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How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
My wife “Kayla” and I have been married for three months, but I am harboring a terrible secret. One week before the wedding, I got smashed at my bachelor party and allowed her brother (who is bi) to give me a blow job. He was drunk as well, and afterward we agreed it had been a horrible mistake and we would take it to our graves. The guilt is beginning to eat away at me. Should I unburden myself to Kayla, or is ignorance bliss?
—Don’t Want to Blow Up My Marriage
Dear Don’t Want to Blow Up My Marriage,
You got so drunk that you engaged in a sexual act with your fiancée’s brother. Look at your relationship to alcohol first, in earnest and with a therapist, before you start considering whether to risk blowing up your marriage and your wife’s family of origin.
When you do have a better understanding of why you had sex with your fiancée’s brother at all, and what role alcohol use played in that incident, think through whether your desire to tell Kayla is more about an attempt to alleviate your own discomfort (which would be another act of selfishness that will certainly cause her some amount of suffering) or a necessary part of showing up honestly in your marriage and doing what’s needed to repair that relationship, in which case, assuming she doesn’t divorce you immediately, the pain caused by revealing this would likely be worth it in the end.
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Dear How to Do It,
I am a 23-year-old cis woman who has never been able to achieve orgasm with a partner. I’m perfectly capable of getting off on toys and with masturbation, but when it comes to the real thing, it doesn’t happen. This has been demoralizing for some of the guys I’ve been with, and I’ve even been ghosted more than a few times as a result. Can you suggest some solutions for being able to come with an actual guy?
—No Vibration, No Fun
Dear No Vibration,
You’ve figured out how to give yourself orgasms, which is already something. Know that women often require some kind of clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm, and enough of a baseline of basic trust and safety to feel comfortable relaxing. It’s not uncommon to need that clitoral stimulation from skilled oral sex or a vibrator rather than halfhearted fumbling.
Heterosexual men who respond to a very common set of women’s sexual needs by feeling demoralized and ghosting tend to have inaccurate beliefs about female sexual response, ideas about male sexual prowess that are deeply wrapped up with their ego, and significant difficulties with communication around these subjects. They also tend to have no idea what to do with a clitoris if they are able to find it, and sometimes experience strong feelings when their attention is drawn to the ways that their beliefs are at odds with reality. As in, rare worst-case scenarios can involve anger in response to hearing that something is uncomfortable or hurts. Mostly, though, negative reactions to feedback are the kind of sadness you describe and a missed opportunity to better understand both women’s bodies in general and the preferences of the person in front of them. This is incredibly unfortunate, and not your problem unless you want to make it so.
The way forward has two parts: refine your knowledge of what works for you and your ability to efficiently explain that to sexual partners, and be pickier about the partners you’re engaging with. Take a look at how you masturbate: What level of arousal are you at before you start touching your genitals? How do you masturbate? When do you start aiming for an orgasm, and what does the stimulation that produces those orgasms involve? Compare all of that to the partnered sex you’ve had. What’s different? What about partnered sex added pleasure you don’t get from masturbating? What was missing in partnered sex? That can help you understand and therefore articulate how you like to be touched and what might allow you to have an orgasm with a partner.
It’s unlikely that you’ll be completely accurate in your assessment, especially at first, but it’ll help you guide partners toward the general gist, and once you’re in that range, you’ll be learning what works well for you and what really doesn’t do it in partnered conditions. You can make educated guesses for now, you’ll find out a lot of things when you’re putting those guesses into practice, and then the rest of your sexually active life will contain surprises ranging from “something about my emotions, hormones, physical self, or the positions of the stars has changed and this is now different” through “this thing that did nothing for me is incredible with this one person, and that thing that is my long-term go-to isn’t interesting with them at all” to “WOW, I would never in my life have thought this existed but a partner did it and it is fantastic.”
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With partners, look for people who are curious, reasonably patient, and fairly secure in themselves. Do be realistic about the standard you’re holding partners (and yourself) to, but if a date neglects flirting and foreplay and goes directly to pumping away, and then struggles to hear that you want something different, I’d end the encounter immediately. If they’re asking what you like ahead of time, moving slowly through types of physical contact while observing nonverbal cues, or are able to comprehend when you state that you’re still learning how your body responds during partnered sex, these are good signs. If they respond with excitement when you tell them you’re in that self-discovery process, that’s a great sign.
You may find that as your own knowledge, communication skills, and choice of partners evolve, you’re able to orgasm with partners from penetration alone. It’s also quite common to need one good orgasm from clitoral stimulation to set yourself up for orgasms from penetration, or to always require clitoral stimulation for an orgasm. Some women need a very precise type of pressure, speed, and pattern of stimulation every single time, and others aren’t able to orgasm during penetration at all but find ways to involve their partners by allowing them to use the toys, cuddling up together while they get themselves off, or engaging in mutual masturbation which can be cuddled up or more of an exhibitionistic display for each other. There are so many ways, and you’ll find the ones that work for you.
—Jessica
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