Dear Dan:
I am desperately in need of your help. After eight years of marriage, it turns out that the blowjobs I give are "good but not great" and are now getting "boring."
My husband is unable to tell me anything specific that he wants me to do, just that I should do something different and "be creative." I've done pretty much everything I can think of over the years, fingers and hands included, so I have no idea where to go from here!
My husband is my first partner, so I have no past experience to draw from, and porn hardly seems the proper inspiration: visually exciting (for a guy) but no visible technique other than some rather extreme deep-throating, which I am incapable of, as I have an annoyingly sensitive gag reflex. Is there anything nonstandard but fun that you (or your fans) could suggest? I'm not exactly vanilla, so I'm willing to try pretty much anything at this point.
Thought I Was Doing It Well
Seeing as I think saying, "You're doing it wrong, do it better, but don't ask me how I want it done," is an asshole move, TIWDIW, I'm tempted to give asshole advice. Something along the lines of "take a swig of Tabasco sauce immediately before popping his dick in your mouth."
You seem like a nice person, TIWDIW: a good sex partner, GGG, open to constructive criticism. But "I grow weary of your blowjobs, they bore me — do something about it!" isn't constructive criticism. It's destructive criticism, the kind of feedback that can leave a sex partner feeling inadequate and self-conscious. To be constructively critical, your husband needs to come through with some suggestions and direction — something more helpful than "surprise me." (I bet he'd find that mouthful of Tabasco sauce surprising.)
Now, maybe your husband has no clue what he wants you to do. But that's still no excuse for "Your blowjobs bore me. Fix it! Creatively!" Your husband should've tossed out some suggestions, invited you to do the same, and you two should've given 'em all a whirl until you found a few new tricks that worked.
Minor unfairnesses slosh around relationships like water in the bottom of a canoe, of course, but "Be creative!" in this context isn't just unfair, it's paralyzing. Putting all the responsibility for busting out new tricks on the shoulders of the person whose blowjob/assfucking/bondage skills have been criticized rarely results in the criticized person busting out new and mind-blowing blowjob/assfucking/bondage moves. A destructively criticized sex partner is apt to shut down. So your husband isn't just guilty of unfair behavior here, TIWDIW, he's guilty of self-defeating behavior. Meaning, you may be able to give better head — we all have room for improvement — but this is not the way to go about getting better head from you.
Finally, TIWDIW, you mention that your husband was your first partner. Can I ask how many women he's been with? If the answer is "not many," then I would respectfully suggest to your husband that his frame of reference may not be large enough to craft a truly informed critique of your blowjob technique.
For all he knows, you give amazing head. But routine can make even the best blowjobs seem boring. So it may not be the how of your blowjobs that bore him, TIWDIW, but the when and the where. Give him the same old head in a new and exciting place (outside?) or in a new and exciting circumstance (his hands tied behind him?) and see if that doesn't make your blowjobs exciting again.
And while we're on the subject of oral sex: How are your husband's cunnilingus skills these days? If they're not all they could be, now's the time to tell him.
Dear Dan:
I'm a straight guy into intense bondage — extended scenes, sensory deprivation, whole-body casting — and the only people who have the gear and are willing to do it for free are gay guys. I "laid my kink cards on the table" at three months, per your instructions, and told my girlfriend that I sometimes get tied up by guys. She understood. It turns out that she's been reading your column since she was 15. She's not worried that I'm gay; she didn't ask me to stop. Just writing to say thanks.
Only Gay For Bondage
You're welcome, OGFB. Give my regards to the girlfriend.
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?
CONFIDENTIAL TO EVERYONE: Make porn! Details on HUMP!—the annual porn festival that I host in Seattle and Portland—are here: www.humpseattle.com. Films are limited to five minutes in length, they don't wind up on the internet, and you don't have to live in the Pacific Northwest to submit to HUMP!. And this year's grand prize is $5,000!
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
@fakedansavage on Twitter
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.
