DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: What I want to ask can be best summed up as “Why are men so easy?”

Alright, let me back up. First off, I should clarify that I am a man. A straight man, in particular. Second, I’m referring to the dating dynamic of men being a lot less particular with who they want to date or hook up with than women. Don’t worry, I’m not doing the incel thing of complaining about women being too picky. I don’t believe anyone’s standards are a problem. But I am interested in why those standards differ so sharply between the sexes.

Like, the obvious answer seems to be that women have to be more skeptical of men due to many of them being possible threats. Therefore, being easy is a male privilege, like walking outside alone at night or not putting effort into how you dress. But unlike other privileges, it’s not one that women are interested in. I’ve heard many women say they wish they could walk home alone at night, but none that wish they could let more guys hit (Also none that want to put less effort into dressing, but that’s a question for a different columnist, I think). Having a refined taste in men is a point of pride for women that the reverse just isn’t. It’s why the word “slut” doesn’t hurt men.

So being an easy lay isn’t just something men can do, it’s something we want to do. And that I think makes it suspect, right? Because behavior exclusive to men is understandably placed under scrutiny in my circles. There’s a famous tweet that once said that anything only men like isn’t cool. If only men like being an easy lay, does that not mean it isn’t cool? (Granted, that tweet was a joke about Joe Rogan and not a serious social analysis, but still…)

So I want to defend the dynamic a little. At least through one of the most prominent examples that is something that I participated in, which is swiping right a lot in dating apps. Back when I was on the apps, I would very rarely swipe left on anybody. If they didn’t either look like a bot or had a really concerning profile, it was a right for me. The reason I did this was mainly practical. More swipes right mean more chances for matches. I wanted to get matches because to me, any real and decent woman willing to match with me was worth a conversation. Maybe it’s egotistical, but I find being desired, well, desirable. And so, without knowing much else, being interested in me made me more interested in them. I could just be justifying my desperation since I didn’t have any luck and still haven’t, but I don’t think this was the worst approach to dating. After all, it’s about finding a connection, and someone who likes you is a pretty good indicator of a connection. And even if they were just doing the same to me (Which as we’ve established, is a rare event for women), well, that’s also a connection.

As for their appearance, well, I just find most women, at least the ones I saw on the apps, to be attractive. I think the perception of men is they would f--k any woman regardless of attraction just for the power trip. Maybe there are a lot of guys who are like that, but I personally just think most women look like someone I’d enjoy being with. I’m not saying I don’t care about appearances; I just rarely find women so unattractive that I don’t see myself at least giving them the time of day.

So that’s why I did that, and why I think a lot of men do as well. I know I spoke in a lot of generalities and assumptions, but anything I’m wrong about, I’d be glad to be corrected. What I want to know is: is this refined palette that women have something we men can acquire and if so, should we? And if not, how do we reconcile with this barrier of relatability that causes so much tension in hetero dating and makes it hard to understand each other’s problems?

I’m Not A Player, I Just Swipe A Lot

DEAR I’M NOT A PLAYER, I JUST SWIPE A LOT: A lot of the answer to your question comes from not necessarily getting the actual issues, INPIJSL.

Let’s start with the whole Earth Men Are Easy thing. To start with, women do talk about how they would like to get laid more. The issue here is one of privilege, but not necessarily the way that you think. They don’t often talk about it in public spaces or around a lot of men, but women are people and they like sex in the same proportions that men do.

In fact, until the early 19th century, women in Western and Middle Eastern societies tended to be seen as the lustier of the sexes. Maenads – hordes of wild women in service to the Greek god Dionysius, were said to work themselves into drunken frenzies and rampage through the woods and fields, chasing down men and forcing them into sex, tearing them to shreds if they refused (or often even if they didn’t). In The Metamorphosis, Ovid wrote about how Tiresias was transformed into a woman the gods in order to determine who got more pleasure from sex, men or women. After several years, Tiresias reported back that women’s pleasure from sex was nearly nine times more intense than men’s, thus laying the groundwork for both a famous 4chan meme and various force-femme kinks.

Medieval European writings about gender saw women as being far more interested in sex than men were, often to their own detriment. In fact, medical practice at the time placed great emphasis on how a woman’s orgasm was required for conception – a matter that was often brought up when trying to determine whether a woman was barren or not. Official Catholic lore of the Early Modern era held that witches not only held orgies in their sabbats, but would steal the semen (and often, the genitals) of sleeping men in order to satisfy themselves.

