I find it amusing that women still insist upon a man's orgasm. Women had sex for centuries without orgasm. Now that we are becoming liberated, people are making sure that women have as many orgasms as they can handle. But women are still stuck in the concept of sex = male orgasm, to the point where *they* don't feel satisfied without it.

I just find it all a bit silly. Because it supports the trope that there's just no pleasing women.

"or it might just be... how this dude's dick works"

Naahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Getting locked into a groove I can understand; but I kind of wonder how he managed to get locked into this particular groove ("kneeling over me masturbating while I tickle his balls very lightly with my nails") without someone to help.

So... she's complaining that her boyfriend stays hard for hours, fucking her repeatedly and giving her multiple orgasms?

That's not a problem. It's a superpower.

@4 but he doesn't come instantly out of wild desire and lust for the LW! that clearly means he does not find her irresistible enough!
seriously though, while I can understand the logic in "I want to feel like a competent lover" and "I like to know he finds me attractive", it seems like this woman protests too much. I'm sure a lot of her friends who date older men, or even herself in the next five years, would kill to have this problem.

She also needs to work her biological clock into this equation and be honest with herself about: how important kids are to her; does she really want to be the biological mother, or would she be OK adopting.

At 37, she's already considered high risk. I'm not saying she should be manhunting with procreation as goal A-1...but if having little ones is important enough she may want to factor that into her decision.

i wouldnt be so hard on LW. sexual satisfaction isnt all about orgasms for yourself. it seems petty but spontaneity and variety matter to some people. in my marriage, my lack of focus and retrenchment of skills took some kinda of sex off the table and after a long talk or 3 we decided to get back to the basics and taking time to rediscover the things we like. hoping that i can get back to where we were so its not just me jilling her off with her form 2.

I (female) had a girlfriend that could only come from her own hand. It was different, but not not hot, so...

Of course, we were not trying to procreate, so there's that.

Surprised nobody brought up the possibility that this guy just has a fetish. Maybe it has nothing to do with how his dick works, maybe it's how his brain works. His brain won't accept anything other than ball tickling. If it is a fetish, she should know there is nothing wrong with her and she's not inadequate. It's just what is normal to him.

Already with the baby talk after three months and such disatisfying sex?
LW, cut your losses and bail.

Faking orgasms seems to have become a lost art.

"He seems very attracted to me..."
"He is attentive and makes sure I'm satisfied but..."
"We have open communication but..."
"He's a great guy otherwise but..."

If you're only three months in and every positive thing you have to say about either him or the relationship comes with a qualifier, that says a lot. And none of what it says is good.

@6 / @8: As Dan correctly points out, needing to masturbate is no impediment to pregnancy. All he has to do is jack off to the point of "orgasmic inevitability," then stick his cock in her. Not the flowery romantic way she imagined getting knocked up, but it'll get the job done. And IME, actually *trying* to get pregnant is less about whether anyone has fun and more about the mechanics of fluid transfer. :/

BAG-gage.

For pregnancy, he could also jack off in a turkey baster or they can do artificial insemination. That doesn't seem like as big an issue as her not really sounding enthusiastic about him generally.

A) After only three months, sex is unsatisfying (here's a hint - it should be molten hot right now). Is this what you want to be doing for the next twenty years?
B) Guy has twisted himself into the position where there is only one (strenuous) way to get off & is apparently unwilling to make adjustments to remedy the situation.
C) This is not your dick to fix. Move on, find a better fit.
D) Problem solved.

Do both of you a favor and break up.

Yeeeeah... if you were in a committed relationship, LW, I might think otherwise. You're 3 months in though and already this unsatisfied. Be gentle with the dude, but break it off with him. It'll be best for you both.

Credit to Mr Savage for being equitable about the ego bit. I wasn't sure he was going in that direction.

I won't blame LW for wanting what would seem a natural part of a great many people's Ideal World - that one's partner should reach jointly delighting climaxes from one's favourite activity. But one can only be hissy about it for so long.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
Not all men come. Not all men can come any way or any time. There are times in a man's life where they aren't able to, or can do that only under very specific conditions. This happens to women too... not only because of what Dan says (that some need clitoral stimulation - in fact, only 30% of women can reliably come from PIV... another 30% sometimes can and the others can come only from clitoral stimulation), but even women who could come from PIV, due to physical or mental issues can have difficulties to reach orgasm at all.
We are not perfect and unbreakable machines! And there's NOTHING wrong with not coming at all... sexual satisfaction not necessarily comes from orgasm.
This is the condition he is now, and this is the condition he might be all his life and nobody gets to say he's broken/faking/whatever.
LW has two alternatives: one, she leaves him and find someone whose dick she finds more compatible with her need to have an ego-stroking.
Two: she enjoys the sex they have, enjoys the orgasms he gives her and helps him come the way he needs without complaining, because there is nothing to complain about, it's just her helping him get satisfaction exactly like he does help her get her own satisfaction throug PIV (you know? There is no law stating that PIV is the one and only way to get off... neither there is a law stating that it is the best way to!)
What if LW was a he and her BF a she, and he wrote complaining that her girlfriend didn't "orgasm from him"? I suspect everyone would have called him an asshole... with reason. Well, I'm calling HER an asshole. And I think her BF should DTMFA.
NB: I've been in the exact situation (minus the ball tickling) LW is now.

