Everybody indeed.

"He tells me, I start crying, he feels terrible for making me cry, we both wind up feeling like shit."

There is (was, hopefully?) a problem here above and beyond the disparity in sexual needs.

I dunno, I think this was one of Dan's bigger duds. His message -- "You only have to have sex once a week!" -- only works if you consider penetrative intercourse to be the only "real" sex. But everything he's described here (the handjobs, the oral) IS sex. It's weird because elsewhere Dan's happy to acknowledge that "everything but" penis-in-vagina sex is STILL SEX, yet here he's telling this woman "I know you don't want to have a lot of sex, but essentially your problem will be solved so long as you just have a lot of sex!" His "compromise" isn't one at all.

Holy crumbs but this is why I read Mr. Savage--a completely different perspective with a practical, action-based solution. This is advice that I wouldn't get from Dear Abby (and I've seen Abby give the exact advice that Mr. Savage says wouldn't work).

@3, I think the only thing Dan from any other day might have appended is "...and if all that sounds like too much for you, you're probably sexually incompatible and you ought to break up."

@3 That's exactly what I was thinking. Dan's usual refrain is that sex is far more than just tab-a-in-slot-b. Here, he completely reverses that. Oral sex is no longer sex, but merely masturbation assistance. You can't mock saddlebacking and its practitioners for their denial of the fact that they're having sex, and then turn around and say "the compromise is only have sex once a week, and then pretend the oral sex and hand jobs throughout the rest of the week are just a really friendly handshake." A great big swing and a miss.

I wish we could discover the outcome, because I don't think this would work.

She might happily do this for a little while, but I think it'd suffer the same fate Dan give the "compromise" solution... Eventually, the ambulatory masturbation aide would end too.

Humans are selfish beings at their core, even unconsciously so. This woman seems totally cool and unselfish, but I think eventually even she'd stop doing it because at her core, she doesn't want to do it. Nothing wrong with her specifically, it's just human nature.

I think the point is that (and he's framed it this way before) If it's getting your hole banged that you're not up for as often, these other options (still sex, just not vagina pounding sex) will keep you connected and sexually active. It's an elegant solution, but it requires both parties to acknowledge that P in V sex is not the be all end all and everything else is not just consolation but another way to express yourselves sexually. It's also good for breaking out of a rut if you find yourself in the same positions and routines and it doesn't get you "hot" for sex like it used to

here to also complain that this is one of those bizarre places where Dan doesn't seem to be considering oral sex/mutual masturbation to be sex.......

This advice so would not work for lesbians in this situation.

Is there a reason why Dan is suggesting hand jobs over oral for the guy? Also seems like the girl in the situation also gets more out of it than the boyfriend -- I mean, she gets eaten out while he just gets a handjob? I see this experiment failing eventually but would be interested to see how this particular couple figures things out.

This is a pretty old one, so at this point I don't think Dan was trumpeting the "it's all sex" trumpet yet.

I'm prolly not going to do a good job of finding the right words here, but I think that much of the time people's unwillingness to engage in sexual activity when they're "just not feeling it" gets back to deeply rooted feelings of guilt and dirtiness.

We all do a lot of necessary and useful things over the course of a day or a week, miraculously without dragging our feet and whining all the while (usually)—laundry, jobs, childcare, gardening, cooking, on and on. You can be cheerful and efficient about preparing a nutritious meal, for example, without really "feeling it"—hunger, the desire to try something new, the need to use up leftovers before they go bad, whatever.

And we don't feel soiled or "used" when we do those things. Tired, maybe.

So perhaps an attitude adjustment is in order. It may not be the best metaphor, but when you call a plumber to deal with a backup, he arrives and sets about in a workmanlike manner to solve the problem. He may not be thrilled to be doing the task for the umpteenth time, but he's happy if you're a satisfied customer and he gets to make another boat payment that month.

The problem is that all of these things are sex. If she's not feeling up to sex, she's probably not going to want to jerk him off or sit on his face a couple times a week.