It wasn’t until the proto-feminist movement in the Victorian era that women were portrayed as the less lustful sex; instead, they were seen as being purer and less inclined to base or bestial desires and lusts, compared to men. In fact, the idea – eagerly adopted and spread by Protestant denominations – was that women’s role was to restrain men’s animalistic natures and encourage their more elevated pursuits instead. This was part of what played into things like the growing Temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, and it’s still felt today, even in this post-Sex in the City, post-Euphoria era we live in today.

Which brings me to the issue about whether women have more refined tastes in men or why the term “slut” doesn’t hurt men the way it hurts women, and the answer is: practicalities and sexism. On the practical side of things, women face a disproportionate amount of risk from sex compared to men. Not just the risk of sexual violence, but the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Cisgendered men can’t get pregnant, and the anatomy of the vagina means that cis women have a higher chance of contracting an STI from a man than a man does from a woman.

But on the social side of things, women who show too much interest in sex are still seen as damaged, defective, masculine or otherwise bad, especially when their sexuality isn’t in service to a man’s pleasure. There’s a reason why the vast majority of attempts to criminalize reproductive rights focus on abortion, IUDs and hormonal birth control; far less attention and vitriol is directed towards men who get vasectomies. You may also notice that women have to fight to get various forms of long-term or permanent fertility control from their doctors, while erectile dysfunction medication gets handed out like candy.  

Similarly, you may notice how often men will castigate women for being sluts, while also noting how a man’s worth and status is tied to how much sex he has. You may also have noticed the push of “tradwife” accounts on social media, “modest is hottest” messaging and yelling at women for posting sexy selfies on Instagram, while nobody gives a damn about the number of shirtless pics men share.

It’s also worth noting that women only got the right to their own bank accounts, credit cards and general control over their finances within our lifetimes. Until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, women could be denied credit or bank accounts without the approval of their father or husband. Much as how Griswold V. Connecticut gave unmarried people access to birth control, the ECOA put the stake in the heart of needing women needing to marry for their own financial security, which changed the dynamic of who women were choosing to date and have relationships with and why… something that many men have not stopped complaining about ever since.

It’s not about having a more “refined” taste being a matter of pride, as much as men having far fewer consequences for f--king as much as they want. As I’ve said before: women are told that their worth is contingent on the sex they don’t have, while men are celebrated for the sex they do.    

Now, when we’re talking about dating apps… you’re hardly the only person who swipes right on most people. This is, in fact, something that many, many men do, for the same reason: to maximize the number of matches. However, this actually works against you – both with the women you hope to match with and within the app itself. Under the best of circumstances, this behavior means that women get an overwhelming number of matches, which actually makes them less likely to match with people or go on many dates. This is known as the Paradox of Choice: too many options makes it harder to make a choice or to be happy when you do make one. At the same time, most of the men who engage in this behavior attempt to match with as many women as possible and then decide who they actually want to try to see; as a result, you get a lot of women who are matching in good faith, only to find out that the guy they thought was interested in them really just wanted to have as many options as possible and didn’t actually like them at all. If the men do message them, it tends to be incredibly low-effort affairs, with the average message being less than twelve characters.��Not words. Characters. Including punctuation and spaces.

This tends to annoy and frustrate women, who abandon the apps, and it frustrates the owners of the apps because this behavior costs them subscribers. So, swiping right on everyone tends to get your account deprioritized in the algorithm, if it doesn’t get suspended or canceled for bot-like behavior.

Now another factor that you didn’t bring up in your letter, but is very present, is that men do have more “refined” palates, like women do. The difference is that they often reserve those for women who “count”, rather than when they just want to f--k. There’re are a lot of men who will happily have sex with a wide variety of women, but who get incredibly picky when they want someone to have a relationship with. You may notice how men will differentiate between people who’re good enough to f--k and who are good enough to date – a dichotomy involving the “pure” and the “debased”. A Madonna/whore complex, if you will, that affects how they behave with these women.