Undead @2: "or it might just be... how this dude's dick works"

Yeahhhhhh.

I had a partner who was 26, who could only orgasm manually or with (believe it or not) intense vibratory stimulation. This was not a problem for me; on the contrary, it was absolutely wonderful knowing that he wasn't going to come until I was ready to shift the focus to him. However, I sympathise with HIDC; tickling someone's balls for an extended period when your own pleasurable memories have long faded away sounds like a lot less fun. (Question: Has she tried playing with herself while he jacks it? Mutual masturbation is a lot more enjoyable.) But yeah -- if he has a hard (sorry) time coming, that's not really her responsibility.

Nobodaddy @1: Why on earth is it a bad thing for women to want their partners to come? Isn't it hot when your partner comes? Yeah, we think so too. Haven't we been moaning about how selfish is when men come without making sure we have? Why would we want to be that selfish?

I agree: HIDC and her boyfriend aren't sexually compatible. She should take advantage of the 90-day money back period and walk away.

Ashara @20: I think that if the genders were reversed, and it was a man complaining that he'd like to make his girlfriend come but that she didn't seem able to, there would be equal amounts of sympathy, technical advice, and reassurance that her particular anatomical quirks weren't his fault. I also had a girlfriend who wasn't able to come, unless she was using a vibrator on her own. She came sooo close, tantalisingly close, but never quite got there. It was frustrating for us both and kind of demoralising for me, although I was mature enough at the time to accept that it wasn't my fault, and to recognise that she was still enjoying herself. Does my disappointment at not being able to completely satisfy her make me an asshole?

Ashara. Did some one say this guy was broken? It's about mutual satisfaction and the LW is not feeling satisfied. She doesn't enjoy the sexuality they share. She gets sore.
LW, you say this man is strongly attracted to you, you just don't sound like you feel the same at all. Thinking of baby making when you dont love the guy and are not sexually compatible with him, comes across as unwise and manipulative to me.

BiDanFan @22
Not the disappointment, no.
LW expresses way more than disappontment, though. Annoyance, impatience, even intolerance. She is very self-centered and dismisses every thing he does for her as not important; it doesn't matter if he gives her 254879 orgasms a week: he doesn't put sperm in her vagina, what a cruel and annoying partner. All the letter seems a long, pouting whine.
What she is saying is not "disappointment at not being able to completely satisfy her partner" (which is quite normal), as you put it: she says she is disappointed because her partner is not able to satisfy HER by coming the exact way she wants he to come. After a time she chooses, into the orifice she chooses etc.
The more I read this letter, the more I think that her BF would be way better without her.

She's not getting what she wants, he really isn't either. Dating is about finding compatibility, this isn't it. If my sex life ALWAYS had to feature one specific activity, I'd pull the plug (after three months) without hesitation. That stuff gets old fast.

Ashara @24: I can see your point, but I think you're reading your own bias into it. She doesn't insist that he comes exactly the way she wants, just that he comes in some way that involves her. And yeah, there's a lot of baggage there. From teenage boys whining about blue balls, to the general expectations on women to be pleasers, there is this belief that sex isn't "finished" until the man comes. She didn't say whether he was OK with just not coming every time, which to me would make a huge difference. If he's said "It's fine, I've enjoyed myself anyway" and she insisted on doing whatever it takes to get him to come, then I'd be much more inclined to agree with your take; but if he is the one who insists that she do the fingernail trick at the end of every fuck, then he's taking advantage of her GGG, and I can sympathise with her frustration.

Same answer either way: DTPNP (dump the perfectly nice person) so each of them can find a better match.

There's nothing wrong with wanting your partner to orgasm and there's nothing wrong with wanting to be the one to help make that happen. There is a difference between wanting to give your partner an orgasm or wanting to help facilitate it and feeling upset and unsatisfied yourself because of the way your partner orgasms or if your partner doesn't orgasm.

