photo via flickr

The wise and wonderful Figleaf had the following to say in response to our post, “Your Call: Should She and Her Boyf Go to An Orgy?”

I’m with M — assuming you can find some people who play that way then yeah, take it in stages.

And definitely make it clear to your partner that you’ll not only respect but back up his boundaries and that you expect him to do exactly the same for you.

Good reality check: If the orgy attendees are so amateur they don’t explain the house boundaries and ask about yours then you should politely excuse yourselves at the door and go back home. Because even if you didn’t get hurt someone else might, and you don’t really want to be there for that kind of shenanigans.

Another good guideline for declining: is there a beer keg? Is there an open bar? Is there other evidence that folks might get heavily under the influence? If so then go. Note: a glass of wine here and there is fine. Just be wary of heavy going. And if you or your partner are ordinarily partiers that’s fine too — later. But not at first, and really not till you know and trust the people who organize and attend the events.

Oh, finally, I mentioned at the top that you need to know and stand up for your partner’s boundaries as well as expecting him to know and stand up for yours. Part of this is because a reasonable number of women find they actually like the idea of an orgy once they get there and, um, relax their boundaries considerably. Meanwhile a reasonable number of men discover they’re not that comfortable, or not that comfortable that their partner is willing to go further than previously negotiated. Going in with the understanding that both partner’s boundaries are important is kind of a key. Save new ideas for next time.

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• The Threeway Issue
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photo via Flickr

It’s not often that a comment makes us laugh out loud, but this one did. There’s just something about a hater that can brighten the day. The best thing about it: we’d understand if this were in response to one of our more political, opinionated posts on, say, gender inequities or abortion rights, but 5 Easy Ways to Talk Dirtier Tonight is a simple advice column with some little tips and tricks for the tongue-tied to spice things up. Who knew it was such a touchy subject? Behold, “Sexual Being”‘s wallop:

This is the worst article I have ever read on any subject. Please don’t ever write anything ever again. You have contributed nothing to the sexually active community. The only people who would benefit from this article are five year olds. Please, please, PLEASE quit this job and go on a journey of self discovery. You are not a writer.

Oh, and by the way S.B., our seven books — including our latest AWARD-WINNING one — would beg to differ with your last point.

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Reader Hannah offered up the following very wise (and patient!) advice in response to our post “Your Call: How Do I Get Over All the Sex She’s Had Before Me?”

Sigh… A man wants a virgin who will be his whore.

I am going to try to avoid criticizing though, since I think this is a case where you legitimately don’t realize the misogyny underlying your feelings. Maybe your problem could easily be resolved if you could just get to the root of why you feel that way and see how deeply offensive and hateful it is to women.

The issue is, when you obsess too much about what your woman did in the past- how much, with whom, how often, and how ecstatically- you are treating her as a piece of your property. Her body is not yours though, and what she did with it before has nothing to do with you, plain and simple. And you can’t just pick and choose which parts of her you want to love, so it’s important to see how these experiences have shaped her and how they are a part of things that make her really amazing.

Her being a “slut” comes along with all sorts of positive things. Maybe she is a very empowered, intelligent person who knows what she wants. Maybe she is a very loving, sensuous person who enjoys intimacy and delights in pleasure. Maybe she’s super adventurous and curious, and she wants to see all that life has to offer. These qualities could all result in someone having a lot of sex in their past, but they are essentially GOOD qualities that you probably love about her.

It’s not right to reduce her simply to her number and then to attach a label to that. How do you get over that? Put the “slutty” part of her back together with that whole beautiful person that she is. If you talked to men who had been married 10 or 20 years, most of them would love to have your problem. I mean, a woman who loves sex and is great at it? And who will actually want to keep having it with you several years down the line? If you can’t stand that, then just let her go and find some virgin who is afraid of sex and has no idea how to orgasm. Or find someone who genuinely doesn’t like sex, and never wanted to have it with anyone, including you. Believe me, there are thousands of men (and women) who would love your woman exactly as she is.

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It’s not the length of the comment, but it’s content. This week, we loved
Nikki’s short and to-the-point comment on this week’s “Your Call”:  How Do I Get Over All the Sex She’s Had Before Me?

Ugh. “Slutty?” What exactly makes her slutty? Having had sex before you came around? Enjoying sex too much? If you have so little respect for her, why are you with her? I hope she has the good sense to figure out she deserves better than you.

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Reader M said the following in response to our post “Your Call: Is Getting Him on a Porn Diet Realistic?“

It sounds like the issue here is not about the porn, it’s about you feeling like a “porn substitute.” Part of this is something you need to work out on your own. This may be because of how your partner treats you sexually (if so, that’s a sign to DTMFA), but let’s assume that’s not what’s going on here.

There are several ways for you and your partner to work on this together. Just a “porn diet” I don’t think will work, because he will still watch porn and you will still feel bad about it, it might delay the problems you two are having but it won’t solve anything. These are some suggestions to try for a couple weeks and see if you feel more comfortable about porn.

