I want to invite our neighbor to have sex with us. I have one problem.

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Dear How to Do It,

My wife and I are both in our 70s. We are still sexually active on a weekly basis. My wife enjoys sex and wants to include our neighbor who is a good friend. I have hinted this to him and know he is interested. But how do we go about extending the formal invite?

—You’re Invited

Dear You’re Invited,

This is so exciting. You’re already on the right path. You can extend the formal invite in multiple ways. Since you know he’s interested, you risk very little in coming right out and asking, “Do you want to join us in bed sometime?” If that seems too forward, you could invite him out to dinner with your wife, and talk about it, just the three of you. Or, you could just build on the interest that you know is there and invite him over to hang out, figuring whatever happens, happens. In a situation like this, I find it useful to begin talking about sex more generally. That can lube up a conversation, if you will, and it’s sometimes not a great leap from talking about sex in the abstract to talking about it more specifically with the people present.

The situation you describe suggests the deal, as it were, is already in place—you just have to seal it. Be friendly and welcoming and you should do just fine.

Dear How to Do It,

I am a gay man who is in his early 30s. Since my late teens, I have struggled to find sexual gratification. I’ve only had a legit orgasm three to four times. Many guys have issues with my body or (perceived lack of) endowment; I’ve wanted to top more often but nearly universally, I get deemed inadequate to meet the role. Also, some of the rejection is directly related to not being considered masculine enough to be taken seriously as a top. I’m sick of always being labeled the bottom, and my confidence as a top is low. How can I take charge of my sex life despite not meeting the desirability metrics that seem to exist?

—A Verse Guy Who Gets Stuck Bottoming

Dear Stuck Bottoming,

If you’re keeping things in the realm of the superficial—that is, the gay meat market via hook-up apps, sex parties, bathhouses, etc.—you will likely need to make superficial adjustments. This means, at minimum, advertising yourself as a top (it’s a generally accepted truism of gay life that there’s a shortage of tops) and perhaps starting to put muscle on your body to look more like the status quo image of one. You could take advantage of no-loads-refused gang bangs to get in some practice.

What you should be asking yourself, though, is: “Do I actually want to do this stuff?” You can play the game, but the game is limited by its own rules. I think it would be better to find other versatile partners with whom you can build connections—people who aren’t merely looking at you for what you represent (a hole destroyer) or what you can give them (some dick with which you will destroy their holes). I’m talking about partners who accept the fullness of your humanity and want to help you explore. It’s not easy to build these connections. It can take time. It might mean putting work into a friend with benefits arrangement or two—being upfront about wanting more than just a single encounter, staying in touch, making time to see them, and stating your desire to top.

Aside from surgery, there isn’t much you can do about your size, but you can at least carry yourself like a hung guy does. Don’t let past comments about your endowment affect your behavior. Wield that dick like it’s a 9-incher. Confidence can go a long way. I know you specifically said you are lacking it, but it’s a very fake-it-till-you-make-it sensibility. When people respond well to your masquerade, it can become genuine confidence, just like that.

You mentioned your lack of orgasms. Surely you are aware that you can masturbate too? If it’s an issue beyond not getting the chance to top—say you’re masturbating regularly to no orgasm—consider seeing a doctor. Anorgasmia can be the sign of a greater issue—something hormonal, pelvic floor dysfunction, and medical conditions like multiple sclerosis, among them. You should make sure everything is in working order before proceeding.

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Dear How to Do It,

I’m a 34-year-old woman, and I’ve been married to a wonderful guy for about eight years. I recently had surgery on my throat, and I’ve been on strict vocal rest for almost two months. We haven’t had sex, as even something that makes me grunt is supposed to be avoided, but that period of enforced silence is going to end in a few weeks.

The issue is that I’ve realized I rather enjoyed keeping things to just hugs and cuddles. I’ve always had a much lower sex drive than my husband, and I think I might be somewhere on the asexual spectrum since my preference for sex would be maybe two to three times a year. This isn’t just with him, I’ve never been raring to go with anyone. I still remember being teased in middle school because I wasn’t interested in anyone. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy sex when we have it, but a lot of that is seeing his happiness and making him lose that tight control he normally displays. Still, I know he’d never be happy if we kept to my ideal schedule. We have sex several times a month. I know it’s still less than he’d like, but it’s a workable compromise for both of us. Or was, anyway. A part of me isn’t looking forward to resuming a sex life with him. But I do love him dearly, and I definitely want to stay with him. He’d never be happy in a sexless marriage.

We did discuss opening the relationship years ago. But I quickly realized I was not keen on the idea, and thinking about it more now as I’m writing this, I still don’t like the thought of him with another woman. But I don’t see a way to make this work; no option involves me not having sex except on a blue moon, him having sex on the regular, but not with anyone else. And I want to stay with him, very badly. He’s kind, gentle, funny, and makes me feel good about myself. I don’t know how to make this work.

—Looking for Workable Options

Dear Looking for Workable Options,

What I’m reading is that there are things in place that make your sexual relationship with your husband a fundamental mismatch. But you want to forge ahead with your marriage nonetheless, so there will be sacrifices. You both have to decide what the least bad option is here. Cutting your husband off from sex entirely, or even almost entirely isn’t the answer. The chances of that blowing up are high, and you may find that one day a decision has been made for you (this could include him cheating, leaving, and/or voicing his frustration in ways that aren’t especially constructive). Right now, it seems you’re very much in your head about this—discussing it with your husband will bring in a crucial voice of influence: his. You don’t have to abide by his solutions for your predicament, but you should at least get his perspective here.

You’d previously reached a compromise, even if it wasn’t packaged as such: You gave a bit more than you were inclined to give sexually, and he got a bit less than he wanted. If you want to alter this by offering less opportunity for sex, what adjustment might you make to compensate? Is it just patting your husband and saying, “Too bad, so sad”? That’s probably not going to go over well. It might be worth working through (by yourself, with your husband, and/or with a counselor of some sort) the issues you would have with your husband being with another woman. You might never get to the point where you’re cool with that, and that’s OK—non-monogamy isn’t for everybody. But I think it’s important to determine whether your feelings are the product of a knee-jerk response to something interfering with the norms of our monogamous culture, or whether there’s something deeper there.

It’s also important to understand the depth of emotion. Would you merely dislike your husband sleeping with other people, or would it be devastating? It might be worth enduring some discomfort for your husband’s satisfaction, but if it’s distressing or distracting to any great degree, you shouldn’t force yourself. There are a lot of different ways to conduct a non-monogamous relationship—some couples, for example, only have sex with other people together, while others only do it separately. In an attempt to mitigate anxiety/stress, you’d have multiple tools to experiment with (that’s what she said…about non-monogamy). If the principle of your husband sleeping with other people is so vexing here, try to operate beyond principle and focus on the practical. That would further situate you in the realm of workable options.

You may very well be asexual, and in that case, efforts to “improve” your relationship to sex would likely not be worth the time. But you might want to check out Emily Nagoski’s Come Together (it’s been a few weeks since I mentioned that book in this column so here’s an obligatory reference to it). In it, Nagoski advocates a pleasure-focused approach that pays little mind to spontaneous desire. That is, not worrying so much about being struck by horniness so that you have no choice but to drop everything and get off, and instead being intentional and allowing yourself to have sex and, in the event that your responsive desire kicks in, enjoy it. It might be useful to your overall sexual philosophy to read Nagoski in-depth on this. If you can enjoy sex, it’s about focusing on that. But if what you’re really relishing in is your husband’s happiness and getting to see him lose control, well, why not try to continue to find ways to enjoy that?

—Rich

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