There is also nothing wrong with wanting to have a sex life that allows for a little more variety at least in the way everything concludes, but this lw is really focused on what she's not getting out of this. I had a boyfriend once who was a very talented and creative lover. He could stay hard for a long time and made sure I came multiple times. But the only way he could come was to lie on his back or side and masturbate. I held him, tickled his balls, fingered his prostate, tongued his nipples or ears, or in other ways, tried to help him. I never minded doing that and I never felt offended that that was the only way he could orgasm.

I'm a big believer in "that's just the way his dick/her clit works" and I've actually decried Dan's "retrain your dick if you have death grip syndrome" advice for years because I think it leads men to think that the way their bodies work is somehow their fault and it places blame. We don't tell women (or we tell them far less frequently than we used to) that if they can only come one way it's their fault because they've been doing something wrong for a long time. If a woman needs a vibrator to orgasm and her boyfriend complains that he feels emasculated or that he wants to be the one to "give her the orgasm," we (and Dan) educate the man--she needs the intense, focused sensation that only a battery-powered tool can give; you're still giving her the orgasm, just with a tool; that's just the way her body works. We (and Dan) need to be as open to the fact that some men just respond to a limited kink of stimulation without shaming them for it or suggesting they need to (or can) "fix it."

But back to my ex-bf and the bf in this letter. The thing is, it can be a somewhat tedious end to every sexual encounter if you've come and then getting your partner off involves you in a minimal but necessary way and takes a very long time to achieve. I didn't mind a bit in the 6-7 months we were together, but it would have been nice to have been able to get him off while I was still in a more sexy frame of mind or in the occasional different position, and I don't know how I would have felt over the long haul. But this lw has only been with the guy for 3 months and is already resentful. In just two months, she made him try a variety of toys in a way that sounds less like about fun and variety and playfulness and more about finding something to "fix" him. For entire last moth she says she's been "annoyed" and is no longer "understanding." This is a great big sexual incompatibility, y'all.

No one's a mf to b d'ed already, but these two should break up now.

Hey, some men just need special... accommodations. Is it wrong if I can only come while I'm pleasuring myself in a chicken suit and my partner reads Gertrude Stein aloud?

If that's wrong, then I don't want to be right!

As Dan has also noted, dicks are like Tinkerbell; they only work when you believe in them. Now, this sounds like something more severe than performance anxiety, but pressure to orgasm will not help. If he is willing to forego his orgasms from having his balls tickled, you need to be willing to let him control how long he fucks you after you've cum. If he decides its just not happening then let him withdraw and try again another time.

I love the "He isn't orgasming like you want? Dump him grrrrrl" responses.

As if that could even be stated if the genders were reversed.

Also kind of wondering how prostate massage got worked into this situation seemingly out of nowhere.

"So, you can only seem to come this one specific way. Why don't we stick stuff up your ass?"

Huh?

I don't believe I'm death-grip-degraded, but I frequently have a difficult time achieving orgasm with a new partner - it takes several sessions with her to be able to orgasm during coitus. Personally, I don't really have a problem with it, I'm completely happy to not come during sex. NBD.

I've never met a single woman who didn't get a complex about this - and in fact, the more I downplay it, the more likely they are to express a "complex" about it.

Ms Fan - I do occasionally get a sense of a bit of Morton's Fork here in that OS-partnered men are expected to have interest within a particular range in their partners' pleasure, but can't ever be sure they're in the safe range. A man disappointed in his partner's not climaxing can be called a misogynist for thinking it's All About Him. A man not disappointed his partner didn't climax can be called a misogynist for thinking her orgasm doesn't matter. Now here we had an Overinvested Woman, who got a response sufficiently close (allowing for the discrepancy of numbers, which seems to creat some permissible difference) to the response Mr Savage would give an Overinvested Man. The other tine, though, just doesn't seem to appear here (although we did have that one woman who went on about how men were No Good At Sex At All and she had to train all her partners to give her at least thirty climaxes without losing interest and how every single subsequent girlfriend of any of them has been genuflecting to her in deepest gratitude; she comes close enough to being a counterpart) as a rule - though whether that's mainly numbers or something else I'd not want to have to guess.

Ms Cute - Agreed that there's no clear MF on the evidence presented.

[the rest of this is just something I'm throwing at the wall and not expecting to stick, but I offer it anyway]

Your third paragraph is rather like my reasoning for not liking Mr Savage's reiterated line about how Men Are Pigs. But I think Mr Savage treads a careful line here; his not to imply guilt but to leave room for those who want to infer guilt to be able to do so. He's skillful. Similarly, his invoking men when he encourages women to learn exactly what gets them off manages to play to both sides of the fence, letting those who wish to do so infer something piglike in men's being "a little TOO" aware of the exact arcana of their sexual responses if they don't have to be encouraged to do so by the nice advice columnist.