In fact, one of the biggest factors that affects why women don’t have as much sex as they might want is that, quite frankly, a lot of the sex on offer isn’t worth it. The guys who want those casual hook-ups are very pointedly not bringing their a-game because why should they? Men are all but guaranteed to enjoy sexual encounters they have, with 98% of them achieving orgasm during sex. Women, on the other hand, tend to only achieve orgasm around 60% of the time with hetero men. The men are more than happy to hit it and quit it, and don’t feel the need to give more than a token effort because why should they? They’re not planning on a repeat engagement. So, for many women, casual sex is a losing proposition; the sex isn’t enjoyable, they’re at risk of pregnancy and infection and the guys offering it are just as likely to turn around and call them sluts and whores before the afterglow’s started to dim. However, when presented with an option who’s discrete, safe and skilled? Women are far more likely to go for it.

Then there’s the Somebody, Anybody, Everybody issue: when you’re not that discriminating in your tastes, people that you’re showing interest in often don’t feel special or unique. While yes, folks like feeling desired, there’s being desired because you’re uniquely you and then there’s “well, you’re warm and available”, which tends to make people feel like ambulatory Fleshlights. When someone feels like they’re just a number instead of a person, even someone who’s down to clown is more likely to hope the Nope Train to F--k That S--tville.

Don’t get me wrong, the desire to feel desired or being turned on by reciprocal desire is all well and good. So is wanting to have a large number of partners; having a desire or need for variety or novelty isn’t a bad thing, whatever your gender. Nor, for that matter, does having a broad taste in partners mean something negative. Part of the appeal of a character like Jack Harkness is his omnisexuality; if they’re sentient, consenting and physically compatible, he’s willing to hit it. However, the important part of that equation is that he’s attracted to the individual person, specifically, not just “any hole is a goal”. His concept of “hotness” may encompass the known universe, and he may have put up numbers that Wolfram Alpha would be hard-pressed to calculate, but every time it was about that specific person and making sure they knew that.

Quantity does not have a quality of its own, and women tend to not appreciate feeling like one potential option in a batch of dozens.

So, it’s not a case of whether men can have more refined tastes, it’s just a matter of when those tastes come into play. Being more discerning is a good thing, because it increases the odds of not just finding someone you like, but someone you like also returning your interest. It’s a lot easier to win someone over when they know that you want them because they’re them and you’re willing to show it, rather than taking a shotgun approach and hoping that throwing enough lead in the air will net you something.  

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: Many years ago, I was very unexperienced in the ways of dating. I found your column and your advice helped me through when a guy at work asked me out. You helped me getting used to dating, advice on having sexy times for the first time, and generally working on making a stable relationship, especially when he came out as bi early on and I supported him. We worked on what I thought was a strong loving relationship, which has been going on now for 11 years and married 5 of them, and we have a toddler together.��He recently had his second bout of depression and has started counselling. Through this, he has realised that he is not in fact bi but fully gay but repressed. I am in turmoil right now. He still claims to still love me and always has, and I do still love him, but everything is now a mess. I’m not sure how we proceed.��He mentioned at first that we have 3 options, break up, friendship but still living together or some sort of polycule. He wants to keep in a relationship, but he doesn’t feel like we can have a full physical relationship now and I am not sure how I even go about the future. I don’t really know what I need to be doing, asking or even how we can have a relationship together. We are still communicating and basically just talking through everything, but this last chat about a relationship broke me.��Please help me. I am not even sure what questions I need to ask. Could you please help advise me on just how maybe how I can process this.��I’m struggling so hard right now.

Broken Heartache

DEAR BROKIEN HEARTACHE: Oh, this is rough, SS, and I’m sorry. I’m glad your husband has found his truth, but I’m sorry for the bomb that it dropped right in the middle of your entire world.

So, first things first. I’m sure you know this intellectually, but I want to say it because I think you need to hear it anyway: your husband realizing that he’s gay has nothing to do with you, nor does it have anything to do with your relationship.

Just as importantly: none of it changes your history together. Your relationship wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t built on a lie, his feelings for you weren’t a lie. All of that is still real, all of that still happened, the memories are still real, this wasn’t a hoax or a fraud or a mistake. All that’s happened is that your husband realized something about himself and who he is now, versus who he was then or thought he was. He’s been having to come to terms with himself and accept a part of himself that he has a very complicated and complex relationship with, and that’s a hard thing to do. 

This is also not that uncommon. Even today, there’re a lot of queer people across the gender spectrum who identified as bisexual or pansexual before realizing (or accepting) that they’re gay. Sometimes it’s a matter of sexuality being a spectrum, and what was true for them at one stage of their lives is not true for them at a later stage. Other times, it’s a matter of not being able to accept their sexuality or be honest with themselves or others about it – especially if they come from conservative backgrounds, cultures or families. Sexuality is complex, often confusing and rarely moves in straight lines. 

