Savage Love Nov 6, 2018 at 4:00 pm

What Ain't Broke

Joe Newton

Comments

1

Re: Letter 3, it's surprising to me that two people in their mid- to late twenties had never heard of a male refractory period. I bemoan the lack of sex ed.

It's also unfortunate that his wife has a refractory period! They could have been sensational super fuckers.

2

Thank you and bless you, Dan, in the insanity of the midterm elections, for blessing us with Savage Love every week!
AA I have read and responded to in Dan's SLOG a previous week (Is He Broken?), so I won't here. I guess all I have to add is shared amazement that LW3 is unfamiliar with a male refractory period. Mine has lasted over 17 1/2 years.

3

@2: After 17 1/2 years, I am happily asexual, and fortunately what was broken has gotten fixed already.

4

Chalk me up as (usually) not using my erection after orgasm and having met plenty of women who are one-and-dones for whatever reason.

5

RUBBER I have to ask is your brother's lifestyle making him miserable? Is he crashing on your couch and can't pay his bills because of the rubber? Is he isolated and being a creep about his fetish?

Because it doesn't sound that way. Your brother has a passion and has found people to share it with, and has it together enough to have a job that allows him to buy rubber clothes and go to rubber conventions.

Maybe this is just who he is and you should try to accept that. His fetish isn't ruining his life and wonder if it's your mother talking here not you. He's not hurting anyone with this so why not let it go?

6

Odd that Dan re-ran Letter 1, with both letter and answer edited, but didn't include the "maybe he's aromantic" insight from the weekly reader advice roundup.

Re RUBBER: A sexual "interest [that] seems obsessive" is the definition of a fetish. Why is it RUBBER's business? Brother isn't doomed to a frustrated life of one partner after another who doesn't share his fetish, leading to inevitable breakups. This is who he is; be glad he's found the courage to live openly.

NORM, yeah, that video is rubbish. Perhaps it meant that women physically are capable of continuing to have (vaginal, anyway) sex immediately after orgasm, whereas without an erection, men are not. But that doesn't mean we WANT to continue immediately after coming. As both a haver and a giver of female orgasms, NORM, refractory periods for women are a thing.

7

@2. Griz. Ha!

The only place I lost sympathy with RUBBER's letter was the 'R' for 'rut'--which may not even have been her (his/their) coinage. 'Rut'--'thank you very much!' She (could be 'he', but I thought 'she') is taking on the place of her parents too much, as a dominating and solicitous elder sibling. Try being a child more! Run through powdery snow. Autumn leaves. Do something carefree and crazily imaginative in your own sex life!

8

I wonder if NORM's wife is a squirter. I could usually go for another orgasm when I don't squirt, but am totally done after squirting. Maybe she's the same.

9

NORM says his wife doesn't "even" like him "kissing her bits" after orgasm. Whoa! Cunnilingus is one of the most intense sensations one can receive (which is why most of us love it so), and orgasm increases sensitivity. I can't think of a quicker direct route to sensory overload. This statement sounded similar to, "He has a low pain threshold, he can't 'even' take being kicked in the balls."

10

NORM - Dan is wrong, women and men experience prolactin release after orgasm (as well as when lactating), which inhibits arousal (what felt arousing now feels painful), and correlates to sexual satisfaction.
https://www.issm.info/news/sex-health-headlines/post-orgasmic-prolactin-surges/

So you're getting your girl off really well but she needs to up her game to keep up. Or you may simply never release much prolactin:
https://www.nature.com/articles/3900823

This is very old news, I'm sure I've said this before, Dan keeps getting this wrong!

RUBBER - there's nothing wrong with your brother preferring rubber in order to get off. It sucks that your brother's fetish has become part of his public persona, so that you have to deal with your brother's rubber. You seem uncomfortable, and you can do something about it. You can set whatever boundaries you need to be comfortable. Can you just visit in public, or otherwise see your brother without the rubber?

AA- maybe you overproduce prolactin and oxytocin! It sounds like you are somewhat permanently satisfied and attached once you start having orgasms with someone, no need for more sex! Why would it be so bad to have a companionate marriage to raise any kids you'd like and have most sex outside the marriage? It's certainly not unheard of.

11

Different people's bodies react differently. News at eleven.

Look, not everyone is aroused by the same sensations; not everyone's nipples or knees or knuckles or nuts react the same way. Yes, your last boyfriend loved having you nibble on his inner thigh, but the current one finds it vaguely irritating. I know your ex-wife came multiple times when you stroked her feet, but your current girlfriend is too ticklish to appreciate that. Etc.

