I love my boyfriend of two years very much, but our sex life is dead. My boyfriend is a member of an elite gym, and has a body that would drive anyone crazy. So why don't I want to have sex with him?

He's a scientist, and he has sex like a scientist. He's not a good kisser, but worse, he flies through foreplay like its his weekend chore list, and goes straight to the fucking as quick as he can. He's a voracious bottom, which should work out for me, but in the end, I'm always left finishing off alone. He always comes within minutes, and the whole time does nothing sexy, does nothing to help me along. In fact he does lots of stuff that turns me off. I've never lost hard-ons during sex until I was with him. I might as well be a cucumber glued to a body pillow, he'd have about the same interaction. As such, I dread sex when visiting him (we don't live in the same city) because I know its going to be a frustrating disappointment. I love him dearly, because he's the sweetest man I've ever known, but we're totally out of tune in bed. Not only do I miss great sex, I miss mediocre sex.

This has my eyes wandering, Dan, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up hurting him by cheating. And I'm sure I'd hurt his feelings if I even mentioned an open relationship. I don't want to hurt him! He's my best friend, but my worst lover. What do I do with that?

Not On Tonight

My response after the jump...

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You're gonna hurt him. It's inevitable. You're gonna dump him or you're gonna cheat on him. Since there's no avoiding hurt, NOT, opt for the kind of hurt that might be constructive, i.e. the kind of hurt that might actually save this relationship.

Tell him the hurtful truth.

The sex is so bad that you're hurting—you don't like dreading sex, or being made to feel like a cucumber strapped to a body pillow, and you don't like the way you feel when your eye wanders and you contemplate making the transition from loving boyfriend of a lovely guy to CPOS. Tell him that he's got to get better in bed, that he has to re-learn sex, rebuild himself sexually from the bottom up... or it's over—and not because you want it to be over. You love him, he's great, you'd like to stay with him. But you won't be able to stay with him if things in the sack don't improve. And if he doesn't want to work on improving things in the sack and he doesn't want to lose you, tell he'll have to agree to an open relationship.

Step 1: Tell the truth.

Step 2: Take anal sex off the menu—for at least six months.

Step 3: Open up about your fantasies, his fantasies, your sexual histories. And if you can get in a time machine and go back to the 1970s and find a shrink who is willing to prescribe MDMA, do that.

It'll be a difficult conversation—hard for you to say, hurtful for him to hear—but what do you have to lose?