How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
My husband and I had a very rare work-free, kids-at-daycare day home together today. We had some of the most connected and amazing sex this morning that we have had since our youngest was born almost 10 months ago. This afternoon, though, we were going for round two, and we were getting into it and I wanted to slow things down a bit so I was teasing him and not letting him enter me. We were playfully doing this and sort of teasing each other, and I put my knees around his hips to keep him from entering me, and he said, “You think you can stop me from getting in?” as a joke, but it was like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over me. He would never, ever do anything without my consent, and I know that, but the comment, while said jokingly, took my mind to a very dark place (I have a generalized anxiety disorder). I stopped him and told him I needed a minute, and we laid side by side and I told him that I didn’t like what he said and it made me uncomfortable. We laid there not talking or touching for a few minutes and I asked him if he wanted to talk about this, and he said not yet. I told him I knew he would never do anything without my permission, it was just the comment itself that took me out of the moment and I didn’t like. He said I am entitled to feel however I feel but that I made him feel like a rapist and that he was still processing. I feel terrible as I would never want him to think I feel that way about him, but I also think it’s important for us both to be able to speak up about things in and out of the bedroom. How do we recover from this? —Should I Have Just Not Said Anything?
Dear Should I Have Just Not Said Anything?,
Give it some time. It’s fresh. Let him process. People often have a hard time when the perception of their words doesn’t align with their intentions. It can be humbling in the most basic sense of the word to know that you did harm (or something close to it) by accident. My interpretation of this experience is that you were both playing around and he went a little too far. That’s something that happens when you play around! It’s completely human to misjudge, and it’s completely human to react to that error. Perhaps you could discuss it with him using a detached approach along these lines—these things happen! It doesn’t make him a bad person or anything close to a rapist. It just makes him someone who said something that triggered you. A boundary that previously wasn’t visible now is. It’s great that you said something. Now he knows where not to go.
Dear How to Do It,
I am a married woman of three years. My husband and I have a great relationship and he spoils me like crazy. I really love him but there is one problem: He has erectile dysfunction and we have tried everything and nothing works (literally). We have tried prescription pills and over-the-counter even gas station pills and nothing happens. I have an extremely high sex drive and it is driving me crazy. What should I do?? —Sexless Marriage
Dear Sexless Marriage,
If your husband hasn’t been examined by a doctor (including getting bloodwork done), you should encourage him to do so. Erectile dysfunction can be caused by serious health conditions like diabetes and heart disease. It’s worth knowing whether there’s something at the root of this issue. This is driving you crazy, but how does your husband feel about it? Is he frustrated? Does he feel like his dick is betraying his sex drive? Or is he less worried about sex? Understanding where his head is at will be crucial to your progress. If he doesn’t want to have sex in the first place, that’s a much more complicated issue, in many ways beyond what you’re capable of willing a resolution for. That he’s tried meds implies at least some degree of desire—whether he wants to have sex, wants to want to have sex, wants to please you, or something else is unclear from your letter. However, PDE5 inhibitors are vasodilators, not libido boosters. They work on his dick not his mind, so if his head isn’t in it, you’re not going to see much movement.
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