But the important part is that none of this changes your life together. It may add context or nuance, but the important things, like your love, affection, respect and the life you made together are all very, very much there.

It’s entirely understandable that you are feeling confused and stunned and more than a bit scared. That’s all valid and it’s completely understandable. I’m really not kidding when I said you had a bomb dropped into the middle of everything. But here’s the thing I want you to understand: this wasn’t a hand grenade, this was a flashbang; it’s a sudden burst of light, like a sun suddenly exploded in front of you, a boom so loud that you didn’t hear it so much as feel the shockwave go through you. You’re stunned, disoriented, blinded. You can’t hear anything but the high-pitched ringing in your ears; everything else sounds like you’re under water or buried in layers of cotton, muffled and garbled, barely intelligible but still somehow recognizable as words.

But that’s not the same as damaged. This wasn’t destruction; what you’re feeling is shock, followed by a massive realignment of the world around you. It looks familiar but different – enough to make you question everything, but not so much that you don’t recognize it any longer. And that’s understandably terrifying. You’ve had over a decade with your husband when the world was one way. Now, suddenly, the world’s shifted another way and you’re still trying to make sense of it all. This is entirely understandable and reasonable. Your confusion is ok. Your feeling unmoored is valid. It doesn’t make you a bad person to have your world rocked by this, any more than it means that your husband’s love for you wasn’t real or that the life you built together wasn’t real. Things have changed, yes. But that’s not the same as “destroyed”.

The best thing you can do right now – and I mean right now – is take a beat. Like I said, you just got your bell seriously rung by all of this, and you’re still staggering. You do not need to make any decisions right this instant, nor should you. You are not in the right headspace to make major decisions about your relationship, because you’re still coming to terms with all of this. You can and should press pause on any talk of what your relationship is going to be. This isn’t a conversation that has to be had right this instant, and whatever would come from it isn’t going to be what’s best for you, your husband or your child.

It is important that give yourself some time to process that this happened, to let the ringing in your ears and the spots and afterimages in your eyes fade. Giving yourself that moment to pause, gather yourself and just feel is going to be important. You’re going to feel a lot of things, and I’m sure some of them aren’t going to be pretty or fair – to you, your husband, to the Universe, whatever. That’s ok. That’s just the sudden shock of it all disorienting you as you try to make sense of it and your brain and your heart are scrambling about trying to make sense of it all in the chaos. Don’t worry about what you’re feeling, just let yourself feel it without judgement, and let it flow through you and past you. And this initial maelstrom will pass, if you let it. You don’t need to dwell; you don’t need to focus on anything except giving yourself a moment to get your legs under you and your head to clear.

Then, once the initial shock of it all has worn off, you and your husband should go to a couple’s counselor, one who is LGBTQ friendly and ideally experienced in issues like this. You two have a lot to talk about, and it’s all going to be a lot easier to do this when you have a trained third party who can help moderate and mediate the discussion, guide you down paths that will be helpful to you both and to help give you the vocabulary to express yourselves to one another.

The thing about couple’s counselors is that they’re not just for fixing things that’ve gone wrong in relationships; sometimes they’re there to help you have the hard discussions, guide you through the thorns and brambles of these sudden changes and help you decide what your relationship is going to be going forward… including how you two might – for lack of a better term – consciously uncouple, if that’s what you decide is necessary.

You should also see a counselor by yourself. Even after the initial shock has passed, you’re going to be dealing with a lot of very large, very loud, very complicated feelings and a lot of them probably aren’t going to make a lot of sense. They’re going to be tangled together like the world’s worst knot, tied by the most malicious Boy Scout possible, and it’s going to sit like lead in your heart and your mind and you’re going to feel like you’re on an emotional roller-coaster designed by someone who thought that Kingda Ka or Steel Vengence just didn’t have enough sudden drops, spirals or hard turns. Talking to someone, in a space where you can just rage or cry or vent or say whatever comes out will be important, knowing that it stays there. And when you’re ready, your counselor can help you pick apart that knot and tease it all out, so you can deal with those feelings as needed.

