I’m grateful she’s trying more in bed. I’m repulsed by how she’s doing it.

How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

My wife and I are deeply in love and are both very affectionate. She’s in her mid-50s, I’m in my mid-60s. Just for background, she’s never had an orgasm through penetrative, manual, or oral sex, though she regularly has one with oral sex and a vibrator and dirty talk. Our problem is sort of unrelated and actually my fault. In the past, my orgasm was always triggered by my partner’s, and without her orgasm, I sometimes take a long time or don’t finish at all, and she’ll get tired and say things like, “Come on, bring it on home!” which really kills any chance of coming for me. I once made the mistake of asking if she could make some sounds of pleasure while we had sex, and she does, but they are, to be honest, pretty corny and kind of ridiculous. I’m really grateful that she’s so willing, but I also know that, post-menopause, she could pretty much take it or leave it, so I can’t bring myself to tell her maybe I shouldn’t have asked her to make those noises. Can you tell me how best to tell her it was my mistake?

—Careful What You Wish For

Dear Careful What You Wish For,

Firstly, I think you need to assess whether or not intercourse should be your go-to sexual practice. Your wife could pretty much take it or leave it, and if she’s not coming, you’re not coming (at least for a while) so … is anyone actually having fun? Sure, it’s possible: A sex act’s worth isn’t measured in whether or not it provides an orgasm—some things are fun for fun’s sake and that’s great. But if vicarious pleasure is really what gets you off, it might be wise to focus more on what makes her come—the oral, the vibrator, the dirty talk—while at the same time masturbating yourself. (Or if she’s down, she could masturbate you and/or perform oral on you while you take care of her.) Many seem to believe that sex isn’t real unless there’s penis-in-vagina penetration and I just want to disabuse you of that notion and encourage you to seek pleasure where you find it, not according to some invented standard.

Now, if you are determined to continue pursuing intercourse and your wife is totally down, I think it is reasonable to ask her to scale back on the theatrics. You did a great job of outlining the issue in your letter, so you’re already on your way to articulating this to your wife. You’ll want to use the softest, most affirming language possible. Start by telling her that you appreciate her putting in the effort that you requested. You can ask her how much of it is genuine—if she confesses that it’s little to none, it’s reasonable to say that you had a feeling that was the case, and that her performance actually is taking you out of it. You can ask her just how much she is enjoying herself overall during intercourse. Maybe it’s moderately so—but enough that it makes sense to keep doing it. Maybe she’s happy to keep at it because she likes facilitating your pleasure. Maybe she’d rather not and she hasn’t felt empowered enough to say that. It’s a good idea to check in and then tell her that she should feel free to express herself verbally however she sees fit—if it’s commensurate with a meh reaction to the sex at hand, so be it. This takes her off the hook and allows you to explore her experience—and ways to optimize her pleasure. Win/win.

Dear How to Do It,

My wife and I are both in our early 50s, and we’ve had a pretty spectacular marriage, with two problem areas: conflict and sex. I’m a born people-pleaser who’s hesitant to rock the boat, she’s the youngest of a family of fighters who takes up defensive positions pretty rapidly. We’re both pretty awkward about sex for various personal reasons and we’re both low-desire which is both helpful and problematic, since arousal never seems to line up.

I spent the first part of our marriage trying to figure out how to open lines of communication between us, only for it to turn into a fight I’d retreat from. On the rare occasions she’d express a want, it would be very vague and related to things with ambiguous consent, which was very difficult for me to navigate. We fell into a pattern where we’d have something resembling fun for both of us, although she would just kind of let me drive and not really engage with me or my body. That I wasn’t getting what I’d always hoped for—a sex life where my partner and I would learn to communicate, share our needs, and take care of each other—sent me through periods of sadness and anger, but I kept it to myself and kinda boxed it up and put it away in the back of my brain.

