In & Out

Q: My boyfriend and I have been together for several years. We are both still quite young, yet I sometimes have to beg for sex. If I don’t say anything we often go a week or two between sessions. I don’t really think that the issue is fidelity, but I can’t figure out what it is. How can a man in his twenties not want to have sex as often as his girlfriend? I’m starting to get discouraged. We used to have sex quite often. Should I be looking further into his reasons of “too stressed after work” or “just not in the mood?” We do spend quality time together, we read together, cuddle often and do more than just the mundane tasks of living together, but I just don’t know what else to do to increase our sex. I know he always reads your column first just like I do, so maybe it will give him some insight to read what you think about our problem…and to understand how very frustrated I am. Thanks!

A: You want him to understand your frustration so you carefully consider your choices: (1) sit down together when you know you won’t be interrupted and share your feelings, (2) play the Neil Diamond/Barbra Streisand “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” duet repeatedly until he cracks or (3) ask a sex columnist to publish your dilemma so that he will read it and get the hint. I would have selected choice 1, but thanks to readers like you who opt for choice 3, I’m able to keep my job and afford cute shoes. As such, I have nothing but love for you. I also have enormous empathy, having struggled to learn good communication skills myself. Plus, it may be that you are communicating beautifully but he isn’t hearing you, thus making your sex-columnist plea a sensible wake-up call. First, ditch the “men should want sex all the time” assumptions. It’s not true. Many men, like many women, go through phases (or lifetimes) when they want sex only sporadically. It happens. Second, sex commonly decreases in frequency among long-term couples. In part, it’s sad and in part, it lets the world keep spinning. Imagine if we stayed in the initial throes of passion forever. We would be utterly unproductive people who neglect our housecleaning, children, friends and work in favor of becoming hermits inside our bedrooms who live for nothing but touching, licking, kissing and thrusting. I don’t know why he wants sex less often. It could be because he’s cheating, but it may also be because he is stressed, tired, simply not in the mood, depressed, experiencing medication side effects or, quite honestly, sick of being pressured to have sex. If you ask often, he may feel pressured to perform, which can be a total desire and erection downer. Consider letting him know that you are very interested in being sexual together, but that it’s been difficult to keep initiating and that you’d like him to initiate the next time, whether that’s an hour, day, week or month (yes, I said month) from now. You might even let him know that you’d like to explore ways of enhancing your sexuality with him, and ask if he’d be open to reading For Each Other: Sharing Sexual Intimacy (Signet, $7.99) together, as long as you commit to stop pressuring him and he commits to putting in more effort. It’s a tricky but common problem and there is definitely reason to hope.

Q: I am a guy with a fetish for tickling women’s feet. What is the best way to find women who enjoy this kind of activity? I have seen a dominatrix for this before, but it is just too expensive to keep doing. Do you know of any clubs?

A: The only club-oriented foot play I’m familiar with is at the men-only foot parties held on the third Saturday of every month at Touché (6412 N Clark St, 773-465-7400). Foot parties that involve women are rare. There were occasional mixed-gender footparties a few years back, but where, oh where, have they gone? If anyone knows, e-mail me—as all I came across were pricey escorts. Like it or not, more men than women cop to fetishes, and women know a good supply-and-demand scheme when they see it—meaning that even women who dig foot play often realize they can turn a profit. However, if you ask a woman nicely—especially in a long-term relationship where you’ve developed trust—she may let you do it, particularly if you offer to trade a nonsexual foot or back massage on another occasion. Make sure to establish the rules up front—in other words, don’t masturbate onto her ticklish feet and pass it off as massage lotion unless she digs it. Comprende?

Q: Why is 69 a popular position? I find it incredibly awkward and not at all attractive. Am I missing something?

A: Perhaps 69 persists because people like to think they’re having crazy, gymnastlike sex when really one person gets to lie lazily on her back and the other is simply facing the other way around. True, some like the sensations of simultaneous oral sex, but you can’t ignore the difficulty of having a man on top thrusting his penis into his partner’s mouth, or the fact that his scrotum may drop into his partner’s eyes. And if things really get hot for one person, he or she may accidentally clamp down on the other one’s bits. Forget awkward and meet painful. And yet, like the rest of sex, there are some amazing, fun, interesting feelings and visual angles to 69, which I guess is truly why it persists. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But if you think you haven’t given it enough credit, jump in the sack and try it again. You might like it.