Savage Love

Dear Dan:

Healthy straight male here. The problem is twofold: My girlfriend doesn't like come in her mouth and she feels that doggy-style is objectifying to women. Therefore, we don't do either. She says she wants to get more comfortable and try these things. But they never seem to happen—and when I bring them up, it turns into a touchy discussion. These are #1 and #2, respectively, on my list of favorite things to do in the bedroom, and I'm not okay with not doing them indefinitely. The sex is otherwise great, but I do think there's a double standard at work here. She had an ex who refused to go down on her. When I said, "He needed to man up and take one for the team, even if he didn't like it," she readily agreed with me. So why can't she "take one for the team" and swallow my come? I would feel bad if she were doing something she wasn't comfortable with, but it disappoints me when she takes my dick out of her mouth and points it at my stomach when I start to come. I think she has a double standard.

Really Anxious Not Doing Yearnings

The comparison you're making between your girlfriend and her ex isn't really fair. Your girlfriend's ex-boyfriend refused to go down on her. Not only does your girlfriend go down on you, RANDY, she's getting you off. Her blowjobs may not wrap up the way you'd like—with her swallowing your come—but you are getting blowjobs.

Sorry, RANDY, but where you see a double standard on the girlfriend's part, I see only whining on yours. Swallowing is extra credit. It's not a course requirement. I say this as someone who gives and receives blowjobs: If someone sucks your dick until you come, you got your damn blowjob. What a blower does with the blowee's come after the blowjob is over—spit, swallow, spread it on toast—is the blower's call to make.

And your girlfriend may have a good reason for not swallowing your come, RANDY. Semen contains prostaglandins—"a group of lipid compounds that are derived enzymatically from fatty acids and have important functions in the animal body," says Wiki—and some people experience explosive diarrhea shortly after ingesting the prostaglandins in semen. It's possible that your girlfriend isn't swallowing because she doesn't want to have to run to the bathroom two minutes later and take a noisy shit while her new boyfriend listens in the next room.

Or, hey, maybe your girlfriend just doesn't like the way semen tastes. Or maybe she's had boyfriends in the past who "lost control" and shoved their dicks down her throat as they came. Or maybe swallowing turns her off for the same reason that doggy-style does, i.e., she sees it as objectifying and/or degrading. Of course, it's possible that your girlfriend is lying to you. People have been known to make vague and insincere promises about all the blowjobs, three-ways, and kinks they'll get into once they "feel more comfortable" with a new partner. Your girlfriend, like so many other girlfriends and boyfriends before her, may be trying to run out the clock. She may hope that by the time you realize she's never going to do your bedroom favorites, you'll be too emotionally invested in the relationship to dump her.

Dear Dan:

I'm a female in my mid-20s who loves to give head. The problem is, I think I'm giving head too soon and guys don't see me as relationship material. I've been in only one relationship that was longer than a casual hookup, and that particular ex was a she-comes-first/worship-the-pussy kinda guy. (I didn't get to touch his dick until we were about a month in!) Most of the straight girls I hang out with believe that a guy needs to earn getting his dick sucked. My gay friends don't see the problem. My straight guy friends chuckle and say "depends" when I ask if I'm blowing a guy too soon. I really enjoy sucking dick, so once I'm horny, it's so hard to resist the impulse. How soon is too soon? Do you think that I would actually benefit by stopping this pattern?

Blowing Losers Or What?

Generally, BLOW, I believe a person should do what she likes—and if you like giving head, give head. And if getting head scares a boy off, well, he was the wrong boy for you. (I'm having a hard time picturing a guy who wouldn't want to date a woman who enjoys giving head—are there many guys like that out there?) But there's a simple way to find out if the guys you're meeting make date/dump distinctions between girls who blow 'em right away and girls who make 'em wait: Stop sucking guys off on the first date and see if they stick around longer.

I've been with my boyfriend since I was 15. I'm 20 now. In all the time we've been together, I've never had an orgasm. For a long time, I wanted to get a vibrator, but my boyfriend hated that idea and never wanted me to get one because he says he already feels like crap that he can't get me off. Recently, I thought, "What the hell — I want to see what happens!" So I bought one on my own. The very first time I used it, I got off in two minutes. Now I feel stupid for not buying one sooner. My question is...How do I tell him? Should I tell him? He always wanted to be the first person to give me an orgasm, and as far as he knows, I still haven't had one.

Couldn't Wait Forever

Tell your boyfriend you bought a vibrator, CWF. If the boyfriend has a sad about your purchase — and your ability to climax (congrats!) — tell him that some women require the kind of intense, focused stimulation that only a vibrator can provide in order to get off, and, as it turns out, you're one of those women. And he can still be the first person to give you an orgasm: He can give you one with a vibrator in his hand. And if he acts like an insecure bitch about it, CWF, if he blows up or melts down, well...New vibrator, newly orgasmic—maybe it's time for a new boyfriend, too?