@8

Exactly, I think Dan provided good practical advice, but didn't frame it the way he should have. Basically, have more sex, just realize that P/V sex isn't the only way to have sex and that there are ways of having sex with a lower mental/physical investment from one partner.

@16

Or maybe the problem is that she only sees sex as penis in vagina and doesn't realize that there are other ways to have sex.

@11: Well, the one that comes to mind is that many women find blow jobs just as difficult/exhausting as vaginal intercourse, so giving someone a blow job isn't exactly relief. All the activities that he suggested for her are activities that she could do while reading a book.

And yes, I'm aware of the existence of women who LOVE giving blow jobs and who feel that giving oral is no effort at all. That would be why I said "many" women and not "women."

Also, sex begets sex.

One good piece of advice I've heard is that when someone isn't feeling it, they should agree to kiss for 5 minutes and then reassess. This would only be too physical/mentally taxing under circumstances that should be clearly obvious to the partner wanting sex (e.g. extreme physical pain/emotional stress) that they would realize to forgo asking for sex. Then proceed further at the pace of the partner that didn't want sex, and they can stop the progression at anytime. This will frequently lead to "sex" and even if it doesn't, its likely to at least set the wheels in motion for that partner wanting sex the following day.

This letter reminded me that Louis CK bit about his wife giving him the lowest common denominator hand job. I really see it backfiring - he won't feel satisfied, she'll still feel like she's having too much sex.

The way we dealt with this in my marriage was we just had the sex, why not? I wasn't always all that into it, but it doesn't take that long, it's not like it's a nasty unpleasant job, and it feels good to do things that someone you love likes. And every now and then, "'I'm not that into it but all right" turns into something more interesting - stranger things have happened.

I go to elementary school Christmas concerts, I bake muffins, I knock boots for twenty minutes when I didn't really need to - it's fine because it's part of loving the people you love, and it's sometimes intrinsically enjoyable.

@33

"But it would still be flawed advice since everything Dan suggests is sex. Sitting on the boyfriend's face, in particular, seems like quite an intimate imposition on a woman who isn't in the mood."

True, but think the point is if you're not in the mood for P-V sex, then find something you're in the mood for. That might not always be receiving oral, but it could.

I don't think face-sitting would work as just a giving-an-assist thing. I love oral, but I find it unbearably aggravating if I'm not turned on enough. Don't know if that's true of most women, but I just don't think that kind of stimulation is neutral, you know? Not like a hand is neutral. Hand jobs are pretty easy, if he can come from a hand job. A really low-pressure assist would be he jerks off while looking at her naked body.

Fuck, this makes sex seem so grim. My libido might've just taken a hit. It is more than mechanics for most people, right?

I would count pretty much every suggestion here as sex. And, if I didn't want to have sex, I wouldn't want to sit on someone's face while they beat off either. Nor, if I wanted sex, would I really want someone who isn't in to it to sit on mine. How could you have a bored girlf passionlessly shove your face in her crotch solely to get you off and not come out feeling molestery?

I wish these re-run SLLOTD's were more in the Stump the Chumps model - ping the original letter writers and see how it worked out. Next hiatus maybe...

I'm not getting why she cries when the subject comes up. Crying tends to pre-empt ANY reasonable conversation between two people. Maybe it's because she is SO YOUNG. It's hard to imagine that she has an inner vixen buried inside of her when she cries at every single mention of "I want more sex." Hmmm.

Betty Dodson is a big advocate of sexual stimulation to essentially jump start a woman's libido. Typically Betty suggests masturbation, but that's kind of her thing. But it seems like that's what Dan is getting at here. She indulges the boyfriend in getting him off with some variant of patenered sex that doesn't include invasive penetration, and the incidental stimulation could potentially give her libido a bit of a nudge. Remember, this is ultimately what this sweet girl has asked for here.

I bet they've broken up.

This woman sounds very weepy and overemotional. If your first reaction to your boyfriend bringing up your low libido is to immediately burst into tears, there's probably something wrong with you besides your low sex drive.

