Four Men* and a Chest

by A Dude

(Ed. note: questions that have nothing to do with sex and/or relationships are always encouraged, too.)

My boyfriend sometimes doesn’t have an orgasm during sex, especially if we’re doing it late at night (when he’s tired) or early in the morning (he says morning sex is not his thing). We’ll be going at it for, say, 10 minutes, and then … he’ll say he’s done and doesn’t need to finish. This happens two or three times a month. He says he’s enjoying the sex, he just sometimes doesn’t feel like he needs to come. He also says he doesn’t feel frustrated by not finishing. He was a virgin before we dated, he has never masturbated, and he has never looked at porn. Suspect claims, I know, but this kid has like zero libido and strangely 19th-century sensibilities. After some unscientific experiments, we’ve determined that he needs about six hours between sex.

I’ve never heard or met a guy who doesn’t finish during sex on a somewhat regular basis or a guy who’s generally disinterested in sex. There are asexual people, but how normal is not finishing? Are there a lot of guys out there with low sex drives/needs and I just haven’t met them? I don’t care either way — he’s a great guy and I really like him, I’m just curious about how common someone like this is?

First of all, we shan’t be laboring under the misapprehension that 19th-century folk limited themselves to vanilla procreative sex, all glory to Lord Byron, angel blowjobs and peace be upon him. Conversely, neither does your boy seem too much of an aberration in our 21st-century Pornopticon. Allowing that every conceivable type of libido exists or likely one day will, you can easily accept this state of affairs — which I suspect has more to do with his lack of experience or curiosity as to his own pleasure centers — so long as you’re not going unsatisfied yourself. You definitely hear about this dynamic with gender roles reversed: a girl who places no special emphasis on finishing and a guy who is a bit mystified by her ambivalence. As usual, you won’t make any progress on the matter without a big, awkward, invasive talk (and then, ideally, an afternoon knee-trembler). Enjoy!

Can we talk about boobs? Take mine, for example. No really, you can take them. They’re bags of skin pointing south, and they’re not big enough and/or I’m not old enough to make that justifiable! They’ve always been like that, and guys in high school used to make fun of me (li’l shitheads) until I figured out how to make ’em look good with clothes on (thank you, Victoria’s Secret!). They still don’t look good naked, though, and I just. Can’t. Get over it. I feel incredibly lucky otherwise — I’m in a great grad school, have amazing friends, finally know what I’m doing with my life — but I haven’t been with anybody for two years for a bunch of unrelated reasons, and now that I’m ready to start dating again, I’m increasingly unwilling to show anyone my boobs. I live in a small town; guys talk to each other; in my mind it’s high school all over again. (Isn’t grad school basically just like high school, with more potlucks?) But really, that’s only a tiny part of it — it’s more like, I’m raising my own standards now, I’m looking for somebody to spend the rest of my life with, and I frankly wouldn’t expect anyone to want to spend the rest of their life looking at these. *I* don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking at them!

Part of me WANTS to be able to say “fuck it, they’re for feeding my children some day, and isn’t beauty culturally determined, and shouldn’t I be able to show my daughters and sons how to love themselves for whoever they are?” But I’m seriously considering a breast lift (no implants — small’s fine). The only thing is, I want to be able to breastfeed my kids, and I’m really worried about interfering with milk supply. What do you think — is there any way I can get used to being more National Geographic than Playboy?

The breastfeeding question is one for a plastic surgeon, if you decide to go that route. But can you be happy with the chest you have? I bet so. As a guy I empathize with the fear of a disappointing reveal — when you get naked with a woman for the first time, you’re acutely aware of the fact that she has no idea what she’s getting in the gonads department. And in fact even the least body-conscious among us has some perceived imperfection they hate exposing to a partner. But you know what? Sex is a pretty vulnerable act, full stop. The whole point is there’s no filter, nothing but you, yourself, a hairless ape tangled up with another hairless ape. It’s all well and good to exaggerate one’s undesirability in order to forestall the risk, the apocalyptic intimacy of sex and love themselves. In surrendering to these moments of transparency, however, you’ll see how effectively such anxieties are silenced by a small investment of trust — in the right hairless ape, that is.