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Dear Dan:

I'm a gay man and a hunter with a gay boy who's a vegan. But he likes how I look in my camo, holding a rifle, so it works. Last fall, I went to Idaho and shot a black bear and a 13-point buck. A taxidermist mounted the buck's head, which hangs above my bed, and made the bear into a rug. Most people don't know this, but the head on a bearskin rug is entirely fake except for the fur. The skull, teeth, and tongue are plastic, and the eyes are glass. That bear's hardly a bear, if you catch me.

So we got the rug, and he liked it. Even wanted me to screw him spread-eagle on that rug — until he walked in while I was doing it with the bear. I rigged up the mouth with one of those Fleshlight things, pretty much as a joke, but my boy freaked out when he saw the bear giving me a blowjob of sorts. Called me sick and disgusting, and ever since then, he won't let me tie him up or beat him or anything. He says he's afraid I will kill him and then screw him. I keep telling him it was all just a game, but he won't believe it. What can I do?

Bear Grinned Anyway

What can you do? You mean besides send video of you and your bear in action to prove this isn't the most entertaining fake letter I've received since Michelle Obama invited me to dinner at Sarah Jessica Parker's apartment?

You can do this: You can draw a distinction between what was going on in that bear's mouth when your boyfriend walked in and what was going on in your head. When a man beats off, two things are kinda sorta happening simultaneously: what the man is doing with his dick and what the man is imagining he's doing with his dick. Guys who beat off using a clenched fist, for example, generally aren't clenched-fist fetishists; they're just horny and their fists are there and, say, Sarah Jessica Parker isn't. Fists provide necessary friction; imaginations provide sexy scenarios.

So your boyfriend walked in and saw you fucking the face of a dead bear. That's gonna look bad, BGA, even to a boyfriend who isn't vegan. So how do you fix it? By patiently explaining to your vegan boyfriend that while, yes, you were face-fucking a bear when he walked in on you, you weren't thinking about face-fucking a bear. Tell him you were thinking about him, and the bear's mouth was just a convenient place to wedge your vegan-boyfriend-substitute — i.e., your Fleshlight. Tell your boyfriend you don't entertain any murderous fantasies, tell him you only long to fuck living things, and tell him that Homo sapiens are the only animals you find attractive. Tell him all of that, even if not all of that is entirely true.

Dear Dan:

I'm a 17-year-old male, and I'm currently in a relationship with a girl who was sexually active before we got together. Me being a virgin, I think you can understand why I might be nervous when things get heated. I would like to engage in the act with her eventually, but I don't know if she wants a virgin fumbling around in bed with her. And it's not particularly manly to go to someone and basically say, "I'm not going to be good at this for a while." I feel she's ahead of me in experience. What's the best advice you could give me on the subject?

Nerves Entirely Wrecking Boy

If your girlfriend is close to you in age, NEWB, the odds that she's any good at sex are vanishingly slim, her prior sexual activity notwithstanding. Some people have a knack for sex, of course, but almost all teenagers are lousy at sex.

Now here's my advice: Chill the fuck out. Presumably, your girlfriend likes you and knows you're a virgin. Which means she knows you'll be a little nervous the first time you two have sex and that there's probably going to be some fumbling. But you wanna know a secret? Even sexually experienced adults — even adults who are really good at sex and have had tons of it — still get nervous, and there's no such thing as sex without some fumbling.

As for your concerns about seeming less than manly: You're bringin' the dick, NEWB, so you're the man. Your nerves won't render you dickless. If you're worried about displaying a manly confidence, well, you can still do that: Go into your first sexual experience confident that your girlfriend is into you and confident that she wants you, and be honestly and unapologetically who you are. Being yourself is far more manly than pretending to be someone or something you're not.

One last thing to do before you lose your virginity: Watch a weekend marathon of 16 and Pregnant on MTV. That show will inspire you to use condoms religiously and correctly, every single time, no matter what.

Dear Dan:

Following up on the letter about masturbating in the privacy of a public toilet stall: Guys are being banned from Multnomah County libraries in Portland, Oregon, for wanking in the supposed privacy of locked bathroom stalls. Facilities security officers peep through spaces between stall doors and write up reports that go into detail about "shiny liquids" spotted on offenders' hands, and those who are caught are excluded from the libraries for a year. I thought "sexual activity" required a partner and masturbation wasn't a crime if practiced in private — but tell that to the peeping uniformed officers working in the Central Library, aka "Portland's Crown Jewel." You can't go to a locked bathroom stall and rub one out, on pain of landing on the Excluded Patrons List as a masturbator. Victorian prudery lives.

Wanking In Private Environs

The letter writer who got caught wanking in a public toilet had taken pains to find an empty men's restroom on a deserted floor of an office building. He wanted to have his midday wank without disturbing or unnerving others. I don't think the same could be said for the men who are rubbing 'em out in the toilets of Portland's Central Library.

Look, I'm familiar with Portland's Central Library, WIPE; I wrote huge chunks of two of my books there. The toilets are crowded, and there's no way you can beat off in one without disturbing others. I don't have a problem with people rubbing 'em out — hello — but guys who get off in public toilets because they get off on public toilets are forcing other people to serve as props in their masturbatory fantasies. And that ain't cool.