It’s a decade’s worth of last-week-of-the-year concerns!
1999
Q: Is it true that a small quantity of alcohol is increasing the sexual pleasure of the couple?
A It may be increasing the pleasure, but it may also be affecting the performance or making the sleep.
2000
Q: Felching, in fact, is the act of expelling flatus in another’s mouth. Surely you’ve already been notified by one of your other seven readers.
A: The word you actually want may be “eproctolagnia,” and it may not, but it certainly isn’t “felching.” We’ll ignore your last crack, which is unworthy even of you.
2001
Q: Male G-spot?
A: Words for female things and female people (including, of course, “female” itself) are traditionally back-formations of words for male things and male people. “Male G-spot” is an intrinsically ridiculous phrase, but it’s delightfully ass-backward. The proper term is “prostate gland,” but that doesn’t sound anywhere near as much fun.
2002
Q: Do I just tell my boyfriend I’ve been faking it?
A: There’s a sort of little half-lie that might work. (Oh, pleeaase people, don’t write and tell me that lying is always wrong. Nothing is always anything.) You could tell him that you thought you were coming all this time, and you guess you were, but this was some big breakthrough— you never thought it could feel like that!— and now you realize what you’d been missing, yada yada yada. This actually happens.
2003
Q: Should I try to share my boyfriend’s (he calls us best friends) hobbies: porn, strip clubs, and used panties?
A: I don’t think sharing his (formerly) secret life with him is the way to make him happy, not that I’ve dedicated my life to making your boyfriend happy or anything. I think he’s in the habit of pursuing a solitary sex life based on voyeurism and other people’s underwear, and that’s the way he likes it.
2004
Q: (Various opinions about the guy’s wife who blew an “alpha male” Chippendale in the parking lot)
A: Phrases like “alpha male,” with their shiny aura of scientific certainty, don’t mean nearly as much as people hope they do. Who is the alpha male? In the wolf pack, where the concept belongs, he’s probably easy enough to spot. (Not being one of those women who run with the wolves, I couldn’t tell you.) In human society, though? Is it the strong guy? The rich guy? The guy who is probably neither but looks good in a thong?
The writer’s wife didn’t blow the pretty-boy because he was the alpha Chippendale; she blew him because she was bored and had gotten drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
2005
Q: “While going down on me he suddenly asked me to shit on his face.”
A: If one wrote me (oh, they have, they have) wondering how to broach the subject with a would-be partner, I’d probably say, “Whatever you do, don’t do what that girl’s date did.”
2006
Q: “Polyamory works for those committed to the hard personal work needed make it work. Of course, the same could be said of all other forms of relationships.”
A: Of course a good relationship requires attention and occasional maintenance — what living creature does not? — but the constant harping on work, work, work makes me tired and suspicious. The tired part needs no explanation; the suspicious part, well, what is paying a therapist if not “working on it?” I may be lazy (OK, I am lazy) but I maintain that you can tell you have a good relationship when it pretty much runs itself. “Oh, we work on our relationship constantly!” does not make me think, “Oh, good for you guys!” It makes me think, “Oh, bro-ther.”
2007
Q: Lap-dancing, etiquette, and feminism.
A: If you’re going to be a sex worker, you deserve to be treated with respect and decency, and what you say goes as far as who’s allowed to touch where with what and so forth. But come on. Into each stripper’s life a little semen must fall. If that’s absolutely not going to work for you, dance behind glass or get your Realtor’s license or something.
2008
Q: New Year’s resolutions.
A: Most of the “ew, yuck” reactions to your supposedly kinkier sexualities come from lack of information and fear of the unknown. So much of kink and fetish turns out to be harmless and often endearingly nerdly on closer inspection. Look behind the flames-of-hell clipart on any S–M information site and you’ll find a lot of software professionals and librarians earnestly comparing notes on how not to hurt each other playing with whips and chains.
2009
And so to bed. Happy New Year.
