How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
For most of our five-year relationship, my partner has considered not shaving her pubes. Besides finding it generally tedious, she has a common, non-STI-related skin condition that periodically flares up on different parts of her body (including her genital area), which shaving exacerbates. She continued shaving for most of our relationship due to struggles with her body image. After a recent flare-up, and me continuously reiterating my genuine support, she finally decided to stop shaving and grow out her pubes. I’m glad she’s prioritizing her comfort, and visually, this doesn’t bother me at all. I still think she’s as gorgeous and sexy as I ever have.
However, I recently ate her out post-flareup, with a fully grown bush…and I really didn’t enjoy the experience. I didn’t gag or otherwise let on my discomfort (as far as I know), and she still orgasmed. But having her hair in my mouth and up my nose was unpleasant, especially as it started getting wet. We had sex after and I came, but I felt out of it and not as aroused as I usually am when we’re intimate. I’m not sure how to approach this, considering how much I encouraged her to stop shaving in the first place. I don’t want to renege on my support, or worse, deal a blow to the amazing strides she’s made with her body image over the last several years. But while I’ve always loved eating her out and will continue doing so regardless, I’m worried it will continue to seem less appealing. What might be the best way to approach this conversation? Am I overreacting?
—Hairy Situation
Dear Hairy Situation,
You are not overreacting. Without saying a word to your partner, you can navigate this by parting the labia—and, crucially, the hairs—with one hand on each side. Be careful not to pull them apart too much. Think pressing into the body more than pressing outwards and to the sides. If you’re feeling like this is obvious in retrospect, please know that a dear friend of mine had to explain this maneuver to me after I choked—and gagged—on a beautiful woman’s pubes and complained to him about my lack of proficiency.
Additionally, trimming carefully with scissors is a middle ground between shaving and going full 70s. This will probably, as you fear, require a conversation. You mention that she’s sensitive about her body image, but you don’t give much detail, so I’ll trust that you can figure out what to avoid. I might, depending on her specific sore spots, say, “I love the way your bush looks, and how much better having hair is for your skin, but I’m not really sure about the feeling of it up my nose.” Or “I’m feeling insecure about how I’m eating your pussy now because I’m distracted by these new sensations. Are you open to trimming a bit?”
As a person sitting carefully on a wounded labia at this very moment, though, you’ll want to be incredibly careful with scissors or a buzzer. There’s just no perfect answer to pubic grooming.
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Dear How to Do It,
How does one express appreciation for a good dominant partner in a dominant/submissive relationship? I often feel like I’m receiving more than I’m giving with my dom. I’d like to make him feel appreciated too. I’ve had regular relationships, but this is my first serious dom.
—Better Bound
Dear Better Bound,
You can play this two ways. You can ask directly, something along the lines of “[Honorific], I would like to express my appreciation for you. I feel like I receive more than I give, and I would like to show you my adoration. How can I best give you the worship and respect you are due?” if your dynamic is higher protocol. Or “This little piggy wants to show you how much they love the way you love them. How would you prefer I proceed?” if you’re more of a rutting wild creature in this arrangement. They’re likely to let you know what you can do for them.
You can also figure it out for yourself. There’s a risk here. You might get it wrong, and—on top of the shame of failure and devastation of misfiring with any partner—receive a real punishment or even find yourself dismissed as their submissive. But if you succeed, oh, that moment is incredible for both the giver and receiver. Seeing them feel seen is so lovely, and feeling seen by a surprise from a lover is one of the most delicious experiences.
So, what do you know about your dom? What do they like? What gives them a feeling of relaxation, happiness, joy, or makes them laugh? Subtract the things they tell you to do for them, and then start getting creative.
You might present them with a gift. You might engage in an act of service. You might create an experience or adventure for them. You also might be picking up on the fact that I’m advising you the same way I’d advise someone asking about a lover without a dom/sub dynamic, or even a friend or loved one. Sometimes the dom/sub is a red herring. When you’re deciding between a direct request for information and creative risk, consider your own comfort, the established dynamics, and what you know of them as a person. You’ve got this.
Dear How to Do It,
My boyfriend and I are both college students who met on a dating app. We’ve been together for nearly four months now and dated for nearly six months before making it official. He makes me so happy and I can see us with a wonderful and loving future together, but there’s one thing that worries me: These days, he never really wants to have much intimacy at all.
We’ve both had packed and conflicting schedules for the past three months. In addition, we haven’t had penetrative sex yet because he hasn’t done it before (I have) and we both grew up in conservative religious families that didn’t tell us a lot of sex-positive things, so he has a lot of guilt associated with sex in general. We were going to try having penetrative sex, but I said no because I found out he hadn’t gotten tested before, and I wanted him to get tested before we progressed any further. To clarify, we have participated in other forms of sexual intimacy, and he’s very attentive and good in bed. It’s been more than three weeks since that conversation, and six weeks since we’ve done anything at all in bed, and I’m feeling so sexually frustrated and deprived.
We both know that we have different levels of libido and we’ve had so many painful conversations about it that I can’t bear to bring it up to him again, but I feel so terrible about it and I don’t know what to do. I’ve cried about it a number of times on my own, and when I’m around him, I’ve felt the need to cover my body because I don’t want him to see it. I used to pride myself on how comfortable I was with my sexuality and how good I was in bed, but I feel like that part of me is a muscle that’s atrophied and died, and it’s bringing me more grief than I thought it would. The worst part is that he doesn’t even know about any of this. He’s not even worried that we haven’t done anything for so long, and to my knowledge, he hasn’t arranged to be tested even though I offered to help him with the process. I don’t know what to do, and these days I feel like crying about it more often than not. How do we fix this? Is there any way to even fix it, or should we both accept that we aren’t a good fit for one another? I really don’t want to do this, but I am worried that it might come to it unless something changes.
—A Bad Fit?
Dear Bad Fit,
You’re young, you both grew up in sexually conservative households (I’m guessing fundamentalist-ish Christian?), and you’re reacting really strongly to your boyfriend’s apathy in this area when you know he has a lower libido than you do. As they say on the airplane, put your own mask on before helping others.
So what’s going on here? I’m wondering whether your pride in your sexual prowess is a reaction to your upbringing and a reflection of how hard-won that foundation of sexual confidence was. There is, however, a difference between embracing our sexuality and getting our desires met and making our identities about, well, fucking. Take it from me, with my 15-plus years of porn superstardom—you do not want to make your selfhood about how well you did during your last lay. That’s putting your self-worth in the hands of another person’s response to you. Which is shaky ground to stand on, and sets you up to be ripe for abuse.
How do you feel about masturbation? That’s one of the best ways to handle mismatched libidos within committed relationships. And a great way to access self-love and body positivity—by enjoying yourself.
But this detail about you wanting to cover yourself around your boyfriend—that worries me. Add the fact that you’re in college, and I’m not sure you need this kind of emotional turmoil right now. There’s only so much we can handle at once, and unwinding early programming toward sex negativity is a big project. It’s your choice. Consider how much energy you have, and space on your plate. Yes, he’s great, but so is your future.
—Stoya
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