When my ex wanted more sex than I was in the mood for, the problem wasn't my unwillingness to perform sexual activities with him. I was very willing to do my wifely duties. The problem was that he wanted me to want it. He wanted me to be genuinely enthusiastic and if I wasn't, he'd stop in the middle of sex to harangue me about my faking. That caused a lot of tears and desperate self-hatred on my part, frantically wishing to change my desires and having no ability to do so.

I wonder if that's what's behind the conditioned response to burst into tears when he says he wants more sex?

Gamebird, you might be onto something. It could depend a lot on the manner in which he brings it up. I've got to say, though, it's human to want to be desired. There have been long stretches in my marriage when we didn't have sex, and I didn't feel wanted by my partner. When I'd bring it up (not during sex, or even in bed), there were tears. It's a hard conversation all the way around; harder yet when you have it for the sixth time.

Your ex was a jerk for what he put you through, but I understand his underlying emotion.

@35 Gamebird, do you think that learning each other's "language of love" might have helped? (Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.) That's a short-hand, of course, but I've found that it does help to focus one's efforts on the aspects that mean most to one's partner. I don't want gifts, for instance, but I do need physical touch and time together. If you were offering physical touch, but your ex needed words of affirmation, it's easy to see how he wasn't satisfied with what you were giving. And if he had given you more of whatever you needed, maybe that would have made you more enthusiastic toward him.

On the other hand, if you had grown apart such that you no longer honestly loved or wanted each other... there may not have been any long-term solution except ending the relationship.

@31 - seems like every time me and the Mrs. have this conversation it leads to tears on her part too. Not because she is trying to emotionally blackmail me, but she genuinely feels like a failure. The conversation also adds more on the low libido's "to do" list, with sex with your spouse now an additional chore. How romantic.

I like Dan's compromise, BUT the key to making it work is the low libido partner/face sitter has to have real enthusiasm for their high libido partner's pleasure, if not their own. If you treat your assist to your partner as a chore similar to taking the garbage out, then yes, you will create molestor/molestee feelings.

If you can't spare 30 minutes a few times a week to enthusiastically bring their partner to orgasmic release, you probably need to rethink entering a sexually exclusive relationship.

I would love to win like this. Even the temp stuff doesn't work so well for my partner. oy.

@23: "Better for the GF to give her BF an enthusiastic thumbs-up to masturbating more, without the ambulatory masturbatory aide thing being so prominent. He can jerk it to the porn he likes without her being a sex doll."

This sounds perilously close to "Go take care of it yourself, just don't bother me." While an enthusiastic thumbs-up to that is still better than "and don't you dare start with the porn either," it still is basically telling him you prefer not to be bothered. At that point, don't be surprised when he eventually takes you at your word and stops bothering you, but finds someone who isn't bothered by it.

I would take 21's advice over Dan's this time. Namely, be open to being persuaded. Sure, you aren't into it RIGHT NOW, at the very instant that you get approached. Obviously you have something else on your mind, it's not like you walk around all day long in a perpetual state of arousal. But for god's sake, this is someone that you (supposedly) really enjoy sex with when you _are_ already in the mood. So give it a few minutes of active, good-willed participation and you might find that gee, it turns out that you are in the mood after all.

@37 What would have helped was if he wasn't emotionally abusive as the day was long.

How is this not simply another version of "one partner gets what they want while the other becomes resentful"?

I can tell you that I have had a major relationship end when I realized my partner was *just fine* having sex with me whether or not I enjoyed it. Wow, was that a libido killer to end all libido killers.

Guys? If masturbation is sex, then no twelve-year-old boys are virgins. Mr. Savage is referring to these things as not full-on sex because they're not full-on sex. At no point is the boyfriend's penis going anywhere inside this woman's skin.

@45 ew, the penis doesn't go inside my skin ever!

As the person with the higher libido in the relationship, yeah I would be completely satisfied with the above solution. The reason though, is because the solution is pretty much "have more sex." Don't know if my girlfriend would find this advice useful though.