I'm going to guess that this is something a little like the way John Mortimer said that eventually the Rumpole characters became increasingly like the actors as his getting to know, say, Peter Bowles or Julian Curry influenced his portrayals of Guthrie Featherstone and Claude Erskine Brown. Agatha Christie, through her alter ego, Ariadne Oliver, went the opposite route - Mrs Oliver in Hallowe'en Party goes into how a plot just came to her about a woman she saw on a bus and decided to call Constance Carnaby, and how the one thing that would ruin her story would be meeting the woman.

So LW, disappointed that her bf cannot achieve no hands orgasms from friction with her vagina alone, and embarks on a plan to fix this situation by incorporating a slew of techniques and toys, and when that fails withholding sex for a couple of weeks to see what effect that has on the situation. Yikes.

I do sympathize with LW. Giving your partner a no hands orgasm through vaginal sex does feel great. And I appreciate that LW would also be happy giving her bf an orgasm with her mouth or hands too. So missing out on those physical sensations and that psychic pleasure isn't something to be dismissed, but LW either needs to accept that this is how her bf's body works or find someone who can more reliably orgasm insider her body as she would like to have happen.

LW's boyfriend could be faulted if he demanded access to her vagina past the point when she becomes sore, or demanded that she continue giving him a blow job until her mouth was exhausted.

"I'm raw from it lasting too long"

OMFG!!!! No one should have sex this long! It isn't clear who is pressuring the other to keep going with PIV after it is clearly NOT WORKING, but for god sake, STOP!

"I don't enjoy him jacking off on top of me all the time."

Where did he jack off during the 8 years before you were there? Surely he can do it there sometimes, to give you a break.

"long term I will not be sexually satisfied."

You've both made good faith attempts to fix this problem. Time to end it.

Three months in? I think I'd have to give that relationship a pass. But if it seems worth it, Dan is the man with the plan.

This LW speaks/ writes with no affection for this man. None. Zilch. She's just wondering if he could make babies with or for her.
As well, she is not enjoying the sex. For whatever reason. Leave this man, LW. For the sake of both of you.

Y'know, just cause one doctor said he's healthy doesn't mean there's not something medical going on. Anorgasmia can have a lot of possible causes, it might be worth looking for a specialist.

1) "Going forever" is over-rated, IMHO.
2) Maybe it is ego, but much of my satisfaction comes from seeing how hot my guy gets for me. Chronic lack of orgasm wouldn't be a dealbreaker but it would put a damper on the fun.
3) She is three months into this relationship, and deeply dissatisfied with their sex life, which has not improved despite serious efforts. There are women out there for whom this would be no big deal. I think they should say goodbye so they can each find someone more suited to them.

@38, except he's not anorgasmic. he does have orgasms, just not the kind LW wants him to.

I'm willing to be it's an emotional hang up.

@39: Understandable that you want to know your guy is hot for you. But isn't that what the erection is all about?

I mean, i've been plenty turned-on by a partner, but it simply wasn't possible to come without electronic assistance. That didn't reflect on his heat level.

Dan: If you can let go of your ego-y need to see him "orgasm from" your efforts alone — just like guys with girlfriends who need vibrators to get off are encouraged to let go of their ego-y needs..

Exactly.

Theodore @30: Prostate massage is incredibly effective in inducing orgasms for a lot of men. It makes sense for LW to suggest they investigate whether this man is one.

Sportlandia @32: "I've never met a single woman who didn't get a complex about this - and in fact, the more I downplay it, the more likely they are to express a "complex" about it."

That's because we've been taught since prepubescence that men (all men, no exceptions are ever drawn) can come in their sleep, they can come from a stiff breeze, they need to delay coming in order to be good lovers. Porn is all about male orgasms. Reproduction -- the only religiously sanctioned purpose for sex -- is impossible without male orgasms. If we can't induce something so easy it usually has to be avoided, then clearly there is something wrong with us. More of the harmful messages we all internalise from gender stereotyping.

I have no objections at all to having sex with a man who doesn't come from intercourse. I might even somewhat prefer it. I hump him till I'm done, we cuddle a bit, then he gets himself off while I watch. Everybody very very happy. Yay!

BiDanFan, porn about blow jobs is definitely all about the male orgasm. But porn about getting women off is all about the female orgasm.

46/Alison, how is it that you've (apparently) successfully managed to avoid internalizing the harmful message that BiDanFan mentions?

Roma@47: not everyone internalizes all the harmful messages, and that's a fortune.
I'm like Alison on this behalf, but sadly I internalized other harmful messages (most of them aboyt my own body & sexuality) and it took me years to get rid of them when I realized they were there.