Honesty is the best policy

Q I met my girlfriend three months ago on a social networking
website and we texted each other non-stop. The pictures made her look
attractive and in shape. Last weekend we met, and she didn’t look
anything like her pictures, but we had sex twice. I’m about to start
college and I do not want to be tied down. Breaking up with her will
break her heart into pieces. I have no clue what I should do. –Epic
State Of Confusion

A You didn’t meet your girlfriend three months ago, ESOC, you
met this girl last weekend. And if she expects a lifetime commitment
after posting misleading photos and exchanging text messages and a
single weekend of sex, she isn’t just asking to have her heart broken,
her heart needs breaking. So you’ll have to break it for her unless
you’re prepared to be with her for decades.

She’ll conclude that the breakup has something to do with her looks,
of course, and that fact will make your rejection hurt all the worse.
Good. She set herself up for rejection when she posted misleading
photographs on that social networking website and forged an emotional
connection with you under what amounts to false pretenses. Your
rejection may convince her to post more representative photos—honest
photos—in the future.

Anyone looking for sex partners online is free, of course, to post
misleading photos of mysterious provenance. But those who do this have
no one to blame for their hurt feelings but themselves. If I may
paraphrase the caption under a famous New Yorker cartoon: On the
internet, no one knows—or has to know—that you’re a dog. But when
chatting becomes cyber-dating, when romance may be in the offing and a
face-to-face meeting becomes inevitable, an exchange of better
photos—or at least more representative photos—is simple common
sense and common courtesy.

Here’s where you went wrong: You fucked this girl. She naturally
interpreted your willingness to fuck her as a sign you didn’t care
about the discrepancy between her photos and her real appearance. It’s
going to make the rejection she has coming more devastating than it
needed to be.

Q I’m a gay male in my late 20s and a testicular cancer
survivor. I count myself lucky, but I’m still down a testicle. I’m also
coming out of a five-year relationship. I’m now concerned about how
much a set of balls counts in the gay community—-I want to make sure
I don’t freak out any of my future partners. Tips? –Half the Man I
Used to Be

A Since having one ball isn’t going to place your sex
partners at any risk of anything or hamper your sexual performance in
any way, I don’t think you’re obligated to disclose until you get home
from the movie or the club and you’re rolling around on the couch and
making out. When hands start reaching for zippers, say something like
this: “Just so you know, I’ve only got one ball. Long story, and I’ll
tell you all about it later. And I only have one dick, too—but you
only have one throat, so we’ll find a way to make this work.”

There may be a handful of gay guys out there who won’t want to date
a guy with one ball, and they’ll make their excuses and refrain from
seeing you again. But so long as you’re not an insecure, tormented bag
of slop always bemoaning his half-empty sack, it shouldn’t interfere
with your love life.

q I have been with my girlfriend for nearly four years now.
We are both 23. We are in love, but I want to have sex with other
people—girls and guys. I was a virgin when I met her, but she had
been with a few other guys. I have brought up threesomes, and she seems
fine with the idea and talking about it turns her on. But she also says
she doesn’t want me to have sex with any other girls, only her, but a
guy would be fine. –What Should I Do?

A Find a guy you wanna fuck, WSID, check in with the
girlfriend, have a conversation about health and safety and primacy
(she’ll always come first) and ask if she wants to have an MFM
threesome. Then go fuck the guy. If you fuck the guy alone, check in
with the girlfriend before and after. If you fuck him together—if you
have that threesome—check in with the girlfriend before, during and
after.

Once you’ve shown the girlfriend that you’re capable of sleeping
with other people without being irresponsible, unsafe or insensitive,
WSID, she might give you the OK to fuck another girl sometime. The odds
are even better if she fucks another guy with or in front of you and
realizes that, just as she had sex with another man without feeling any
less attracted or attached to you, you could have sex with another
woman without feeling any less attracted or attached to her.

q So a friend of mine and I have been having a debate. She’s
a lesbian, and she’s certain that there is no possible way that she
could ever contract a sexually transmitted infection. Her logic is that
fingerfucking and eating pussy are safe in every way. But I remember
taking a class on human sexuality where our professor showed us
pictures of people who contracted STIs in odd ways. We saw a picture of
a guy who had a yeast infection on his tongue from eating a girl out
(it kind of looked like cottage cheese was growing on his tongue), and
I won’t describe the picture of the guy who had gonorrhea in his eye.
Is it possible for a lesbian to get an STI? Or were those photos faked
just to scare us? –Verification Desired

A Yes, lesbians can contract STIs—from each other, from the
men some lesbian-identified women insist on fucking, from lesbians
who’ve slept with men. Skin-to-skin contact—grinding pussies,
fingerfucking—can transmit HPV, for instance, and herpes and razor
burn. Eating pussy is also a pretty effective transmission route for
herpes and HPV and gonorrhea and syphilis and chlamydia and on and on.
And if brain cancer were a sexually transmitted infection, VD, your
seriously fucked-in-the-head friend would definitely be at risk.

This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2009.