DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m dealing with an issue with my partner that I’m not sure how to handle. I’m a 32 year old straight male who has recently come off a long single streak. I’m settling into a new relationship with younger woman which is going swimmingly with one glaring issue. My partner in the past year lost a good deal of weight, to the tune of over 70 lbs. At the moment I’d say she is still 10 - 20 lbs short of a truly attractive and healthy weight. When I got into our relationship I took this as a sign of someone who had decided to turn their life around and get healthy, something I can really respect. As our relationship has progressed however I have realized that she has decided that her current weight is perfect and ideal. This may have something to do with her friends and family who seem to delight in teasing her for being “so small”. I’m trying to figure out how to deal with this on several levels.

On a superficial level I just would love to see the woman I love looking as good as possible. More importantly however I have a personal hangup with false body positivity. I don’t mind people being overweight however I have a very hard time with people who glorify fat as “curvy” or simply deny the state of their bodies. I am a reasonably attractive individual but far from perfect and I constantly work to improve how I look and I’m very open about my continuing commitment to health. In contrast my partner seems to reflect the image of being tiny that her friends and family tease her about back without consideration of her actual weight. This is what I have the most trouble with as whenever she makes a comment glorifying something about her weight and how tiny she is I know I freeze up as it really rubs me the wrong way.

I’m aware that this is a personal issue with me, not necessarily her, but it is something that I know I need to deal with in order for us to continue to have a long term relationship. On the flip side however I’m unsure how to have the conversation in a way that doesn’t come off as “hey, I think you’re fat”.

Would love any suggestions you may have as to how I can deal with this!

Not Looking For A Little Extra

DEAR NOT LOOKING FOR A LITTLE EXTRA: I’m gonna be honest with you, my dude: I went through about three different drafts in my response to your letter because the first couple were just my biting your head clean off. Possibly entertaining for my readers, not quite so helpful for you. So I’m going to give you the advice you actually need, not just my knee-jerk response.

Here’s what you say NLFLE: “I think we should see other people. It’s not you, it’s me.”

Because it’s true. The problem isn’t her, it’s you. You’re not right for her, and she’s not what you’re looking for.

Here’s the thing: you are welcome to decide that you only want to date people of certain weights, body types or levels of activity and athletic ambition. If you want to date people who are within a certain weight range or body fat percentage, that’s valid. That’s legit. That makes you happy and so you do you, bro. You can even think that your partner might be more attractive if she lost a couple more pounds.

What isn’t legit is for you to s

t on somebody else’s progress and happiness because of your hangups. You don’t get to tell someone that she’s wrong to celebrate her achievements, that she shouldn’t revel in how happy it makes her or enjoy the support of her nearest and dearest. You don’t get to take something that clearly brings her pleasure and satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment because it doesn’t meet your sense of aesthetics.

What you’re asking me to do here is to harsh somebody else’s joy because it doesn’t make you happy, and frankly I’d rather jam my dick in a sack of angry badgers.

The problem here is that you’re making her achievements and her enjoyment of her body about you. Like I said in this week’s podcast: the female body positivity movement isn’t about getting male approval, fat people pretending that they’re not, or convincing men to be attracted to specific body types, it’s about women and femme-presenting folks learning to love themselves, no matter what shape their body is. It’s about recognizing that your value and validity isn’t based on meeting a specific hip-to-waist ratio or body-mass index. If you aren’t crazy about the body positivity movement, that’s your look-out. Trying to take it away from other people because you don’t like it is literally self-centered and that ain’t a good look on you chief.

You’re correct: this is something that you need to deal with in order for the two of you to have a long-term relationship. You’re also correct in assuming that there is no way of phrasing this as anything other than “I think you’re still fat” because… well, that’s pretty much what you’re saying. You’re just trying to avoid saying the word “fat”. And even if you try to frame it as “I think you’d be so much hotter if you lost 20 more pounds”, then all she’s going to hear is “well I don’t think you’re hot now“.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think telling a partner that something they’re doing is unattractive to you, especially if it’s a change over the course of the relationship, is off limits by definition. Time and gravity make fools of us all, but putting in the effort to be hot for our partners is part of what makes a relationship work. But telling someone who’s put in a lot of time and effort into not just changing her body but her lifestyle and is happy about it that she could still stand to lose more weight is telling her that she didn’t do enough and she shouldn’t be happy about what she’s achieved.

That ain’t cool dude. That ain’t even in the same hemisphere as cool.

