Boring Sex Routines, Coworker Jealousy, and “Le Baby Rat”

by A Lady

Do women flirt with people they’re not actually interested in? Or maybe the question is more like, How should men know when you’re flirting with them for a purpose?

Yep. But doesn’t everyone? In fact, I think men in particular are skilled at not only flirting but fucking and dating and sometimes even marrying people they’re not actually interested in (see: The Real Housewives). Now the question is what’s “the purpose” you’re speaking of? Is “the purpose” to give you a blow job? Then you’ll know after you blatantly hit on her by saying something like “wanna go to the bathroom together?” in a jokey way and whether she keeps flirting. If she gets weirded out or starts talking to someone else, there will be no BJ for you this eve. If “the purpose” is to become your girlfriend later who you might fall in love with, have fun and flirt because flirting is just plain fun and makes everyone feel good and eventually (not within the first hour but before a month passes) ask her on a proper date. She may be a Yes Woman and go on a date with you even if she still isn’t actually interested, but Yes Women are good for other “purposes.” I’m sorry there is no litmus test for genuine-and-what-for flirting other than you stating your purpose and seeing where she stands.

PS: Think back, though, through all the relationships you’ve had: Did you really have to worry that much at the beginning whether the flirting was going to lead to something? My bet is it felt great and then it lead to other great feelings. Real, unambiguous flirting is just around the corner.

My question is not specifically about sex or relationships, but it’s definitely related so I hope that’s OK: with the prevalence of shaved pubic hair in porn these days, I got to wondering just how common/mainstream this is among the non-porn-employed ladies. If the internet is to be believed, a large percentage of women shave it bare, but there are a lot of practical reasons why this probably isn’t so.

I’m not in a position to do a lot of, uh, “research” on this subject myself, having been married for 12 years, and while it would probably be highly enlightening and also fairly entertaining for me to go around my office and ask the various females whether or not they shave their bits, and if so do they just trim it or shave completely bare (there are at least a couple that I’ve definitely wondered about), this would be bad for me in lots of other ways, not to mention many kinds of inappropriate. Among ladies who do shave bare down there, what’s the rationale? Because I reached puberty in the 70s, aka the Golden Age of Bush, so I don’t quite get the bare thing. And there’s that whole creepy infantilization-of-sex-object thing about a woman with a bare pudenda, you know? I can certainly appreciate some trimming, to give it some definition and make the vulva more visible, but whatever the supposed effect of bareness is supposed to be, it’s lost on me.

Luckily for you, Seka and friends are still highly YouPorn-able. Also, my ex called the fully shaved look “Le Baby Rat,” and I think that’s funny. Anyway, you know those few women in your office who you’ve definitely wondered about? We all want to be those women. (What is is about those ones!? Please tell us.) When what’s “hot” according to every magazine is to get a Brazillian and all the beautiful people in Hollywood keep getting their Baby Rats photographed getting out of limos, it’s really tough to feel confident rocking a full bush look, you know? But I do think that the majority of us just go for a lil trim, not the full on porno look or The Boomin’ System.

I read somewhere once that our sexual preferences, down to body hairdos, are greatly shaped by our first exposure to sexual imagery that turned us on. So, for younger guys that’s Jenna Jameson, and what started as a trend in the anal sex film niche of the early ’90s became almost a requirement for a whole generation of sexually active women seeking to bed someone their same age.

I’ve gotten my share of waxes and they are THE WORST and soooo painful it makes you cry not from the pain but from your boyfriend not realizing how much pain you’re going through for his weird pre-pubescent fantasy fulfillment, so I just won’t do it anymore. Once I had a boyfriend who wasn’t into that and I went in to just get a leg wax and the waxer asked if I was sure I didn’t want to get a Brazillian and I said, “No, he’s not really into that.” And she said in a serious Russian accent, “You are very lucky. He is a real grown man.” She was wrong about him but right about the ‘do and its implications. The end.

Is it boring if almost every time we have sex I eat you out? Does it make it predictable and less enjoyable? Blowjobs don’t really get old, but does me going down on you do? Sometimes it’s not easy to make sure we both come from just sex, so I figured this is a pretty good way to warm-up or finish what we started so we both get our cookie. So, keep it up, or maybe not so much?