I’m in a real mess. My boyfriend and I have been together for four years, living together for approximately three, and a little over a year ago, we bought a house together. I genuinely thought that we were going to be together forever, and that after buying the house, we’d get married and start a family. Early on in our relationship, we settled into fairly traditional roles around the house — I clean and cook, he deals with yard stuff. If I asked for help, he would either get angry with me and tell me that I was asking the wrong way at the wrong time, or he would laugh me off and find a different (more acceptable to him) chore to do.

Sex was good in the beginning, but we fell into patterns and routines and started having sex less and less frequently. He’s a little selfish in bed and refused to discuss certain elements of reciprocity, if you get what I’m saying. Like, just took it off the table and wouldn’t talk about it. When I tried to talk about sex, he would simply shut down, and that type of behavior showed up in so many other aspects of our relationship. I eventually began to feel like a roommate, but again, when I tried to talk to him about, it went nowhere. I started to go days without any physical attention — hugs, kisses, hand-holding, anything. He’s never told me that I look nice or that he loves me without me saying it first.

I started a master’s degree this fall, and over the course of the semester, I met a really nice guy. He compliments me and is fun to talk to, and I feel like he actually pays attention when I talk — like he actually sees me. I didn’t go looking for this type of attention, but once I got it, it felt almost addictive. Long story short, I screwed up and kissed him. And then we slept together. My boyfriend was aware of what was going on — I told him the very first time this other guy talked to me, and I told my boyfriend that I was a little concerned by how much I liked the attention. (I’m aware that that doesn’t excuse my actions — I made choices; it’s not like I tripped and fell into bed with this guy.) Things have not progressed well between my boyfriend and me, and now I essentially have two choices: I can stay with him and try to work things out — but he won’t allow me to go back to finish my degree (I’d have to find a different program, I guess), or I can leave town (he wants me out by the end of the semester if I choose to do this) and live with my mom for a few months while I work and get back on my feet financially, hopefully getting to the point where I can come back and return to my same master’s program in the fall.

My boyfriend says that he now knows what I need and that he’s willing to try to work past the infidelity. I’m terrified of all this upheaval — I guess I’m showing my immaturity by not being able to handle the conflict I caused, and I don’t know what to do. I’m desperately trying to wrap up my semester, but my boyfriend wants immediate answers, and I feel like I just can’t get my shit together.

Leave him. Immediately. Do not for a second regret it. Should you have second thoughts, reread your own descriptions of him and your relationship above. This is destructive, abusive, nuclear horseshit and you know it. He knows it, too. Should you have third thoughts, ask yourself why you fell for this other man, what it is about him you’d lacked these last few years, what parts of you he ignited. Even if you can’t be with him, do you want to lose that light again? Should you have fourth thoughts, try to imagine a future where you’ve gotten “past the infidelity.” Is it even faintly plausible? The situation was equally rotten before, and he wants to work on things because he realizes how close the cheating puts you to the truth: it’s over, and it’s his fault. If you submit to this mock-reunion, he will have more control over you than before, will use the affair against you, will utterly poison your life. Don’t let that happen. Leave him.

Dude, what percentage of your close friends’ penis size do you know? I am curious about this, thank you.

Uh, like 0%. Most guys discuss this to death in junior high and then precipitously lose interest as they get to know the female anatomy better. In fact I’m more likely to know the penis size of a casual acquaintance, or even an enemy, than how much pipe a close friend is laying down: like the mythically baby-dicked dude on the baseball team at college whom the coach punished via pantsing at practice. And then whoever has an appalling fearsome unit, you sometimes hear about that, but usually secondhand, from someone they’ve slept with. By age 15 you’re well aware that it just won’t do to broach the topic, because the first person to announce their own impressive dimensions is thought to be packing approximately a tenth of that; meanwhile, those guys who endlessly discuss their shortcomings in self-deprecating tones (mediocre comedians, as a rule), well, one supposes they’re honest, but not in a way any human has yet found appealing.

Previously: Mixed Signals, Mirrors, and Two Accidental May-Decembers.

A Dude is one of several rotating dudes who know everything. Do you have any questions for A Dude? (300 word max, please.)

*The Dude, LW1’s boyfriend, LW3’s boyfriend, and LW3’s grad-school friend.

Photo by Stanislav Komogorov, via Shutterstock