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How to is Slate’s sex advice column. Do you have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear how to do it,
I am a 48 year old woman, married to my husband for 24 years. Three years ago, I started reading romance novels, which later turned into BDSM novels and then erotic novels. Since then, I’ve become much more interested in sex.
It took my husband a while to get used to my new desire frequency, but we are now on an every-other-day schedule. Our relationship has strengthened so much and it’s been really positive. We have fulfilled fantasies and are much more open with each other about everything, not just sex. I don’t have many other sexual experiences besides my husband (three other partners when I was young), and he doesn’t have anyone other than me. But from my limited experience and the statistics I’ve read, his size seems pretty normal. The problem is that my vagina seems very big.
When the penetration begins, I feel almost nothing. He also has a much harder time climaxing, and I suspect that’s because he doesn’t have much friction. The only feeling I really get is when it’s very deep, especially when I’m on top. But not by pushing. I go to physiotherapy for an incontinence problem and do the exercises as best I can. I thought it would help “feel big,” but it didn’t get any better. I reach orgasm quite easily through his fingers and through clitoral stimulation (but only with a toy). I’ve never had it orally, although it’s exciting. I used to have an orgasm from penetration every now and then. Now that only happens if I’m on top. It’s good for me, but it doesn’t do much for him. This is a difficult subject to discuss with a doctor. I thought I’d see if you all had anything to say.
—Loosey Goosey
Dear Loosey Goosey,
When you say your husband has a much harder time reaching orgasm, I don’t know what that compares to. More difficult than oral or manual stimulation? Or compared to a previous period of time, and if so, does the change in ease of reaching orgasm coincide with health issues, life stressors, increased regularity of sex, the end of your occasional orgasms from penetration, or anything else that might help you contextualize the change? Has your vagina always felt big, or was there a time when this feeling started, and what can this context point you towards, if possible, for reasons and paths forward?
Wantonly focusing on pleasure or any degree of eroticism in discussion during a doctor’s visit is inappropriate, but bringing up general concerns about changes in the part of your body they are focusing on, or sexual dysfunction, is generally acceptable as long as the doctor in question has a specialty related to the subject. Whether or not you have the courage to ask a medical professional what they might help or offer you in the way of understanding your own body, concerns about your husband’s pleasure will require a more concrete understanding of how he feels and what works and what doesn’t work for him.
Without more specific information, I’m not able to make any solid guesses about what might help you resolve the issue. It’s quite possible that the fiction you’re reading is so unrealistic that it distorts your ideas about what sex and pleasure look like in practice. While much media (romance novels, erotic porn videos, and short scenes from mainstream television and cinema) presents thrusting into a tight vagina as the default route to simultaneous orgasm, reality often looks like one partner needs one type of stimulation (the very deep sensations you feel when you’re on top, which don’t come from vigorous in-and-out movements) to orgasm, while the other needs another type of stimulation, and the couple takes turns prioritizing which orgasm will be satisfied and when.
It’s also entirely possible that you have lost muscle tone in your pelvis, which has reduced the sensations you and your husband feel during thrusting, and adding other exercises might help, or that you are doing the exercises “as best you can” either in insufficient quantity or have not properly learned what movements you need to do, and further discussion with a pelvic floor therapist might address this issue. You might both have completely average anatomy, well suited to each other in terms of dimensions, but are in your head or tripping over psychological aspects. And your husband may be having good times and slowing down simply due to aging, while you’re having fewer good times partly because of unnecessary worries. You will need to consult your husband and perhaps at least a medical professional or sexologist to get to the bottom of this.
—Jessica
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I (M27) have been with my current partner (F29) for five months and I’m starting to get bored with sex. In general, I’ve always had a relatively high libido and have never experienced a loss of arousal/interest like this in my previous relationships. My partner has a lot of trouble reaching orgasm: in the five months we’ve been together, I think she’s reached orgasm maybe three times. She reassured me that I’m not doing anything wrong; apparently this has been a problem in all previous relationships. Yet his frustration is evident.
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