Q I hate how my boyfriend has sex with me. He is 40 years old. It used to be fine, but a year ago he started adding new moves he obviously got from porn: Smacking my pussy with an open palm, vigourously rubbing my clit, wrapping his hands around my neck.
I'm not anti-porn. What bothers me is that even though I told him these moves don't feel good on my body and hurt me, he doesn't care. I've told him that it is painful when he slaps and manhandles my clit, and he responds that he likes it and I should feel happy that he still wants to fuck me six times a week.
It's not that I don't want him to enjoy himself, but I don't feel like his enjoyment should come at the price of mine. I don't know how to get him to listen to me. —Porn Lessons Erasing All Sexual Energy
A Your boyfriend listened to you, PLEASE. You told him you don't like his porny new moves; he told you he likes them and intends to keep doing them. So this isn't about listening—it's about caring. Your boyfriend is hurting you and "he doesn't care." Dump the motherfucker already.
And while you're not anti-porn, PLEASE, and I'm certainly not anti-porn, it would appear that porn—the default sex education for too many people, young and old—is part of the problem.
"The porn industry, like every other area of popular culture, is dominated by a closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys," says Cindy Gallop, legendary advertising executive, consultant and public speaker. "The most easily accessed mainstream straight porn is all about the man, with zero empathy for the female experience, taken to ludicrous—and for the woman, painful—extremes."
Like you and me, PLEASE, Gallop is not anti-porn. But she's fighting shitty porn—and the shitty expectations it can instill—with real-life contrast via her innovative #realworldsex site/platform makelovenotporn.com.
"It's a social sex-video-sharing platform designed to be a counterpoint to the porn industry while promoting good sexual values and behaviour," says Gallop. "We need to be able to view great #realworldsex in all its messy, funny, beautiful, silly, wonderful, ridiculous humanness in the same medium that we view porn: Online. That's why makelovenotporn.com exists. We're pro-sex, pro-porn and pro-knowing the difference."
Gallop wants not only to balance out porn with socially shared #realworldsex, but to see the porn market flooded with porn made by women—which doesn't mean porn made "for" women, she points out, but more disruptive, creative porn for everyone.
"Seeing more innovative porn—porn that men would find just as hot—would result in everybody having a much better time in bed," says Gallop. "Men need to see there is no bigger turn-on than being in bed with someone who you know is having an absolutely fabulous time because of you."
Unfortunately, PLEASE, you're having an absolutely miserable time because of him. "PLEASE's boyfriend is operating in his own closed loop," says Gallop, "the belief that sexual gratification is all about him. He has no idea what sexual gratification really could be. She needs to leave him."
You can find Cindy Gallop's viral Ted Talk and a documentary about Make Love Not Porn at ifundwomen.com/projects/makelovenotporn. Follow her on Twitter @CindyGallop.
Q I'm 28 years old and have been with my boyfriend (also 28) for three years. Our relationship is monogamous and vanilla. I'm a pretty sexual person: I've been to bondage clubs and burlesque shows, and I've had my fair share of sexual encounters with men and women. I like to dominate and be dominated.
However, my boyfriend is non-aggressive, non-dominating and non-initiating. I ALWAYS have to initiate and I'm ALWAYS in the driver's seat. I'm tired of this. I enjoy strong masculine energy! I'm a feminist, but sometimes in the bedroom it can be incredibly hot to feel like a sex object.
We've talked and talked, and tried some light bondage (he didn't like it) and talked about a threesome (he's opposed). He says sex just isn't something he "thinks about a lot." How do I get him to show some sexual aggression? —Wants Him Aggressive More
A Keep reading, WHAM.
Q My husband of 17 years has never been into sex—which I always knew was a problem, but the other stuff was good. He's into pornography, though, and I've busted him many times.
To say I am resentful is an understatement. He uses corn oil for masturbating, and I've been reduced to marking the bottle and booby-trapping it to see if he's been up to his tricks. We have two children, so that's what keeps me from "pulling the trigger." —Gagging In Chicago
A GIC: You have three options.
1. Pull the trigger.
2. Redefine your marriage as companionate—it's about child-rearing and family life, not about sex. If your husband is free to find fulfillment in the bottle (of corn oil), and you're free to find fulfillment in the bedroom (of another man/men), maybe you can make it work.
3. Continue with what you're doing now—your husband sneaking off to have a wank, and you monitoring (and booby-trapping?!) every bottle of corn oil that comes into the house.
WHAM: Your boyfriend isn't going to become someone else—he's not going to suddenly become more interested in sex or more sexually aggressive—so if you don't want to be sending me a letter like GIC's in 14 years, end this relationship. People who want healthy, functional, monogamous LTRs—free from booby traps and busts—need to prioritize sexual compatibility at the start. That doesn't mean things can't go off the rails later (see the first letter), but they're less likely to.