Q: My girlfriend and I are into male-orgasm denial.
We’ve recently tried putting Orajel on my cock and then covering it
with two condoms so she can use me as a dildo without me getting off or
even feeling anything. It works great. Is there any chance of long-term
health issues if we do this once a week or so? NumbDicked
Dude
A: You didn’t say which kind of Orajel you are
using, but I hope it’s not Orajel Advanced Tooth Desensitizer. Its
active ingredient—created to treat sensitive teeth, not desensitize
cock—is something called “2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate,” which sounds
like something you might find in baby formula that was made in China.
The stuff works, according to Orajel’s website, “by blocking dentinal
tubules, preventing excitation of the tooth nerve.” And, hey, if it’s
safe enough for your mouth, it’s probably safe enough for your cock and
for newborns, right? Well, maybe not. A very quick search of the
interwebs using that Googlemajob turns up a paper in the Journal of
Dental Research with this rather alarming title: “2-Hydroxyethyl
Methacrylate (HEMA) Is a Potent Inducer of Apoptotic Cell Death in
Human and Mouse Cells.”
Any responsible sex-advice professional would read the paper in its
entirety and inform you about the likelihood that you’re killing off
cock cells when you smear them with Orajel Advanced Tooth Desensitizer.
But I’m an alarmist sex-advice professional, not a responsible one, so
I’m just going to lay that title on you one more time: “2-Hydroxyethyl
Methacrylate (HEMA) Is a Potent Inducer of Apoptotic Cell Death in
Human and Mouse Cells.” I don’t know about you, NDD, but I’ve always
erred on the side of not smearing my dick with shit that kills mice.
(Not all brands of Orajel contain this ingredient, but a boy can’t be
too careful.)
It seems foolish to smear any kind of Orajel on your cock when there
are products designed for desensitizing cocks, like Mandelay gel and
Proloonging’s “penis desensitizing aid delay spray.” These products are
marketed to men who suffer from premature ejaculation, even though
numbing the dick doesn’t cure premature ejaculation. They sound perfect
for you and your orgasm-denying girlfriend, though, and I’d recommend
’em over that potential rat poison you’re using now.
Q: I’m a gay guy, 25, in great shape, no STDs. To
make me happy, any long-term relationship will need to have a strong
BDSM element to it. And I’m having a lot of trouble finding a BDSM
relationship that makes me happy. If I mention my BDSM needs up front
when I meet a guy, I get the “never done it, never will” response or
the “ew, gross” response. When I date a guy before I mention it, the
guy is usually willing to try it (even difficult stuff like CBT and
e-stim), but it’s always because he likes me and wants to get me off.
So while I’m feeling the pain, I’m not feeling dominated. And when I
try to find guys specifically into BDSM (leather bars, fetish
websites), I only find physically unattractive guys.
I know I’m not the only young gay guy in Chicago into restraints and
pain. But how do I find others?
Finding Extremely Deficient Erotic Xcitement
A: Go to dudesnude.com, FEDEX, and search for
profiles featuring guys who included “S&M” among their interests.
You’ll find tons of guys under 30, many of them very good-looking, and
lots in Chicago. So keep looking, FEDEX. Very few gay guys your age,
kinky or not, have managed to find a person they can see entering an
LTR with…so no more whining, mmmkay? Continue to search online and in
leather bars, continue to be honest with the guys you date, and sooner
or later you’ll meet someone as anxious to introduce you to his parents
as he is to torture your cock and balls.
Q: I’m a 27-year-old bi girl, with a lovely
fiancee. I’m a top; she’s a sub. I’m trying to be responsible, so this
weekend I sat down and wrote my will. You have to specify each item and
its recipient, and that’s where I ran into trouble. I want to leave my
fiancee’s collar to her, rather than Uncle Sam, but wasn’t sure how
specific I could be without either of us being prosecuted for
practicing S&M, which is illegal under current laws in the state
where I live. So I can’t say, “I’m leaving the S&M collar to my
fiancee.” We don’t have a dog and aren’t getting one, so writing
“leather collar” looks strange and makes me nervous. Have any advice?
Needs A Good Lawyer
A: Most people into S&M have a touch of the
drama queen about them, I realize, but let’s not be ridiculous. If you
should precede your sub in death, NAGL, I promise you that Uncle Sam is
not going to take possession of your widow’s dog collar. But to set
your mind at ease, I called a very good lawyer and annoyed him with
your very stupid question:
“No, no, no, no. A gift from one person to another is not
illegal—that’s the bottom-line answer,” said D. J. Rausa, a very good
lawyer in private practice in California who I found via the
“Kink-Aware Professionals” listings at the National Coalition for
Sexual Freedom. “The government is not going to be interested in a
gift, in any gift, unless they can tax it.” And unless that dog collar
is solid gold and the word “slave” is spelled out on it with big fat
diamonds, NAGL, the IRS doesn’t give a shit.
And since you don’t file a will with the state, but with your
lawyer, the odds of being prosecuted for engaging in S&M—already
infinitesimal—are nil. Worry about the fact that you can’t legally
marry your fiancee, NAGL, and not about Uncle Sam swooping in and
stealing your sex toys.
Q: RealTouch, the new sex toy for men that you
wrote about recently, is a porn-marketing device, not a sex toy. Note
that it says on their website that the first “30 minutes [are] free”
(translation: You’ll have to pay the rest of the time) and that the FAQ
says explicitly that it cannot be used by itself. It’s a scam, IMO. Not
Buying One
A: “RealTouch is only activated by the…movies in
our video-on-demand library,” says Jim McAnally (a pseudonym, I think)
at RealTouch HQ. A per-minute price has not been established, as the
toy isn’t being sold yet—a detail I would’ve included last week, had
I known—but “the device [will be] activated with 30 minutes when it
is purchased.”
So you’re right, NBO: RealTouch could be considered a porn-marketing
device. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a scam, and neither would
Mr. McAnally: “The device is driven by a haptic data stream that we
have to encode with a lot of detail,” he added. “To give you an idea,
it takes eight hours to encode 15 minutes worth of content. And that
data stream doesn’t exist outside of the video that has been
encoded.”
Good to know. But many men will be disappointed to learn that they
can only use this toy when they’re watching porn. Here’s hoping that
RealTouch 2.0 has more functions.
Download Dan’s Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast)
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Email Dan Savage at mail@savagelove.net.
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2009.