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The Top 5 Breakup Cliches
While every breakup is a cliché to some extent (did you really think you were the first person in the history of relationships to be dumped for a RealDoll?), there are certain phrases a dumper can use that have been uttered so many times in so many breakups that they now convey about as much emotion as noting, “Terrible weather we’re having for this time of year, eh?” The following top five clichéd dumping lines are typically preceded by the all-time cliché “We need to talk”:
- “I love you but I’m not in love with you.” Literal translation: I no longer find you attractive—if I ever did—and the thought of sleeping with you now repulses me. Please don’t cry.
- “It’s not you, it’s me.” Literal translation: You want to be in this relationship and I don’t.
- “I’m not ready for a relationship right now.” Literal translation: I’m not ready for a relationship with YOU. This is known as the fortune cookie rule.) You know how you’re always supposed to add “… in bed” onto the end of the fortune that came in the cookie with your lo mein? Well, with breakup excuses, try adding “… with you” to see if the dumper’s excuse/explanation makes more sense. For example, “It’s not you, it’s me … with you.” “I’m too depressed… with you.” If that just gives you the blues instead of giving you clarity, you could always try adding on “… in bed” instead, just to make yourself feel better. “It’s just not working for me … in bed.” “You’re great, I’m an idiot … in bed.” “I think we should just be friends … in bed”
- “You want more than I’m prepared to give.” Literal translation: You want more than I’m prepared to give to YOU. (Ditto on the Fortune Cookie Test.)
- “I think we’re just meant to be great friends.” Literal translation: I’d like to keep sleeping with you if that’s okay with you.
Dear Em & Lo: Can I Date My Best Friend's Brother?
Dear Em & Lo,
There is a man who likes me, and he’s the type of man who every woman would want to have. He’s funny, kind, charming, and such a gentleman. The problem is, he’s my best friend’s older brother. He told his family that he’s had feelings for me for some time, but never acted on them because I am his sister’s best friend. His family, including his sister (i.e. my best friend), said it was okay and gave us their blessing; they say we should go for it ’cause they think we will make a good match. I would love to date him, and get to know him more — we do have a lot in common and he would be a great catch.
BUT, I really don’t want to run the risk of ruining my friendship with his sister — we’ve been best friends for over ten years now. His family is like my second family, we are very close — and I don’t want anything ruining that either. What if we did date, broke up and things became awkward or we had hard feelings about the breakup?
I also have my plate full with a new job and going to school. He understands, says he will wait, and maybe on our days off of work, we can see each other. I am 24 years old and he’s 32, and we’ve been in our share of relationships. When I found out he liked me, I was happy, but thinking about it for a while now, I’m not so sure. What would you do about this?
— All in the Family
Wise Guys: Why Didn’t He Call When He Said He Would?
Advice from three of our guy friends. This week they answer the following: Why didn’t he call when he said he would?
Straight Married Guy (Matt): There’s a simple answer to this one: it doesn’t matter. Most women I know get very worked up over this, and it never helps anything. It could be one of ten thousand possible reasons, and there is no chance that sitting and discussing it with your friends ad infinitum or stressing about it is going to help anything. It might just be some reason that has nothing to do with you (family problem, work problem, some other unrelated problem), or hey, maybe he likes you and he scared off the last woman he liked, so he’s forcing himself to pull back a little — or maybe your worst fear is true, and he isn’t actually into you. You won’t figure any of this out by sitting there and worrying about it or analyzing every tidbit of your last conversation or email exchange looking for clues, so what’s the point? My advice is to do everything possible not to obsess over the guy’s delay in calling. Distract yourself with whatever you can, even a date or flirtation with someone else if that’s what it takes. And if he never calls back, fuck him. At least you can feel good about not having wasted all that time sitting by your phone.
Straight Single Guy (Colin): Let’s be optimistic for a moment. Maybe he was debating how long he should wait to call so that he wouldn’t seem desperate. But now he’s waited too long and feels silly calling so long after the fact. Okay now let’s be realistic. Most likely this guy fell into the trap we all do sometimes, saying what we think we should say instead of what we actually think. Maybe the sparks weren’t there and he didn’t have the heart to tell you. Try to get in touch with him if you can. But if he’s still flakey, give him a quick kick to the curb and move on.
