check in before then. And like I said, please post a link to your own blog or thread, and I will be happy to comment on you in an appropriate forum. I’m sure there are others here who would, as well.

  39. @199 – please refrain from bringing posts over from other threads. It irritates the local fauna. I read it there, and it didn’t apply to my life. (See @169 for more info on how I don’t want to tell a guy to press here or insert there, I want to feel like a person having fun with another person. Laughing, talking, along with the sex.)

    @200 Trust me when I say that I have no interest in your comments on my life. I asked you to post because I don’t believe you have anything to say about sex, at all. I am waiting eager for you to prove me wrong.

  42. @201: No, there’s nothing wrong with repeating a comment from an old thread, and I don’t really care what irritates the stupid trolls.

    I definitely think that not taking responsibility for someone else’s orgasm is a good idea. As you probably know, some guys just can’t come from intercourse sometimes, regardless of anything you do. I like the “extended make out session” idea 🙂

    I would hope you could do both: talk and laugh with someone as well as tell them what pleases you. I mean, don’t you always have to tell a partner what pleases you or what you want them to do?

  43. EricaP, clearly the thread is becoming a bit judgmental. I’m sorry it has taken this tone, and I hope you don’t take it too personally. People sometimes just care so much about their specific preferences and dos and don’ts, they forget that what’s on the other side of these posts are… other people. I hope none of it has hurt seriously your feelings, and I really hope people will be able to avoid offensive tones while discussing other people’s lives.

  44. As a final note, let me hope that your NSA sex experiences will improve in quality, and that both you and your husband will enjoy them. Communication helps–as I posted before, a lover’s efforts can be helped if you tell him what you like (assuming you know it already, and assuming he does listen).

    Unlike several others here, I have nothing against you sharing your experiences here, asking for help and/or advice, or simply exchanging information: I am perfectly capable of skipping the posts I don’t want to read and paying attention only to the ones I do.

  46. Dan–thanks for posting some advice for the women folk!
    Possible solution for Unforgiving and I hope I’m not stating the obvious. I sort of had the same problem as Unforgiving. My partner would get me off first then while I was starting to come, he would suddenly enter me. My vag was tighter during climax and this made him come faster. It was pretty exciting for me, too. If Unforgiving’s partner doesn’t need to take too long, then maybe this would work? (My guy was a literal 3 pump chump.)

  47. @204/206 – I think, for me, the helpful parts moving forward:
    1) Abdicating responsibility for his orgasm.
    2) Trying to know each other as people, not as sex dolls (so, yes, building some friendship first so that we have something to laugh/talk about)
    3) Remembering to think in my head “What do I want now?” so I can redirect effectively. Communication with myself is more the problem.
    4) Trying to cultivate an atmosphere of mutual exploration and fun. I’m not a machine that will come if you push here twenty times in a row.

    Look at this, from a recent Salon interview with Terri Conley http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/0…
    Sociologist Elizabeth Armstrong has shown that women do not feel entitled to sexual pleasure in casual heterosexual encounters. They seem to be more focused on providing the male partner with pleasure.

    I resemble that remark.

  48. @207 – OMG. you just blew my mind. No more kegels? Squats instead? But which helps for squeezing the penis during intercourse? The scientist in that interview is interested in bladder control; I wonder what she would say about vaginal control.

  49. @204 – “don’t you always have to tell a partner what pleases you or what you want them to do?”

    Here’s a question. Do men ever take that upon themselves? I’ve rarely had a guy tell me what I should do to please him. Besides my husband, I think I’ve never heard the words “I wish you would…” (or their equivalents) come out of a guy’s mouth.

    Men always say women should give better verbal instructions, but are the men giving such great instructions themselves? In my experience, it’s all done through body language, unless we’re talking BDSM where things are explicitly negotiated. Do the rest of you have experience with men asking, out loud, for specific actions?

  50. @ #10: Are you available to give my husband some lessons? He’s so afraid of “hurting” me that for the ten years we’ve been married I’ve felt virtually nothing at all during sex: certainly nothing physically, but’s what’s worse is feeling no sense of his desire to possess me EMOTIONALLY. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good, KIND man…but I fear that I may have vastly overcompensated for my genuinely physically and emotionally abusive previous husband by marrying a man too sexually gentle to ever satisfy my need for something much more assertive.

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