Well you can never have too much of a good thing, so hopefully you’re good at it. That said, it is way hotter and more fulfilling and exciting for us if you can figure out the other five-ish ways to get us off aside from penis-in-vagina or tongue-on-clit. (And we need to figure them out too if we haven’t yet!) You could try good old fashioned fingerbangs, anal with a vibrator on her clit, jerking off ON her clit, rimjobs, etc etc etc. Some people, ahem, can even get off simply by having their nipples licked! Ask her if there’s anything she’s been thinking of when you’re not around and if she’d like you to try it. It sounds like you’re bored, so you should get curious again and remember that sex is the main thing that makes your relationship different from all the other relationships in tour life, so it’s really worth exploring. Also, not everyone has to cum every time. And not everyone has to make the other person cum; I’m sure she could sexily handle it on her own if she really needs to finish. All over your ____ ; )

A friend of a friend recently moved to my town and has become part of my social circle. I like her, which I’m pretty sure she knows, and I think she feels the same way, but I’m not sure. More specifically, we’re a circle made up mostly of dudes, and she’s equally friendly and outgoing with all of us. I’d like to ask her out, but I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable or like we’re all just trying to date her. Thoughts?

You are all trying to date her, and she probably already feels as uncomfortable about it as she is going to. While you’re writing this question, at least one of the other dudes is thinking about when to pounce too, so my advice is to ask her out before someone else does. I hope you’re over your fear of rejection and have an ego that can sustain a friendship with her in case she says “no, thank you.” She sounds great. Go for it! You literally have nothing to lose; she just got there.

I’ve developed a really good friend at work who happens to be a woman. We’re a similar age, both married, each have a daughter of almost exactly the same age. We both grew up in rural, close families, and have somewhat recently lost a close loved one; and we also happen to have similar tastes in a lot of things, have the same job (though she’s permanent and I’m freelance), similar sense of humor, social views, blah, blah, blah, blah — we have a lot of things in common. People at work sometimes joke that we’re “the same person.” We talk at work, have lunch together like once a week, e-mail each other often from work addresses when I’m in that office and every couple of weeks or so from private addresses if I’m not working in that office. But no texting, no IM, no phone calls. And nothing secret or that I’m not telling my wife.

I have what I feel like is a genuinely deep bond with this work person, and we’ve become friends much more quickly and thoroughly than I (as a somewhat shy and occasionally near-misanthropic introvert) normally would. There is nothing sexual about this friendship for me and I don’t think there is on her end either, but like I say we’ve become pretty tight, I’m a boy, she’s a girl, and, maybe you could see this coming by now … this is making my wife jealous. I’m an honestly happily married man. I love my wife, our home together, our child, our sex life. I won’t sugar coat things, no marriage is a cakewalk, but I’m happy and have no plans of changing anything ever. But I find myself increasingly reticent to even mention this person to my wife because of the undertone of tension it brings. And talking it through and reassurances aren’t helping at this point. My wife semi-sarcastically calls her my “backup wife,” and her name has more than once come up as a non-sequitor during arguments. I have considered not accepting any more work from this client and/or just trying to cut off the friendship, but the former is not a financial possibility, and the latter is not something I ultimately want to or feel like I should have to do. So, can guys and gals really be friends, and what’s my best plan here?

Yes, men and women can be great friends BUT! your wife needs to be her friend too. Have you tried to make that happen? If this other woman is just like you, you’re “the same person,” then your wife will absolutely love her. They should be homie homies, like in a go-to-dinner-just-the-two-of-them way. Like a they-write-emails-from-their-private-email-addresses kind of friendship. You must make that your new project, and I suggest starting with a double dinner date if your friend has a partner and if not then a group date with other coworkers. And then encourage them to have alone time. If for some reason that isn’t possible, then:

You need to dump your friend. Sorry. But I also think you know that and that’s why you’re struggling with it; you understand it’s definitely going to be painful and quite a loss. However, to side with your wife for a moment — and without validating her immediate fears, which seem irrational and not fair, but this is the “forsaking all others” part — my guess is she understands your very deep bond with this woman and knows, as we all do, that those feelings are the gateway to other potentially more threatening ones. Or even just a gateway to there being someone besides your wife who hears your good news first, who gets to enjoy all your inside jokes, who hears, God forbid please tell me you are NOT doing this, but who hears about your marriage woes? It can be a short jump from there to wanting to fuck this person you say you don’t want to fuck right now, and that goes for men and women in all friendships and it’s right to be hyper-vigilant about it. I say if they can’t bond, suck it up, cut back on the friend, don’t talk to your wife about her, maybe keep it at a birthdays-and-holidays level friendship if you possibly can, even though you’ll miss her and it’s gonna suck. But it’ll be worth it to ease the tension in your primary relationship, and you’ll find more new friends now that you’ve gotten some recent good practice.