• You should have a conversation with him now about what makes you feel bad when he watches porn. That way he can know that those are difficult points for you and help you feel more attractive/secure/whatever.
• I also recommend looking into feminist-created porn. It’s always a good thing to do (and may make the porn he’s watching a little more palatable for you)

1. If the problem is you worry he would rather watch porn than have sex with you:

• He can watch porn all he wants, but only if he asks you if you’re in the mood first. And when you talk about porn he should remind you that it’s a poor substitute for the awesome sex he has with you.
• This only works if you won’t then feel pressured or bad if you say no and then he watches porn.
• There will be times when sex is too much but he still wants to watch something sexy – you either have to be okay with him asking if you mind him watching (you can discuss: either solo or with you) on occasion or him watching and promising to cover his tracks really well.

2. If the problem is you don’t feel as sexy as the porn stars:

• He can watch porn but only with you. If you realize how sexy he finds you while he’s watching porn, you will not feel so threatened by it.
• If you pick this one, you should have a pre-discussed contingency plan if you get upset by the porn.

3. If you just don’t feel ready for #1 or 2:

• Try out reading your erotica together.

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We feel honored, lucky and humble that some very smart readers and writers choose EMandLO.com as their place to intelligently discuss and debate issues of sexuality and culture. Exhibit A: The comments section of last week’s Comment of the Week, which was a response to the post “Your Call – How Long Can a Virgin Make a Guy Wait?”, in which Eric provocatively railed against women putting arbitrary waiting periods on sex. We hoped it would spark further conversation and it did! All of the comments to Eric’s original comment are worth reading: they’re thoughtful and thought-provoking. Here’s one of them below, but again, it’s worth reading them all here because like we said, our commenters are AWESOME!

Claire Says: 

I also would like to respond to this: ‘If I meet a girl and she puts arbitrary time limits on sex that’s a form of “control.” It’s a BIG turn off. A signal that some time in the future sex may be withheld to get her way. That’s childish.’

It isn’t an arbitrary time limit to be dating someone and not want to have sex with that person right away or for even a long period of time. It’s not a matter of deciding, “Oh, it’s okay to have sex only after the third date.” It’s a matter of a woman actually wanting to have sex with the person she is seeing. It’s about feeling comfortable and trusting the other person. Yes, having sex with someone may help determine how sexually compatible you are, increase intimacy, and be fun, but many women and men don’t want to have sex with someone until there is a level of trust and understanding. Especially since as you are implying having sex with someone may determine how much you actually like them.

True, you can’t always know if someone will be a jerk in the future, but you can get to know someone well enough before having sex to know you feel safe with that person and have confidence that she or he is caring.

Also, saying no to sex does not mean a woman is trying to use sex to get what she wants. Maybe she just doesn’t want to have sex because she is upset with her partner and doesn’t want to be intimate in that way. People don’t always want to have sex.

Everyone should be able decide when they feel ready to have sex. Ultimately sex might not be as big of a deal as it seems when you haven’t had sex, but it still is important to listen to yourself. Just because other women are having sex doesn’t mean any woman has to say yes to men in order to be liked. If I were the 26 year old virgin I’d steer clear of anyone that put pressure on me to have sex or implied that I should have sex with him because he can get it from other women.

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• Dear Em & Lo: I’m a College Freshman Who’s Never Been Kissed
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photo via flickr

For the record, when we pick a “Comment of the Week,” it’s not necessarily an indication that we agree with the poster. We’re not that narrow-minded, we swear! Sometimes we pick comments that make an interesting point, or comments we think will start an interesting debate, or comments that present an argument in a new way. To wit, we don’t agree with everything that reader Eric  says below, in response to our post, “Your Call – How Long Can a Virgin Make a Guy Wait?” But we did find it interesting to hear from a guy who says that he finds it easier to concentrate on building a relationship once the sex thing is out of the way.

WOW! 26 and a virgin? Here’s some facts:

If you’re worried about being considered “loose” or a “slut,” I have only heard other WOMEN use these terms. A girl has a much greater chance of being in a relationship with me if we get the sex thing out of the way A.S.A.P. then we see if we really like each other instead of just waiting til “that night.”

Oh and for those you telling her to move on cause these guys aren’t worth it, she may not being having sex, but your fellow women are.

If I meet a girl and she puts arbitrary time limits on sex that’s a form of “control.” It’s a BIG turn off. A signal that some time in the future sex may be withheld to get her way. That’s childish.

You’re missing out on some really good relationships. The person you do lose it to might end up being a jerk anyway, there’s really no way to tell.

Live your life, be human, have sex — or don’t, and come back in a few years on another blog complaining about being a 30 year old virgin who can’t find “The right guy.”