Books: Unfriendly Fire
Nathaniel Frank & his book “Unfriendly Fire” on The Daily Show
Our pal Nathaniel Frank — who was smooth as butta on The Daily Show last night — is the foremost expert in the country on the toad-lickin’ crazy “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. His new book, Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, will make you mad as hell (or even madder than you were before) that a ban like this can still exist in 2009. As Jon Stewart put it, “Turns out they might be able to help.” The book is the result of decades of research and hundreds of interviews with government officials, service members, policymakers, etc. As Dr. Lawrence J. Korb, Ronald Reagan’s former Assistant Secretary of Defense, puts it: “Empirical evidence and systematic analysis rarely have an impact on such emotional topics as gays in the military. But here is a book from a leading scholar that cuts through the ignorance, the denial and the prejudice to explain how we got stuck with a policy that was doomed to fail. Our military and our nation owe Frank a debt of gratitude.” In other words, this book should be able to convince even your homophobic Uncle Bert that the gay ban is a terrible idea. By the way, if you buy the book from OUTWrite Books, they’ll send a copy to Congress on your behalf for half-price — their goal is to get the book to all 524 members of Congress. For more information and to check out Nathaniel’s book tour schedule, visit UnfriendlyFire.org.
Your Call: Should She Share Her Fantasies?
We feel just awful that we can’t answer every single advice question we get, but we figure that any answer is better than no answer at all. Which is why, once a week, we’ll let you guys decide how to advise a reader. Make your call by filling out the poll after the jump:
Dear Em & Lo,
I’ve got some naughty fantasies, the likes of which sometimes even freak me out a little: you know, crazy stuff I think about to help get me off, but stuff I’d never do in real life. I’m torn between telling my husband and just keeping them to myself. If I tell him, sharing something like that could bring us closer and spice up our sex life. But it could also make him think I’m a weirdo and/or he could poke fun and/or I could be forever mortified. Keeping them to myself means I get something truly my own, for my me-time. I just sometimes feel like I’m not being totally myself with him by not opening up. What do you think?
— Of Two Dirty Minds
Dream Interpretation: I Got Hot and Heavy with Lindsay Lohan
Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex. Each week, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells one lucky reader what their dirty dream means. This week, a straight woman asks Lauri:
I dreamed that I was in a hostel (perhaps because I’ve just returned from backpacking in Europe) and I bumped into Lindsay Lohan. Somehow I managed to convince Lindsay to follow me to a room, and when we got there we began to make out. There were two single beds and a bunkbed in the room, and as I pinned Lindsay down and began to kiss my way down her body, a head popped up from under the blanket of the other single bed — it was a guy friend from a clique I’d quarreled with two years ago and haven’t spoken to since. He said he was waiting for an orgy, but since we preferred to keep it to just us (Lindsay and me) he said he’d just watch.
In the dream, Lindsay and I were quite buzzed on alcohol and we had quite wonderful foreplay, kissing, stroking and gentle humping against each other, when suddenly four people sat up from the top of the bunkbed! They were all male friends from that same group that I’d quarreled with, including an ex-boyfriend of mine whom I’m on amicable terms with. They had all been watching Lindsay and I go at it. By this time both of us felt distinctly uncomfortable and we decided to stop having sex because it was just strange doing it with so many people watching. We left the room and parted ways and nothing else came of that!
What does it mean? I have never had any sort of a crush on Lindsay Lohan! I am also straight and engaged to the love of my life. I have considered attractions to women before but concluded that I love men too much to ever have any sort of lasting relationship with them.
How to Battle Bedroom Boredom
Our former intern Kristen Rollins just interviewed us for Lemondrop.com‘s “Orgasm of the Week” feature. We talked about couples getting stuck in sexual ruts:
Kristen: Why does sex wane as a relationship progresses?
Em & Lo: We’re lazy. We like variety, and we start to take each other for granted.
Kristen: So how can I break these bad habits?
Em & Lo: Boring, same-every-day sex is the first step toward having no sex at all. And who wants that?! As far as laziness goes, it’s kind of like going to the gym: Once you’re in the habit of being more creative in bed, it’ll start to come more naturally, but if you let yourself get into a same-position-every-time rut, it’s kind of like skipping the gym for a month — it’s much harder to break out of the bad habit.
As for variety, there are so many things you can do to bring variety into your sex life without cheating on your partner — toys, role playing, getting a bit kinky, sharing fantasies, to name just a few.
And as far as taking each other for granted — why not keep a gratitude diary and each week, write down five things that you appreciate about your partner. And make sure that at least one of them is X-rated!