And @2 It sounds like you're presuming some level of emotional abuse or at least inability to effectively or compassionately communicate, which isn't necessarily the case. It is beyond difficult to have a discussion about something as touchy as sex because unlike a lot of topics, it is a 100% emotional conversation; no matter how hard you try there is no logic or reasoning behind it. The person with a lower libido can't help but feel inadequate and the one with a higher libido feels like an ass for even suggesting. And all of that is before the conversation is even had.

As someone else noted, receiving oral when you're not feeling it doesn't really work. For a lot of us, our sensitive parts are just ticklish when we're not aroused.

On the other hand, you can lie next to someone and touch them in small ways -- lick their nipples, let them suck your fingers, stroke their balls (if they're testicle owners), etc. while they're masturbating. This is being sexual with them in a low-pressure way, while still being a participant. And it feels a lot better than masturbating alone.

When the s/o wants a massage or neck rub, s/o gets it. Every time. Heck I read books on massages and neck rubs, learned from professionals, etc. Although massaging eventually make my hands tired, and it takes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to do massages well, I am always pleased with s/o's post-massage contentment. The point of the massage or neck rub is I dig s/o, and I like doing things that result in contented purring by s/o. Even if I would rather be reading or working out, a massage request is always cheerfully granted. Always, and cheerfully. I often offer s/o massages on my own initiative as well.

When you want someone in your life, you make efforts to keep them content.

So whenever I read a letter from low-libido types throwing their hand across their foreheads and saying they...just...can't...make...the..effort (heavy, dramatic sigh) to help sexually please their professed loved one, I find myself very, very skeptical. Really? Really?! You cannot find 5-30 minutes on a fairly regular basis to manipulate your partner's naughty bits and make them really happy and smiling? Because I get about as much from massaging the s/o as a low-libido does from sex, it sounds like. Yet I still very much enjoy s/o's enjoyment of the massage. (And I confess, I don't want s/o to seek massages et al elsewhere, thus robbing me of opportunities to hang with s/o in that way.)

When the lower-libido types respond to requests for sex with tears,arguments, passive aggressiveness, hurt feelings and the like, I assume the low libido types' refusals are really about something else: the low libido types just have other priorities for their time that outweigh the higher-libido partner's contentment. That is fine to have other priorities, but it also provides the higher-libido partner an ironclad reason for ending the relationship.

If I responded to requests for massages with eye-rolls, half-hearted strokes on the back to keep the peace, tears, and the occasional fight, I would expect s/o to dump my dramatic, selfish ass. I would deserve it, frankly.

Hey, what about the boy friend? How's he gonna feel about being a cow that needs milking? I think the girlfriend should admit that she just doesn't want it, so that he can get on with his life and she can become a nun. How many times have I heard the refrain that he's horney and she just does not want it. First, it's because it's so messy, then it's because it is the wrong time, then there's menopause and it's too dry and it isn't fun any more. It probably never was, but she wasn't honest enough with herself to admit it. Americans are raised to believe that we are all beautiful sexual animals, with the implication that if you don't want it, there's something wrong with you and you need treatment. The world is full of husbands who have found other means of having a good time, but here in America, we just part company, for better or for worse. There are all kinds of 'monogamous' permutations, but the most common one is the man on the next barstool who is there looking for a pick up because he can't get it at home. For better or for worse.

I don't know man, I guess if you are not ever in the mood for anything sexual ever then this is not helpful, but I know that sometimes I want to be fucked and sometimes I don't. When I don't I will cheerfully give a fully engaged blow job, and my husband and I both go to bed happy. Sometimes, I'm horny but he already jerked it earlier in the day and I will masturbate while he sucks on my boobs or whatever. It can work, people. When any kind of sexual contact ALWAYS leads to penis in vagina, that can be taxing for the vagina-haver, who statistically is generally lower libido anyway. This is one way to address it, but obviously emotional abuse, poor to non-existent communication, asexual masquerading as low-libido, sure it doesn't apply