I also want you to understand is that the proposal for the future that your husband’s put before you – break up, live together as friends, polyamory – aren’t the only options. They’re the ones he sees as being the most viable paths forward, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the only choices you have. I’m not saying that you should reject them out of hand or that they’re bad or selfish; I’m just saying that you haven’t had a chance for you to think over how you want to move forward. You’re still dealing with the initial shock of it all, while he’s had more time to get used to it. You also have a right to propose what you think would be best for you, for him, for your relationship and for your child.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure your husband is trying to put forward what he thinks is best for everyone, but I think he’s a little blindsided by this as well. I think he’s dealing with his own shock, his own sudden change in his world view. He’s had a bit more time than you and the realization was far more gradual for him than it was for you… but it’s still a truly massive shift for him too. It’s very easy to get tunnel vision when you’ve had such a profound and life-changing realization. But just because those are the only paths he sees, that doesn’t mean that those are the only ones there are.

If I’m being honest, I don’t think he was thinking of you very much in that moment. It’s entirely forgivable; I doubt you’re thinking much about him right now. But this is why you need to hit pause on future plans until you’ve had that beat and that time with a counselor: so that neither of you get so locked up in your own view that you can’t see how this would affect each other. Because as much as your s--t has been rocked by all of this, you’re still on the same team. You still love each other, you still care for one another, you’ve built a life together and have a child. None of you want to destroy that. You all want what’s best for everyone involved.

That might mean deciding that you’re going to live separately but co-parent together. It might mean that you decide to live in the same building or neighborhood, so that it’s easy for you two to share responsibilities. It might mean divorce, or a companionate marriage. Maybe you’ll decide that yes, a big polycule will be the best option for everyone, or maybe you’ll decide that the best option is to have separate and distinct households and relationships, and shared custody. But the important thing is that you don’t have to decide this now. All of that is for the future. Right now, what you need to do is take time to recover from the shock and get ready for the next steps.

But here’s what you need to know, more than anything else: it’ll be ok. You’ll be ok. What you feel right now is temporary and it will pass. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.

Oh, and one more thing: allow yourself to grieve. Grieve the marriage that you had, grieve the relationship that you had, grieve the future that you thought you were going to have. It’s ok to be sad about those; the world you knew has changed and this is a loss. It doesn’t make you bad or selfish to mourn what you had. It was there and now it’s different and it’s appropriate to mourn the loss of it. Grief and mourning don’t mean that what has happened is bad, just that it’s different. Allowing yourself to grieve is saying goodbye to what was, and what allows you to move forward and see what this new world, this new future, is going to bring, with clear eyes and an open heart and soul.

He’ll be ok. You’ll be ok. I promise.

All will be well.

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’m 47 years old. I left my sexless marriage ten years ago. I fully expected to have a rich sex life post marriage. I did not. The last time I had sex was years ago and that was an isolated incident.

How do I just accept my sexless life?

Chaste, Not Chased

DEAR CHASTE, NOT CHASED: OK, CNC, I promise you that I am actually taking your question seriously and that I’m not mocking you or dunking on you when I ask you this: what did you expect was going to happen?

I’m not asking this because out of a sense of “well you should’ve known you were unf--kable”, but because I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve made the same choices you’ve made, with similar outcomes. There was something in their relationship that they were unsatisfied with, made changes to the relationship or left it entirely with the hope and expectation that this would solve their problems… and then discover that now they had the same problem and also no relationship. Some guys, for example, pressure their partners to open up the relationship under the assumption that this means that they’re going to have hot-and-cold running sex whenever they want it… only to discover that finding women who were cool with sleeping with partnered men was far more difficult than finding men who were cool with having sex with partnered women. The same is true for leaving a sexless marriage; it’s one thing if there are people who’ve been making it clear that they’d love to jump a guy’s bones if only the obstacle of the wife was out of the way. But without that… well, the biggest difference is just that they’re no longer married.

Now this isn’t to say that leaving your relationship was wrong – far from it. You were unhappy and unsatisfied, your needs weren’t being met, those are all very good reasons to end a marriage. But this is where the question of “what did you expect was going to happen” comes in, because what you expected and what was likely can be very different. It’s generally a good idea to leave a relationship with some idea of what comes next, even if “what comes next” is “take some time to reflect on what happened and what I can do differently” or “I’m going to pursue my connection with X once I’m ready”. ��An expectation without preparation can lead to a situation like the one you’re in now, where things spiraled out of control.

