Dear Audrey,
I’ve been with my guy for a while, and a few months ago we had a drunken come-to-Jesus moment about how our sex life isn’t as great as it used to be. He stepped it up and went on the Internet and found some forum about sex (he’s a geek-type guy so this is his usual method for researching anything) and there was tons of useful info there about rekindling the spark, etc. Great, fantastic, I absolutely adore that he took the lead on making our sex awesome again. However, now I feel like he’s a little too into the forum for its own sake. If I don’t want to try whatever thing they’re all talking about that week, he pouts because he can’t brag to his buddies. The worst part is the new flavor of the month is how women “should” be able to have all of these different kinds of orgasms: clitoral, vaginal, g-spot, anal, etc. He downloaded some kind of vaginal orgasm-training manual and wants me to go to work. I feel bad because I laughed and it hurt his feelings. I’m perfectly fine with the orgasms I have. He says I’m limiting my own pleasure, and that his ultimate goal is to make me squirt. Oy. What do I do here? I don’t want to be discouraging.
Bless the heart of any man who approaches a woman with a sex-related training manual. I mean, I’m not usually charmed by cluelessness, but this actually is somewhat adorable. Sweet, stupid, well-meaning, Internet-forum boyfriend.
I think it’s time to make some boundaries around this forum, no? Clearly, it has become something he is doing for himself because he likes the community, instead of something to help your relationship. Which is fine. If fixed your long-term relationship boring sex blues, giant kudos because that is hard. Be glad you never had to drive to some strip mall S&M club in South Jersey to watch overly gelled dudebros getting whacked on their incongruously untanned asses, or whatever your relationship’s version of that would be.
Just tell him: “You started doing this to help our sex life, but pushing me to try stuff I don’t want to try is going to have the opposite effect. Fucking chill with the Google Docs full of arcane orgasm formulae. I’m open to hearing suggestions, but you have to learn to take a no.”
If he’s still hyped up about it, go on the forum and enlist the help of his sex advice buddies. Hopefully they’ll tell him the best way to get good sex is to listen to you about what you want. Either way, maybe it’s time to have a sit-down convo about boundaries and consent and how the primary goal of your sex life is pleasure for the two of you (or whatever your arrangement is), and not for the amusement of randos on the Internet. I think it’s easy to get caught up in something like that and not realize you’re slipping into “no means no” territory. Just because they helped one aspect of your sex life doesn’t mean you have to try literally everything they are into.
I suspect he will still have clandestine plans to “turn you into a squirter,” since some men consider making someone squirt a kind of holy grail of sexual prowess, but whatever, maybe that just means you’ll get tons of excellent head.