I came down with severe depression during the pandemic which I’ve come out of mostly, but anhedonia lingers. For reasons I don’t understand, this stuff I thought I’d put to bed has come rushing back. I’m feeling this great sense of loss and sadness, and I’ve been able to mask it so far, but I can also tell that my wife knows something is on my mind. I don’t want to lie by omission and pretend everything’s fine anymore, but I also don’t have the slightest idea how to have these conversations without it being something like, “The last 20 years of sex have sucked, I didn’t get what I wanted, wah-wah poor me.” And then even if we did discuss it, I still don’t actually have any desire.

I’m at a loss here. In the last decade, we got diagnoses for her (autism and ADD) and me (OCD and anxiety), both of which have started to make conflict feel a little easier as we have frameworks for how each others’ brains work. In addition, I’ve never gotten over witnessing some ugly behavior from men in my childhood that left me with a lot of shame over sexual desire and guilt for asking for basically anything focused on my pleasure. Oh, and with the anhedonia, I can’t get an erection anymore (even with pills). I could really use some guidance on how to start this conversation or if you think there’s even a point to do so.

—Too Late?

Dear Too Late?,

Firstly, to rebut your sign-off, it’s never too late. I don’t think this conversation is pointless, either. You really want to be able to connect and communicate with your wife. That’s an important issue whether your dick is rock hard or saggin’. You now are better equipped to deal with disagreement and there is a sense of things being unresolved. Closure might be good for you.

You can start by acknowledging what is glaring: “I know you can tell that something is up with me, and I’d like to share what it is, if you are willing to listen.” This, I realize, is a bit of a risk, as your wife could shut you down then and there. You could then emphasize how meaningful it would be to you if she would listen. If you make absolutely no headway, perhaps you could write down your thoughts in a letter that you urge her to read. You can’t make her hear you out, but you can certainly emphasize how important it is to you that she try. You should also consider what, if anything, actionable that you want to convey. Maybe the telling is enough but there also might be ways of fostering intimacy that you can suggest.

It’s great that you’ve both been using your diagnoses to navigate communication. Keep building there. If you aren’t currently in therapy, it could help—it sounds like you have some trauma from the behavior you witnessed in childhood that you still need to work through. Also, if you haven’t talked to anyone about your anhedonia, that could also be useful. Anhedonia could have roots in physiology (a doctor may want to do blood tests to check your hormone levels, for example) and also psychology. In the latter case, sex therapy could help. Cover all your bases and visit multiple clinicians.

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Dear How to Do It,

I’m having an embarrassing problem and don’t know what to do. Every time I see a certain female co-worker, I get a raging hard-on, no matter where we are. And the weird thing is that she’s not even that attractive.  So far I’ve been able to hide it, but there’s got to be a way of stopping this! It’s like I’m back in middle school. Any ideas?

—Involuntarily Standing at Attention

Dear Involuntarily Standing at Attention,

Definitely keep hiding it. It’s worked so far and it might be the most reliable strategy here. Other methods that may work are distraction (if it is indeed possible to divert your attention from the throbbing between your legs) and, as odd as it sounds, flexing a muscle. As surgeon influencer Karan Rajan explained in a 2021 TikTok: “When you tense any muscle, especially a large one, like in your thighs, the blood from the engorged spongey tissues, the corpus cavernosum and spongiosum, will be redirected to the flexed muscle.” Plus, it’s a good method of distraction.

—Rich

Incidentally, what you’re experiencing when you have a sexual response to someone or something that you intellectually know you aren’t into is called arousal nonconcordance. Emily Nagoski writes about this in her book Come As You Are, citing research performed by Meredith Chivers and Ellen Laan. “There is about a 50 percent overlap between what a male’s genitals respond to as ‘sexually relevant’ and what his brain responds to as ‘sexually appealing,’” Nagoski writes. That means it’s extremely common for your dick to respond to something that you think it has no business responding to. Happens! Sometimes inexplicably. One of life’s little mysteries.

More Advice From Slate

I am an early 30s gay male, have been married to my husband, a mid-30s gay male, for six years and together for 13 years. He is a long-time athletic coach. I suspected something was up with him for a while. So, I confirmed my suspicions by leaving a recording device in our bedroom one night while I was away. I discovered that he had an affair with one of his athletes. This athlete is over the age of consent, but much younger than he is. I am devastated. What should I do?