By Faye Odesser
Dear Faye, Do you have advice on how to fix this problem in my sex life? My boyfriend and I have great sex but there’s one problem. I’m a pretty kinky person with ideas of what I want to try in bed, and he’s always ready to explore my fantasies. He enjoys what I suggest but when I try to ask him what he’s into, he never gets specific. He’ll just say “everything” or “whatever you like” and gets shy when I ask questions. I’m frustrated because even if he says he likes everything, I want things to feel more equal. How do I communicate and unlock his freaky side? Lost in Communication
It’s at times like this I’m reminded that thorough sex education is not the norm. More often than not, the people we sleep with are byproducts of arbitrary school courses that barely graze the complexity of sexual anatomy, much less desire. Unless you take it upon yourself to research, you’ll enter the bedroom (and the relationship) with a pretty low baseline of knowledge.
Chances are, your boyfriend hasn’t had the opportunity to think about his turn-ons as deeply, and/or he hasn’t had the opportunity to say them out loud in an intimate way. Of course, when you’re eager to please and he says “just do whatever you want,” it feels like a bit of a rejection, but it doesn’t seem like he’s speaking from a place of apathy or guardedness. It seems more that his scope of knowledge isn’t as deep or well-articulated as yours, and he trusts you to get the job done. If you think about it, it’s a pretty big compliment on your part.
As a sex writer, I’ve dealt with this exact situation before. No matter how much logic I had access to outside the bedroom, when I was vulnerable with my needs and my lovers couldn’t articulate theirs, I took it more personally than I’d like to admit. I felt confused, embarrassed; a little pouty, a little indignant. Now, revisiting it with the objectivity of an advice columnist, I imagine my lovers may have felt the same way. It’s hard to be put on the spot and have nothing to say! The truth is:
By Faye Odesser