And not everyone feels the same way post-orgasm.

Why look for "normal" anyway? What's to be gained from hearing that your body's or your spouse's body's physiological response to stimulation is "normal" or not "normal?" If you can't control it, why bother putting your energy into trying to figure out how many other people react the way you do?

12

I’ve always considered myself very lucky that my husband shares the letter writer’s quirk of being able to maintain an erection after orgasm. He’s the only guy I’ve been with who can do this - not 100% of the time but more often than not. He actually says that the more intense his orgasm is, the more likely it is he will stay hard for a while afterwards. It’s great because on those occasions that I need a little more time, he can usually keep going. Yes, I know anyone can keep going with hands or mouth, but when I’m close to orgasm with deep thrusting, stopping and switching techniques would be the end for me. Just a nice little bonus. :)

13

I was multi-orgasmic with one particular partner. Kind of a, get to the finish line and keep on trucking. I wondered if I was simply powering on through and my penis just accepted the biological queues, or if other guys were literally incapable. I do frequently have the urge to go sleep or rest shortly after sex, but I've noticed that feeling increasing in my age and assumed it was just regular-old slowing down.

14

I made it to my mid-thirties before I found out that it was super unusual that I could come two or three times in a row. It's especially easy with oral, just keep sucking after I come and I will normally get off again in another minute, sometimes a third time.

15

I had a boyfriend who, in his 50s, mind you, could come and stay hard at least 4 or 5 times in a 3-hour session, before finally getting soft (but he could get hard again pretty easily even then). With each successive orgasm, he ejaculated less, but he still orgasmed.
It was a pretty amazing superpower.

16

Broadway? I'll venture to suggest that that particular obsession was mainly cliche, and that now Mr Savage is just revealing that he's gone perhaps not quite the way of the dodo, but not all that far off. 2018 is not the time of, even, Love! Valour! Compassion! and even Buzz from L!V!C! was not nearly on the level of B2, if L2 can be taken entirely at face value. In my time, and not living that far from New York, I knew a great many more opera fanatics, and even the most dedicated among them had the capacity to discuss things other than opera. Perhaps the Broadway obsession still thrives among those Vs still in the LVBT soup bowl with a mind still in the 1970's, but I'd be surprised if it were more than extremely rare among genuine Gs.

On the whole, though, I am going to come down against LW more than against Mr Savage. Almost all LW2's complaints are off, with the only one having a possible partial point being that all B2's friends are rubber fetishists. If this were by choice, it might be mildly limiting, but nothing worse. If B2 were incapable of friendship with anyone other than a fellow rubber fetishist, then that might well give one pause. But everything else? Dressing exclusively in rubber outside of work - not sure if that's practical, but seemingly harmless enough. Traveling only to rubber fetish events - maybe there's a second point here if he won't go to ordinary social events because rubber wear would not be acceptable - but if one thinks of travel in terms of foreign or considerable distance, it seems reasonable enough to plan trips around a strong interest. Only dating other rubber fetishists - that seems a major positive (and really almost a given for a real fetishist - would LW2 really want B2 to be in a sticky relationship with a non-fetishist, with one or both partners writing to Mr Savage on a frequent basis?), and LW2's framing this as a negative deserves a strong demerit. Posts photos to his social media - this may be even more of a positive good, as it strikes a much-needed blow in the battle against those with free spirits finding every detail of their out-of-work lives dictated by naff little middle managers.

The only point against Mr Savage besides Broadway is that he might have considered it a potential cause for concern or offered LW2 a guideline or two for how to cope if B2 refuses to attend weddings, funerals or family events.

17

LW3: "My wife and I were watching a video"

First, give her the TV remote.

18

@7 Harriet_by_the_Bulrushes: If my female refractory period has lasted steadily for the last 17 1/2 years, I have no complaints. 'Nuff said.

20

@19: cockyballsup: cannabis has an amazing aphrodisiac effect on me (and on the partner I referred to @15). Weed makes me horny and lets me come far more quickly and easily and repeatedly (though even sober, once I have the first orgasm, the others sort of keep coming like a waterfall or like a train--both bad similes, but I hope you get the idea).

I know it's not for everyone, but I think a lot of the low-libido'd people and the anorgasmic women, should try using it (all the usual health disclaimers apply) a few times. That stuff is a miracle.

