Premedicine major Kat Corcoran and creative writing major Dan Copulsky thought they’d be able to come up with more things to put here. The Llama Sutra delights in answering your questions about sex and relationships, which can be sent to sutra@llamaledger.com, through this form (no need to provide any personal information), or placed in the box in the snack bar. Questions will be published anonymously.
What is the best way to broach the possibility of toy play with your mate?
Sex columnist Dan Savage encourages people to bring up kinks as perks rather than things that have to be tolerated. And toys aren’t particularly weird, as far as kinks go.
From there, our advice gets kind of repetitive: try to just bring it up (“How do you feel about sex toys?”), try to find some way to bring it up casually in conversation if you can’t bring it up upfront (“Have you seen this vibrator that plugs in to an iPod and goes with the rhythm?... Doesn’t that sound like fun?”), and try to broach the subject more generally before you talk about it more specifically (“Would you use sex toys?” before “I have handcuffs in my dresser!”).
If you’ve already have a sex toy, you could always just pull it out some time, but that’s probably more likely to put off your partner if they’re not into the idea, so be cautious with that approach.
Why do women fake orgasms, and how can I tell if my girlfriend is faking hers?
Many women experience performance anxiety and have trouble reaching orgasm during sex or don’t know how to reach orgasm at all. But orgasm is often seen as the “goal” of sexual activity.
Women who have trouble reaching orgasm don’t want their partners to feel like an inadequate job has been done, and will sometimes fake orgasms to show their partners that they are enjoying themselves, or to avoid difficult explanations about not being able to reach orgasm. Some women will also fake orgasms if they’re tired and want to stop having sex, as lots of people feel obligated to continue until both partners have had an orgasm.
It is very difficult to tell if someone has faked an orgasm without machines to monitor heart rate, muscle tension, and brain activity. But there are a few things you can look for.
Orgasms cause muscle contractions in the vagina, so if you’re inside her and can’t feel anything different, that might be an indication that she’s faking. Orgasms also pretty consistently cause heavy breathing and increased heart rate, so if you specifically notice that those things haven’t happened, that could also reveal that it’s faked.
However, all three of those things can happen from sexual activity even if there’s no orgasm, so they’re not telltale signs that she’s had an orgasm either.
But really, if you’re worried that your girlfriend is deceiving you about her sexual satisfaction, you should be less concerned about trying to figure out how to catch the deception and more concerned about dealing with the honesty and trust issues in your relationship.
If she’s faking, it might be because she doesn’t feel comfortable telling you what feels good or asking you to do something differently. Or because she feels bad saying that she wants to stop and go to bed. Make sure she knows that you want her to communicate about things like that. Try to communicate about what feels good to you so that she feels more comfortable talking about herself.
How do I know if a certain girl notices me in a romantic sense rather than just teasing or being friendly?
Flirting is intentionally ambiguous. That is why it can be horribly aggravating, but that is also why it can work so well.
Escalating ambiguous affection leaves neither party awkwardly rejected, but gives both parties a chance to cool it off if they aren’t as interested as the other.
And eventually ambiguity can escalate into something less ambiguous. Even hugs and kisses can be played as friendship, but as neither person breaks off a hug and the kisses grow more frequent, a mutual recognition becomes more apparent.
If you can’t tell if she’s romantically interested, you could try flirting a little more obviously with her. If she doesn’t respond well, back off and try to be friends. If she flirts more, you’re probably in good shape.
But that’s all so complicatedly non-verbal. Why not just say something?
Also, there’s no one thing to point to that would prove it’s romantic, but it might give you a better idea if you ask a friend who’s around the two of you what it seems like to them.
If she is on the pill/hormonal birth control is it still necessary for him to wear a condom?
Many feel using the pill or other forms of hormonal birth control is adequate. If used perfectly (at the same time each day, every day), they’re about 98% effective against pregnancy. But using either in conjunction with a condom is more effective, especially if you occasionally forget to take the pill. And hormonal birth control doesn’t prevent STIs, whereas condoms do.