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Dear how to do it,
My boyfriend and I, both in our 20s, visited his parents this summer. Something embarrassing happened that is now being held over our heads. One of the nights after the family went to bed, we started making love in the guest room. We tried to keep it very quiet. But about 10 minutes later, her little brother started barging into the room while the door was closed. We didn’t lock it. Luckily my boyfriend was able to reach for the door in time and close it (the guest room is extremely small), but he caught his brother’s fingers in the door – his brother started sobbing and making a big deal out of it, he’s 13 and it probably hurts so I don’t blame him. Then his parents came out to see what the commotion was and I had to run to get dressed and confront them all. His parents at least had the courtesy of not saying anything in front of me, but they really attacked my boyfriend later for having sex under their roof and risking his brother walking in on us.
Now we are getting ready to go back to their house for Thanksgiving and my boyfriend let me know that his parents didn’t want us to sleep in the same room, that it was annoying but we could deal with it. We live together! Is there any way to clear things up here and make them go away? I’m afraid finding a hotel will further solidify us as “bad guys” in the eyes of his family.
—Door open
Dear Open Door,
Time may be the only remedy here. For the record, I think the parents are being ridiculous here. They should not be surprised at all to learn that their son, who lives with his partner,… also has sex with this partner! If they don’t want this to happen under their roof, it’s their right to express it, but it should come in the form of a requestnot a diktat that forces you to adopt an unnatural sleeping pattern. They treat you like children unable to control themselves, rather than adults caught doing adult things.
I agree that staying in a hotel could potentially create an even bigger issue between you and the parents. Ideally, your boyfriend would respond by telling them that he’s sorry for what happened, that it won’t happen again, but that you don’t need to be separated. If they insist, sticking it on the chin and adhering to their demands may be the only way to win back their good graces. Kill them with kindness until they forget what happened. The principle is important here, but in practice, if you submitted to his parents’ demands, you would only sleep apart from your boyfriend for a few days. You will live.
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Dear how to do it,
My boyfriend recently told me that he has a foot fetish and wants me to make him cum with my feet, which I don’t really mind. The problem is that I have a little athlete’s foot and warts on the bottom of my feet. Is there a chance these would transfer to his penis if I did a foot job on him? I don’t want to give him genital warts.
—Fungals and fretting
Dear Fungal and Fretting,
There is no chance that your plantar warts will turn into genital warts. HPV strains are site specific. According to Diane M. Harper, a professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, HPV types 2 and 4 are the most common types of plantar warts (those that live on your feet). Meanwhile, the most common types of genital warts are types 6 and 11. “Sitting barefoot without underwear will not cause genital warts, will not cause cervical cancer, will not cause anal cancer, and will not cause head and neck cancer,” Harper wrote in an email discussion about your question. This is true for transmitting plantar warts to parts of others that are not their feet.
But at this point, Harper recommends taking care of your plantar warts, because they can transmit to your partner’s feet, perhaps in shared spaces where you both end up barefoot, such as the shower. Removing them can be a long and somewhat painful process, requiring multiple visits to a dermatologist or podiatrist (trust me, I’ve been there) to burn or freeze them, but it’s definitely worth it, especially because plantar warts can cause pain on their own. Get rid of it and stop worrying/suffering.
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Dear how to do it,
I constantly have colds. My most notable experience was having two colds in three weeks (which is as funny as it sounds). I think I’m sick again (thanks cold and flu season), and I’m tired of not being able to go out with my boyfriend for fear of passing my cold on to him. How likely is it that I’ll catch a cold from kissing him (he rarely gets sick, I’m jealous)?
—Always blow my nose…my nose
Dear, I always blow… my nose,
After doing some digging, I’m surprised to learn that the likelihood of transmitting colds through kissing alone is actually not very high, at least according to the little data that exists. A small 1984 study found that only one in 13 cold-free subjects contracted a cold from kissing. A cold expert explained to The Guardian in 2005, because the virus travels in the mucus of the respiratory system, “unless you have a bad cough and some of the respiratory mucus has seeped into your saliva, the cold virus will not be transmitted through kissing.” The entry on rhinoviruses in the International Encyclopedia of Public Health states:
“Saliva may occasionally contain a small amount of rhinovirus, probably from dilute nasopharyngeal secretions, but in general, transmission through coughing, sneezing, kissing, or drinking from the same glass is unlikely to occur in otherwise healthy individuals. On the other hand, transmission of rhinovirus present in nasal mucus from a person with a cold to a susceptible person is likely either by touching shared environmental objects or by direct hand-to-hand contact (handshakes, holding hands, or high fives) followed by self-inoculation with a contaminated finger in the nose or eyes.
Daily contact would then put your boyfriend at greater risk of catching your cold than kissing him per se. As for you, if you “constantly” have a cold, you should consult a doctor. This cold may not be a cold, but rather allergies, other upper respiratory infections, sinus infections, etc. You may also want to talk to your doctor about your immune system in general. There may be no underlying problem other than you being unlucky and more prone to catching colds, but since this is a chronic phenomenon, you’d better get checked out.
-Rich
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