OK ladies, here’s a good multi-faceted one. I’m a 32-year old semi-bisexual woman (and I say semi because all of my serious relationships have been with men, basically I’ve only ‘fooled around’ with women but also still get hot for women at times)…dating a 24-year-old tranny male, i.e. s/he’s more of a lady than me most of the time, and I find this being utterly beautiful … but I also have to say that knowing what’s under that skirt factors in, because simply put, I can’t deny that I love cock. (Just so you know, from our amazingly open discussions so far, he’s not planning on getting rid of his either, which is reassuring for me.)

In the natural course of our growing intimacy, it’s become clear that he really wants to be fucked in the ass just as often as he wants my pussy on his cock, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed pushing my own role boundaries and doing exactly that with my first strap-on, gradually learning to Dominate more as well (despite the fact that I’ve been accused of being a very good submissive — and my take on that is that I like both roles — this could be a potential complication because he’s not really inclined to dominate at all, and sometimes I feel like i’m doing ‘all the work,’ but that’s not really the issue I’m asking about).

About half an hour after I thought to myself ‘sometime he’s going to want a real cock in there’ he brought it up, in what I consider to be an awesomely mature manner, I think it’s great that he feels comfortable enough with me to be totally honest about this. I also realize age really factors in here, thinking about where I was at his age (and god I really hate saying that but it’s true) in terms of wanting to experiment, especially since he’s just ‘coming out’ with being transgender AND admitting & exploring how great it apparently feels to get fucked in the ass (I’m the first person who’s ever done it : ) — and in loving, think he totally deserves to be able to experiment & explore all that.

I feel way more threatened by the idea of bringing another girl into the bedroom (unless maybe it’s a girl that I particularly want…?) than I do by the idea of bringing another guy in, but aside from the rule that I have to be there, I don’t know what kind of boundaries to establish, or how I myself might want to participate. I have to admit to fantasies of having two cocks at once…. and this certainly could be an opportunity to explore my own fantasies too (but what if that same guy putting his cock in my ass too would make him uncomfortable? (and would that be hypocritical?) I’m guessing it’s not necessarily going to be a one-time thing, either. I feel somewhat confident in him telling me that he’s still MY bitch, and what I say goes, so really this is a matter of determining what I’m comfortable with, I’m just wary having already seen some polyamorous situations turn out horribly heartbreaking. I already know communication is the most important thing here, and I do feel like we really have that going for us. It’s just hard for me to anticipate my own feelings in this situation since I’ve never been in it before. Sorry I couldn’t really be any more concise. Any pointers?

Well, heck where was this guy when I wanted a tranny boyfriend? Not kidding. Anyway, here is my best possible advice if you can just take it and run with it: keeping in mind that he’s 24 and, like you said, probably not in “settle down” mode and definitely just beginning to explore his sexuality (I’m surprised your strap-on was his first), if you can be generous with him about all that, I think you should just go for it. Honestly, and I hate to say it, but the chances of this thing working out in the long run, just based on age and not gender or orientation, aren’t great, you know? And you made no mention of being in love. So I think while it’s fun and you’re happy and getting to know a lot more about YOU and he is where he is in his development whether we like it or not, I say you should both fuck your brains out and other peoples brains out at the same time if it’s what you both want. All of those fantasies sound like a lot of fun, and fun is one of the things 24-year-olds are particularly well suited for, relationship-wise. And remember, trying new things is the best way to know if you don’t like them so cut yourself some slack and if it’s not fun, you can say so and stop and move on to whatever challenge is next in your relationship. Safety first!

Previously: Who Should Pay for Dates, Human Fur, and Sex Etiquette.

A Lady is one of several rotating ladies who know everything. Do you have any questions for A Lady?