I Need Help With a Basic Grooming Task. I’m Surprised By What It’s Doing to Me.

How to Do It Photo illustration by Slate. Photo Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, I suffer from pretty severe depression and am somewhat recently out of a psychiatric facility. I’m not allowed to touch blades, so my partner shaves me. I find this highly erotic, and for no reason I can place. They seem to treat it solemnly, and I don’t want to turn my suffering into something sexual, but also, I kind of do. How do I talk to them about this? —Sexy Shaving (he/him) Dear Sexy Shaving, I would talk to my therapist if I were in your shoes before pursuing this. It strikes me as a healthy way to convert something dark into something positive, and even pleasurable, but someone who knows your situation and has been treating you will have a better handle on whether or not playing in this area is good for you. It may be that you’re safer enjoying this at the current remove. But if you are cleared or confident that this is not something that will affect your recovery, you can tell your partner that you think it’s hot while they’re doing it. Or maybe you just use it as the spark for a sex session that immediately follows; no conversation needed. You can also bring it up when it’s not happening: “I’m surprising myself by really enjoying it when you shave me.” Before you talk, think about what you’d like to come of this. Do you want to incorporate shaving into your actual sex? Do you want your partner to approach it differently, with your erotic charge in mind? Or do you merely want to give them a heads up? Shaving is a pretty common kink, and you may want to direct your partner to some further reading on it or do some yourself. As with most kinks, there isn’t a ton of data out there, but here’s an example of an Ask Me Anything on Reddit from someone with a head-shaving fetish. Sometimes all it takes to ignite a kink is exposure, and that may be what happened here. There’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of—hopefully your partner agrees. —Rich More Advice From Slate I’m a mid-20s trans man who’s never had partnered sex for various reasons (autism, gender dysphoria, long-distance relationships, etc.) and so this has always been more a quirk than a problem. However, as I feel more comfortable in my body, and as my long-distance relationship is very possibly no longer long distance in the near future, it seems like it is best to ask about it before it becomes a problem… Advice Sex