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photo via Flickr

An interesting exchange about the call that never comes occurred in the comments section of the post “Wise Guys: Why Didn’t He Call When He Said He Would?” Johnny, we’ll take your kinder, gentler pickup techniques over more aggressive, mean-spirited “attack” approaches any day:

Phonecall Says: The problem is not them NOT calling, the problem is them saying they will call and NOT calling. Pretty simple. I hate when men do this, and they do this far too often. Fuck them. They have no respect and no balls.

Johnny Says: Years ago I had a brief and successful foray into the study of pickup. During that time I cracked the phone number code, and learned something that has vexed men since the telephone was invented: women will actually reject you by giving you a phone number.

I learned that any woman who talks to you for five minutes will give you her number. I also learned that this is no indication at all of her desire to meet with you. Just because she gave you her number, doesn’t mean she’ll ever pick up when you call, or return your calls, or accept an invitation. Yep. Women will give you their numbers just to get rid of you. They’ll almost never come out and say, “thanks but no thanks.” Confusing, huh?

By the time a guy has been through this, oh, thirty times, he starts doing the same thing as Phonecall: making negative, genital-based generalizations about the nature of feminity. What the fuck is with women? Have they no integrity, no honesty, no respect for the time or feelings of a genuine guy?

I, for one, was sick of thinking that way. I wanted to be one of the guys who had it easy with women. I attacked the problem empirically and analytically.

The first thing I did was learn the pattern. A phone number does not equal an indicator of interest. You should therefore look for signs of interest elsewhere. It’s in her body language, in her physical proximity, in the way she looks at you, in her voice. Bam. Success. Once I learned how to read when a woman was REALLY attracted, this problem cleared right up. I rarely got rejected anymore because I only spent energy on women who liked me back. No more phone flakes.

The second thing that happened was, I developed empathy for the female experience. Most women out there have dealt with major clingers. I’d even say that most women have dealt with a psycho or two – the kind of guy who becomes scary or insulting when rejected or otherwise butthurt. There’s a reason women take the path of least resistance when rejecting men. It’s self-preservation.

So, to bring this all full circle, back to Phonecall’s comment… the reason women HATE getting blown off is because they invented that trick. They’re all too aware of EXACTLY why a guy hasn’t called. And it hurts, naturally! Easier to lob insults at him – ball-less lout! not a real man! – than to admit to oneself, “shit, he doesn’t desire me, and he’s taking the easy way out, exactly as I’ve done repeatedly.”

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• How to Reject Someone Nicely
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Our long-time and wise-as-all-get-out reader Figleaf said the following in response to our post, “How (and Why) to Have Sex with the Lights On”:

I learned how erect penises are “supposed” to look from a very rough sketch in a “sex education” book I stumbled across.

My penis didn’t look like that. At all! At ALL!

I realized then and there that I was a deformed freak! Unlike the image, which stuck straight out like a spar on a sailboat my penis curved up. And up! Mine had veins. And the tube of the urethra wasn’t buried inside the penis, it ran along the underside.

I was so freaked out, for so long, that no woman could ever stand the horror that was my penis.

So freaked out that when my first partner asked if she could touch it, I broke down and confessed my shame. She was sorrowful as I, but said she loved me anyway and wanted to “try” touching it anyway.

I said okay. But only in the dark. And when the time came I was so anxious… terrified!… that I nearly cried.

She touched it, and didn’t run screaming from the room.

Neither of us had ever seen a real erection. Except mine.

It wasn’t till I became partners with a woman who’d had sex with other men that…

I was actually perfectly normal.

Just like your labia are perfectly normal.

I’ll go one step further: I’m a straight male so my penis just… doesn’t seem terribly attractive to me. Normal or not. Sounds like you’re a straight woman, right? And so it’s unlikely you’re really set up to appreciate your own vulva either.

Even if your partner didn’t love you, adore you, lust after you, and care madly and passionately about you, he’d still probably have a favorable bias towards your party-colored labia that… you may never share. And for this reason too you’re not the best person to judge whether you’re a “freak” or not. Any more than poor teenaged me was the best judge of my own parts.

Last point: As I (eventually) found out, it’s way better to get it over with and find out, than fearing to the point of tears for years on end. And as with me, you’re almost certainly going to find out that, as Em & Lo say above, you’re perfectly normal.

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This week we received a note that makes all our hard work (for so little money) totally worthwhile:

Hi Em and Lo,

I just wanted to let you guys know that I recently had the best sex of my life so far, and I believe it was almost entirely because I’ve been reading your advice and it convinced me to try something I’d always felt awkward about: COMMUNICATION!

Actually clearly voicing what felt great and what I wanted to happen felt a little weird but just made the whole situation so much more rewarding. No more vaguely mumbling things or staying quiet for me!

So thank you!

Get Personal Advice Publicly on EMandLO.comTry Our New
*PRIVATE* Advice Service!

MORE LIKE THIS FROM EMandLO.com:

• Comment of the Week: You Guys Are Trashy and Vulgar!
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