Dear Audrey,
I’m a straight woman, I’ve been dating a guy for a little over a year now, and generally things are good, sex-wise. But: He’s way more into anal than I am. I’ve tried all the stuff they say to try to get off on it as a woman and nothing has really worked for me. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it either—I mostly do it for my dude. He’s always been kind of a pest about wanting more anal and doesn’t really get why that bugs me. Recently, I’ve gotten really into watching pegging porn so I was like okay, fine, I’d like to try pegging, let’s trade off. Like for every time I take it in the ass, he takes it in the ass. He freaked out and said I was being vindictive, that guy-on-girl anal is “normal” but girl-on-guy is “fetish” and “not what he’s into.” I don’t see the difference, especially since he actually HAS a prostate, so it will probably feel nice. It’s not like I want to give him a taste of his own medicine. I am sincerely interested in pegging; I think it’s super-duper hot. Am I wrong here?

You’re not wrong, but you’re not 100 percent right, either. I’m not really that into the idea of any kind of tit-for-tat sex calculations, because I feel like that’s a great way to make sex super petty and boring. Like, imagine if you kept a spreadsheet of every time he went down on you and every time you went down on him and then demanded that the less active oral-giver make up the difference every month.

I mean, actually now that I’m typing that out, I’m sure there are people who are way into accountant porn and would love that set-up, but you see what I’m getting at. If someone is honestly like, “I don’t want to try that,” I think it’s unfair to be like “I did this for you, now you have to do this for me.”

However. It’s pretty clear your guy is not arguing from a place of good faith. He keeps pushing you to do something you don’t really like, which sucks. Wheedling is one of the least attractive sexual poses: I think most women have memories of doing a sex act they weren’t all that into just to shut someone up, and they’re not usually very good memories.

You should remind your boyfriend that it wasn’t so very long ago that guy-on-girl anal was considered “fetish” stuff, and surely attitudes about straight men getting things up their butts are rapidly changing. Despite what I just said in the preceding paragraphs, I do find it bratty that he is demanding you stick his thing up your butt but refusing to let you stick your thing up his butt. He didn’t even say like, “let’s start with a finger” or “tell me why this is hot to you,” he just knee-jerk said “ew, yuck no way.”

So you could go on an anal strike of your own, or you could sit him down and have him watch some pegging porn so he sees how hot it is to you, or you could have a long talk about your feelings and his feelings. But honestly, this guy sounds like kind of a poop who is boring and bad at sex. I dunno, my gut reaction reading your email was just: She could do better. So dump him, maybe? •