(And all of this is without even getting into the very real difficulty of not just losing large amounts of weight but keeping it off.)

And while I agree that this is your problem, not hers,  I’m forced to wonder if this is about her weight or what other people will think about you for dating her. I mean, she’s clearly someone you’re attracted to, otherwise you wouldn’t be dating her. After all, we don’t date someone purely on the potential of “well she’s not bad now but if I get her to lose 20 more lbs, she’d be sensational”. We don’t date people’s future selves, we date who they are now. But here you are, someone who tries to keep in shape, dating someone who is softer and less cut… what does that say about you?

Well, if you’re insecure, it says “I worry that other people will see her and assume that I am the kind of person who can only ‘get’ women like her.” If you’re not insecure it says “This is my girlfriend and isn’t she f

king awesome?”

I think that you need to take some time and really interrogate your feelings about her, your attraction to her and just where these reactions to other people’s happiness are coming from. While you’re doing that, I think you need to work under the assumption that she’s happy at her current weight and won’t lose another pound, period. If she is absolutely going to stay at exactly the weight she’s at currently, are you going to be able to be happy and keep dating her? Because if your interest in her is predicated on who she could be 20 lbs from now, then you need to take this as a sign that you and she simply aren’t compatible and you’re better off letting her go so you can find someone else, while she finds somebody who can appreciate her for who she is.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My fiancé and I have been together (quite happily) for almost 6 years and we are more in love with one another now than we were in the beginning. However, we have not been able to have sex for the last 2 years.

I have a condition called vulvodynia which makes intercourse excruciatingly painful. He has been incredibly supportive and stayed by my side through countless doctors and endless disappointments. I do what I can to keep him “satisfied” but it’s no longer enough and he has requested my consent to sleep with other women. What do I say? Is this a good idea? The thought of him being intimate with another woman makes me physically ill. He deserves to be happy and I feel like I’m keeping him from that. Am I being selfish? I apologize for the barrage of questions. I would really appreciate any insight you may be able to offer.

Thank you for your time.

Rock and A Hard Place

DEAR ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: I’m sorry you’re going through this. You and your fiancé stuck in an incredibly unfair situation with potentially no end in sight. Worse, there are no easy or clear-cut answers to be had to help make things easier.

Before we talk about options that are available to you, I want to talk about what you’ve been doing right. You and your fiancé are trying to tackle this together. He’s been providing you with emotional support through your side and from the sounds of things, he’s been working hard to not make you feel pressured to perform. You, on the other hand, have been doing what you can to help keep him satisfied to the best of your ability, which is admirable too.

One of the hard truths about relationships is that sexual fulfillment is critical to a relationship’s survival. When one or both partners aren’t getting their needs met, the relationship starts to suffer. Now, there will be times when there will be imbalances in sex – one partner’s libido may tank for one reason or another, lifestyle changes may make finding time for sex impractical or even impossible, etc. – and it’s important for one or both partners to find ways to cope in the meantime. Making compromises, such giving your partner an assist as they masturbate, providing some dirty talk or oral sex even if you’re not necessarily in the mood are ways of trying to bridge the gap during these rough patches. The problem is that you and your fiancé, through no fault of your own, are stuck in a situation with no clear cut end in sight… and unfortunately what might work in the short-term doesn’t seem to be working in the long–term. And now, here we are.

There’s always going to be a certain impulse for people to dump on your fiancé for wanting more than you’re capable of giving him; we live in a profoundly sex-negative culture that tends to look at people (frequently men, but not always) with higher sex-drives than their partners as being the problem. Wanting more sex than one’s partner is willing (or able) to give is frequently seen as gauche, inconsiderate or just plain unfair and the issue would go away if the higher-libido partner would just learn to not want sex and be grateful for what he or she is given. The fact that it isn’t enough for him will make him the bad guy in may people’s eyes, possibly even his own. But no amount of cultural approbation or browbeating can change the facts on the ground – it’s not enough for him.

Here’s the thing: the fact that he’s come to you and asked about the possibility of making an arrangement to open up the relationship actually speaks well of him. As painful as all of this can be, your fiancé wants to be honest and open with you. He’s being up-front with his needs and he wants to be above-board rather than sneaking around your back and being a cheating piece of s

t. He doesn’t want to leave you, he hasn’t fallen out of love with you or doesn’t find you attractive any more. All things being equal, he’d rather be with you… but he can’t, not in the way that he needs. What he’s asking for is permission to get his needs met so that he can continue being a good, supportive partner to you because the frustration can and will get in the way of that.

