I’m Doing Things I Never Thought I Would During Sex With My Husband. All It Took Was One Thing.

How to Do It Jessica Stoya replies to readers’ comments and suggestions. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Slate. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Each month, How to Do It columnists Jessica Stoya and Rich Juzwiak ask readers for their thoughts on the letters they’ve received. In this edition, Jessica replies to readers’ comments and suggestions below. Hey How to Do It, I wrote in two years ago (time flies!) as Does This Count as Oral Fixation? published under the more apt title “I’ve Never Really Seen My Boyfriend Naked. We’ve Been Together for 6 Years.” I think about your response every so often, and I wanted to write in with a follow-up and a thank you. First, thank you! What you both do matters. Getting feedback from someone like Jessica—someone who thinks and cares deeply about sex and our relationships with sex—meaningfully helped. Your response opened me up to the idea that what I was seeing as a mortifying problem was (A) really a perfectly acceptable reflection of my current relationship with myself and with sex, and (B) totally surmountable with lots of time and love. Writing in made me feel like less of a freak, and showed me a path toward feeling more in control of my behavior in the bedroom. This brings me to… An arguably fulfilling update: We are now married (yay!), we have a very good sex life (cool!), and I still ain’t sucked that man’s dick (super fine!). I have, however, been moving my body, generally engaging, and opening my eyes a whole lot more. Most stunningly to me, I’ve recently noticed my previously mute-during-sex self talking during the act. After eight years, I have to say I did not see that coming! I finally feel like an active participant. Still, I see all of that as a huge accomplishment largely because of the letter I wrote to you all. Until I read your reply, I hadn’t considered how silly it was to be laser-focused on the lack of blowjobs when I hadn’t even really seen my longtime boyfriend’s dick! Jessica’s encouragement to start small and wherever I saw fit—a lick here, a glance there—helped me to realize that the best way to approach my dick-sucking-discomfort was to widen my idea of what counted as a step in the direction of a future blowjob, or even just good sex. Now I get to be proud of myself instead of being frustrated and disappointed for no good reason. So one last time: THANK YOU! —Future Blowjob Queen Future you may be a blowjob queen (in your own time, as you wish, just like everything you’ve accomplished so far), but current you is already queen of her domain—you’re in charge of your body, the framing you use to consider sex, and showing up in your marital bedroom as an embodied and, yes, active participant. Congratulations on that, and on your marriage. Thanks for writing back to let us know how it worked out. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Hey How to Do It, For It Certainly Looks Complicated: If they want the safety of a solid sex swing on a budget, there are a number of affordable and sturdy hammock canvas camping chairs that will do the job just fine. My husband and I (and several other couples we know) have successfully used them for this purpose. —A Gay Guy’s Perspective I’m still concerned about the safety rating of any attachments to a wall, ceiling, or door jamb, and the sturdiness of any freestanding bases. But hey, we’re all adults who can be expected to read directions and use common sense, right? Hey How to Do It, I wrote in a while back, and your advice included getting a vibrator to be more present with my spouse during sex. I just wanted to let you know your words encouraged me (at the age of 40, mumble mumble) to buy a vibrator, and honestly it’s been life-changing. I’d never been able to masturbate and always relied on men for my orgasms. I think I would have been much chiller in my 20s and 30s if I’d just had a vibrator back then. So I want to say thank you for the advice, and also encourage anyone on the fence to TRY ONE. —Thank You! Bravo! I’m happy you’re enjoying yourself. Hey How to Do It, Re I Don’t Bite I Swear: I’m a lady in my 40s, still single unfortunately, and have had some unsuccessful friends with benefits situations because I caught feelings. I have a strategy idea for her. If she needs to do laundry that badly, I would start with the laundry!If there’s a guy she thinks is cute (or at least tolerable), don’t immediately go for the FWB sex proposition. Ask the cute guy for an assist with the laundry first! Spend some time legitimately doing laundry with the dude’s help, and get to know him (if she doesn’t already) in the process. After a period of that, see if there is room for flirtation leading out of those interactions. In her gratefulness for the laundry help, she can offer to “thank him,” and perhaps initiate something sexual that way. I think with this strategy, she is at least being honest about what she is trying to get out of these interactions. Which sounds like part of the discomfort for her: She’s trying to kill two birds with one stone, but they are very mismatched tasks. One involves some amount of feeling and intimacy; the other is literally just a chore. —Make the Laundry Sexy The laundry was such a specific detail, and I suspect you’re onto something here. More Advice From Slate My wife and I (both mid-30s, married four months, but together for six years) are, generally, excellent and open communicators, though some topics are, admittedly, harder to be fully open about. We are good, for instance, at communicating about and during our regular, relatively vanilla sexual encounters. But one area where we have acknowledged we could be better communicators is in expressing our less vanilla sexual fantasies… Advice Sex