My Boyfriend Made a Devastating Confession About Our Relationship. It’s on Me to Fix This.

How to Do It https://compote.slate.com/images/d482fef1-d395-4b70-bfcb-8c79456ee725.gif Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we’re diving into the How to Do It archives to share classic letters with our readers. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear How to Do It, My boyfriend and I have been together almost four years now. Just recently, we had a conversation where he confessed that he “didn’t feel in love with me anymore.” I was absolutely devastated, but we talked some more and both said that we wanted to stay together because we do love each other. However, I feel I am the problem in this relationship. I am very inexperienced in the bedroom compared to him and that has caused us to have a very “vanilla” sex life. He says he is attracted to me but I feel my lack of “wild and sexy” has caused our relationship to lose the “lust factor,” which has put a huge strain on us. He travels for work so we only see each other every couple months for maybe a week at a time. Please help me figure out some way to be more open and wild in bed so that maybe I can boost our sex life. —Plain Vanilla Dear PV, I’d love some more information on whether there’s a difference between “in love with” and “loving” a person for your boyfriend, and I think that’s an important follow-up question from you: How did he get from not feeling in love with you to wanting to stay together because you love each other so quickly? Are they two separate feelings, or did his feelings abruptly change during the conversation? I’m concerned when you say you feel that you’re the problem in the relationship. I imagine there’s more than one problem. The first one that comes to mind is that you aren’t speaking openly about the sex you have, and that’s a mutual responsibility. As for exploring, you can go about this in a couple of different ways. You could get an idea of what your dude desires and then look for ways that those specifics might be arousing for you. You can also look around in a more general sense and see if anything strikes you sensually. I suggest the latter, and both can be done by consuming porn, be that text erotica, videos, or still photos. You can also explore inward. Spend time with your body—outside the traditional erogenous zones—trying different touches in different places, and get an idea of what kind of sensations you like at what points of arousal. Ask your partner how he prefers to be touched. Find the joy in making each other’s bodies respond. Even if vanilla turns out to be your heaven, it can still be boisterous —Jessica Stoya From: I Really Have to Tell My Boyfriend the Embarrassing Truth About Our Sex Life. (December 28th, 2021). 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. Dear How to Do It, I started seeing an ex-boyfriend after nearly 25 years of being apart. He moved to another state to finish college, started his career, and moved home after his father’s death. We are both 48. I’d always felt as if he “was the one who got away”, and I was shocked to hear he was moving back home. We’d seen each other off and on throughout the years when he came to visit his folks. The biggest issue we always had was unfortunately he has a smaller then average-sized penis, and in the past didn’t exactly do much to make up for it in bed. I never complained, but it wasn’t hard to see that obviously our romp in the hay wasn’t always satisfying for me. I tried faking my excitement/orgasm, but he’s a pretty smart guy and knew when I wasn’t being truthful. After moving back over 3 years ago, his entire persona in bed had completely changed, and only for the better. Rather then his usual five minutes of foreplay followed by pretty awkward sex, he’s become the master of all things involving his hands. He’s able to hit every single part of me that is capable of feeling pleasure, and when toys are incorporated, I’m lucky not to soak his bed. I feel comfortable w/him & trust him in every way possible. Now after he’s made me scream multiple times, I usually will end up blowing him. I’m not sure I’m quite up to his level anymore. I have definitely upped my game in that department since being in our 20s, and I’ll go to town for quite a while. But most of the time he’ll move my mouth away, and take over manually. He always says, “isn’t your jaw getting sore?” I then will usually dart my tongue over the head or will lick his frenulum while he’s stroking away. But I’m becoming worried that my oral skills truly suck … not in a good way! Or maybe possibly it’s because he’s not been in a relationship in years, and is used to taking matters into his own hands. I just worry because IMO if I have the choice between masturbating and having him work his magic on me, I’ll choose him every time. Why doesn’t he feel that way? —Not Feeling It Dear Feeling, The easiest way to find out the answer to your question—-the only way to really know, even—is to ask. You’ve got a long history together, you feel comfortable with him, and you trust him. You have so much set up in your favor. Have a conversation. Pick a time when both of you have your basic needs met—you’ve eaten, slept well enough—and have space in your schedules to let the conversation go on for as long as it needs to. Minimize distractions and look at each other if possible. Then ask. Figure out what you want to communicate and be as direct as possible. Maybe you want to practice what you’ll say first. Maybe that’s writing it down, typing it out, or rehearsing in front of the mirror. Let him know that you’re curious, and—if it turns out there’s some critique—that you’d like to learn how to more proficiently provide pleasure. Keep in mind that some men enjoy but don’t come from blowjobs, and this may have nothing to do with your technique. —J.S. From: I Told My Ex the Truth About Our Sex Life—and He’s Livid. (May 6th, 2021). Dear How to Do It, I love being intimate with my boyfriend. However, within a few hours of shaving his face he has very prickly stubble. Kissing him leaves me with red splotches and break outs. Unless he is freshly shaved, he leaves my labia with enough tiny cuts to keep me from being able to enjoy that area for up to three days. He takes hot showers before shaving, uses shaving cream and tries to get a close shave but none of it helps. It limits spontaneous kissing. We have to plan everything from making out to sex around his shower/shave session. What can I do to strengthen my skin against his stubble? Is there anything he can do to stay smoother longer? — Loving a Porcupine Dear L.P., Ah, beard burn: more persistent than herpes outbreaks and far less stigmatized. We’re a hell of a species. To add to Stoya’s recent good tips for overcoming this issue, I reached out to a dermatologist. Dr. Anthony Rossi, assistant attending dermatologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, provided a host of suggestions for your boyfriend, which I like because so often in our culture, women are expected to solve men’s problems. Rossi suggested experimenting with length. “When the stubble grows back after a really close shave it can be quite sharp and prickly,” he wrote in an email. “It may be better to let the hair grow and then just trim with a guarded buzzer or scissors. This way you are not creating fresh stubble each time you shave.” Additionally, he suggested conditioning with a beard oil, which will hydrate both the facial hair and skin below. (Note that washing the face before oiling will help prevent breakouts.) Other suggestions include combing the beard to soften it, should your boyfriend choose a length that can be combed. Weekly exfoliation and steaming will also help the beard and skin below. Also, you might try a beard balm over his facial-hair area. One with aloe vera and/or oil should help with lubrication. For your part, Rossi suggested protecting yourself with Vaseline. But be warned: “Dermatologists love plain old petrolatum because it moisturizes and protects the skin; however, the partner may not like that taste!,” he wrote. And as a final resort: “If all else fails consider laser hair removal!” Good luck! —Rich Juzwiak From: My Husband’s Weird Sex Rules Are Driving Me Crazy. (May 10th, 2021). More Sex Advice From Slate I’m a woman in her late 20s. I recently hooked up with a college friend when he was visiting my city. To me, this felt like the culmination of a long game of “haha…unless?” and was emotionally (though, frankly, not very physically) satisfying. Directly after the sex, we talked briefly and agreed that we wanted to remain in contact as friends. Then came the day after. 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 Dating and Relationships Sex