This is one of those times when nobody is in the right and nobody is in the wrong. No, RaaHP, you’re not being selfish. And neither is your fiancé. You want him to be happy. He wants you to be happy. The things it would take for one of you to be happy involves making you the other miserable. And so we come to the crux of the problem: we’re stuck with “which possible solution is going to hurt the least?”

One possibility is that things continue as they are – you doing your best to keep him satisfied. Perhaps adding sex toys to the mix might help; a masturbation sleeve like the ones from Fleshlight or Tenga for example, might make a difference; these can provide a new and intense sensation that can feel similar to penetrative sex. Using it on him – rather than his masturbating with it alone – might be a way of providing the intimacy and connection he wants with the orgasms. You might even be able to simulate traditional PIV sex by holding it between your thighs and letting him penetrate THAT instead of you.

The only problem with this approach is that I suspect it might be a stop-gap measure, rather than a solution, and all that’s happened is that you’ve kicked this problem down the road.

Another possible solution would be to give him permission to sleep with someone else… and then let yourself be in a state of deliberate denial. He agrees to tell you that he hasn’t slept with anyone else and you agree to believe him, while he goes and gets his needs met as discretely as possible. Again, it’s not ideal, but the polite fiction and plausible deniability may be the compromise you can live with.

It may also be worth examining your feelings about his having an affair with someone else. What, exactly, about his being with someone else makes you feel so sick? Is it the sex itself? Does it bother you because you see it as a threat to the emotional integrity of your relationship, that he might start to fall in love with his mistress? Do you feel jealous because this theoretical lover is able to do what you can’t? If you can drill down into what, precisely, bothers you about this scenario, then you and your husband might be able to address it together.

It may also be worth gaming out other scenarios and possible compromises. Would it be as bad if he were given limited permission to sleep with someone else – say, once every couple of months, rather than at will? Would you feel differently if he were seeing an escort, rather than someone from a dating website? What if vaginal sex were off the table – would you be bothered as much his getting oral from someone? What if he went to a masseuse who offered happy endings?

It may well be that you would want to combine these options – using something like the Fleshlight to help prolong things while the two of you work out a possible solution, agreeing to let him get a happy ending from a masseuse while deliberately looking the other way if it goes farther…

I don’t know. And I’m sorry that I don’t know.

If you do decide to look into opening up the relationship, I suggest you and your fiancé read Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up and The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy; these will help give you the tools to talk about ethical non-monogamy and how to establish the rules to make it work. And no matter what you do choose, don’t be afraid to communicate your needs to your fiancé as well. Just because penetrative sex is impossible for you doesn’t mean that you don’t have a need for intimacy and pleasure as well.

I wish I had better or easier answers for you, RaaHP. I think you and your fiancé have a strong relationship and an amazing connection. Keep those lines of communication open and don’t lose sight of the love you have for each other.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have never really had a problem meeting women. Most of my best friends have been women. I have had women ask me out, which I must add was quite nice. However, I have problems feeling attracted to women who are not friends. It is rather difficult to explain. I am attracted to women, but I don’t feel the same level of sexual attraction as my male friends. I notice how nice she looks or her eyes, but that is about it.

There are exceptions: with some of my female friends.

I don’t feel that spark unless I have known someone for a long time - several years. I don’t feel sexual attraction except in the confides of a relationship. There is just no twiddle in the pants or brain otherwise. I don’t feel chemistry or the other things people describe about dating except when I date one of my best friends. Even then, the feelings are pretty low.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t develop friendships with the goal of dating. I fear dating will ruin that close friendship; been there, done that. But, for me to feel sexual attraction, I have to be able to know a person, converse, and have few walls between us. 

It may sound like bulls

t, but psychology is starting to study asexuality. The little information available describes me. My sex drive is very low and almost nonexistent. My sexual interest is focused upon her: pleasing her, helping her feel relaxed and happy. I don’t really care about my own sexual release. In fact, I vowed to myself to remain a virgin until marriage out of religious and personal conviction. 

As a 30 year old, people who know about my virginity either hold me in awe (especially when they know I have had a few girlfriends who attempted to seduce me) or view me as a weirdo.

I honestly don’t feel strong attraction except toward female friends. I have tried standard dating, and I felt terrible. I felt like I was leading my date on because I had little to no attraction for her. I asked them out because they where interesting, but I felt little beyond intellectual interest. This happens every time I ask a non-friend to date. My lack of sexual attraction has hurt people, and my slow development of attraction toward my close female friends has hurt many friendships.