21

@16: I'm projecting. Can't a guy project a little?

22

@21: I love it when you project, Dan the Man!

23

The comments on here confirm what I've suspected- it's absolutely not a given that men will lose their erection after they come. I've had several partners who stayed hard and could keep going. In fact most men I've been with have seemed to have that ability at least sometimes. So how common is it really?

24

Mr Savage - Of course he can, but in such a case he shouldn't combine projection with realism.

25

Dan and Stranger Staff: Have I been pulled from making comments?

26

A couple nights ago my partner pulled out and we're not used to that and he didn't seem to come hard. So I took care of myself and kept going until he had another one and we passed out. I don't think he went entirely soft. We're around 40. Yes it's not just that women experience the sedated feeling, (regularly on my part), it's also that men can have an orgasm without the sedated feeling, on occasion or regularly.

I have always heard that women can have multiple orgasms and I have, I remember a particular string of 10 in my late teens, and I think last week I kept going through my first.. But if that's ever been the norm for me? that was 20 years ago I can't remember. Not that I can remember. I prefer one good one, although this has been hard for others to understand.. It feels better to me.. I can't explain why more is not better for me, it is a feeling.

27

Griz @25: It seems not.

28

A cock ring is a good way to maintain for awhile after orgasm, but the sensation IMO is perhaps something like that described by BDF @9.

29

@14 i'd be tempted to say that's just the 'same' orgasm? Maybe that's being a bit to finnicky about it.

@20 sadly, that makes me more or less unable to use weed in a scenario where I'll be in public.

30

@27 fubar (re @25): I was concerned because late last night when I commented here in Savage Love: What Ain't Broke and in other threads, nothing showed up. I thought that I had comments pulled. In another thread Griz had to swat off rabid trolls en masse (over a recent political article by Katie Herzog), where things got ugly fast. I won't elaborate any further here, but if curious you'll find it under this week's Stranger news features.
Thank heavens Griz ain't broke here in Savage Love.

31

Sportlandia @29, that's like trying to work out when an earthquake stops being an aftershock and becomes a new earthquake. There actually were many lively discussions about this after New Zealand's recent larger earthquakes, especially the November 2016 earthquake which seemed to keep rumbling on for days!

32

No Lucky @69 Award winner this week?

33

Okay----Griz will check back tomorrow for Dan's next installment of Savage Love. I wonder if there should be a double @69 prize awarded in honor of HUMP fest if nobody hits the lucky number for the What Ain't Broke thread.
Methinks a lot of folks are like Griz--worn out from the past week's elections, celebrating what's good, and otherwise recuperating. BiDanFan and CMD, we missed you this week.

34

Oops--there's BiDanFan @6 & @9...glad you commented. We missed you, too, though, LavaGirl and DonnyKlicious.

36

Like with Brad Pitt, some of us 💕 Dan no matter much what he’s doing.

37

Long ago having decided these are good men, and sexy.
Grizelda, one of my sons was watching Mr &Mrs Smith last night. I caught a bit of it. Such a film about two people, two beautiful and young people, falling in love. Ah, sort of made me feel sad. What was she thinking? Throwing Brad off. What father has never given his adolescent son a mouthing.

38

@36 & @37 LavaGirl: Yes, I'll have to look for Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Have you seen Thelma & Louise? Check out then 28 year old Brad Pitt as smooth-talking hitchhiker, J.D.! Oof.

Griz offers a two-fer Double @69 Award for Dan's newest Savage Love because we didn't reach @69 this (last) week.

39

AA, I have a theory that we get attached to people not because of anything they say or do but because of what WE say and do, because of the secrets we reveal to them. When we become vulnerable to other people, we give them a certain type of power or leverage over us, and--this sounds cynical as I type it out now--that could be what pair-bonding is all about: keeping people close when they have leverage over us. You say you're a top and it sounds like you're a popular and experienced top--you don't have trouble finding partners, you probably feel comfortable and at ease with what to do with your partners when you find them. So the way you have sex isn't making you very vulnerable, and maybe that's why you don't feel romantic attachment to people you sleep with. Do you have any kinks you haven't explored yet, something that would make you feel inexperienced, something you're shy to reveal to someone else? Do you have any good secrets to give away? I think if you explore connections where you feel more off-balance and less in control, you might form more romantic attachments, IF, as Dan says, that is in fact what you want to do.


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