Kristen: For me, it seems like the longer I’m with my boyfriend, the more I’m turning into a horny teenage boy. What’s with that?
Blog Snog (03-06-09)
A weekly roundup of sex- and love-related posts from some of our favorite blogs:
- The Frisky asks six women with laid-off guys how the recession is affecting their love lives, now that they’re bringing home the bacon, and the answers are freakin’ depressing. Isn’t anyone out there having hot recession sex?
- On the Virginity Project, a stay-at-home dad tells the story of how his wife popped his backdoor cherry. See kids? There’s more than one kind of virginity.
- Feministing shows us what moral panic looks like on the covers of anti-hookup books.
- On YourTango, Jenny Block says that maybe more porn would make us healthier.
- But you know what’s even healthier than that? TiVo. We heart YourTango for letting us know that couples who DVR are happier than couples who don’t.
- Over on the Frisky, John DeVore makes the very excellent point that men can be a lot more respectful than women when talking about their sex lives. Guilty as charged here.
- Details jumps right on the hot “new monogamy” trend that we covered, oh, five years ago. New-ish monogamy, anyone?
- College Candy reminds us that hell hath no fury (nor creativity) like a woman scorned.
- On CherryTV, our pal Jamye Waxman waxes lyrical about lube.
- Bust reviews some gorgeous Victorian-themed lingerie (if ruffles are your thing). Perfect for a little 19th century role-playing!
- Glamour’s Smitten blog wants guys to sit up for blowjobs.
- Underwire tells us that the new Wonderwoman totally plays the sex card. So now every other sorority girl will want to dress as her for Halloween. Oh, wait…
- Alternet would like to know why the Religious Right is so obsessed with other people’s sex lives. Yeah, us too.
- Our buddy Tom Miller over at YourTango has some dating tips for Meghan McCain. Like, you know, don’t talk about politics on a first date.
Poll: What If Your Partner Cheated on You?
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Celebrities Do It Too (03-05-09)
- Jezebel calls bullshit — and perfectly rightly so! — on Vanity Fair not going the full monty with their “naked” male comedians spoof cover.
- The Frisky alerts us to Diddy’s ridiculous mid-Tantric sex Twittering. If you’re twittering while doing Tantra, then you’re not doing Tantra.
- The unscrupulous TMZ reports that a similarly unscrupulous t-shirt company is planning to use Tom Cruise’s image and the words “sex addict” on the a tee over his dead body (and we can’t help but giggle a little).
- Speaking of: WowWowWow excerpts Katie Holmes’s interview in the new Glamour — and we don’t believe a word of it.
- Apparently Rachel Maddow isn’t the only successful lesbian news anchor.
- Finally, we reach a new low by linking to this shirtless clip of the Jonas Bothers from their movie.
Books: Tasting Her
Last week we interviewed prolific sex writer Rachel Kramel Bussel about her book of fellatio erotica, Tasting Him. Today we chat about Tasting Her, a book of erotica about — you guessed it! — cunnilingus.
E&L: You say in the intro that you haven’t always been a big fan of cunnilingus. Are people shocked to hear that a sex writer isn’t that into it?
I hope not. I mean, I’m not into everything, and I don’t think anyone should “have” to like something just because other people do. And again, I don’t hate cunnilingus, it’s just not top on my list, but there are certain people who can get me into it.
Did editing this book make you appreciate it more?
It definitely did. I love that the stories really bring out the joy of performing cunnilingus, and they also get at some women’s uncertainty around the act. Don’t get me wrong — plenty women love and need to get head; that is their primary or a major way they get off, and they enjoy it every chance they can get. I don’t want to give the idea that most women have issues with receiving oral attention, but some do, and I like the way there’s an element of, “Wow, that can be amazing!” to these stories, such as Jen Cross’s “Queen of Sheeba.”
We have to ask… What’s your opinion on the old alphabet trick (i.e. using your tongue to spell out the alphabet on your partner’s clitoris?
Dear Em & Lo: I Miss My Army Husband. So Does My Libido.
Dear Em & Lo,
I am a new army wife having a very difficult time. The lack of intimacy and sex is much harder than I had thought it would be. My usual sex drive had gone from very high to pretty low over the last year, so I didn’t think the lack of sex would be my biggest problem. Boy was I wrong…. What should I do?