I think I need emotional intimacy before my physical attraction revs up. Obviously, this leads me to be friend zoned and frustrates my girlfriends. I go out of my comfort zone to meet my girlfriend’s attraction, but mine is a slow burn that requires months and even years to develop despite my efforts to force it. As much as I try, making out and all that other stuff doesn’t appeal to me. I would rather cuddle, cook her dinner, or give her a massage. I especially enjoy giving girlfriends massages. 

In any case, what your thoughts? 

– Slow Burn

DEAR SLOW BURN:I think there are a couple of issues at play here.

First of all, what you’re experiencing is… not exactly common, but hardly unknown. What you’re describing is what’s commonly known as “demisexuality”: you don’t experience sexual attraction without a strong emotionally intimate relationship with another person. The first thing I would suggest is to visit asexuality.org and the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network to learn more.

But even allowing for your possibly being demisexual, it sounds like you have a low libido under the best of circumstances. This isn’t entirely unheard of; some folks just have a low sex-drive, period. Even as someone who’s demisexual, you may well lean more towards the asexual end of the spectrum, with little to no sexual drive over all. After all, even when you do feel desire for someone – your various female friends of long-standing – it’s not terribly strong.

What you do about this depends on how you feel about your generalized lack of attraction. If it’s something that bothers you – you want to feel physical desire, but don’t – then it might be worth talking to your doctor and getting a physical; sometimes a reduced sex drive is a symptom of an undetected physical problem. Sometimes it can be psychological – stress, for example, is a known boner-killer.

It could also be external to you. There are a number of environmental and lifestyle factors that can reduce the sex drive in people, especially men. Being overweight, smoking and certain drugs can cause issues both with libido and physical arousal… and then the additional stress of the potential of erectile dysfunction can kill your libido deader than disco. Similarly, antidepressants, especially SSRI’s, can screw up your sex-drive and leave you both uninterested in sex and unable to have it on the rare occasions you are.

On the other hand, if you’re comfortable with your sex drive as it is but feel awkward about how it affects you socially – which I suspect is the case – then you really should look to the asexual community for support. AVEN has a wide variety of resources, not just about asexuality in general but also help with common dating issues as well: after all, just because you’re not interested in physical intimacy doesn’t mean that you’re not interested in emotional intimacy.

But the fact that it happens consistently — and exclusively — with friends gives me pause. It doesn’t seem as though you’re up front with the women you date about the fact that you take time to ramp up towards sexual attraction, and that’s information that they deserve to have.

The fact that you only start feeling sexual attraction when you have an emotional relationship with someone means that sex — or at least, the traditional forms of it — aren’t likely to be on the table for a while, and people should know that in advance. That’s the sort of information that people would want to have in order to make an informed choice about whether they want to date you or not.

This lack of communication — both with your potential partners and your friends is what’s ultimately causing you problems. While I’m not questioning the legitimacy of your sexuality, I’m guessing that much of your tendency to fall for your friends is exacerbated by your feeling uncomfortable about your lack of desire.

I’m not entirely surprised that you feel abnormal and fear the rejection and strife you’ve had before. You’ve dealt with a lot of relationship drama and a lot of it was focused dead-bang on your sexuality. I can imagine that this left you feeling like a freak or a weirdo because of your low sex-drive… and that in turn makes you feel as though you don’t “deserve” a relationship. As a result, your female friends likely feel “safer” in a way, because you’ve already built up this long-standing emotionally intimate relationship but at the same time they’re off-limits; you know that they’re not interested, so you don’t have to face trying to negotiate the tricky issue of your slow-burn libido if they did decide to date you. This way you can have your neurosis cake and eat it too.

I think that the sooner you become more comfortable with who you are – that you’re perfectly normal, that there’s nothing wrong with you and that you’re certainly not the only demisexual person out there – the fewer problems you’ll have when it comes to emotional attraction. You may still take time to get interested in someone, but I think you won’t keep unconsciously punishing yourself by pursuing relationships you know won’t work out.

While your sexuality can make things inconvenient, inconvenient isn’t the same as impossible. There are women out there who also prefer to take things slow and build up comfort and security with their partner before they get sexual. And if you’re ok with being what’s known in some circles as a “service top” and pleasing your partner sexually (hands, toys, oral, etc) without expectation or need for reciprocation at first, you may find more than a few folks who’d be down with that while you build the connection that you need for physical attraction.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)