So let me start with saying I only started listening to your show in January of this year. Love the show and being on the road a lot for work, I have listened to about 75 of your podcasts.

First is political, I had a rough time last year volunteering to get Clinton elected after changing my registration from Republican to Democrat. I just wished I would have listened to Episode 500 before today. Your explanation of Green/Libertarian/etc. only running for president would have been a huge help in conversations I had last year. And taking over the grassroots campaign in my area, I love hearing I'm not the only frustrated—albeit new—Democrat. Though I live in a county where 75% of the votes went to that pussy-grabbing, Putin-sucking orange shitbag.

Second is follow up from the election. My wife, the self-described flaming liberal, women's rights activist, and every other leftist label you can give, had and is understandably still having a very difficult time. The eletion—all of last year—was a highly emotional time for us. We got married, we hosted her brother's wedding (who in turn blamed us and my mother-in-law for ruining it), there was a legal problem with a family member, and then the election and inauguration. You can imagine. I pushed her and she finally agreed to see a psychologist.

As newlyweds, our sex life diminished because her brother and his fiancé (at the time) were living with us for several months between our wedding and theirs. We both work full time and there's continuing emotional trauma due to election and family drama. I do as much as I can short of tying her up (which I would like to do) and fucking her until neither of us can walk. But when I raise the issue she turns me down, says we'll do it later, or has a meltdown which makes me feel awful for even wanting sex. I feel terrible pushing the issue but sex once a week (max) for over a year has me humping the couch. What do I do? Or am I being a dick?

Horny And Restless Dick

Welcome to the Democratic Party, HARD. We Democrats specialize in discord and infighting, as you may have already noticed, and we like to go high while they go win elections. Democratic elected officials need all the help/backbone they can get as we stumble through Trumpocalypse, so thanks for coming over to the blue side. We especially need people in deep red territory reasoning with Trumpsters. That's hard work—thanks for taking it on.

I'm sorry to hear the country's state of affairs is wrecking havoc on your wife's libido, HARD. While some of us went in for some good, old-fashioned "terror sex" after Trump's election, others have found it difficult to get in the mood—for Trump reasons and other reasons. As Matthew Haag recently wrote, "It’s Not Just You. Americans Are Having Less Sex."

"From the early 1990s into the early 2000s, Americans generally had sex from about 60 to 65 times a year, according to the study. But after 2002, Americans appeared to lose interest. While the decline has been nearly across the board, one group seems to be pulling everyone else down: married couples."

There's no clear culprit. Our devices might be taking up too much of our time. Or maybe it's Netflix. Or maybe, as could be in your wife's case, HARD, it's Trump exhaustion. Even as a leftie living in a so-called liberal bubble, I've found it almost impossible to escape the Trump. (I was nine time zones away for more than a month and even then I couldn't escape Trump, Bannon, Conway, Tantrum Spice, et al.) So as a "self-described flaming liberal, women's rights activist" living in a very red area, your wife must feel as if she's trapped in some sort of political zombie apocalypse flick. Add family drama to the mix and a farm, HARD, and it's not too hard understand why your wife isn't in the mood. I sympathize—and you do, too, which means I've caught you before resentment set in. So there's hope.

If you're always traveling and she's working a full-time job while also running the farm, bringing up sex—one more goddamn thing she has to do today—could induce some major eye rolls or the odd meltdown. Your job may not let you help your wife out 24/7, but maybe you have enough cash on hand to hire someone to take on some of the chores or meal prep. It doesn't directly address sex, I realize, but free time creates a vacuum that sex often fills. (Sex or Twitter, one of the other.) Also, if your wife has a therapist and you don't, it might be nice for you to see one, too. You'll be able to sort out your feelings on the regular, and your wife won't feel like she's the only one who needs the psychobabble.

And finally... and I'm sure you're not going to like this much... but it's my duty to inform you that your wife's disinterest in more than once-a-week sex may not be about Trump or brothers-in-law or farming or living around so many mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging assholes. It could just be libido. Once-a-week might be your wife's set point—the amount of sex she's up for and interested in—and she tosses out Trump or work or assholes or melts down strategically because she doesn't know how break it to you that once-a-week is as good as it's ever gonna get.

And finally-for-real-this-time, HARD, you don't say what kind of sex you're having once a week or what kind of sex you're trying to initiate the rest of the week. But if it's all PIV, all the time, HARD, then you need to take the advice I gave to WOES. Expand your definition of sex to include oral and mutual masturbation and low-stakes/minimal-effort assisted masturbation, HARD, and you may find your wife saying yes to sex more often.