Now, a lot of people hearing that will think that what I’m saying is that you don’t leave a relationship unless you’ve got a cushion to land on, metaphorically speaking, and I’m not. What I’m saying is that leaving a relationship isn’t a guarantee of anything except the end of that relationship. And while leaving that relationship may be a net-positive in and of itself – and it sounds like it was – that’s no guarantee of what will come after.

Now part of the problem here is that you give me next to nothing to work with in terms of what happened and what you’re struggling with. I don’t know why the sex in your marriage ended, what you and your ex-wife did, if anything, to try to resolve it. This is important, not just for someone like me to give you advice, but also from a perspective of “what you need to do differently after you’ve ended the marriage”.

There’s a significant difference, for example, between your ex-wife suddenly deciding that both of you were done with sex for good, or you having a profound disconnect in the kinds of sex you needed and the kind of sex she did. Her desire could’ve tapered off because of boredom, or hormonal changes or medication. It could be a case of “she just fell out of love with you”, or changes in her life cratered her libido and ability to feel sexual. You might have let yourself go in a way that made it harder for her to feel attracted to you, or she might have realized that her sexuality and relationship to it was different than she had thought.

Similarly, an idea of what you and she did – again, if anything – to solve the problem can give an idea of where you might want to pay attention in the future. If you went to couple’s therapy and that didn’t fix anything, why not? Was the therapist not a good match for you? Did they not take the problem seriously? Were their suggestions not actually helpful? Or did you or your wife not put actual effort into trying the exercises? Was it a case where your wife was happy no longer having sex and so didn’t see a need to try to fix things? Or was it a case of she or you wanted things the other couldn’t give and so the compromise was “nobody has sex now”?

This is why having an idea of what went wrong and why is important: it gives you a path forward to fixing things, even if you don’t necessarily have people waiting for you to be single again. If you, like a lot of people in relationships, started to relax your standards of presentation and personal upkeep, then obviously the next thing you want to do is get yourself back into fighting trim, so you’re ready to be out on the dating market. If it was a case that you and your wife had mismatched needs, getting a better handle on what you need from a sex partner can make a difference as you try to find someone who’s more in tune with you.

You also don’t give me any information about what you’ve done since to try to have a rich and fulfilling sex life, what obstacles were in the way and what you’ve tried to do to overcome them or work around them. That would give a better idea of what you could do next and whether the only answer truly is “just give in and be ready for your monastic existence”. Throwing your hands up and saying “nothing worked” isn’t helpful if the issue was ultimately that you were trying to pursue relationships with people you weren’t compatible with, if it was a matter of not knowing where to look for the kind of relationship you want or even “the apps just suck”.

And since I don’t want to waste your time and mine with suggestions that you’ve already tried or that aren’t necessarily a good fit for you… well, that limits our options rather significantly.

I will say that, if nothing else, your lack of sex is a money-soluble problem. Escorts, massage providers who give happy endings and other sex workers exist, after all. Sugar babies are a thing too, if you are looking for a regular partner. If all you want is sex for the sake of getting laid, putting money aside for, say, a bi-monthly trip to Nevada is always an option, especially if you want to avoid possible legal issues.

But if it’s truly a case of “nothing works, nothing will satisfy you and you don’t want to put more effort in” … well, you can still have satisfying sex with yourself. Masturbation doesn’t necessarily need to be a five-minute session with Rosie Palms and a browser tab open to Pornhub or Brazzers. Varying techniques, using lube of varying slickness or consistency, exploring things like prostate stimulation and the like can give you orgasms that’re very different from a quick knuckle shuffle.

There’re also a wide variety of masturbation sheaths from companies like Fleshlight and Tenga, with a variety of textures, levels of suction and friction to provide you with a smorgasbord of experiences. There’re even masturbation sheaths that’re licensed molds of specific porn stars, for a proxy experience. There are also human-sized and shaped toys like Real Dolls if you want to have the feeling of another body in bed (or the tub or the couch or whatever) with you; they’re not cheap by anyone’s measure, but they’ll provide a better facsimile of a sexual relationship than just your hand itself.

It may not be the same as having a regular partner, but that’s still different from an entirely sexless existence. You’re just adjusting your definition of what ‘sex’ is. ��But like I said: that’s basically the best I can do, based on what you’ve given me. Next time, if there is a next time, if you find yourself in a similar situation, before you make the leap out, remember to ask yourself “OK… when I do this, what happens next?”

Good luck.

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