My Boyfriend Is Hopping on a Particular “Sex Trend” for Men. Uh, This Isn’t Going to Work for Me.

How to Do It I want to support him, but it’s not going well. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Leks_Laputin/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, a 25-year-old woman, have been dating my boyfriend, “Alec,” a 26-year-old guy, for almost a year now. We have a great relationship, and I really love him, but… He’s quitting jerking off. That’s a dumb thing to have a problem with, right? Well, Alec and I dirty talk at least twice a week over the phone since we don’t live together yet. I’m a very high sex drive person, and I don’t really get off to porn, so listening to him talk like that is one of the only ways I can masturbate and actually orgasm. He told me that he’s quitting last night, but he will still engage in dirty talk with me. However, if he isn’t jerking off or horny at the very least as well, the mood for me takes a dive, and it stops being very sexy—it just becomes uncomfortable. Not to mention that if he isn’t also masturbating, he has a habit of laughing after every sentence. Yes, sexual things should be fun and all, but the laughter just makes me embarrassed and not in a kinky way. It’s good for him that he’s trying to stop, don’t get me wrong! I’m just worried that when we’re ready for actual sex, he’s not going to be as interested as I am. I also came out to him as genderfluid a few days ago, and I was also worried that he isn’t as interested in me sexually because of that. He loves me, but I need more! There’s just a lot going on, and I don’t know what to do. Help! —Not So Hot and Heavy 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. Jessica Stoya: Oh, the youth. First of all, you’re not just worried that when you’re ready for actual sex, he’s not going to be interested. You are worried about so many other things, and all of those things are also important. Realistically, if Alec is not masturbating at all and not having other sexual releases, he’s probably going to be more focused and invested when sex is on the plate. Rich Juzwiak: I would like to know what his motivation for quitting masturbating is. He could feel like, oh, I’m too reliant. I don’t want to get used to how my hand feels, or I’m not getting the erections that I want. Is this related to porn and masturbation? Then we’re moving into whether this is a NoFap thing, too. Because if my partner were into that, I would be a bit cautious, just because there’s so much bad science that goes into it. Isn’t NoFap kind of incel-adjacent, too? Jessica: When you talk to actual people who do NoFap, there is such a wide variety of reasons, including what you described: someone noticing they’re not having the responsiveness that they used to and realizing they need to give it a break. And in that case, that’s something that I advise to clients a lot, like a reset. Rich: Yeah, it can be very healthy. Jessica: A lot of people, and a whole lot of the rhetoric, are really modern-day incel, red pill, and, from my perspective, completely off the rails with layers of shame and antagonism toward the entire gender of women. So at a minimum, I’d be saying to the boyfriend, “I would really love to hear so much more. Yes, more about that and more about that and more about that.” Then you can get a sense of what’s going on and whether it is that kind of rhetoric. Or whether it’s a case of, “Oh, you’re taking a break so that then when we are together, you’re having the sensitivity and response that you want to have. Amazing.” Rich: Also, when the letter writer wrote this, he had just told her the night before. So let’s see how long he can actually go. Because I’ve been there, where I think I’m not going to jerk off for a period of time, and it can be very hard to meet that goal once you’re actually living that life. It’s one thing to think it. So she may be prematurely worrying. By the time this gets posted, he may already be back to masturbating with her on the phone and dirty talking, and the problem will be solved naturally. Jessica: Absolutely. Even if that is the case, though, the fact that our writer does not know why he was quitting jerking off, the fact that that was not either shared by Alec when he made the announcement or asked about by the writer, needs to be looked at. The laughter and why that was happening should be considered, too. Is it coming from shame? Is it coming from the awkwardness of trying to perform for a partner who is currently more interested in acting on horniness, or is more horny than we usually hear about when it’s a woman being asked to perform for a man? But regardless of the genders involved, you still want to be careful with that. So what’s happening there? If it’s the latter, then that whole situation needs to be addressed. The writer came out as gender-fluid, and it doesn’t necessarily seem that there was much of a conversation around that either, because all they said is that they’re worried. And so as fun as it might be, if by the time this is published, Alec has come back and been like, “Hey, let’s have our phone sex again,” and everything’s great and sexy, if you want to have a relationship you also have to prioritize the less sexy parts. Rich: I think all of this at least could be talked through by saying something like, “I support your decision, but this is a great way for me to get off. I have concerns, and at minimum, could you please just try to laugh a little bit less when we do this? You’re really helping me out here. You’re helping me get off. And so if you want to participate and do that, just try to keep the laughter at a minimum.” That’s not an unreasonable request. You can ask that of your partner, especially if they’re participating for your benefit. Jessica: That’s super true. And coming out of the sort of Spice Girls, girl power feminism, young men who were interested in having sex with women were told over and over and over that female pleasure is really important. A couple of weird counterproductive things came out of that. One is thinking: I must give you an orgasm, even if you’re telling me you don’t. I need to make this happen, to live up to the standards. And also this thing where men will put that pressure on themselves to perform the sexiness that the women and femmes that they’re dating want in a way that can be just as unfortunate and alienating, and even sometimes harmful to both the person and the connection in the relationship. So have the talk, but I would really encourage coming from a place of, “What’s the laughter about? Are you interested in continuing this activity with me? If so, we’ve got to find a way to reduce the laughter because it’s really undermining it” rather than a,“I need it this way” approach. Rich: Right. I would give him a little bit of grace for his own kind of journey, too. Part of what engages people at times isn’t just that the person, their partner, is doing the thing; it’s that they want to do the thing. This situation may be deficient in that, unfortunately, but try to focus less on his pleasure and more on yours. You have the opportunity to do so. It’s very rare in life that you get to be so self-invested completely mutually. So this is a little treat for you. Yeah, it would be ideal if you were kind of eye-to-eye the whole time. But instead you have the second-best thing, which is that he’s participating hopefully in a way that continues to excite you and get you off once you get over this laugh hump. Jessica: And if it’s not functioning with the phone sex, and you don’t really get off to porn, there are lots of other options out there that could fall within the boundaries of the relationship that work for the writer in ways that whatever they’re defining as porn doesn’t. More Advice From Slate I (38F) find myself in an absurd situation with my husband (36M) and I desperately need some perspective. We met in college and he insisted he was “not the marrying type.” So when we were tying the knot (including the standard promise of monogamy), I was very pleased with myself for taming the lady-killer. While our marriage is happy and the sex is great for me, I’ve always known he isn’t satisfied… Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Sex