— Home Alone
Dear Home Alone,
We have to admit, we almost didn’t answer your question, because we’re not entirely sure we have a particularly helpful answer for you. But then we figured, the least we can do for our country, in a time of war, is to help out a horny army wife in need. (That sounded more like a cheesy porno title than we meant it to.)
Okay, first things first: You are masturbating, right? Because if you’re not, then our job is simple: You’ve got to start self-loving! Every time you feel the itch, scratch it! (Not literally, of course, unless that’s your thing.) Buy some decent lube, treat yourself a proper, grown-up sex toy (we can’t think of a better reason to splurge on a Jimmyjane!), and spend some quality time with a romance novel/graphic novel/erotica collection/episode of Gossip Girl/porno/whatever your favorite turn-on is in the absence of your hero husband.
But it’s probably going to take more than that, because you say that you’re missing not just sex, but also intimacy. So the trickier question is, how can you make masturbation feel more intimate?
Do It Tonight! Rip Your Shirt Off
photo by ellieSometimes it’s nice to take things slowly, to undress each other as an act of love, to undo every button with unrushed focus. Other times, you just want to rip off each other’s clothes, literally! But this is often impractical. People pay a lot of hard-earned money on their wardrobes, and as much as they’d like to be the kind of people who’ll sacrifice anything for passion, most don’t want to have their outfits ruined during every enthusiastic romp. So here’s an idea: go to a cheap second-hand store and buy yourself (and/or your partner) something you’re okay with only wearing once. You don’t even have to wear it outside the house. It just needs to be worn long enough to be torn off — either worn by you and torn by you (a la Demi Moore in Striptease) or worn by your partner and torn by you (a la the entire bodice-ripper genre). Button-downs are great for the visual effect of the buttons flying, but anything that tears easily will do (nothing worse than a stubborn t-shirt gagging you as you try — and fail — to tear it off like a sexy Incredible Hulk).
Confession: Student/R.A. Love, the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Our contributor Antonio Reis, a first year at Wesleyan, has a confession to make on behalf of his friend:
At 5:00 am, I wake up to the sound of fists pounding my dorm-room door. Groggily I get up and open it and am swiftly pushed back onto my bed by Sara as she bursts into the room. Now I’m wide-awake and afraid of what’s going on.
“Guess who I just fucked!?” exclaims Sara*.
“Michael Roth,” I guess, knowing that the campus is in love with Wesleyan University’s president…
Wise Guys: Do Men Appreciate a Helping Hand?
photo by permanently scatterbrained
Advice from four of our guy friends. This week they answer the following: I’ve heard that it’s not worth giving a guy a handjob because he can just do it better himself. Is that true?
Straight Married Guy (Jamie): Sadly, yes. But I think the problem is just one of misconception on the part of most women. In my opinion many women think, perhaps due to their lovers’ penchant for hard and fast intercourse, that a handjob needs to be a vigorous yank-a-thon. Ladies, please, you’re not trying to inflate a bicycle tire here! Despite popular opinion, the penis is a very sensitive organ. And, with improper handling, and without lubrication, it can chafe. The truth is, we’re just really good at it all by ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, we love it when you touch us and we appreciate the thought but, beyond a little foreplay grabby-grab, leave the heavy lifting to the professionals.
Straight Single Guy (Chris): The handjob is the single most underrated and underused sexual skill in the mix. I suppose it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy, that guys don’t like handjobs because they are generally bad, and girls don’t give them because guys don’t like them, so they never get any better at them. Well, I for one protest. A good, thorough, properly lubed, and sufficiently practiced handjob can be an amazing and deeply fulfilling sexual experience.
Let me be somewhat specific while trying not to be too crude. First of all, you have a range of options of position and technique, grip, pressure, lubricant, and speed. In my opinion, far more than with any other “technique.” You have significantly more control, drawing out the orgasm and the, how shall I put it, location of completion? All of the best blowjobs involve significant participation of the hands, so why would anyone believe the hands aren’t a good option on their own?
Please, please ignore the naysayers and their, “If I wanted a handjob, I’d give it to myself.” Practice, practice, practice, and cultivate this skill. Feel free to practice on me if you need to…
Just please consider the following:
1. Never, ever, ever do it dry, under any circumstances.
2. Consider aiming at yourself (anywhere, but some places are better than others) rather than at our belly buttons.
3. Try from behind and underneath. Trust me.
4. Control it. Bring it to the edge and back again. And again.
5. Don’t forget the surrounding area.
(more…)
